the holes in the theories

The thing about the “everyone just be nice! Share the love!” argument is that “being nice” in this context has very little to do with actual niceness and everything to do with swallowing feelings of hurt and anger in the interest of maintaining the status quo.

And the problem with that is that it doesn’t do anything to address the- valid!- unhappy feelings, which are them subsumed and compressed until they finally explode. We’re raised with the maxim of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” and while that’s true in cases of bullying (on the part of the bully, not the victim), it is not true in the case of actual grievances. Even- even if the person who committed the offence did not do so deliberately. Hurt feelings cannot be ignored until they do away, because they don’t go away. They fester. They make people feel unsafe and unhappy in a space that should be theirs’, and eventually they either drive these people away or result in an eruption of grievances, which is pretty much what’s happened here.

Furthermore, “hate” in this context is incredibly mild. Someone saying “hey, I don’t like what you’re doing” is not hate. Someone being ignored when they do that and repeating themselves more loudly is also not hate. Rachel Kiley has been made aware of the impact of her behaviour, guys. She knows people have been made uncomfortable. She’s still doing it. If people being polite aren’t getting through to her (to say nothing of Ashley Clements and MK Wiles) then maybe people being upfront about their anger will. Given the wishy-washy “sorry you’re offended” apology she put up this morning, I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean that those who’ve been hurt don’t have the right to express their feelings.

  1. rellyjean reblogged this from ladysaviours
  2. queenofattolia said: Oh good lord I missed more drama, didn’t I? Ugh. I have no idea what’s going on, but I agree with this post.
  3. ladysaviours posted this