Oppression

Hi everyone. Today’s Sunday Poser is an intriguing one. Sadje asks whether I’m the one who will speak up when I see a wrong being done or whether I’ll keep quiet. I’m going to interpret this more broadly and share how I tend to react to injustice in the world in general.

And the truth is, shameful as it is, I no longer speak up. This didn’t use to be the case. When I first started out blogging on WordPress in 2007 and especially between 2009 and 2011, I frequently wrote about injustices to groups I didn’t even belong to, like trans people. Now though, I struggle to speak up and I’m not even certain this is out of fear of speaking over marginalized groups. Well, that is, I’m quite certain that it isn’t that. It’s fear of being targeted myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I still speak out in real life against injustices being done to other people, especially those I love.

I struggle with this when it’s microaggressions like “jokes” and I actually regularly catch myself making hurtful comments towards people in minority groups I’m not part of.

This is, actually, more problematic than it might seem. I mean, I could say I’m not trans, not an immigrant, not [insert the latest scapegoat of fascism], but in reality everyone has privilege and almost everyone is marginalized in some way. Besides, like my best friend recently said, fascism’s goal is to destroy society.

I am, however, often too scared of being the next target to speak out openly. This is why I’m more gentle than I’d wish I were when pointing out transphobic or racist or otherwise oppressive comments in real life and especially why I’m no longer as vocal as I used to be on my blog. The world just isn’t as safe anymore.

This does also mean I can no longer be fully myself online. It’s just too easy to track me (and my loved ones) down from my blog. It was even easier back in the early days of my being on the Internet, when I’d almost always use my full name everywhere. However, either I was the lucky one back then for not having been attacked in real life, or the world’s become a harsher place. Probably a little of both.