At this stage, I hope you're annoyed. I'm angry as hell, and I have no time for bottom feeders that can't look up. You should turn your annoyance into anger and fear, because the truth is, everyone should feel that way. Don't worry though; when fascism fucks up your life, I won't even bother saying "told you so."
Assuming this is real (it's not) the art teacher might possibly be right in saying dial it back. Subtlety and nuance are great in art. People like to interpret artists meaning (even if it's pretty obvious). If they're anything like the art teachers I've had they were familiar with feminism and trying to help the student grow as an artist.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
They can be. But if that was the intention, that's what the teacher should have said. "Dial it back" is a far cry from "your art would be more powerful with a more subtle message". And anyway, sometimes the artist doesn't want to be subtle and that's ok too. Subtle art can be easy to misinterpret. Look at all the chadbros who idolise the characters in Fight Club.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
Pretty sure they just didn't have reason to refer to themselves in that comment. They've always used normal pronouns for other people.
Yeah, there’s great art that’s subtle, but also a lot of great art is in your face. The subtle lesbianism of Gerda Wegner vs the overt gender fuckery of Claude Cahun. Blues doesn’t hide what it has to say, but jazz often makes you find the message. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” is one of the most acclaimed cinematic productions of all time and was very clear in its message, it had to be lest it be misunderstood at a time where it needed to be said.
The greatest work of art ever created was made by writers who think subtext is for cowards. It's called Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It's about a cyborg ninja who turns fascists into human confetti. It tackles fundamental themes of human agency from the point of view of nature, nurture, culture, and identity. It deconstructs and then reconstructs the concept of free will while criticizing the military industrial complex and entire entirety of conservative ideology. The final boss of the game is a United States senator who wants to "make America great again" and you rip out his fucking heart after spending an hour debating political philosophy with him.
You can get kits online for pretty cheap, and probably make something like this yourself if you really wanted to. Just get a kit to make a fuzz pedal or overdrive, and do some custom modifications to the enclosure.
Well, firstly, art teachers are not exactly known for their anti-feminism. Safe money is on her just being insufferable, especially given the fact that she deliberately left out what she said/did that got that response from the teacher, lol (or it's literally made up and she just made up the conflict in order to make herself the hero in a little tale).
Secondly, this is objectively a moronic response visually. Not only is it a dial (which implicitly supports the teacher's premise), but it is plainly obvious that there is a LOT of room on that dial between the two settings--this implicitly contradicts the apparent intention to communicate those two 'settings' as a binary proposition. Would have made much more sense to display it as a switch, a device that actually has only two binary positions.
While I agree with you on some of the above, I disagree with your choice to insult both the artist (“insufferable”) and the art (“moronic.”) It really weakens your point when you throw ad hominems into your argument. Your valid criticisms become clouded by an apparent bias, leading people to take your point less seriously.
I didn't insult the artist, I made an educated guess about details of the interaction based on the clearly-deliberately-omitted information.
I also didn't insult the art, I insulted the decision made in creating it, as it objectively (and I went into detail as to how) does the literal opposite of what it's intended to do, for no other reason than a lack of thinking things through even slightly.
On the other hand, it shows that every step on the dial is a step towards being complicit in their own dehumanization. The teacher’s request seems to suggest that those are separate axes, whereas OP obviously does not think so.
If the post is honest, this is an fine response. I'm always a little skeptical of ragebait posts, but I've had plenty of interactions with educators who run counter to what you would assume of their profession.
That's why I made my educated guess based not only on that's typical of a member of that profession, but that combined with the deliberate omission of what led up to the teacher's comment.
Those two factors together point much more strongly toward my guess than either of them would individually.
You've never used a dial with only two settings before? Also, using a dial because the art teacher said to dial down? "Hey OP, switch down the feminism hur hur"
Americans lost abortion rights because of the piss-weak Democratic party relying on a shaky legal foundation to keep them in place rather than legislating it themselves at any of the times they controlled the Senate, House, and White House under Carter, Clinton, Obama, or Biden. All of whome had a period where that was the case. It's not feminists of any sort that are to blame.
