Edit: I didn’t actually think I’d need to put this here but unfortunately I think those kinds of people are here
Bigots are not welcome on my post and they are certainly not welcome on my post to co-opt it to spread bigotry
I am progressive myself and support human rights and LGBTQ+ people
A frequent frustration is recursive guilt-by-association.
“Yeah so okay we do align on everything however you refuse to denounce your friend who didn’t really do anything but he is a fan of a controversial figure who also didn’t really say or do much but they are friends with a bad person so… Get lost?”
Another is translation based on the assumption that one’s assumptions are universal.
“You said you think Terry Davis was a technical genius for his OS. Honestly his work is nothing compared to a modern OS. I think so so therefore you must think so, and so you must mean something else. What you are really praising is his extremist christianity.”
Purity testing.
If you don’t align with the party narrative 100%, down to the atom, then you’re basically maga.
I don’t think people realize this is a major factor that drives people away from progressive politics.
When a conservative meets someone more conservative, they bitch about liberals. When a leftist meets someone more left than them they compete with each other to see who’s most “pure.”
This is a major problem.
And if you point this out to progressive people as to nobody likes them and how offputting/alienating they are. You are clearly MAGA or voted for Trump. Clearly if only you were ‘enlightened’ like them you’d 100% agree with them and have no separate ideas, opinions, or life experience of your own.
In American leftism there is a definite divide between black and white.
For example second wave feminism is often thought of as Women seeking entry into the workplace, but at the same time black feminists were trying to leave the workforce and take care of their own kids.
The labor movement has an explicitly racist history. A fact that Capitalists often took advantage of by leveraging black scabs who were often ineligible for union membership. Eugne Debs identified this as a problem with the socialist movement.
I’m not saying that racism is common among today’s lefties, just that white lefties are often ignorant of black American life and especially black radical thought and activism.
If you are vexed by Bernie Sanders’ struggle with black voters, you’re probably not very familiar with this history.
The question then becomes, how exactly is a white leftist supposed to appeal to them in situations like voting
I put a poster up for a women/trans/non-binary inclusive group in an anarchist cafe, with their approval, only to get a literal essay from the cafe the next day about the miss-use of a word pertaining to our trans inclusivity. I can’t recall what the “right” word was supposed to be, and the poster’s verbiage was already researched/reviewed by trans people in the group. Due diligence was done.
Queue people leaving the group because we didn’t feel it was necessary to print new posters. They felt we should be less hostile to “people taking the time to educate.” Yeah, I made a few comments.
But you know what? I much prefer that to the kind of shit I had to deal with in conservative spaces. I worked on a couple political campaigns, had back room discussions where people don’t “educate” when you’re not one of them, they insult and back-stab you.
I can at least see the essay as an attempt to share knowledge, to include rather than exclude, even if it was from a place of self-importance and ignorance.
The friction I see in progressive spaces is usually about making things more equitable. It can be poorly thought out, but no one’s perfect. I prefer flawed inclusivity to hostile exclusivity.
Yes, I have a friend who is extremely progressive but is still very much a slut shamer. She really looks down with disgust on women who like sex or have more boyfriends than she deems acceptable.
She also shows bigotry against other groups of people. Although she would never in a million years look down on someone because of their skin colour, she absolutely takes on a tribalistic Us vs Them mentality for other reasons. An example is the war in Ukraine started by Russia. Did Russia start it? Yes. Is Putin evil? Yes. Are there many Russians who support this war? Yes. BUT… not every Russian person in the world is inherently evil, not all of them want this, many are victims trapped in a system that will literally throw them out the god damned window if they dissent. And my friend absolutely fucking hates Russians. All of them. No empathy about the nightmare situation so many of them are stuck in. It has gotten so bad that she has literally started to hate her chickens that are a Russian breed. She has started assigning negative human traits to them and is insisting that they are negative and bad because they are Russian chickens. It’s honestly getting ridiculous.
Yes, I have a friend who is extremely progressive but is still very much a slut shamer. She really looks down with disgust on women who like sex or have more boyfriends than she deems acceptable.
I had forgotten about this kind of problem and I absolutely hate it
It reminds me of progressive people who want to ban anything lewd or sexual because it’s a “problem”
Or shaming women and LGBTQ+ people for liking sexual or lewd things and claiming it harms them, have these people even browsed the internet because there’s a whole culture of women and LGBTQ+ people liking lewd and sexual stuff and even creating it
I’ve even seen some progressive people shame LGBTQ+ and female creators of lewd and sexual content because it’s “harmful”
It’s not just men who like and create lewd and sexual stuff
politics and personal behavior are two different things.
unless she thinks the government should shame/ban/whatever people’s sexual habits, then it’s political.
