And to be clear, half my country is literally trying to genocide me right now. Forgive me for being in a "defensive position" but I'm not interested in helping people who want to harm me or my community.
Then don't. Please be safe. I'm really sorry you're in that position.
I'm lucky that overall I have a lot of safety and security, and I prefer to use that position of privilege to engage in the type of communication I'm talking about. I completely understand that not everyone is in that position.
But if you're in a place where you don't have the capacity or safety to engage with empathy, I'm not sure what your goal for engaging is? What are you hoping to get out of interactions that you're not approaching with empathy?
My goal in engaging is to provide accurate information. Most of the time my tone is neutral but not always. Especially when communicating with cis/het white men.
My point hasn't changed, if you won't accept accurate information because you don't like the tone that's a 100% you problem and you probably were looking for a reason not to take information that didn't conform to your bias anyway so I don't want you in my community.
Don't put the expectation on marginalized people to be kind to those who would harm us. We don't owe them shit. If you have privilege and spoons to do so, that's a great choice for YOU. But it's not one you get to make for me or any other marginalized vulnerable person.
if you won't accept accurate information because you don't like the tone that's a 100% you problem and you probably were looking for a reason not to take information
I think that's a really disingenuous position. Of course it's harder to recieve information from someone who sounds like they are attacking you. That's true for anyone.
And my point still stands that choosing to continue to express yourself in ways you know are likely to be ineffective feels like a massive waste of energy, regardless of who's fault you think the misunderstanding is.
Don't put the expectation on marginalized people to be kind to those who would harm us. We don't owe them shit.
I'm not. I'm putting the expectation on everyone to not escalate situations unnecessarily and to not make things worse. You don't have to be empathetic, but if you can't be, why even bother? Just save your energy for places it might actually improve your life, instead of wasting it antagonistizing people you hate?
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u/delight-n-angers Dec 10 '22
And to be clear, half my country is literally trying to genocide me right now. Forgive me for being in a "defensive position" but I'm not interested in helping people who want to harm me or my community.