Constant Vigilance
Jan. 31st, 2019 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWhen I express concern about people on Twitter getting upset about chunky otters or Marie Kondo, I always feel the need to attempt to explain that I'm not trying to tone police anyone. I understand why people are upset, of course, and there have been some important discussions on the subject of Marie Kondo in particular. Still, there really does need to be a serious and public conversation about covert white supremacist messaging, and I'm not sure that constant casual accusations of racism are helping us to have it.
To give an example of what I mean by "secret racism," back in 2016 or so I followed a few people who occasionally reblogged lovely nature photography. When I started "liking" it, Tumblr's algorithm began recommending all sort of weird gender essentialist and white supremacist posts. What I was eventually able to figure out is that the nature photography was of scenery in Germany specifically, and that the blogs posting it had tagged these posts as "featherwood," a term that may have once been associated with female prison gangs but has since spread to people who have embraced a Quiverfull-style ideology concerning race and gender. As soon as I blocked the keyword "featherwood," the problem was mostly fixed. I also had to unfollow three or four people who reblogged these posts - often alongside Steven Universe photosets and "are the cishets okay" memes.
What I'm trying to demonstrate with this example is that there are in fact codewords and ideological patterns that are strong indicators of veiled white supremacist leanings, and I wish the huge public conversations about race and representation happening on social media would touch on this sort of thing.
Another example is the expression "the coastal elites," which has been a white supremacist codeword for "the Jewish global conspiracy" since I was in college (and long before that, I'm sure). When people associated with the American left wing started talking about "coastal elites" during the lead-up and aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, that was a huge red flag for me. There were people on Tumblr reblogging all sorts of authoritarian craziness in the name of social justice, and I had no idea how to tell them that the ideological purity they were advocating was using the language of hardcore white supremacy while wearing a #BlackLivesMatter hat. When I tried to explain my understanding of what was going on, the response was inevitably something along the lines of "well you're racist for not understanding that Hillary is just as bad as Trump."
It's 2019, and you'd think we'd have figured this mess out by now, but that's not the case. Recently on Twitter I've seen my friends and contacts - like, university professors and professional journalists and editors and translators of literary fiction - retweet things coming from people who advocate #humanscience and #humanbiodiversity. What these people are specifically referring to is "race science" (here's an archived webcapture of a widely circulated "human biodiversity reading list" for reference), whose main guiding principle seems to be the "scientifically proven" assertion that melanin is a chemical that causes violent and antisocial behavior. The message these people (many of whom are writers whose work has been published in respected tech journals) are advocating is that, if we accept that science tells us that climate change is real and that we need to vaccinate our children, then we must also accept it when science tells us [some racist bullshit].
When I've messaged a few people whom I know personally and have been friends with for years with a gentle note of caution, the response has been along the lines of "So you're an antivaxxer then" or "I wouldn't have pegged you for a climate change denier." It's like, "Hang on there friend, I was just trying to give you a heads-up that the person you've been constantly retweeting for the past week is a secret white supremacist!" Except it's not even a secret, because all the codewords are right there in their profiles.
What I'm trying to say is that some people are indeed "secret racists," and the reason that most decent people don't see them for what they are is because most of us don't have any exposure to white supremacist vocabulary or online spaces. The only reason I know a tiny fraction of what's going on is because I grew up in the rural Deep South (where people tend to feel more comfortable with being openly racist) and then started spending time on gaming forums where MRA-style misogyny often serves as a gateway to more radical belief systems. My first instinct is to block and avoid this sort of thing when I encounter it, so I'm not an expert, and I still experience the occasional unpleasant surprise when I realize that something I thought was silly and harmless is, in fact, deeply disturbing.
This is why I wish the conversations people had on Twitter about "secret racism" would focus more on identifying and explaining codewords and exposing and calling out creepy individuals.
To give an example of what I mean by "secret racism," back in 2016 or so I followed a few people who occasionally reblogged lovely nature photography. When I started "liking" it, Tumblr's algorithm began recommending all sort of weird gender essentialist and white supremacist posts. What I was eventually able to figure out is that the nature photography was of scenery in Germany specifically, and that the blogs posting it had tagged these posts as "featherwood," a term that may have once been associated with female prison gangs but has since spread to people who have embraced a Quiverfull-style ideology concerning race and gender. As soon as I blocked the keyword "featherwood," the problem was mostly fixed. I also had to unfollow three or four people who reblogged these posts - often alongside Steven Universe photosets and "are the cishets okay" memes.
What I'm trying to demonstrate with this example is that there are in fact codewords and ideological patterns that are strong indicators of veiled white supremacist leanings, and I wish the huge public conversations about race and representation happening on social media would touch on this sort of thing.