So it’s only discriminatory if it’s being perpetrated by the government?
you discriminate every goddamn day. what people say, how they look, what they wear. that’s fine.
it’s not fine for governments to do that unless you are a fan of totalatarianism.
So it depends how you define progressive.
As a PoC I have certainly witnessed racism from white, black and Hispanic liberals. At its worst the democratic party can feel like a clubhouse for non regressive white people and the largest minority groups in the country. No one else really has a seat at the table. Is that really progressive?
I’ve moved on to assessing peoples worldview as either inclusionary or exclusionary. Unfortunately most people, left or right, have an exclusionary world view.
Exclusionary here means a failure to acknowledge the universal sanctity of human dignity. Nearly everyone is focused on themselves or their group exclusively. Some in ways that are more harmful than others.
Can’t agree with you enough.
What kills me about the DEI stuff… is it’s only considered ‘inclusive’ of atheist liberal colleges educated types… for some reason their ‘diversity’ always excludes economic, age, and religious diversity.
“Progressive” describes a position, not a person. A person can be many things. A person can hold contradictory viewpoints, and fully believe two incompatible thoughts at the same time. It’s tragically naive to assume that people are rational or consistent.
Can a person think they are progressive and also be a bigot? Of course a person can. Everybody is the hero in their own story.
Just head on over to the FuckCars community. Tons of ableism in there to witness.
Yeah, that’s generally the issue with a ‘Fuck<whatever>’ mentality.
Not “YayTransit” or something, but just relentless bemoaning cars and all who dare to use them. Such a community approach may serve the circle-jerk of those in agreement, but doesn’t really do anything to change the status quo closer to what they want.
Walkable stuff is nice, as is transit as it works so I’m on board for improvements to make that more feasible, but it’s kind of off putting the way they counduct themselves a good amount of the time.
I got banned from there for calling out their bullshit.
sure I was an asshole, but those people are so far up their own asses I didn’t think they’d notice.
I’ve disagreed with the whole fuck cars movement because it introduces more problems that are absolutely not worth having and they are ignorant of a lot of things
I’m also introverted and autistic and I like having my alone space when I need it, I don’t hate interacting with people but I only like interacting with people when I feel like it
Cars allow for that alone time where I can he alone when I want to and getting rid of cars and having to be forced to ride public transport would make that worser
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If you see a polite obviously rural person who has not said anything remotely questionable, a common comment is “but you probably wouldn’t want to know their political opinion” or “you probably don’t want their take on minorities or women”. To be folksy is to guarantee progressives brand them as right wing racist sexist bigots.
And to be fair it’s often true, but I try my best to judge people by their behavior not by stereotypes.
most rural people i’ve met the past decade where moderate or progressive. they just tend to be more libertarian than city folk are comfortable with, because they are not used to government services being ubiquitous. and they understand that they won’t get shit from the government the way city people take for granted.
Good examples from others but I also want to bring up microaggressions. Basically, small things that add up, like a white woman gripping her bag tightly when a black man enters an elevator, or a white man crossing the street because a Latino guy is approaching who looks a little “gangy.” Usually they aren’t that progressive (e.g. they support diversity but critical race theory is a bridge too far).
That said, prejudice is something we all have and is part of human nature. It protects us historically from things like snakes and spiders who may not be venomous but on the off chance they are, better safe than sorry. Prejudice leads to stereotypes, stereotypes lead to discrimination. Conscious effort is needed to overcome that, and progressives do that better than not but no one is fully immune to your natural instincts.
I have a lot of first hand experience with it via dating. In terms of outward Appearance and how I present I am an average looking straight cis white male. Mentally, in addition to being on the spectrum, that’s not really how I identify or am wired though. If anything, I’m probably more lesbian based on who I seem to get along with and am attracted to, lol.
As I am sure we are all (hopefully) aware there are a lot of men with very problematic behaviors (which is an entire other complex topic). As a result, within the liberal sphere I exist in it is very socially acceptable to shit on or otherwise have a negative bias against people that present like I do in a way that would not be acceptable if it were against another social group because of what they are.
