I think it should be acceptable to be visibly angry, but in cases where the oppressor is a huge demographic that easily contains allies and noncombatants, the major focus should still be concentrated on voicing the issue at hand rather than becoming distracted with tit for tat. Especially when it's the PR that makes or breaks someone's engagement when they first take notice, I hesitate to accept the whole discourse turning into a Twitter bitch fight in every direction unless we're at the edge of rioting anyway.
Feminism, as an example, to some extent has made good progress in its goals. Things like the KillAllMen crowd, though their anger is born from repeated trauma, do absolutely nothing but make the rest look petty and ridiculous and muddy the actual topic, making it increasingly common for the idea to be openly mocked when it comes up.
When I see someone use the phrase yt or cissie in a post that is important and stems from honest experience, my brain automatically shuts itself off and I have to struggle to manually turn it back on.
So it goes with every movement. Stand your ground, but stay focused.
Yes. And not all activists go out of their way to be inflammatory to randos. If you want people to listen to you long enough to actually agree with you, you're going to have to hold off directly insulting them.
This is not about those who are your direct enemies, those people were never up for grabs anyway. Go nuts. This is about people who try to be good (or at least survive) and still get lumped in with everyone else, that primarily decide who they go with based on who makes them feel the fuzziest.
It's not morally right, but it's how the nazis are still a thing. Nobody wakes up thinking, "today I am going to be an unforgivable shit," they want friends and will follow that slope down as long as they get to keep those friends/the opposition makes it unpalatable to admit fault and switch sides.
You still get to do all the other activism stuff.
Edit: while it's on my mind, bringing up MRAs is another example of this. Legitimate concerns collectively labeled as worthless and brushed under the rug on the basis that the men's rights people have a ton of incels who are very angry about their lives and take it out in slurs. Hurt and angry, sure. The solution to this cannot be to be MRA angry
I've stated I put effort into listening, but found it noticeably more difficult to do so:
my brain automatically shuts itself off and I have to struggle to manually turn it back on.
My issue is that the only alternative I felt was insinuated by the meme is "Yes fight hate with hate."
Hate for hate has its place in riots, against known enemies, when peace has failed in a way that is dangerous. We could use some of that pretty soon, by the way. Getting real envious of France.
That is not what the internet normally uses it for, and having been on the butt end of that multiple times both online and in person, twice for a genocide my grandparents were not alive to participate in but I still get to live with I guess, I'm not happy with it. Which is also why it's taken me an hour to write and rewrite a truly unnecessary amount of paragraphs -- it's personal for me. It's not a wrong statement by any means, it's just very easily twisted and I'm upset with how often I've seen it done.
Casual, sweeping statements against demographics as a whole have become fairly common these days, and whenever anyone expresses hurt about it because they themselves literally did not do and even loathe the thing they're being accused of, the silencing argument is the go-to. As if being insulted myself inherently gives me the right to do it to someone else. Internet thrives on aggression, and all. Hurt people hurt people.
Anger is a human emotion and aggression has its place, but care needs to be taken to make sure it's properly directed in a way that isn't as self-destructive as the internet desperately wants to be. There is silencing abuse victims, and then there's the here and there preemptive jabs a la "We've literally never met before and I would love to know more and join your side, please stop calling me a cockroach to my face."
Activists' habit of directing anger willy-nilly because in-groups is understandable through a lifetime of mute frustration. I'm still of the opinion it harms their own ends through collateral damage, and "but I'm hurt" takes a lot of empathetic reflection to accept as a reason. Case in point. Nobody takes femcels/MRAs seriously. The behavior of both is used to belittle genuine societal ills.
Activists make general statements about society when they are talking about systemic issues.
ACAB is true when criticizing the system of policing that promotes racist power hungry cops and drives out those who want to make positive changes even if not every single cop is actively a bastard before being forced out.
After a certain point there is no need to be precise when it really does seem like the default behavior is hate. Sodomy laws were a good example of society in general being homophobic in a way that does not require the oppressed to give some liberal college student credit for not calling the police on their gay relationship. Someone who finds discrimination and hate directed to them regularly does not need to carefully choose their words because their message is going to be dismissed anyway.
Do you think that their message would be more acceptable if they added a bunch of exclusions, or would that just water down the message about something that affects them constantly?
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