Notices by carl marks (tillshadeisgone@blackqueer.life), page 5

@takane @tomstearns wow. Like fucking clockwork, the same arguments and excuses and everything

So I want to provide some elaboration on this fediblock post I made: https://blackqueer.life/@tillshadeisgone/113891510610086508

I want to remind you all of selection from of my pinned post on conflict with comrades, which I believe is relevant here.

So, I have been rethinking how I interact with this space going forward to better protect myself but also to have a more robust and intentional framework for how to engage with conflicts. I've been learning about how revolutionaries in the past have handled conflict with each other while maintaining unity in their movement. Many of these practices existed within local orgs and communities, and therefore are not necessarily applicable or appropriate for a digital and public space like this. However, I think some lessons can still be taken. So, in light of that, HERE IS MY PROPOSAL: If I am engaging with you and I believe that while we are aligned in our goals for liberation, you are inadvertently causing harm with your words, I may ask you to self-crit. This is not an attack, but is an invitation to reconsider what you are saying. This will also mean that I am available to you, privately or publicly, to explain my thinking and have a dialogue about our disagreement.

This policy is what I was drawing on when I engaged with the user I made a fediblock post about. As mentioned in my fediblock post, I chose to reach out privately to mention my concern and be able to explain my thinking in the hopes that I would be heard. This was a couple of days ago.

The thing is, just as I mentioned in said pinned post that antiblackess destroys unity, ableism destroys unity too. Black disabled folks have been saying for YEARS on this and every other digital platform that they feel excluded from just about every single community space, on the left or otherwise. This is not new information by any means.

Therefore, ESPECIALLY given that as our server's About section points out, 1 in 4 Black American adults are disabled, it is my responsibility as the admin of BQL to make sure that our space does not reproduce that same dynamic. If I want Black disabled people to feel like they can be in our community, I cannot allow ableism in our community. Full stop.

As I feel like I keep repeating, this is something I take very seriously. And sometimes, despite my best efforts, attempts to convince people that they are doing harm are not going to be successful. That is what happened in this case. The person did not listen to me or anyone else who tried to convince her, including Black disabled people who were impacted by her words. She continued, over the course of the past two or three days, to double down, saying that racism is a mental illness. Then, she started defending using the R slur and blaming disabled people for Trump being elected, explicitly referencing alleged decreases in average IQ scores.

When someone is repeatedly insistent on echoing eugenics ideology and Nazi talking points about intelligence, that is several steps past what is acceptable. To steal some language I got from communists, the contradiction between her deeply held beliefs and the presence and value of my disabled users was clearly antagonistic and not resolvable through dialogue.

Sometimes, you have to do the hard thing. It wasn't pleasant, but guess what? That's the job. Do you think it was pleasant for me to suspend instances like tech.lgbt or aus.social where we had a lot of connections, cutting our users off from theirs? To make public posts about it before and after? No, it was extremely stressful and upsetting and brought a lot more harassment my way. But I did it anyway. Wasn't the first time, won't be the last.

Oh, and it is worth mentioning that I have been accused of catering to the "white political gaze" by making my fediblock post, implying that I am doing so for the optics and because I care about getting accolades from white people more than I care about my fellow Black folks. It has been implied that this is all theater, and has no connection to any real beliefs on my part. To that, all I can say is that ableism is a bigger danger to Black folks than white people. White supremacy is inextricably tied to ableism, and I have referenced and boosted multiple works by Black disabled advocates and academics in the past two days who discuss that exact concept. In short, disability justice is not just for fucking white people.

To close, I just want to restate that at the end of the day, ableism is a violation of rule #1 on BQL. Anyone who doesn't agree with the existence of that rule or who doesn't like it when we enforce it is no comrade of mine.

Thanks for reading.

#FediBlockMeta

@superheroine took me about a week for the gay shit to find me on there. Loving it!

#Signal #Lifehack. When you register as new user, Signal asks you to provide "a" phone number where it can send a confirmation code to finalise the setup.

Know that it asks for "a" phone number that can receive messages. It doesn't have to be YOUR phone number. This is not a new feature, it has always been like that. I registered my Signal account using the phone number of a prepaid SIM in a cheap burner phone. I have never used that number since.

Ahoy friends. The artist directory is back! Different name to shift away from RFF but same community ethos, for and by artists with no compromise.

Listed Artists:
Contact @hello if you would like to be removed.

Over the coming weeks, keep an eye for that account to contact you requesting additional info or edits and to refresh your consent of this continuation of the public directory.

New Friends:
Follow the website guide to submit for addition to the directory.

https://indieart.support

1/

@jcrabapple @renwillis Baltimore is 100000% in the DMV

@tomstearns you are free to do as you like WRT Ericka. I just think everyone should be aware of what she has been saying.

As for the rest of your post, I will say two things.