I have had a number of interactions and conversations where my point of view/input/feelings/etc. were more or less dismissed or ignored by women when if I were a woman saying the exact same thing it wouldn’t be. I have also had people flat out say “that’s a very man thing to say” as a when what I am saying conflicts with their world view or how they feel and they can’t engage with it logically anymore.
Please note, I am leaving a ton of intricate context out of the above to try and avoid having to write a novel. I understand why women have the bias/reaction towards men who present like I do, and why it’s necessary. In the examples I am thinking of, these are women who know me, not strangers or randos. When discussing things I do my absolute best to have conversations in good faith and on the merits/logic of what is being said.
I don’t like pulling the autism card or saying that’s just how I feel, but I find that people are so unused to interacting with someone like me, rather than engage in the nuance of my experience and how it very much contradicts their world view, it’s much easier for them to find a reason to be dismissive of it. I also realize that from a third party perspective without any context my autistic behavior is indistinguishable from gas lighting.
Yeah, tribalism will always be a scourge on mankind
don’t even get me started on how homophobic most ‘progressive’ women are. I’m straight and cis and white… but holy shit the disgusting things I’ve heard so called ‘liberal feminist’ women say about bi/gay men is vomit-inducing. but as for lesbians or trans women… they are perfect angels. trans men however, are traitors to their divine femininity or something.
they also love nothing more than to cry about how gender roles oppress them, but they cling to these 1950s expectations of men. i do not understand the obsession with 1950s gender roles so many women have. we’re basically supposed to be unfeeling ATMs that make them feel ‘protected’ from the ‘dangers’ of the world… by which they mean minorities and poor people.
I refrained from talking about the gender role thing because per the post title it didn’t seem like a prejudice perse, even if related. It’s also a topic I always try and preface with stating that although the symptoms might be fairly plane and apparent the cause is very complex and nuanced and a result of a lot of different societal pressures and influences. Partially because it is very easy to paint someone talking about it as a red pill misogynist if that nuance is ignored. I also try and point out that this ultimately isn’t a gender issue or any other tribalism type thing, but merely a result of human nature. People are shitty sometimes. That’s universal.
In my experience, there are a lot of women that are very vocal about equity and equality, especially in relationships. However it’s often fairly unidirectional. For example they want their partner to be able to do things like cook, laundry, dishes, etc (which I can do, I think that’s part of being a well rounded person), but they don’t have much interest in learning how to do the traditionally male coded household tasks. Or they don’t want to be the one to approach and ask me out, I always have to be the one to pursue. Similarly in the bedroom I have never met a woman who is dominant or willing to try, despite the fact that I am very switchy.
In talking to these people and pointing out how their personal desires and behavior don’t align with their actual decisions and behavior they often default to, that’s just my personal preference.
That’s nice, but who cares? It’s not fair to have it both ways and ultimately feels like another form of pulling the ladder up behind them.
I don’t think it’s that nuanced or complex. They are just hypocritical assholes, but for some reason people refuse to think women or any minority can be a hypocritical assholes. They can. they are just like men in that regard… nobody seems to have an issue with calling out men as being assholes for having hypocritical expectations of women.
Rules apply to everyone else, but themselves. And yes, very much the types who agree with ladder pulling and thinking wealth/education/freedom should only be for the ‘upper classes’ of which they consider themselves to be a part of, and they want nothing to do with the ‘unwashed masses’ who don’t feign enlightenment like they do.
I’ve seen liberal POCs say racist shit about White people more times than I can count.
I would also say that the idea of changing the definition of racism to mean that you cannot be racist toward a white person is also inherently racist. You could say, “person X is oppressed by people Y, so I understand why they are racist” but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t racist, or that it’s okay.
Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that line plenty of times. I agree, it’s just a convoluted argument to mask anti-White racism. Funnily enough, I’ve seen plenty of White people say it. Sad.
I’m Asian. If I do anything well in life it’s because of privilege not because I worked 2 jobs while attending community college schooling and doing nothing else for myself other than to be at a better place. My effort feels completely and utterly dismissed by some of these people. They refuse to acknowledge my effort at all and instead they keep trying to dig deeper to find reasons why I’m “privileged”.
Older ones. Less physically discriminatory, more using slurs or making judgemental comments. They’re ok with gay people, but you can’t be flamboyant or having more options on trans people than they really need to. They haven’t made trans comments in a while, but I think that has more to do with not wanting to be on the wrong “team”. He’s is a big South Park fan, so that’s probably where it came from.