So accurate, though I dare say they're even more pathetic - "I was hateful and abusive to you, but you spoke up and demanded I stop, which hurt my feelings, that’s why I voted for Hitler. It’s your fault.”
Because the only people drifting further in to bigotry "because" those they're bigoted against stand up for themselves, were already bigots to begin with. They're just critically aware (though they'll never admit it) of just how much privilege they actually have, and find the idea of having that challenged, never mind being equal and equitable to everyone else, completely unacceptable and even repulsive, but mostly terrifying (because the only way they can fathom it going is that they will be treated under feminism the same way they treat us under the patriarchy) and they will invest everything they have in to maintaining the oppressive structures that serve them.
“All men are fucking douchebags and should die” -> “if they already think I’m a douchebag and the other side will be nice to me…”
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that that’s an extreme but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen either. I’m not saying I agree really with either side and “turning down the feminism” is a kinda weird thing to say to your student but I have heard multiple different times of someone who saw how much they seemed to be hated and drifted to the right as they were accepted there (even if for the wrong reasons).
Instead of complaining that feminists speak out, why not call out the actual problem: the misogynists? Be a "staunch advocate" and have the conversations that women can't.
I don't mean to diminish the larger point you're making about feminism not having middle ground, but from an interface design perspective, a dial very much implies a continuum of settings. When there isn't middle ground, the interface should be a toggle switch instead.
Of course this is art, not a real device, so obviously a dial is appropriate because it's a response to being told to "dial down," not "switch off."
(I almost feel like there could've been something different about the way the dial was depicted -- maybe with a range with "raging feminist" next to "complicit" and something more extreme above it, or maybe indeed using a toggle instead of a dial -- in order to emphasize that "raging feminist" already is as "dialed down" as you could reasonably ask for, but such UI realism would probably just clutter up the design without improving the message. As art, I think the artist got it right as-is.)
You're not wrong. But I picture this dial to snap between two settings. Like ones that are used for on/off switches. Not like a continuous potentiometer type.
There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that's the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).
Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.
Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.
I fully agree. This applies not only to feminism but in general - if you want to convince people about something, you need to plan your approach, what to say, know what works on people etc. You cannot just rage like crazy because there's a high chance you just create a counter reaction.
F.e. I'd say we can all agree that gay rights are the right thing. But if you come to some conservative village, start shouting at everyone, being super aggresive and rage like a maniac, I'd bet that the only thing you achieve is that you'll be labeled as "that crazy person"
I'm really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I went to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, and of all the things that really struck me hard there (it was a lot) I think the biggest hit was realizing how fucking long it took between the start of mainstreaming the movement and women actually getting the vote. None of the women who started that movement lived long enough to cast their own vote.
There was no "women's black panthers". There was no threat of violence if women can't control their own lives. Everybody got to pretty much just stay comfortable with their nice order. And change did. not. happen. For years.
Maybe the slow pace was worth it, I don't know. I'm not a woman and I'm not much devoted to order. But it seems pretty clear that "avoid offending anybody" is not an effective tool for change.
Fair enough, good quote (btw I'm not from US so my knoledge here is limited). Although I'm not sure what portion I agree/disagree with it, I have to think about it much more.
But I mean, even MLK understood that there's a limit, right? Like he didn't take AK47 and started to murder all the racists he saw but have chosen rather strong but non violent approach and he thought about what he was saying and what "works". And that's all I'm saying, I've never said that you cannot take a strong stance. But if you turn it to 11 and just RAGE!!! then be prepared that you might not achieve anything or even make the situation worse
Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
-The Other America
And this was over The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 where neighborhoods literally got burned to the ground in riots and dozens of people were killed. Shooting your mouth off in response to someone being a bigot is a piddling offense by comparison.
Like, I'm not going to stand here and tell you it's being on your best behavior. But neither is saying some bigoted shit to someone that causes them to pop off in return. Two people can be doing wrong things, and one can even be more at fault!
