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The privilege of speaking openly
One of the sticks waved around recently was, "We post using our -real names- and that means we're more special than you!". Not everyone has that privilege, especially when you're speaking out against an entrenched oppression. There's always someone willing to bring consequences to you for that.
The right to speak freely, without threats being made, without people inviting physical and personal harassment and harm upon you? The ability to say what you will without fear of being assassinated?
And the fact is, these folks don't need to threaten you personally, they simply need to open the door, put up a sign, and throw the info to people who -are- crazy enough.
It's always about who -isn't- protected in this society.
The right to speak freely, without threats being made, without people inviting physical and personal harassment and harm upon you? The ability to say what you will without fear of being assassinated?
And the fact is, these folks don't need to threaten you personally, they simply need to open the door, put up a sign, and throw the info to people who -are- crazy enough.
It's always about who -isn't- protected in this society.
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Even worse, I'm not sure what I'm going to do once we get the project we are working done with. It'll be used on my personal domain as a testbed, and I really want to blog about all kinds of things on it. Only problem is that it's an insta-out, and my non-trans related politics probably wouldn't sit well with my boss. Makes life complicated. ugh.**sighs**
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Melissa Harris-Lacewell broke it down perfectly:
"...silence about America's racial legacy is the price of admission to the social contract."
Transpose it accordingly, generally it holds - you stay silent of the inequalities or you get reminded of "your place".
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Oh, dear.
I think I just heard the final piece click into place, because I'd been classing this as, "TNH struck me as clueless and stupid about some things in the past (outside this discussion), but this thing is a spectacular new round of *FAIL*."
Except it isn't.
Back at the last WorldCon in Boston, I was sitting in the audience at a panel on transparency or something like that, where TNH and Cory Doctorow and a bunch of other people were on the panel. And TNH came out at the end with a statement I thought was utterly STUPID, which was something like the only people concerned with privacy issues were those who were doing something wrong.
And I was a polite audience member and raised my hand, and didn't shoot up out of my seat and scream "PRIVILEGED MORON!" which is what I wanted to do, because...ZOMG, people feeling a need to be closeted about their lives, because of the harm that others might do, of *COURSE* that's about *THEM* being in the wrong...
*headdesk*
Must think about what I need to do to make this something that will hold up to the firestorm of sticking this up in my journal instead of buried here in comments. Argh.
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There's also the fact that if who says it is more important than what is being said, that tells you everything about the person making that judgement.
As far as firestorms, it's all about what your LJ is to you - I generally screen comments because it prevents firestorms. Clueless and ignorant statements simply don't need to have space on my LJ, and they don't deserve my time or bloodpressure.
There's a (priveleged, entitled) way in which people who are often screaming to enforce the status quo act as if they're an "unheard voice" and such.
Once I figured out their pleas for "fair debate" were really a mask for demanding my silence, and that "fairness" would only exist in their eyes once I agreed with their racist, sexist, heterosupremacist shit, I stopped playing the game. They have the news, the tv, the radio, the movies, books, schools, government, and most communities- they didn't have the right to my LJ too.
What role your LJ is to you determines where you draw the lines, because it's one of the few places we have that kind of control to make space for our voices.
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