10:05am July 8, 2012

➸ Here we go again.

“So apparently, there’s stuff making the rounds again on Tumblr about "plurals are just a bunch of privileged rich white teenagers who have NEVER KNOWN REAL OPPRESSION!” *facedesk*“

I’ve tried many times to write about this stuff but it always ends up being too convoluted.

This pisses me off. Not only is this whole notion completely untrue. But everyone who has bought into this campaign of endlessly trashing the hateable(*) is pretty much doing two things.

One, playing into a game created by expert trolls, who have launched a deliberate and well-organized campaign to pit the tumblr "social justice” community against various hateable groups of people.

Two, the reason it worked so well is because pretty much everyone involved already wants to hate the hateable. Now they just have an expertly crafted excuse based on simplistic ideas about privilege and oppression. When trolls targeted a known-to-be-oppressed and non-hateable group along with hateable people, it backfired because they weren’t hateable and nobody stood for it. Members of the non-hateable group were still not above quoting the exact same trolls to justify bullying the hateable though. Which says a lot.

(*) And who are the hateable? Hateability is a term I made up a long time ago because I needed a quick name for something that have no name. Hateable groups may not be (as a group, mind you) oppressed groups, although they often have various tangled up connections to oppressed groups that are not readily apparent unless you know what to look for. But they are groups that are considered completely legitimate targets for hatred, bullying, ridicule, and mockery. Usually they’re groups centered around internal-to-the-person experiences that don’t conform to what people think they should experience.

Sometimes the fact that they are not technically oppressed gets used as an excuse for it to be okay to hate them. (And some people even try to claim that they are, as entire groups, oppressors (“backed up” by pointing at individual group members who behave in oppressive ways), to justify it even more. This usually gets treated as a reason it’s mandatory to hate and bully the entire group. Part of this always involves pretending that the hateable group is entirely white, well off, cis, and able-bodied, at minimum. Although sometimes they’ll call people’s sanity into question and pretend there’s no oppression behind that idea.)

Some examples of hateable groups include plurals, Otherkin, soulbonders, furries, and therians. If your response to this list is to laugh, you are part of the problem. Bullying people to the point where they are suicidal or terrified to reveal their group membership is being a complete and utter asshat no matter what excuse lets you sleep better at night. And all the convoluted social justice reasons amount to a thin veneer of bullshit over the same underlying desire to hate people that drives the trolls that are playing you.

Bottom line: I’ve watched really good people driven into deep anonymity, in ways that damage them inside, because of this bullshit. I’ve watched people who are both oppressed and hateable hide their hateable status so they could be taken seriously when discussing oppression. I’m also aware that despite the fact that I’m not, for instance, Otherkin or furry or therian (combination of disinterest and too much ugly baggage), the ways that I emotionally and physically identify with cats could render me a target – and in a not-far-alternate universe I could be involved in one of those communities.

If you like to contribute to the hate, regardless of excuse, you’re hurting my good friends, you’re hurting me, and you need to get out of my life until you learn to quit being an asshat and a bully.

Notes: