Twitter used to be this awesome community where you could asynchronously follow people, participate in conversations and find awesome people. And it’s still is that for some people.
But unfortunately, for a lot of my friends, it is also, or even entirely, a venue for abuse. When it comes to protecting users from abuse, Twitter’s actions or lack thereof has proven just shy of Facebook levels of fucked up.
I have the good fortune to still mostly enjoy Twitter as a social, activist and networking venue. As I get busier, I find myself more and more intolerant when it comes to people showing up and doing things that annoy me.
Maybe it’s an age thing, but in real life, and online, I have become quite intolerant of people who don’t fundamentally support social justice AND understand privilege on at least a basic level. I don’t spend time debating over things like whether I should be allowed to marry my wife, or whether sexism really exists. If you’re shaky on those things, then you probably shouldn’t follow me.
This post was spurred by the following interaction, which happened earlier today. I post it here as a good example of what NOT to do.
http://storify.com/kronda/conversation-with-alliebland-codefancier-and-krond
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“What to Know If You Follow Me On Twitter” – http://t.co/KVN6R6gtmH
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I learned and laughed reading this. Thank you, that’s the greatest gift.
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Kronda, it would be great if you would remove my name from your blog.
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Dear Jason,
Thanks for writing in–on the day of the removal of the confederate flag no less–to share your request. Sorry it’s take a while to reply, but I’ve been really busy living my regular life and haven’t had much time for my seemingly inesacaple second job of educating white people about racism.
Sometimes people I know casually, write me or comment here that they’ve learned something valuable from reading things I share online.
I see that is not the case for you. But you’ve still been helpful because you’ve demonstrated so well why essays like the one John Metta wrote recently are still so necessary. I think this quote is especially relevant:
I gave your request careful consideration and came to the following conclusion: I’ll take your name off this post when you start caring more about Black lives than your hurt feelings. Deal?
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To be clear, you assume very much based on a short and conversation on FB, and my request to have my name removed from you public record. My respectfully asking for you to remove my name had nothing to with feelings or anything about flags or whatever you’re speaking of. I actually don’t mind that our conversation came up on your blog, but since you didn’t post it in its entirety or allow for real conversation or debate I kindly asked for my name to be removed. It comes up on a Google search, and as a design professional who works freelance from time to time you calling me a racist on the web doesn’t really help my career. I consider it defamation and libel. It very much has do to with my online presence and future business, and my family’s livelihood. As I said many months ago, our original conversation was an open dialog for two people to understand each other better via a medium that doesn’t allow for all the nuances of nonverbal communication. I still would have any conversation you would want to have, because I don’t understand the anger you have, and the way you took it out on someone who did nothing but try to initiate and educated conversation with a former school friend. I had no motive, but to discuss, and have an open dialog. Unfortunately that’s not what happened. Again, to be perfectly clear, I consider the use of my name in your public forum about racists to be defamation and libel and it has potential to effect future business. I ask that you remove my name from your public forum. Thanks for your understanding.
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https://twitter.com/kronda/status/546727506850496512
Maybe try #3 Also #4. I respond really well to both.
Related:
http://twitter.com/kronda/status/660279226826788865/photo/1
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Also just to clear up the record: I’m not tired of white people so much as I’m tired of being around ONLY white people 95% of the time, as I am in Portland. But I love Portland so I deal. But it still sucks. That’s reality.
I need to get out more.