So here is the thing I'm struggling with about antifa at the moment

[kaberett]

It is all very well to say "if you are not with the [explicitly violent] antifascists, you're with the fascists" but what these explanations do not seem to include is actual detailed discussion of how or why I can operate on the assumption that these people won't decide that I'm the next target. "Because you're not a fascist!" Okay, right, no, try again. Try again. I have been told, by people still substantively respected and liked in my geographically local community, that being visibly autistic in public is oppressive. I want to know what the fuck system of rules you're working with that means I won't be deemed unacceptable and I won't be deemed an appropriate target.

"Try not being a fascist!"

Yeah, thanks, see above about "me being visibly disabled in public is oppressive". See every interaction I've ever had where my disabilities are an inconvenience to The Cause.

Try again.

I'm really not comfortable with the extent to which people seem to want to shout me down on this one, using that well-known abusive tactic of telling me that if I don't unquestioningly support them in spite of grave reservations rooted in, like, bare minimum historical literacy plus personal experience, I am all that is Bad and Evil.

I am struggling to articulate this any better because of the sheer visceral horror I'm experiencing at a lot of the rhetoric that's happening. But, like, if you want to engage with me on this -- and I am, very definitely, open to being talked to -- please consider starting from a point of "I see your concerns and they're valid, here's why I'm convinced", not "you're a bad person for having doubts".

If, however, you want to ask me how Very Dare I tone-police you on this, I request that you sit this one out.

Comments

[recessional]

Yes, he's dead, recently; I meant active support when he was alive.

He got VERY incensed with Obama for criticizing settlement.

I think he said many pertinent and wise things! And in fact I don't even disagree with the quote. The thing is in this context, considering the quote as a touchstone and a reason to be concerned that "nice people" would take the excuse to sit this one out, it is being referred to in context of moral authority . . . which means the whole context is also pertinent.

Because he sat that one out. Because things got complicated on him: because suddenly the issues of oppression and repression didn't present him with a nice Clear Cut situation of one aggressor and one victim, but his own victimized people doing unfortunate shit to another people and victimising them, while trying to figure out how to exist, and he just . . . would not engage, reducing things to "politics" and stating that this was "above politics", etc.

So like: tbh, he's right. Silence is always comforting to the oppressor, not the oppressed. It's just . . . then shit gets complicated, as his own life illustrated. Which means that even if it's true, his famous quote (which in no small part gets its authority because of his status as a Jewish Holocaust survivor and I'm not even saying it shouldn't - it should!) . . . doesn't support the binary, because of context.

Because shit never stays that simple.

[kaberett]

<3

[recessional]

(I mean honestly: this facet of him breaks my heart. BREAKS it. And is in some ways one of the most discouraging things I ever found out, because of how hard it is to have read Night and then know that he just . . . didn't see what was going on right there. And I know how that works, and why, and even have deep compassion for the fact that I'm honestly sure his psyche was so primed in certain ways that it just couldn't GO there but it's also . . .it's incredibly sad, and one of the things that makes me go " . . . how the fuck can we even . . . figure this shit out, as a species.")

(But it just also means . . . okay, so here is another level of human interaction and stuff where we just have to . . . always be thinking. And a lesson about our failings and potential failings as humans and illustration of the challenges we have.)

(And sometimes after thinking these things I have to go to bed and pretend LA LA LA I JUST . . . HAVE STUFF TO DO LOOK A CLICKY GAME for a week or so because otherwise we are in dangerous thought territory. *sigh*)

[alexseanchai]

Oh, okay, I follow you now.

[recessional]

Np - I realized that trying to type up and articulate thoughts like this on my phone was PROBABLY NOT A GOOD PLAN as it encourages editing and shortening which, while probably a relief to people who wish I'd shut up, is not necessarily good for actually saying what I mean. >.> So I came over to the computer.