Another example is the expression "the coastal elites," which has been a white supremacist codeword for "the Jewish global conspiracy" since I was in college (and long before that, I'm sure). When people associated with the American left wing started talking about "coastal elites" during the lead-up and aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, that was a huge red flag for me. There were people on Tumblr reblogging all sorts of authoritarian craziness in the name of social justice, and I had no idea how to tell them that the ideological purity they were advocating was using the language of hardcore white supremacy while wearing a #BlackLivesMatter hat. When I tried to explain my understanding of what was going on, the response was inevitably something along the lines of "well you're racist for not understanding that Hillary is just as bad as Trump."
It's 2019, and you'd think we'd have figured this mess out by now, but that's not the case. Recently on Twitter I've seen my friends and contacts - like, university professors and professional journalists and editors and translators of literary fiction - retweet things coming from people who advocate #humanscience and #humanbiodiversity. What these people are specifically referring to is "race science" (here's an archived webcapture of a widely circulated "human biodiversity reading list" for reference), whose main guiding principle seems to be the "scientifically proven" assertion that melanin is a chemical that causes violent and antisocial behavior. The message these people (many of whom are writers whose work has been published in respected tech journals) are advocating is that, if we accept that science tells us that climate change is real and that we need to vaccinate our children, then we must also accept it when science tells us [some racist bullshit].
When I've messaged a few people whom I know personally and have been friends with for years with a gentle note of caution, the response has been along the lines of "So you're an antivaxxer then" or "I wouldn't have pegged you for a climate change denier." It's like, "Hang on there friend, I was just trying to give you a heads-up that the person you've been constantly retweeting for the past week is a secret white supremacist!" Except it's not even a secret, because all the codewords are right there in their profiles.
What I'm trying to say is that some people are indeed "secret racists," and the reason that most decent people don't see them for what they are is because most of us don't have any exposure to white supremacist vocabulary or online spaces. The only reason I know a tiny fraction of what's going on is because I grew up in the rural Deep South (where people tend to feel more comfortable with being openly racist) and then started spending time on gaming forums where MRA-style misogyny often serves as a gateway to more radical belief systems. My first instinct is to block and avoid this sort of thing when I encounter it, so I'm not an expert, and I still experience the occasional unpleasant surprise when I realize that something I thought was silly and harmless is, in fact, deeply disturbing.
This is why I wish the conversations people had on Twitter about "secret racism" would focus more on identifying and explaining codewords and exposing and calling out creepy individuals.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 01:02 pm (UTC)Also the coastal elites thing is still new to me. Like I heard the term come up in some Facebook argument once last year and even then, everyone couldn't agree on what it actually meant. Then again, I can't even remember what said argument was about (healthcare, I think? Fuck if I know). Yeesh, now I'm remembering one time how I had to explain to some guy online what being privileged meant and he was all, "No, this is what it means" and like... okay cool, but that's literally not what it's being used for and you kind of need to understand how and why people are using it to get what they're trying to say instead of applying your randomly imposed definition as a blanket to everyone for... some reason. Sigh. Don't mind me, I just get upset when people use the wrong words to describe whatever their sentiment or point is (I blame this on my boyfriend of 12+ years, who originally went to school to become an English teacher).
Also, another random tangent, but all the "are the cishets okay lol" posts make me feel... yeah, I don't know. There are definitely times where I've been in conversations and thought, "WOW I am not straight enough to get any of this," but I've also been subjected to so much verbal and physical abuse from supposed peers when I was younger because of my sexuality (and now slowly cutting ties with the people who can't wrap their heads around my preferred pronouns and shit... sigh...) that like... I get that queer folk are trying to foster a safe space to share with other queer lovelies, but the blatant hate and cruelty I've seen some people spew out, just because someone else isn't queer... it doesn't sit well with me. I could never subject someone to what I once endured. Yeah, I get frustrated when very straight people don't Get It, but there are other ways to go about it that aren't "fuck off, cis scum". Kind of like everything you said in this post - this shit is complicated and nuanced.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-04 05:33 pm (UTC)I agree with your assessment of "cishet," and I've actually gotten to the point where I'll mute or unfollow anyone who uses the word regularly on social media. Along with what you've written, I have three main problems with the way I see it used.
First, it's invariably misogynistic and femme-phobic. Heaven forbid anyone should want to identify or present as female.
Second, it's vaguely racist in the way it posits sexuality and gender as the only vectors of privilege and oppression. It's like, I know you didn't say that straight Muslim women are basically asking to be assaulted, but that's what you implied.
Third, it attributes the causes and effects of oppressive social systems to individual identity. It's not that corporate greed (for example) isn't connected to heteronormativity, but those things are really two separate topics of conversation.
Idk, I am not straight, and I don't even know what my gender is at this point, but "lol cishets" feels a lot like the Tumblr equivalent of Hot Topic to me.
By the way...
I've also been subjected to so much verbal and physical abuse from supposed peers when I was younger because of my sexuality
I feel you so much here. Thank Gay BDSM Jesus we're both in a better place now.