MLK didn’t; Malcom X did. MLK’s underlying message was ‘acknowledge my peaceful protest, or you get stuck with his less peaceful protest’. Peaceful protesting alone tends to get you a whole lot of nothing.
Edit: of course, most history classes seem to forget Malcom X even existed, because the ‘just peacefully protest over in that corner and don’t bother us, it will totally make us change our ways’ narrative is much more desirable for certain demographics.
Good for you. History disagrees with your disagreeing.
Look up Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and the Battle of Blair Mountain sometime. Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
The pairing of the open palm and the raised fist often is very successful. The violent side creates the conditions for victory and the nonviolent side creates the conditions for peace. Without the threat of violence no pressure is applied, but without the peaceful people the oppressors have nobody they’re willing to settle with.
The labor wars ended with afl-cio dominance for a reason.
If I may hijack this discussion, I find that quite interesting what you are saying! I'm currently see myself getting more radicalised by the weak reaction of our (German) Government towards the rising fascists.
Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
Where and how do you Differentiate between legit violent Protest and Terrorism?
Is ist just the agreement with the one side but not the other?
Because, If I may go there, even Hitler claimed that Germans were being oppressed in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
I think the difference between EfreetSK's example and the situation to which MLK's quote applies is that MLK already had enough people on his side to force others to take him seriously.
In the UK, demonstrations for trans rights are fairly common. It is also almost exactly as common for them not to be reported on at all in any major news outlet. With the laws in the UK as they are, any trans person participating in a "disruptive" protest is liable to end up in a men's prison (and if self-medding, as many must, deprived of HRT) for a long time, so there aren't many takers for the Just Stop Oil brand of protesting either. It sucks, but sometimes softly softly is what's required.
You're right if the goal is to convince someone of something. But why is it the job of the gay person to talk to the conservative village in "the right way" to justify their existence?
More generally, why is it always the oppressed who have to try to rationalize and normalize themselves for a chance at being accepted in what is also their society?
I have no room to speak since I'm not fighting any of those fights, but even I get infuriated thinking about people needing to talk rationally about why they should be accepted.
But why is it the job of the gay person to talk to the conservative village in "the right way" to justify their existence?
It isn't, but we're talking about arguing with idiots. I had some lengthy response prepared but I scraped that - bottom line is, what is your solution in such scenario then? (I mean the village scenario)
My solution is that you need to show people that they have nothing to fear, basically to bring them down to their senses. That's standard negotiation/diplomacy. It's unfair but that's life, in ideal world we wouldn't need to deal with this. And alternative for me is a tribal war of "us vs. them", where you spark in people "this person is aggresive against me, this person is thus my enemy!" and then any logic or reason goes out of window.
Yeah I'm in the same boat with lengthy scrapped response. We're at a point that's demonstrated there is no solution to arguing with idiots, short of buying media outlets and correcting the narrative globally. People aren't willing to be persuaded by discussion, even with their own families. It's a signal-to-noise issue where the noise is all of the media propaganda that overpowers the signal of real world around them.
Being a gay ambassador isn't going to change any minds when the recipient gets bombarded by hate speech 24/7 on their favorite news outlets. So I think people should just be themselves and society has a responsibility to fix itself.
I know it's not a good answer, I don't think anyone has one or there wouldn't be a global rise in fascism. But it comes off as victim-blaming to put the responsibility on the oppressed, rather than the rest of society to fix it.
Yeah I’m just fucking exhausted as a trans woman in a red state. I’ve been out for a fucking decade and I just want to not have to justify my existence or play nice with people who want me to not be as able to participate equally in society as them.
And that’s the thing I’m seeing with the misogyny of today. Yes, there are some struggles men are facing, but nobody is proposing the removal of the rights of cis men to control their body. Cis men aren’t being threatened with forced marriage. Patriarchy hurts everyone but not equally.
actually it's been pretty well shown that radical annoying people help move the overton window so the gentle advocates seem more palatable and reasonable
this is the same principle that fascists use to normalize oppression.
