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   Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:26 JST Sam

   I learned this year that "being nice" is one of the oppressor's most important tools in modern society.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:32 JST Sam

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     (2/6)In the old days, might made right. If you were an oppressed person, you still had to be 'nice' to your social betters, but they were under no such obligation. They could mostly harass and assault you in any way they pleased without fear of repercussions.

     But, as hard as it can be to believe sometimes, society has evolved. Society demands that we appear to be civilized—that we be nice, polite, friendly, etc. We have come to like a certain amount of stability in our societies, and we have learned that open displays of aggression lead to an awful lot of fighting and revenge and war, things which disrupt the peace of social stability.

     So society demands that even powerful people, even oppressors, maintain the appearance of being nice. (In the case of police and military, to at least not look like blood-thirsty maniacs.) No more Old Testament badassery—that'll get you shunned from your community; we're supposed to be New Testament, love and peace, above wanton violence and barbarism.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:39 JST Sam

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     (3/6) Something about Ron DeSantis' comments on the August 27th shooting in Florida placed a splinter in my mind. DeSantis is the current governor of the state of Florida, and has recently been criticized throughout the country, even by other Republican party members, for endorsing reforms to Florida's education system. Some of these reforms include a mandate that teachers instruct students that slavery was beneficial to enslaved African Americans.

     A racist Republican who hates Black people. Okay.

     But then, just a few days ago, in Florida, a racist with a gun covered in drawings of swastikas murdered three Black people in cold blood. And Ron DeSantis called him a scumbag.

     DeSantis is both a great and terrible example of what I'm talking about. Terrible, because nobody actually believes he gives a damn about Black people. Great, because even someone as callously anti-Black as DeSantis is using niceness (and this tragedy) as a shield for his barbarism at the policy level.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:44 JST Sam

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     (4/6) And that means you can't get /angry/ at someone like DeSantis. Because angry people are not nice. Nice is good. Angry is bad. Angry people disturb the peace. Nice people maintain the peace.

     Maintain the peace even as unarmed Black bodies fall to racist violence, year after year after year. Maintain the peace as transgender people fear that if they step outside of their homes as their authentic selves in the morning that they might not come back home that night. Maintain peace as immigrants along our borders are cut and killed by razor discs hiding in the water.

     Anger is terribly misunderstood. The anger of the oppressor is the anger of power-lust and domination. It is an anger of destruction.

     The anger of the oppressed serves a very important purpose—change. It is the anger of life. Of self-preservation.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:51 JST Sam

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     (5/6) But society at large does not care about the nuances contained in the struggles of groups it is not directly connected to. Society is peace-loving at the expense of being justice-loving, and is content to let all the wickedness in the hearts of powerful people play with the powerless like toys as long as neither of them makes too much noise.

     Society at large sees no difference between the anger of the abused and the anger of the abuser. The end result of anger is the same, that being the disruption of peace. That is the only problem.

     As long as the abused receives the abuse humbly and politely, there is no problem. As long as the abuser metes out the abuse with a necktie and a smile, there is no problem.

     But if the abused does complain? They are a problem. If they get angry? They're a trouble maker. If they speak up for themselves? They're 'difficult'. If they demand change? They're ingrates.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:29:59 JST Sam

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     (6/6) Yes, human society has (for the most part) evolved past barbarism. But we fool ourselves to think that this farcical peace is the best way that things can be. We have evolved to love peace for some, and justice for even fewer.

     I say fuck being nice. I say fuck being agreeable. I say fuck being quiet.

     Not when there's a noose around my people's necks.

     Yes—being complacent will make people like you more. Yes, it's safer. But it's getting angry that brings change. It's getting angry that gets people joining forces. It's anger that pushes the mountainous status quo forward.

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     run_atalanta 😷💯 (run_atalanta@pgh.social)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 20:30:07 JST run_atalanta 😷💯

     in reply to

     @samuteki Sadly, the oppressors know that fear and anger unifies groups, and they've been using it to their advantage all along. Too many have been raised to never raise complaints to preserve their safety.

     But bullies fear lack of fear in their victims more than anything. That's why so many are straight up murdered by their partner when they try to start voicing opposition.

     Sad white menz are so completely afraid of losing any sense of control, they'll drive to a (place) and start shooting.

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     Sam (samuteki@ohay.ooo)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 21:50:32 JST Sam

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     • Andrew

     @Shivviness #AltText : Excerpt from King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

     “I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

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     Andrew (shivviness@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 21:50:34 JST Andrew

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     @samuteki That reminds me of Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail.
     This, exceedingly thin, veneer of "niceness" that is expected from those at the bottom of the pile, and which the middle class liberals insist upon, hides a deeper malaise, a societal ugliness even, that ensures the oppressed stay in their place

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     hko 😷🪁 (hko@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Aug-2023 21:51:54 JST hko 😷🪁

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     @samuteki As a person who is (still) excited by Rage against the Machine, the line "(your) anger is a gift" (in their song "Freedom") has always given me the tingles.

     Your thread is so much, including, I think, a brilliantly phrased elaboration of this point:

     The anger of the oppressed is crucial for facing, and - hopefully - overcoming injustice (even if it might, in some cases, not be safe to express that anger publicly).