I remember you getting attacked, which is not the same thing.
No, you have not. Saying a post was racist in the old race-realist threads was not held to the same “attack the post, not the poster” standard, and was viewed as exactly the same as calling the poster racist (same as calling a post a lie is viewed the same as calling the poster a liar)
“Running away” to a more appropriate forum where your hands aren’t tied behind your back by bigot-coddling politeness rules is no kind of running away. It’s choosing to stand on the higher ground. Which is why the bigots hate it, as they tend to get their arguments’ legs chopped off and cooked by the heat.
I have, I am sure, used the term “That is not true” to refer to a “fact” posted. I have never been modded for that. I suppose saying “you post is a big fat lie” would get modded.
I have also posted “that sounds pretty bigoted…ageist…etc” in response to a line- This seems to be Ok.
Not the higher ground, arguing from a Pit, a sinkhole. And many posters never see your clever insults.
If you can’t confront bigotry without name calling, then you aren’t doing it right.
In fact, you can’t confront bigotry by name calling, you do it with reason, facts and appeals to humanity.
Please showme where that says “descend to their level and call them names”.
Don’t pretend you are fighting bigotry when all you are doing is slinging insults- at someone who quite possible isn’t even listening.
A brief check of the threads you started in the Pit about a poster does not show they were about attacking Bigotry.
Even just a plain “that is a lie” will do, I’m sure.
Again, not what I’m talking about. Searching before the move is pants, and google no longer works for searching this site, but it was, IIRC, tom who said something along the lines of “don’t call a poster racist or imply that they are” and that was generally interpreted as not being able to say a plain “that is racist” of a post.
Its freedom elevates it.
If you think the point is for the racists to feel bad, then you’ve missed it completely. They’re racists, I don’t give a fuck for their emotional state.
Calling a racist a racist isn’t name-calling, it’s speaking a truth.
Reason, facts and appeals to humanity didn’t free my country from Apartheid, and that’s all I’ll say outside the Pit about the notion that you have anything to teach me about confronting bigotry
In the face of hate, silence is deadly.
If the mere name “racist” is considered “descending to their level”, then you are demanding that I stay silent. I see no reason to do that.
Given I’ve only created 23 Pit threads in 20 years, several of which are not even about posters, I think on-board bigots are sufficiently covered in my résumé. And that’s ignoring my frequent updates to omnibus threads like this one: here
And if your point was that I also created “ordinary” Pittings, my reply would be “Yes, and…?” since I have never said the Pit should only be for calling out bigotry.
I’m not defending any accusation of stolen valor or stolen valor (a completely BS term, by the way as there is no such thing) itself. I am defending truth.
Well said. It’s silly to have an arbitrary line somewhere deep in the middle of types of insults allowed. I can call someone a m!otherfucker but I can’t mention their anxiety disorder? It would be easier just to disallow insults all together rather than have mods decide which insult goes too far.
With respect, that’s so different from what I’m talking about that I wish you hadn’t quoted me. I’m not talking about poor behavior in the Pit, I’m talking about poor behavior outside the pit.
It is this sort of behavior, which you characterizes as being “a bit of an asshole,” that gets tolerated outside of the Pit and makes the Pit necessary. If the rules were tightened up so that the behavior that I pitted you for were no longer acceptable, I’d be on your side with getting rid of pitting other users.
You’d be surprised. Without the shield of anonymity, more people than you’d think actually do see their own bigotry when confronted with it, and experience shame.
Granted, it’s usually relatively subtle behaviour, not outright “God hates gays” or “Kill all the Jews” type bigotry, at least in my circles. But being told, say, that they’re repeatedly misgendering and that makes them at best an unthinking asshole, and if they don’t shape up they’re going to have to fuck off out of a shared social space, can be very effective. If nothing else, it lets them know that other people see their behaviour, that previously-silenced people aren’t as afraid of bigots anymore, that their targets have allies, and also gives them a strong sense that they’re on the wrong side of history. That tends to make many people rethink their stances.
That’s definitely not the first time that @DemonTree has said something along those lines. And other anti-Pit posters have made the same exact argument: “you wouldn’t call someone out for bigotry in real life!”.
This is incredibly surprising to me. My attitude on things like homosexuality, race, trans rights, etc certainly changed over time. It didn’t happen because I magically turned up the “better person” dial on my personality matrix. It happened because I, or people around me, said or did things that weren’t OK; got called out; thought about it; and adjusted my attitude.
It’s just not something I really see much of. I had a coworker who supported Trump, and he was teased about it, but I doubt that’s what you’re talking about. I’ve argued with some men who had pretty terrible views on women, but it was more like a debate than a bunch of people calling them bigots. It’s not something that comes up frequently in any case.
And though I have often been unpleasantly surprised by what people will say behind other people’s backs, I haven’t seen bullying like happens here since I finished high school.
At a bar I spent loads of time at pre-pandemic, there was a guy who would spout some nasty racist vitriol. We pretty much all just ignored him. Our ignoring him led to his ramping up his garbage. A few of us approached the owner and told him it was him or us. He was told to drink elsewhere. I have better things to do than debate assholes.
