I probably shouldn’t be making this post. I hate getting involved struggle session highschool drama shit and I won’t even point to specific evidence because frankly this shit depresses me. But here goes:
This might be a “wtf are you ranting about, Owl?” moment but there are some serious reactionary vibes in this place sometimes. Maybe it’s a holdover from the dirtbag leftist era, I don’t know, but it’s gross. I see it trying to worm its way in here and it’s a bad sign
If you ever catch yourself using the kind of shitty othering and ableism you’d see on stupidpol or a 2016 cringe compilation, go do some self crit or fuck right off
Hopefully this isn’t about me. I’m certainly guilty of an “idiot” or a “stupid” from time to time, self referentially and not, because I don’t really have a good set of alternative language for casually dense behaviour of many liberals or ditzy “oh yeah, duh” moments I often have myself.
It’s definitely not you. I’ve also slipped up on using ableist words because I suck at communication (ironically due to level 1 Autism)
My gripes come from peoples treatment of neurodivergence in general, which I’m finding hard to describe because it’s a lot of little things. Things like doubt being thrown at someone’s actions being related to their neurodivergence, or that they’re embarrassing or broken in some way. The sort of vibe that being asked to accommodate neurodivergent people is them getting special treatment. Things like that.
The amount of shame I carry in pretty much every interaction either in person or online simply by virtue of existing as an autistic person is likely unfathomable to non-autistic people. Add to that the shame that those people both intentionally and unintentionally pile on top, plus the further shame of making mistakes myself, and the weight can sometimes be almost too much to bear.
I yearn for a day where there is no such thing as neurotypicality or neurodivergence, rather, we just accept people as they are and do our best to accommodate everyone regardless of brain-body functioning, gender, sex, race, etc., etc. This of course requires a dramatic overhaul of… literally everything, and I fear that is a long, long ways off.
Ahh well I’m in that neurodivergent group too I guess so whosoever can go fuck themselves can do so. Leave the vulnerable alone, caring about the most vulnerable should really be our whole thing.
Yes! If everyone just realized this, there would be much fewer splits in our movements. Because it often boils down to:“okay let’s shelf the struggle of this vulnerable sub-group of our comrades for now, to be more appealing to liberals or less threatening to reactionaries” and it never even works ever. They just take that ground you gave up to them and press on. And the working class is split along one more fracture.
Sometimes orgs make that mistake, just to avoid dealing with biases within their own ranks and frame people who insist on protecting vulnerable people as splitters. Even though, they were splitting off those vulnerable people first. I get, that sometimes you have to pick your fights, like were to focus next, but at least defending the most vulnerable should never come out of focus, or what’s even the point?
Integrating for example neurodivergent and trans people, homeless people, refugees, people in Gaza, etc. in our struggles is what building class consciousness in a broad base looks like.
Yeah this is how I see it. Take trans issues for example. Either your position is “transphobia is a tool used to convince the working class man to go against his interests and should be educated that this is just being used to delude him” or your position is “we should throw trans people under a bus to appeal to the working class man who is being deluded”.
The latter splits the trans people away from the working class whereas the former aims to keep the trans people and educate and inoculate the working class man against tools of division. Once they’re inoculated they are more likely to see it being used for other issues too.
One method is divisive, the other aims to unite. Accepting the division in order to be opportunistic gives away ground that must inevitably be fought for later anyway. Aiming to unite does not give ground.
Exactly, well put, love your perspective <3