The point of art is not necessarily to convince. What if her point is to call for action, to nurture debate or to get attention to something that doesn't get space in people's minds. It's a piece of art, not a PhD thesis.
Punk af 🤘
She is awesome
One of my heros
If you're not uncomfortable, I'm not being radical enough
Good art seeks to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
Just annoying
At this stage, I hope you're annoyed. I'm angry as hell, and I have no time for bottom feeders that can't look up. You should turn your annoyance into anger and fear, because the truth is, everyone should feel that way. Don't worry though; when fascism fucks up your life, I won't even bother saying "told you so."
If you're the kind of person who thinks feminism is annoying, then you deserve to be annoyed. It wouldn't upset you if you were cooler.
Assuming this is real (it's not) the art teacher might possibly be right in saying dial it back. Subtlety and nuance are great in art. People like to interpret artists meaning (even if it's pretty obvious). If they're anything like the art teachers I've had they were familiar with feminism and trying to help the student grow as an artist.
I'm happy to see you're not talking in the 3rd person anymore though.
Proof?
They can be. But if that was the intention, that's what the teacher should have said. "Dial it back" is a far cry from "your art would be more powerful with a more subtle message". And anyway, sometimes the artist doesn't want to be subtle and that's ok too. Subtle art can be easy to misinterpret. Look at all the chadbros who idolise the characters in Fight Club.
Pretty sure they just didn't have reason to refer to themselves in that comment. They've always used normal pronouns for other people.
Yeah, there’s great art that’s subtle, but also a lot of great art is in your face. The subtle lesbianism of Gerda Wegner vs the overt gender fuckery of Claude Cahun. Blues doesn’t hide what it has to say, but jazz often makes you find the message. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” is one of the most acclaimed cinematic productions of all time and was very clear in its message, it had to be lest it be misunderstood at a time where it needed to be said.
The greatest work of art ever created was made by writers who think subtext is for cowards. It's called Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It's about a cyborg ninja who turns fascists into human confetti. It tackles fundamental themes of human agency from the point of view of nature, nurture, culture, and identity. It deconstructs and then reconstructs the concept of free will while criticizing the military industrial complex and entire entirety of conservative ideology. The final boss of the game is a United States senator who wants to "make America great again" and you rip out his fucking heart after spending an hour debating political philosophy with him.
Turn it up to 11
For an extra $1,000 I'll make you one that goes to 12
Get back on the transporter terminal, O'Brian.
You should come down to transporter room 3, the pattern buffer has something you'd find interesting....
O'Brian? He's from the mirror universe! Stop that man!
Hot take (apparently): Women deserve to be taken seriously.
“RAGING FEMINIST” (apparently)
Hysterical.
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here?
What better time than now?
Lights out
Guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
I just had a flashback to playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater after school
I want that guitar pedal
It's got to be a boost or an overdrive right?
Nah, it's a tone knob
At 10 you sound like bikini kill
https://youtu.be/f1aGcJVrvlo?si=jVd-z74C_-lm7IaM
Nice
Fuzz maybe.
You can get kits online for pretty cheap, and probably make something like this yourself if you really wanted to. Just get a kit to make a fuzz pedal or overdrive, and do some custom modifications to the enclosure.
Isn't art about uh... Expressing yourself?
Ice Cream (1964)
Evelyne Axell
Banned on Facebook
Rage like California wildfire.
And here I thought that old "SFW porn gif" reddit sub was an original idea...
That's actually a pretty sick piece of art though.
"Turn down for what"
That is a great piece of art
It looks like this dial can go a little beyond the current setting. Give it a try!
I see this as malicious compliance, and I love it.
Did she dial down the Feminism? If she didn't I wouldn't call it compliance since she didn't actually do that.
Perhaps it's time to reacquaint yourself with the definition of "compliance", lol.
This was not any kind of compliance.
Which side is down and which is up?
Well, firstly, art teachers are not exactly known for their anti-feminism. Safe money is on her just being insufferable, especially given the fact that she deliberately left out what she said/did that got that response from the teacher, lol (or it's literally made up and she just made up the conflict in order to make herself the hero in a little tale).