1, your timeline of events is inaccurate. A couple of days ago, after she made the initial Fediblock post, I reached out by DM to politely let her know I thought she was inadvertently doing harm by her post and requested that she alter it. I tried very hard to explain that my issue was with the impact of her words rather than her intent. She made excuses, deflected, accused me of misogynoir, and generally refused to admit that it was even possible that she had made a mistake. I approached her very much in the spirit of "we have the same goals so I think this is worth a conversation bc I know I've fucked up in the past too and have been lucky enough to be called in by disabled comrades so that I could do better". She didn't care and started subtooting me immediately over the course of several days.

2, respectfully, a little discernment is required here because what you're describing and what she is doing are not the same thing. Her level of emotionality in responses I'm sure is being tempered by her emotional state and what she's going through, but the fact is she is regurgitating eugenics talking points and cussing out everyone who is trying to get her to stop, including Black disabled folks who are directly impacted by the ableism she is spewing. She is someone who is holding tight to her ableist beliefs and refuses to admit it or let them go. If you don't mind someone spouting eugenics or if you're so certain you could convince her eventually to reconsider, you are welcome to try. I failed pretty decisively but maybe you'd have more success.

But in the meantime she doesn't get to have access to my users to continue spouting off Nazi ideology in their faces, sorry. That's a hard no for me. I don't care who you are, ableism as flagrant as that is a clear violation of the rules of my server and is not something I am willing to just let slide because someone is upset or even in crisis. Even trauma is no excuse for defending eugenics, full stop. Me and others tried to explain it to her, in private and in public, over and over. She responded by using slurs. Please refer to our mod page's pinned post on our moderating policy if you still don't see why we are doing this.

@snoopy_jay I believe it was deleted, and I didn't archive it because I didn't anticipate needing to. All I have is a cached link summary:

Several authors like Naomi Klein analyze through an intersectional lens the five stages of fascism, which originated in American South (via KKK), first posited by Paxton here: https://ia803103.us.archive.org/28/items/paxtonfivestagesoffascism/Paxton%20Five%20Stages%20of%20Fascism.pdf

White Rage by Carol Anderson digs into the intersection of racism, sexism, fascism, and cisnormative white supremacy.

Racecraft by Karen and Barbara fields documents the construction of race in America.

An international lens: Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Wow, a prominent Anti-racist academic doubled down on using the word "retardation" and "IQ tests" to speak about fascists and white supremacists.

Does this person realize the history of IQ tests? They are built upon eugenics and racism (specifically AntiBlack ideology).

It's alarming when Leftists use low IQ and the r-slur to describe right-wing people. Low IQ or cognitive difficulties does not cause conservatism or fascism. Claiming this excuses fascists and what really caused their rise.

@akjcv fun fact, she was the person who convinced me to come here in the first place! My first account on the fedi was on disabled.social and everything

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2Nn9LR5/

This link is to an Imani Barbarin Tiktok where she talks about how important it is for us to divest from ableism in our minds to allow us to fight the system that uses ableism as a weapon against the people. She has so many other good videos that among other things go in depth to explain how ableism is rampant in both leftist and liberal spaces.

I don't know if she ever checks her account on fedi but she has an account on here at @ImaniBarbarin. I've learned a lot from her writing as well.

These days I think a lot about how in times like the ones we're living in now, solidarity is actually even more important, not less. I am far from an expert and am largely just repeating what disabled comrades have said, but I know that ableism is not some fringe issue for leftists to compete about and that disability justice is not a matter of empty virtue. It's not a purity test or a way to seem better than anyone else; it's about humanity and compassion and survival. And it's not optional! We need to do better!

@Mabande I wish I knewwwww

@deliberately_me yep if the rest of that thread wasn't already a smorgasbord of ableism that would have been enough BY ITSELF

https://mastodon.social/@ErickaSimone/113883945144966522

I think it's very very important for us to be clear that racism is not and never has been a matter of mental illness, disability, or intelligence. In our commendable haste to condemn the fascists and Nazis, it is absolutely crucial to not do their work for them by echoing their own rallying cries.

A few days ago, this user (formerly my mutual) made a fediblock post about racism calling for getting "the mentally disabled and/or bots" off this platform. I reached out over DMs to try and explain why this was harmful and a rallying cry for Nazis and eugenics supporters, and was not successful in convincing her. She made similar justifications that you can see in this post, accusing me of deliberately assuming ill-will on her part, trying to force respectability politics on her, and participating in misogynoir.

It's true that racism and misogynoir are rampant on this platform, and she has had a slew of those experiences. There's no denying it. But in this instance she is perpetuating serious ableism and refuses to admit it or apologize for it. Not okay.

I don't believe in rendering people disposable just because we disagree, but due to the harmful nature of her posts and arguments, I feel like a FediBlock is unfortunately needed.

#FediBlock

@Sharksonaplane but what if....... It was a lil crunchy too? What then??????

I want to lay on a bed of gnocchi

@InternetEh have they tried seizing and keeping the fire's assets?

@fedwards9965 fair enough! I will just add this:

https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-government-clown-show-opinion-1408136

They called Mussolini "the mad little clown". Both of these fascists were underestimated by their political contemporaries, it seems to me.

But as you said, time will tell.

@Tiempo this applies so widely to.... pretty much anything lol