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comment by bioemerl
bioemerl  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Darron Wilson not indicted

I didn't ask a question or ask for debate.





user-inactivated  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Then leave the thread. Don't speak. Just go. Clearly you are antagonizing a member that I value greatly.

So shut the fuck up.

user-inactivated  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I know everyone is angry tonight, but I never expect hubski to share comments that are blatantly rude.

    Don't speak. Just go.

Never want to see this sentiment on hubski again. "Don't speak. Just go." ... that's the sort of attitude that led this country to where it is today. Please think about that.

ecib  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Never want to see this sentiment on hubski again

Flag, I think it's worth considering the notion that not wanting to see a bit of anger regarding the Ferguson decision boil over on a website could be construed as a kind of privilege.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a pain and a rage that goes so far beyond this incident. It is deep and it is justified imho.

I don't want to see rude comments , but I don't want to see people in our community in pain from being systematically targeted, killed, and shat on by our justice system and countrymen more. I don't want to see riots, burning, and looting, but I don't want to see said fires that stoke that either. I don't want to not understand the causes and symptoms both.

Instead of rebuffing this pain, I'll humbly make the suggestion that we explore it and attempt to understand and know it better instead. There are massive structural problems in our country's justice system with respect to minorities. There is honest room for righteous anger and indignation. Room on Hubski too. What do you think about that?

user-inactivated  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I see what you mean, but I have to disagree that expecting civility on hubski should ever be construed as a form of privilege.

I certainly won't hold a grudge, though. I hope it helped some people to vent.

coffeesp00ns  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm with you. there is justifiable rage, and then there is being incapable of 1.) putting it down in words (and appealing to emotions instead) and 2.) living with the fact that people, even people you might respect, disagree with you. telling people to "leave" or not to speak is not, and will never be okay, or justifiable.

I've said this before in other places, and have even been accused of "internalized victim blaming" for believing it, but I believe that the moment you lose your cool in an argument (especially on the internet), you've lost, and it's your fault that you lost. Nothing but calm, cool, and collected is going to get a message across, and all the screaming into the wind that people do accomplishes nothing.

Don't like someone's opinion? have a fight. While i'd prefer civil (if terse) discourse, I'd rather a fight than shitty college undergrad level censorship.

user-inactivated  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

And the additional layer, the point I was trying to make early in the thread, is that appeals to emotion are what causes racism. Appeals to base biological impulses which we've been trying to stamp out with reason since time immemorial.

bioemerl  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The same applies to "I am not doing this today". If you aren't going to make any points, if you aren't going to say anything, don't respond.

ecib  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The same applies to "I am not doing this today". If you aren't going to make any points,

If you think a bit on what he wrote, you'll see he was actually making a very strong point.

bioemerl  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"I am not going to bother speaking to you, because I consider you stupid and out of touch" is not a strong point.

Nor is "I am sick of discussing this".

_refugee_  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What about, "I have to deal with daily racial discrimination, and today, on top of that, you are challenging my feelings that arise not only from a specific incident of pronounced racial tension but are compounded by that daily racial discrimination as well, and yet again someone who doesn't experience what I do (and may or may not even believe my experiences) is asking me to justify my emotions on the topic, and today it's just too fucking much?"

Or is that just "I'm sick of discussing this" ? Because the thing is, it's not black people's jobs to stop everything, sit down, and explain their daily experience to you just because you ask. Because you are privileged enough that you have to ask instead of know.

Yes, it's great to try and have open communication about race with people who actually regularly experience racial injustice, but especially on an emotionally heightened day and event like this, maybe asking them to justify their feelings (that have already been through the wringer) might feel like a little bit too much.

If a guy I'd had a really tormented relationship with and I had just broken up, and someone then asked me to justify being upset with a seemingly unsympathetic view, yeah, I'd nope out of that situation as well, or I'd end up in tears, or ticked off. It's reasonable sometimes to decide that a certain type of discussion is just too much at a given time.

bioemerl  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I do not care about your feelings when you are making a decision that should not be decided by them in any sane scenario.

I am not asking for justification. I am stating that you should never be making decisions beforehand on a topic such as this.

    Because the thing is, it's not black people's jobs to stop everything, sit down, and explain their daily experience to you just because you ask.

I didn't.

    Because you are privileged enough that you have to ask instead of know.

And, yet again, the idea of privilege has been twisted and shifted from a concept that is about understanding and trying to put yourself in anothers shoes into one that is about silencing and putting people down.

The whole fucking point of the concept is that we should listen to and attempt to understand others experiences so we don't end up judging actions that don't make sense from our own contexts and biases. Not "You have it good, you should shut up and appreciate life".

    maybe asking them to justify their feelings

I am not, and did not ask for a justification of any feelings.

    If a guy I'd had a really tormented relationship with and I had just broken up, and someone then asked me to justify being upset with a seemingly unsympathetic view, yeah, I'd nope out of that situation as well,

But you would go out of your way to post a topic about your breakup on a website? One that "prides" itself on the idea of "thoughtful discussion" at that?

Either way, I wasn't asking for a justification of feelings. I was stating that feelings are not a justification to make up your mind on something before looking at the situation from a less biased point of view.

ecib  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I didn't ask a question or ask for debate.

But you did tell him to his screen that there is zero chance that he's listening to reason.

In reality, there were so many reasons to believe in advance the outcome, starting with the prosecutor making the exceedingly rare choice of not asking for an indictment. Then making the rare choice of not presenting the grand jury just the evidence needed to establish probable cause. Then the series of calculated leaks from the grand jury well before the decision all supporting a pro-Darren Wilson narrative. Then the unprecedented step of declaring a state of emergency in advance where no emergency existed.

If I had to put money on it, I'd say the actual unreasonable position would be believing in advance any other outcome than the one we got.

bioemerl  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was commenting on the fact that when you literally state you have made the decision on something before-hand, you are not listening to reason.

All the stuff you say are things you should listen to and reason with before making up your mind. Not after.

pseydtonne  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yes you did.

Saying something in a forum means you had a reason to say it. You may think you're "being reasonable" or "just calming the situation", but you're asserting. You are carving a place in opposition to another person.

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell someone how they feel or need to react is invalid then walk away without expecting a response.

You didn't know that you asked for something. You still asked for it. Now take off your mask of feigned indifference and listen.

bioemerl  ·  3657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What I got wasn't a response, it was an outright dismissal with nothing behind it. I always welcome discussion on any of my posts, but I did not directly say "I want to discuss this" so I did not expect anyone to respond with "I am not dealing with this today".

ecib  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.