Secondly, this is objectively a moronic response visually. Not only is it a dial (which implicitly supports the teacher's premise), but it is plainly obvious that there is a LOT of room on that dial between the two settings--this implicitly contradicts the apparent intention to communicate those two 'settings' as a binary proposition. Would have made much more sense to display it as a switch, a device that actually has only two binary positions.
While I agree with you on some of the above, I disagree with your choice to insult both the artist (“insufferable”) and the art (“moronic.”) It really weakens your point when you throw ad hominems into your argument. Your valid criticisms become clouded by an apparent bias, leading people to take your point less seriously.
I didn't insult the artist, I made an educated guess about details of the interaction based on the clearly-deliberately-omitted information.
I also didn't insult the art, I insulted the decision made in creating it, as it objectively (and I went into detail as to how) does the literal opposite of what it's intended to do, for no other reason than a lack of thinking things through even slightly.
On the other hand, it shows that every step on the dial is a step towards being complicit in their own dehumanization. The teacher’s request seems to suggest that those are separate axes, whereas OP obviously does not think so.
If the post is honest, this is an fine response. I'm always a little skeptical of ragebait posts, but I've had plenty of interactions with educators who run counter to what you would assume of their profession.
That's why I made my educated guess based not only on that's typical of a member of that profession, but that combined with the deliberate omission of what led up to the teacher's comment.
Those two factors together point much more strongly toward my guess than either of them would individually.
You've never used a dial with only two settings before? Also, using a dial because the art teacher said to dial down? "Hey OP, switch down the feminism hur hur"
That nice girl feminism got us to lose abortion rights. I'm in the vengeance stage whether you like it or not.
Americans lost abortion rights because of the piss-weak Democratic party relying on a shaky legal foundation to keep them in place rather than legislating it themselves at any of the times they controlled the Senate, House, and White House under Carter, Clinton, Obama, or Biden. All of whome had a period where that was the case. It's not feminists of any sort that are to blame.
Are you fucking high?!
"you spoke mean and hurt my feelings, that's why I voted for Hitler. It's your fault."
So accurate, though I dare say they're even more pathetic - "I was hateful and abusive to you, but you spoke up and demanded I stop, which hurt my feelings, that’s why I voted for Hitler. It’s your fault.”
Because the only people drifting further in to bigotry "because" those they're bigoted against stand up for themselves, were already bigots to begin with. They're just critically aware (though they'll never admit it) of just how much privilege they actually have, and find the idea of having that challenged, never mind being equal and equitable to everyone else, completely unacceptable and even repulsive, but mostly terrifying (because the only way they can fathom it going is that they will be treated under feminism the same way they treat us under the patriarchy) and they will invest everything they have in to maintaining the oppressive structures that serve them.
Radical, illogical levels of misogyny are not an altered state of consciousness. Evil is mundane.
Is that reaction actually increasing the misogyny though? I kinda expect it's just bringing out into the open what is already there tbh
"This rape would be going a lot better for you if you'd just stop struggling so much!"
Imagine getting triggered by women not wanting to be assaulted
“All men are fucking douchebags and should die” -> “if they already think I’m a douchebag and the other side will be nice to me…”
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that that’s an extreme but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen either. I’m not saying I agree really with either side and “turning down the feminism” is a kinda weird thing to say to your student but I have heard multiple different times of someone who saw how much they seemed to be hated and drifted to the right as they were accepted there (even if for the wrong reasons).
I don't think it's feminism at that point. It's misandry. I know many women who don't understand the difference, but they're not the same.
Immediately jumping to a rape analogy isn't fair or apt, you can always make someone else's argument appear dumb when you jump to an EXTREME
How dare I follow their argument to its logical conclusion
That's why beacon comments were dumb from the beginning I guess.
Instead of complaining that feminists speak out, why not call out the actual problem: the misogynists? Be a "staunch advocate" and have the conversations that women can't.
It really doesn't. But it does make raging misogynists pissy and insecure.
The point of the dial is there is no middle ground. You either take it quietly or you're a troublemaker.
