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

[kaberett]

IT'S FUCKING APPALLING and weirdly enough I'm adamantly unwilling to be present in any space they've set up or run!

but tl;dr me flapping (silently!) in response to getting some very exciting news is oppressive and stifles dialogue, and I need to not do that, because it takes up too much conversational space.

no of course they couldn't ask me to leave the room instead of telling me to not flap, even if I directly request that of them, what do I want to do, make them look like some kind of monster.

(there is so much context. SO MUCH. but also: this is why I pretty much Stopped Flapping again in 2012.)

[alexseanchai]

Fucksakes

[staranise]

Hooooly shit, fuck that noise.

[child_of_the_air]

What the fuck re flapping in public? I'm rather horrified that people actually made that argument. *flaps arms in a high-frequency, low-amplitude cycle indicative of stress and anger*