The man Musk fired; Room 250; using gay/pronouns as an insult/threat/etc.

[Ms. Toad]

From the guy Elon Musk fired, ridiculed for his disability, then rehired: Room 250

At Ueno we have people of many different races. We joke around all day and sometimes those jokes can go too far. Let’s imagine that someone says something offhand about someone’s race that they think isn’t a big deal.

That comment on its own might not be big. But in the context of the person who receives that comment it can be huge. For them it’s another drop in a steady stream.

It can remind them of the time they were teased for their race. It can remind them of the centuries of oppression their people have suffered. It can remind them of all the things they missed out on, even the ones they self-selected out of for fear of a poor interaction.

So, that small comment can crush them. They have trained themselves to be always on alert and now, when they let their guard down for a second it comes as a gut punch.

https://loremipsum.ueno.co/room-250-6e06cedf2e42

It's a good read. But it also crystalizes why small transgressions in what ought to be a welcoming space are so damaging - and why I fairly regularly comment on those "small transgressions" - when someone uses gay as an insult/threat (e.g. to get Republicans to vaccinate by making them think that COVID will make them gay) or uses "it" as a pronoun to insult someone, or uses "transgendered" (a term which is insulting because it suggests being transgender is something which happened to someone, rather than who someone is). And the times you don't see my comment because I self-censored - when I looked at the username of the person who made the comment, and recalled the patronizing and insulting backlash the last time - insisting that I just misunderstood, it was all a joke, or I was looking for a fight, or dragging down the Democrats by making "woke" too easy to make fun of. And I didn't have the bandwith to both ask the user to take their foot off my neck - or the neck of a friend - AND deal with the inevitable tirade of rationalizations and ridicule.

To use a different analogy - living in this world these days as someone who is LGBTQI+ is like your whole self is an open wound. The attacks are never-ending and often come from both friend and foe alike. You wrap yourself up as much as you can to protect yourself when you venture out - but it still hurts all the time. And the keeping up that protective bandaging is exhausing - I need spaces where I don't have to constantly watch for the next next thing. And - when I let my guard down, especially in one of those spaces, even what seem like small things come across as gut punches.

Even more, since I'm a pretty tough old bird and I've got a lot more callouses than many, I want DU to be a place where my trans friends don't have to be constantly on guard for fear they will have to fight the same battles in here that they have to fight in the real world.

And DU just isn't that kind of space. For the last week, there has been at least one drop or dumpster fire every day. If it doesn't impact you, or those you love, like the folks who had a blast in Room 250, you probably don't even notice it. Sometimes the threads that turn into dumpstire fires that threaten to consume my friends are predictable (anything on trans athletes, for example). But other times, they aren't - the blow just comes out of the blue, in what seemed like it ought to be a thread it was safe to venture into, sometimes even in a forum which was literally designed as a safe haven.

Take a read. The man Musk fired because (according to Musk) he was using his handicap as an excuse to do nothing is pretty remarkable. Think about modeling his behavior

We all work at places that have different people with different backgrounds and different stories. Some of their stories will be about how their gender or their identity was used against them. Some of them will be about how the colour of their skin has been systematically used to push them down all their lives.

Their stories will most likely include a mix of a few deep cuts and hundreds or thousands of paper cuts. Big and small interactions every day that constantly remind them of the limitations the world has created for them.

When we are on the other side of someone else’s experience it is our duty to understand that when they speak up about something that to us might in isolation not seem that big, they are coming from a place we will never fully understand. They are often coming from a place where that incident is just one in a long line of injustices.

When they do speak up our first job is to listen. Our second job is to applaud them for speaking up so we can create a culture where people know they will be heard and supported. Where all voices are included and welcomed.

https://loremipsum.ueno.co/room-250-6e06cedf2e42

[crickets]

1. Thank you for the reminder to be kind, Ms. Toad.

There was much food for thought at the link about lessons in empathy, both large and small.

[Ms. Toad]

2. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I just followed a link from a very long twitter thread to his thread, which had a link to the essay.

I hadn't really expected to find such a thoughtful and insightful person as a result of diving into a Musk twitter fight.