I don't mean to diminish the larger point you're making about feminism not having middle ground, but from an interface design perspective, a dial very much implies a continuum of settings. When there isn't middle ground, the interface should be a toggle switch instead.
Of course this is art, not a real device, so obviously a dial is appropriate because it's a response to being told to "dial down," not "switch off."
(I almost feel like there could've been something different about the way the dial was depicted -- maybe with a range with "raging feminist" next to "complicit" and something more extreme above it, or maybe indeed using a toggle instead of a dial -- in order to emphasize that "raging feminist" already is as "dialed down" as you could reasonably ask for, but such UI realism would probably just clutter up the design without improving the message. As art, I think the artist got it right as-is.)
You're not wrong. But I picture this dial to snap between two settings. Like ones that are used for on/off switches. Not like a continuous potentiometer type.
It being a dial illustrates that while people who make such statements pretend that there's a continuum, it's really rather binary.
This has now become canon
As long as you talk respectfully about the art, my guess is that the artist her the point across.
I would invite people who have different opinions to make their own art reflecting their point of views. I may make my own variation of the theme.
There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that's the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).
Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.
Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.
"Rotary switch"
No, the point is that there really is no middle ground with these people.
Except there is a middle ground between letting yourself be victimized, and being a militant pain in the ass. Plenty of it.
Only those wanting to justify being empathy-free pains in the ass try to create this false dichotomy.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
This comes off weird. Especially when in context to the post.
I fully agree. This applies not only to feminism but in general - if you want to convince people about something, you need to plan your approach, what to say, know what works on people etc. You cannot just rage like crazy because there's a high chance you just create a counter reaction.
F.e. I'd say we can all agree that gay rights are the right thing. But if you come to some conservative village, start shouting at everyone, being super aggresive and rage like a maniac, I'd bet that the only thing you achieve is that you'll be labeled as "that crazy person"
I'm really surprised of the responses to this comment, I find this to be a common sense
-Martin Luther King Jr
Got a lot of the same vibes, really
Preach on.
I went to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, and of all the things that really struck me hard there (it was a lot) I think the biggest hit was realizing how fucking long it took between the start of mainstreaming the movement and women actually getting the vote. None of the women who started that movement lived long enough to cast their own vote.
There was no "women's black panthers". There was no threat of violence if women can't control their own lives. Everybody got to pretty much just stay comfortable with their nice order. And change did. not. happen. For years.
Maybe the slow pace was worth it, I don't know. I'm not a woman and I'm not much devoted to order. But it seems pretty clear that "avoid offending anybody" is not an effective tool for change.
The majority of women did NOT want suffrage before the 19th was ratified--can't really blame misogyny for it being so slow to happen.
Also many white suffragettes were outspokenly against non-white women gaining suffrage alongside them, so it's not like the movement itself was untainted by bias (to put it lightly) itself, either.
Fair enough, good quote (btw I'm not from US so my knoledge here is limited). Although I'm not sure what portion I agree/disagree with it, I have to think about it much more.
But I mean, even MLK understood that there's a limit, right? Like he didn't take AK47 and started to murder all the racists he saw but have chosen rather strong but non violent approach and he thought about what he was saying and what "works". And that's all I'm saying, I've never said that you cannot take a strong stance. But if you turn it to 11 and just RAGE!!! then be prepared that you might not achieve anything or even make the situation worse
More MLK quotes!
-The Other America
And this was over The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 where neighborhoods literally got burned to the ground in riots and dozens of people were killed. Shooting your mouth off in response to someone being a bigot is a piddling offense by comparison.
Like, I'm not going to stand here and tell you it's being on your best behavior. But neither is saying some bigoted shit to someone that causes them to pop off in return. Two people can be doing wrong things, and one can even be more at fault!
MLK didn’t; Malcom X did. MLK’s underlying message was ‘acknowledge my peaceful protest, or you get stuck with his less peaceful protest’. Peaceful protesting alone tends to get you a whole lot of nothing.
