Daniel Tosh, Laci Green, and Tumblr Justice

(TW for rape, bullying, harassment)

I'm skipping the usual Friday link dump in light of the goings on in the Tumblr world regarding comedian Daniel Tosh's rape jokes (which I touched on briefly yesterday), and the threats made against blogger Laci Green. Jezebel has a more comprehensive post on the latter, and while I appreciate a rational take on what I'd known only through a handful of disjointed Tumblr reblogs, one thing that bothers me placing the onus on Tumblr's social justice blogosphere. Or even the notion that Tumblr's SJ blog world is some sort of cohesive whole. It isn't.

What happened to Laci was awful. No one deserves to feel threatened or bullied online. Irrespective of one's privilege, one's status, or one's popularity, it's a crappy thing to have to deal with. I don't know the entire story, but what's being reglogged (and I'm oversimplifying for the sake of this post -- the rest can be read here ) is that she used a transphobic slur, was called out on it, and apologized. The ironic Is This Feminist? even slyly referenced it:

This woman is apologizing for using an offensive word in her youth. IS THIS FEMINIST? 

Absolutely not. Real feminists come out of the womb quoting bell hooks, and come complete with a force field that keeps them from absorbing negative cultural ideas. Indeed, feminist theory and analysis are irrelevant to personal growth because real feminists are born perfectly politically correct and never need to learn and grow. We just write those analyses for fun; they certainly aren’t there to educate. Everyone should always be treated like who they were at their worst moment. PROBLEMATIC.

For anyone who's spent even a modicum of their daily lives in the feminist blog world, it's a familiar story. I even have my one game plan for when it happens. When, not if: acknowledge, apologize, and learn from it. Here's the key, though your apology does not have to be accepted. In face, there's a good chance it won't. Forgiveness is so ingrained into society that it's become common knowledge that a apology makes things all better. Sometimes it doesn't. And it's not required that you forgive everyone who has hurt you. Granted, receiving death threats is cause for serious alarm, and no one should be made to feel unsafe online or off. It's ludicrous that we still need to have this conversation.

I guess what I find disconcerting is that this is being framed as a Tumblr problem or a SJ blogosphere problem, when in reality anyone on Tumblr can call themselves a social justice blogger or be pigeonholed as one for writing polemic things. Most of the bloggers committed to change are doing a world of good as it did just days ago with the outcry over Daniel Tosh's remarks that  it would be funny if the audience member and blogger who called him on his rape jokes" got raped by five guys right now." What started with a network of Tumblr blogs found its way to larger sites like CNN and the Huffington Post, which is great for visibility.