Sunday, June 16, 2013

A few words about... wait for it... call-out culture (and related musings)

This isn't entirely my fight, so I'll intentionally vague. After watching more than one blogger go off the grid the past year as a result of the thin line between calling out and bullying, I really want to say a couple things:

Someone's sexual orientation and gender identity should be off-limits. People label themselves in myriad ways and  just because you don't think theirs is valid, or said person isn't "X" enough according to your definition, is absolutely no reason to attack them. I can't stress this enough. Disagree with their words? Fine. Go after their words. People as a rule know themselves pretty well. Plus identities can be fluid. Part of the problem with having a blog is that there is a handy archive of our former selves.

I'm not going to write a long-winded screed on tone arguments , but I have a real problem with "go die"  when it's directed personally. I can't imagine that it's not triggering for someone.

Blogging about blogging, especially blogging about social justice blogging is very much "inside baseball," and I don't promote my site as an SJ (I'm pretty sure I'm woefully unqualified), but history keeps repeating itself, and a lot of good people are gone because of it. I know I'm less likely to comment or participate now than I was two or three years ago. Some of that is probably my aging out of it, but a lot of it is the environment. I'm not talking the very valid reasons for calling someone out, but the personal attacks, the nasty side of things.

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