Edit: of course, most history classes seem to forget Malcom X even existed, because the ‘just peacefully protest over in that corner and don’t bother us, it will totally make us change our ways’ narrative is much more desirable for certain demographics.
I fundamentally disagree
Good for you. History disagrees with your disagreeing.
Look up Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and the Battle of Blair Mountain sometime. Pretty much every victory oppressed groups have won has had to draw blood in order to win the day.
The pairing of the open palm and the raised fist often is very successful. The violent side creates the conditions for victory and the nonviolent side creates the conditions for peace. Without the threat of violence no pressure is applied, but without the peaceful people the oppressors have nobody they’re willing to settle with.
The labor wars ended with afl-cio dominance for a reason.
If I may hijack this discussion, I find that quite interesting what you are saying! I'm currently see myself getting more radicalised by the weak reaction of our (German) Government towards the rising fascists.
Where and how do you Differentiate between legit violent Protest and Terrorism? Is ist just the agreement with the one side but not the other?
Because, If I may go there, even Hitler claimed that Germans were being oppressed in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
I think the difference between EfreetSK's example and the situation to which MLK's quote applies is that MLK already had enough people on his side to force others to take him seriously.
In the UK, demonstrations for trans rights are fairly common. It is also almost exactly as common for them not to be reported on at all in any major news outlet. With the laws in the UK as they are, any trans person participating in a "disruptive" protest is liable to end up in a men's prison (and if self-medding, as many must, deprived of HRT) for a long time, so there aren't many takers for the Just Stop Oil brand of protesting either. It sucks, but sometimes softly softly is what's required.
You're right if the goal is to convince someone of something. But why is it the job of the gay person to talk to the conservative village in "the right way" to justify their existence?
More generally, why is it always the oppressed who have to try to rationalize and normalize themselves for a chance at being accepted in what is also their society?
I have no room to speak since I'm not fighting any of those fights, but even I get infuriated thinking about people needing to talk rationally about why they should be accepted.
It isn't, but we're talking about arguing with idiots. I had some lengthy response prepared but I scraped that - bottom line is, what is your solution in such scenario then? (I mean the village scenario)
My solution is that you need to show people that they have nothing to fear, basically to bring them down to their senses. That's standard negotiation/diplomacy. It's unfair but that's life, in ideal world we wouldn't need to deal with this. And alternative for me is a tribal war of "us vs. them", where you spark in people "this person is aggresive against me, this person is thus my enemy!" and then any logic or reason goes out of window.
But really, what is your solution?
Yeah I'm in the same boat with lengthy scrapped response. We're at a point that's demonstrated there is no solution to arguing with idiots, short of buying media outlets and correcting the narrative globally. People aren't willing to be persuaded by discussion, even with their own families. It's a signal-to-noise issue where the noise is all of the media propaganda that overpowers the signal of real world around them.
Being a gay ambassador isn't going to change any minds when the recipient gets bombarded by hate speech 24/7 on their favorite news outlets. So I think people should just be themselves and society has a responsibility to fix itself.
I know it's not a good answer, I don't think anyone has one or there wouldn't be a global rise in fascism. But it comes off as victim-blaming to put the responsibility on the oppressed, rather than the rest of society to fix it.
Yeah I’m just fucking exhausted as a trans woman in a red state. I’ve been out for a fucking decade and I just want to not have to justify my existence or play nice with people who want me to not be as able to participate equally in society as them.
And that’s the thing I’m seeing with the misogyny of today. Yes, there are some struggles men are facing, but nobody is proposing the removal of the rights of cis men to control their body. Cis men aren’t being threatened with forced marriage. Patriarchy hurts everyone but not equally.
The closer a person and the people they care about get to the chopping block the less common sense it seems.
actually it's been pretty well shown that radical annoying people help move the overton window so the gentle advocates seem more palatable and reasonable
this is the same principle that fascists use to normalize oppression.
The point of art is not necessarily to convince. What if her point is to call for action, to nurture debate or to get attention to something that doesn't get space in people's minds. It's a piece of art, not a PhD thesis.