“ ((Insert political position that makes you piss your pants)) only care about ((insert problem / the issues of)) middle-class, white, straight, able-bodied, cis-gender, cis-sexual, cis-species, cis-corporeal, vanilla-privileged, non-otherkin people.” – Widespread poisoning the well tactic.
Dear morons who are quite in love with this cowardly tactic,
As a working-class, non-straight, disabled person I’m fucking sick and tired of middle-class/upper-class, straight, able-bodied, white people like you appropriating my outrage.
Seven things I want you to remember:
ONE. I can appreciate and learn from the essays, presentations and videos people create and distribute. They don’t have to address every single one of my problems for me to find them interesting / instructive / informative / worthwhile. Because whether I like it or not, not everything has to be ABOUT ME. Shocking, I know.
TWO. I would greatly appreciate if people didn’t bite off more than they can chew for the sake of “inclusiveness”. If you know nothing about my reality, don’t write from “my” perspective. Your ignorance (and more often than not, condescension) will show. Stick to the terrain you’re familiar with. I can offer additional information / correct you.
THREE. Liberals: no, radical analysis isn’t always perfect, but I’ll take it over your BULLSHIT any day. Thank you.
FOUR. And another thing. Liberals: I have no interest of being “included” or “represented” in your self-indulgent, absolutely non-threatening, status-quo-worshipping garbage. I’d prefer if you didn’t attempt to “address my concerns”. So you can stop pretending to care. Thank you.
FIVE. I don’t need any political group’s offer of “leadership”. For fuck’s sake, I’m not that fucking self-aggrandizing and narcissistic*. Besides, I’m an anarchist. I can’t take activist groups that have “leadership” positions seriously. Authoritarian tools will never dismantle authoritarian institutions. People who use said tools aren’t on my side, no matter how vocally they proclaim otherwise. If an activist group offered me a “leadership” position, I’d decline. It’s called “being consistent with one’s own views” and “practicing what one preaches”. I recommend both.
SIX. You don’t speak for me. Stop appropriating my voice.
SEVEN. Just because you and I share a condition (socioeconomic status, disability, etc.) doesn’t mean we’re friends, or that I share any of your positions. You don’t represent me. NOBODY REPRESENTS ME BUT ME.
There. Is there something about this that is hard to understand?
Important note: If I hear how evil, racist, imperialist, colonialist, classist, ableist, homophobic, lesbophobic, “essentialist” radical feminists are one more time, I’ll knock someone’s teeth off with a brick. And the next fuckhead who lectures me about how bourgeois and Eurocentric anarchism is will receive an elbow in the face, without shipping charges.
Note to racists: So, you say you genuinely care about the poor oppressed non-whites not being properly represented or “addressed” by Whitey? People of color see through your bullshit. A lot of them are also tired of being used as ammunition or shields in Internet pissing contests between fuckwads who don’t consider them human.
* If you only want something to do with certain groups if they give you leadership, cookies and a Special Oppressed Snowflake Card™, you are just one step above sub-human, regardless of how many marginalized groups you (claim to) belong to. There, I said it. Because it’s legal to disagree with you in the Internet.
