on disliking people
ive been working on a thought lately and it goes something like: creators of marginalized identities have it really rough because people end up treating them not as an invisible force behind the content they like, like majority-identified creators, but as a sort of totem to symbolize the fan’s support of that particular identity. so when the creator turns out to be a real, complex person, the fan perceives the sudden conflict between their moral signalling and the creator’s complex lived identity as a betrayal and responds with reflexive horror and outrage. they attack, because actually they’re defending their own hurt feelings, and their own jeopardized identity as a good person who supports good people.
this also happens on i think a micro level with trans people: allies want to support us, but we’re just people. a lot of us are obnoxious and most of us weird. transphobia is horrible and unjust: it’s good to be against it. it’s a good and valiant thing to want to oppose it. but again, real actual trans people are very often unpalatable because we are not meant for consumption. we aren’t pleasant because we’re not products. we’re just living our weird little lives, having gross sex, saying stupid things, looking kind of funky. that’s what real people do. that’s how real people are.
so when people who passionately oppose transphobia bonk into the surprising fact that trans people can be unpleasant, they experience cognitive dissonance in a way that feels like a personal betrayal. and they lash out, they push back. and the trans person gets reclassified as Specifically Bad, because the person lashing out isn’t transphobic, can’t be transphobic, hates transphobia, so there must be some exception here that squares the circle of the fact that they don’t like this trans person (who, again, isn’t a movement, an ideal, a product, an experience). and the trans person in question has a really bad day, or week, or month, or they die, if the lashback gets big enough. and the cycle continues.
i think a really vital component of opposing bigotry is internalizing and accepting that normal people can be unpleasant and it’s not a moral failing for you to just casually dislike lots of people for no real reason. humans aren’t meant for consumption. it’s a feature, not a failing.
sticking up for people’s rights gets a lot less emotionally complicated when you know, fundamentally, that you don’t have to like those people. because they’re just people, and people deserve rights even if you dislike them, which a lot of the time, you will not.
it’s fine. it really, really needs to be fine.
Yeah. If you can only defend the rights of people who are All Good, All Of The Time, you’re doing your politics wrong.
My solidarity with you does not depend on me liking you or always understanding you. It depends on me recognising that we’re both alive, or both human, or both oppressed – and that we therefore have some degree of commonality, some shared material interests. I help you because that helps me, and vice versa.
I have shared interests with plants and non-human animals because we all need this planet. I have shared interests with other human beings because we all suffer from inhumane systems which destroy human dignity and possibility. I have shared interests with other workers because we are all exploited under capitalism. Etc. The basis of the solidarity changes depending on context, but I must always know what it is, because otherwise I will be a poor ally to you.
Source: xxharryosbornxx
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