Still so good at the not addressing.
Jul. 29th, 2011 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinThe response that Jack and I received has been overwhelming in the best senses of the world. Whether it's people who trust and believe our accounts on principle, or because they have the ring of truth, or because... horrifyingly... they match up with their own experiences in dealing with kynn/Caoimhe, we have the feeling that we're being believed and that's what matters.
There has been so little doubt directed at us, and that's great. And now that Livejournal is back among the land of the living it's being discussed more, and that's also great.
But I think that maybe in the absence of any real backlash at us... or any further identifiable activity from Caoimhe herself to go after... people who mean nothing but the best might be scrutinizing some of the earliest posts on this topic made by others to find something to strike out against.
This is a hard topic to talk about. It's a hard situation to be in. Obviously not as hard for anyone as it is for Jack, but that doesn't mean Caoimhe's friends and the people who've made the decision to trust her in the past aren't in a bad place now.
We've been there! We've come through that. The first time they talked about this in private--a conversation that seems to have left Caoimhe with the impression that things were dealt with and cool and nothing further was needed--Jack told her, "You did a horrible thing, you're not a horrible person."
And though I haven't asked him that in so many words in the past few days, I wouldn't be surprised if he still believes it.
(Nobody ask me in so many words what I believe on that score. She threw that back at him in the rest of the email exchange, like it was her get-out-of-consequences-and-responsibility-free card.)
Both of us have had weeks to come around in our heads and deal with the dissonance between what we've wanted to believe of Caoimhe and what she's done, and we're still dealing with that.
Call-outs need to happen in any community. That's part of what this is about. But calling out can go from a way of effecting change and policing problematic behavior to a way of keeping score. Please, let's not let things tend that way. Please let her friends, former or otherwise, have their own time and space to deal with what we've said.
Talk about better ways to do things, if you think you see them... but let's not talk about wrong ways to do it. Because then we end up with people sitting on the sidelines, not saying anything because they're afraid that they'll be seen as not going far enough or not saying the right things, and honestly that sort of environment is where someone like Caoimhe can flourish. Where she has flourished.
I'm not for anything trying to end or weaken call-out culture. But if someone is offering us support or fostering discussion, we'll take it in the spirit it's meant whether they're speaking towards Jack's healing or Caoimhe's actions or both.
The sad fact of the matter is that Caoimhe has lived her life in such a way that no one person will ever really need to take charge in being the one to step up to the plate and say bad things about her. If calling her out more strongly is too painful for someone who wants to discuss the situation in their own space or offer help, or they think it's too legally risky, or they just don't see it as a helpful step to do, I hope we can all respect that.
There has been so little doubt directed at us, and that's great. And now that Livejournal is back among the land of the living it's being discussed more, and that's also great.
But I think that maybe in the absence of any real backlash at us... or any further identifiable activity from Caoimhe herself to go after... people who mean nothing but the best might be scrutinizing some of the earliest posts on this topic made by others to find something to strike out against.
This is a hard topic to talk about. It's a hard situation to be in. Obviously not as hard for anyone as it is for Jack, but that doesn't mean Caoimhe's friends and the people who've made the decision to trust her in the past aren't in a bad place now.
We've been there! We've come through that. The first time they talked about this in private--a conversation that seems to have left Caoimhe with the impression that things were dealt with and cool and nothing further was needed--Jack told her, "You did a horrible thing, you're not a horrible person."
And though I haven't asked him that in so many words in the past few days, I wouldn't be surprised if he still believes it.
(Nobody ask me in so many words what I believe on that score. She threw that back at him in the rest of the email exchange, like it was her get-out-of-consequences-and-responsibility-free card.)
Both of us have had weeks to come around in our heads and deal with the dissonance between what we've wanted to believe of Caoimhe and what she's done, and we're still dealing with that.
Call-outs need to happen in any community. That's part of what this is about. But calling out can go from a way of effecting change and policing problematic behavior to a way of keeping score. Please, let's not let things tend that way. Please let her friends, former or otherwise, have their own time and space to deal with what we've said.
Talk about better ways to do things, if you think you see them... but let's not talk about wrong ways to do it. Because then we end up with people sitting on the sidelines, not saying anything because they're afraid that they'll be seen as not going far enough or not saying the right things, and honestly that sort of environment is where someone like Caoimhe can flourish. Where she has flourished.
I'm not for anything trying to end or weaken call-out culture. But if someone is offering us support or fostering discussion, we'll take it in the spirit it's meant whether they're speaking towards Jack's healing or Caoimhe's actions or both.
The sad fact of the matter is that Caoimhe has lived her life in such a way that no one person will ever really need to take charge in being the one to step up to the plate and say bad things about her. If calling her out more strongly is too painful for someone who wants to discuss the situation in their own space or offer help, or they think it's too legally risky, or they just don't see it as a helpful step to do, I hope we can all respect that.
Unscreenable
on 2011-07-30 03:07 pm (UTC)