So, here am I, and I think some others in this thread, trying to point out to you that we believe you’re wrong that your advice on how people in threatened groups that you’re not a member of should respond to such threats is likely to be useful to them.
That’s a great article and example. It’s worth considering John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman in that complex allyship example. Douglass opposed Brown’s tactics–but Tubman advised him and was able to use his Boston connections to fund her operations.
Complex indeed.
I’ve given no advice on the how people should respond to threats.
I did actually answer the very same question, very clearly, in my response to puzzlegal.
So would you like to answer my question?
Can you disagree with a person and still be an ally?
You appear to me to be saying that you either do or would intend to do so in the wording of yours I’m quoting below:
– note that in this thread we’re talking not only or primarily about direct personal threats, but about advocating for a generally threatening social environment.
…my question (and the question immediately below it) stand.
Now hold on a minute. “Automatically agreeing” is part of the definition you seem to be using in this thread. It isn’t mine. The definition everyone else in this thread is using is:
You don’t get to invent a unique definition of allyship and then argue that I actually agree with you when it turns out that I don’t and have never agreed with your definition.
Its up to each individual whether or not they consider you an ally. They may agree with you and think you aren’t an ally. You could disagree with them and they might still think you are an ally.
So can you disagree with a person and still be an ally? It depends.
I’ve had half an eye on the Hogwarts United controversy, but I’m not sure about one thing: in general, what argument are the folks who consider themselves “allies” to trans folks and Jews who want to buy the game without judgment making? That Rowling is not transphobic and the game not anti-Semitic? Or that even if they were both, that has no relevance or reflection of their (the purchaser’s) political beliefs and the effort they put into said beliefs? Or something else?
I wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King would say about that?
We revere Dr. King and have a holiday for him and not for the likes of Malcolm X. Dr. King did not tell white people they were not allies because they read a book or watched a TV show or whatever. He understood that his fight was not going to be won by drawing lines of who was on his side.
Dr. King DID, however, say it was fine to judge people based on the content of their character.
We have a long thread here and, I think, most people have said consuming some particular art does not, in and of itself, define you. Consuming that art does not, by itself, say much, if anything, about whether you are supportive of a given side or viewpoint.
In Sterling’s most recent video (or very recent) they say they have lost subscribers. Make of it what you will but it seems Sterling is moving into preaching to the choir because fewer people are listening to them. I am not sure that is helping Sterling’s message or cause.
…Steph had been losing subscribers the moment they came out as trans. That was it. Subscribers were going up. Then the moment that happened people started un-subscribing, and it has kept up that way at a remarkably consistent rate. Nothing else has changed. They are still producing the same content. Their political views haven’t changed.
What do I make of it? There are a lot of transphobic bigots out there.
And every content creator “preaches to their choir.” That’s the entire point. They aren’t “moving into preaching to the choir.” That’s just what having a platform is.
Undoubtedly those are some. I would also guess some are people who started on the channel as a video game review/comment channel and are now getting something else. And some just do not want to be told they are doing something wrong.
King excoriated people who claimed to be on his side who were complacent.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er 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 can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
He absolutely rejected the idea that you should delicately avoid alienating those who claim to support you by not challenging them. I suspect he’d be just fine with trans people urging trans allies to boycott a flagrant transphobe.
That is just not the same thing at all.
So in other words, yes. Of course it depends.
My intitial post on this particular subject was to say that a definition or usage of the word “ally” that doesn’t allow for that isn’t one that I think worth worrying about.
…more than some.
Steph acknowledges in the video that some people may have just drifted away from the channel.
But as I said in the previous post, the decline literally started the day they came out as trans. As in that very episode. Steph mentions the decline on Twitter that week. The channel went from going up to a very clearly defined decline from that very day. as in a regular thousands of subscribers every week.
And again, as I’ve already pointed out, the content hasn’t changed. Steph has been clearly on the side of social justice since goobergate, which was 2014-2015. And any long-term fan of their content haven’t witnessed a material change in messaging or tone…except everything is slightly more fabulous at the moment. Viewers were getting “told they are doing something wrong” the same way back in 2017 as they are today. Layoffs. Live services. Easy mode. Google Stadia. Gideon Pontes. Loot boxes. Game unionisation. Are those Jimquisitions from 2023, or from 2019 or from 2017? It could be from any of those times because Steph has been covering the same things then as well as now.
The content hasn’t changed. Steph is still talking about the same stuff in the same way and they’ve only changed one thing. And if people stopped watching because of that one thing, it isn’t because they “do not want to be told they are doing something wrong” because Steph as always “told them they are doing something wrong” (if that’s the way you choose to characterize it) .
…and my initial post to you made it quite clear that this was never a part of the definition in the first place.
So it looks like you agree with me.
that is taken from my full initial post where I make it clear that I’m talking about my “ally” relationship with my family.
And my first post on the subject was not in response to anything you said or any claim you made.
All the info you needed to know about which potential usage I was referring to is in that first post. If you think it is irrelevant to you, or you agreed with it anyway then I’m not sure why you feel it necessary to extend the hijack.
I’ll end it now though. I’ve nothing to add. (I had nothing to add after that first reply)
King absolutely told people who thought they were his allies that they were doing things wrong.
I’m still curious what Steph said that you think we should listen to, to understand what bothers you, though. I really don’t want to watch half an hour of examples of how Rowling has been ardently transphobic.
I agree, It would be very dangerous to give children the autonomy needed to permanantly harm themselves. They are less able to understand where they are going wrong than adults are. We do indeed treat them differently to adults.
I agree with that as well, but you can treat them differently, as a fully competent adult, disagree with them and advise them and still remain (what I consider to be) a true ally.
I won’t go to bat for Rowling but the game isn’t anti-Semitic. The goblins’ depiction in the game isn’t remotely based on harmful Jewish stereotypes and the ancillary “evidence” such as the horn that looks nothing like a shofar is very weak. Ironically, YOU can get a horn to hang on your wall that looks much more like a shofar but no one is saying the main character is the game is an anti-Semitic stereotype. That’s without touching nonsense like “They mention gorgonzola cheese which is an attack on Jewish people because it’s not kosher”.
The whole “Anti-Semitic” thing seems to be a mixtures of previous goblin depictions in the films combined with a shotgun approach to trying to scare people off of the game in case the Rowling/TERF argument doesn’t work. Much like accusations that the game is about upholding slavery (it… uhhh… is not).