It very rarely is a debate it is a competition who can wordsmith the better power play.
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- Thread starter Tuskin38
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Yeah. Except they literally are. That’s why we use them in just about every facet of our lives.
The ones who ‘don’t like labels,’ are typically the ones who have never worked hard to, or managed to accrue, one that they’re proud of.
And have obviously never needed a heads-up to avoid danger.
Humans aren’t all the same. To pretend otherwise would make the world a fucking shithole. So you can take my ‘labels’ from my cold dead hands. If you don’t like negative labels, don’t go out of your way to acquire them.
1. Debates are literally competitions. “It’s rarely an eggplant, it’s usually a cooked aubergine!”
2. Projection is a hell of a thing.
3. I wouldn’t rag on people wordsmithing, after jotting down utter nonsense like ‘Competition who can wordsmith the better power play.’
I’d probably be grovelling on my knees for lessons, and start consulting a dictionary before I blindly copy/paste from a thesaurus. Then I might learn little things like...’wordsmith’ not being a verb.
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I don't like labels and have worked extremely hard to acquire one that I am supremely proud of.
Completely agree
Which is why labels are something I work to avoid and don't like. Because it puts humans in nice and neat little boxes that don't require any thinking whatsoever on our part. They are nice little mental shortcuts that served humanity well in the wild but can go haywire in current social spheres.
It's not that all labels are evil or whatever term you like. It's that they are the beginning, not the end of understanding a person.
Yep. Then he got a bullet for his work.
Yeah. Except the only people that tend to claim that they are, are the ones crying because they’re being called TERFs.
No one ever thinks someone is just a -cist, -phobe, whatever.
That just gets the most attention, because that’s what they’re making everyone else’s problem. That’s how they’re choosing to distinguish themselves from the other 5billion people on the planet, who are equally complex and manage to live life without being ‘ostracised.’
And that’s where the sympathy ends. You can’t have an intervention with a hostile patient.
He also totally did ‘name call’. ‘The apathetic Middle-Americans are the greatest danger to black people...’ wasn’t it? And the idea of complete intergration with so-called ‘white society’ would be “integrating into a burning house."
(Which as a white person, is a...fair assessment. Drat it.)
He was also eventually friendly with Malcolm X, who definitely had no fucks to give. And it’s arguable that the gains during the Civil Right movement, was due to the combination of both being active at the same time.
Non-violent, doesn’t mean ‘really cares about coddling your fee-fees.’ And so much for ‘we don’t like to define people by labels!’
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This kind of attitude is admirable, as I said, but it's also naive and amounts to metaphorically sticking your hand in a viper's nest. It's literally just asking for trouble.
Can I just note, that if someone wants to put their hand in the vipers nest, then that’s up to them?
Of course, you’re deluded if you think it’s just a case of it ‘It’s my hand, it doesn’t affect anyone else!’ There’s the platforming and recruitment issues mentioned before, but also just the usual issues of nothing you ever do happening in a vacuum.
I mean, how do you think saying ‘I still respect you’ to a violent racist, will be received by the non-white person sitting behind you? Let’s put it this way: trust probably won’t be on the table for a while.
But hey, no one can stop you. Do what you want. It’s when the ‘we should...’ gets brought up, that things get dicey.
Of course, you’re deluded if you think it’s just a case of it ‘It’s my hand, it doesn’t affect anyone else!’ There’s the platforming and recruitment issues mentioned before, but also just the usual issues of nothing you ever do happening in a vacuum.
I mean, how do you think saying ‘I still respect you’ to a violent racist, will be received by the non-white person sitting behind you? Let’s put it this way: trust probably won’t be on the table for a while.
But hey, no one can stop you. Do what you want. It’s when the ‘we should...’ gets brought up, that things get dicey.
It sounds naïve. Doesn't make it so. Just a different approach to the problem.
Which is not what I'm advocating saying. If that's the way it's been taken then I apologize.
Thing is, it’s not usually something you do on purpose.
Why do you think TERFS are such a contentious issue in feminism? It’s because they’re entrenched in the history of it. So whilst not everyone embraces them, not everyone is willing to decry them either. Because shouting FUCK THE TERFS is disrespectful. They’ve achieved so much otherwise, they’re old, blah blah blah.
Which in turn, makes feminism distinctly unwelcoming to trans-women. Which funny enough, means we’re failing at our one job. Because probably the most distinctive feature of third-wave feminism, is supposed to be intersectionality.
Why do you think TERFS are such a contentious issue in feminism? It’s because they’re entrenched in the history of it. So whilst not everyone embraces them, not everyone is willing to decry them either. Because shouting FUCK THE TERFS is disrespectful. They’ve achieved so much otherwise, they’re old, blah blah blah.
Which in turn, makes feminism distinctly unwelcoming to trans-women. Which funny enough, means we’re failing at our one job. Because probably the most distinctive feature of third-wave feminism, is supposed to be intersectionality.
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He was considered an extremist in his time. The idea of him being against calling out bigotry wherever it exists is a false narrative created over the decades to make white people feel safe. He’d be against your ideas.
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It is naive. I’ve gotten death treats for existing. I’ve seen a friend I’ve known since I was 7 say he’d murder people like me for using the restroom. You’ve never had to love in fear when going out in public because you might get unlucky and run into the wrong person. It’s just abstract to you, a thought experiment. Your passiveness is a permission slip for evil, all while you denounce those who try to fight it.
Self-applied labels are empowering, I agree with that.
But when a label is applied to you, it's demeaning. Which is why I said they weren't helpful. They could be inaccurate or unfair.
Not to get too far into the weeds here on words... if you worked hard to acquire it, would that be more like a title than a label? For example, an academic degree / certification or a position at work that adds to your name. I'm glad to hear you take pride in your achievement.
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You're right. I don't have those experiences. But, that doesn't make me passive. But, since my words are constantly getting twisted in to meaning something I don't mean I think I'll step out, since this is getting far more personal than it needed to be.
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It shouldn't be, but it is. I'm sorry, but you come off as either incredibly naive or you're speaking from a place of privilege. It comes off as patronizing when you speak that way to people who can't afford to be kind to the ones who hate them because their lives are in many cases literally on the line.
I'm not asking you to do so. I'm stating my opinion and my approach...period. I don't agree with labels, and believe in treating people as people in my daily lifle.
I never felt better until I found a label that fit me, before I felt alone. Now I know what I am and that there are others like me. It's empowering.
Then I wish you all the best. Labels, for me, are nothing but a hinderance. Well, for the most part. They have uses in many ways, but treating people as a label interfers in my day to day work.
You got lucky, a whole lot of people go through life feeling utterly alone in the world until they figure themselves out. I can't even begin to describe how empty that makes you feel, but it leaves a mark on your soul because you know how much time you wasted trying to discover it. All because some don't like labels and want them to go away, preventing those who need them to be unaware of them.
Thought experiment. You are out in public, and you have to go to the bathroom. You go into the hall that leads to the facilities, and you come to a fork. Men go left, women go right. But labels to you are nothing but a hindrance, at least for the most part. Which way do you go at the fork?
You know nothing about me, so don't presume to know that just because I don't like labels doesn't mean I have myself figured out.
However, your point of view is well appreciated.
Back home. Hate going to the bathroom in public.
Sarcasm aside, labels have their purpose. Labeling people when trying to engage in actually meaningful dialog is the part I object to. The hindrance comes from personal assumptions that comes from those labels.
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