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inkskinned:
okay. i don’t want to discourse on discourse. because that’s pretty silly.
but.
the truth is we absolutely should move away from “cancel culture” and towards
what i’m calling “good faith” culture. the way i propose this works will be demonstrated by calling out myself for something “problematic” i have done.
i have scratched a child in my care. it was not the first child i scratched, nor the last. she is worth mentioning because it was the deepest of the scratches, and, when asked if i would do it again, i absolutely would.
cancel culture: “tumblr user inkskinned literally thinks it’s okay to violently scratch children, like? she takes care of these kids and she fucking scratches them (and who knows what else if she’s so fucking confident in admitting that) and like she has even drawn blood in a few of these instances. these are 3 and 4 year olds we’re talking about. one child she scratched while she was forcibly restraining and she is even proud of that moment. she’s fucking disgusting and i’m sick knowing she still is a teacher. she blew off violence. cancelled.”
good faith culture: “okay, she admitted to scratching children. she did not say it was violently or on purpose. after talking to people who work/live with young kids, almost all of them admit that, at some point, you will accidentally scratch your child. this is because we are mammals with soft skin and claws, and, similar to accidentally scratching yourself with the edge of your nail, is very easy to do with a wiggly object, particularly young ones. i don’t know about the restraining situation, let me go look into the source. maybe she apologized?”
me myself and i: i absolutely did apologize after it happened. i also did forcibly hold a child, who was the one i injured. she had slipped past (? how? the world will never know) three teachers and six ropes and had gotten to an absolutely-off-limits-for-children area, climbed up the very small retaining wall, and was about to take a forty-foot drop off the other side. I literally snatched her out of the air, and, in doing so, caught my nail on her wrist. she did bleed, but i obtained stickers and a bandaid to cure that problem.
cancel culture: “i find it extremely unlikely that a child could do that by themselves. probably she is a very bad teacher who let a child go somewhere they shouldn’t and get into this situation to begin with. on top of that, if she knows she can accidentally scratch a child, why weren’t her nails trimmed? no offense but she needs to quit her “activism” and step down. i also don’t fucking believe her apology when she said right there she would do it again. bandaids don’t solve the trauma she allowed to happen.”
good faith culture: “okay. children do this kind of thing all the time, because they are children. this situation is clearly one where yes, a bad thing happened, but she used reasonable care. since she actively does not try to hurt children, and she was actually trying to protect one (albeit clumsily), we can see she’s just a normal human being who was acting in good faith.”
the reason i propose good faith culture is because i find the majority of “cancelled” people are activists and/or minorities. these people are targeted for incredibly small altercations or behaviors, despite the fact that they’re acting in good faith. i know for a fact mras/alt-right ppl make fake “liberal” accounts that target these people using the language of cancel culture, because it’s easily picked up on - it’s explosive, passionate language without true sourcing (or out-of-context sourcing) that encourages knee-jerk reactions. this breeds infighting and cruelty when we need to be a unified front.
good faith culture also makes a line between “problematic” and “genuinely cruel/disturbing/etc”. you cannot abuse, threaten, or otherwise intentionally harm someone in good faith. this is intentionally to prevent the god-awful “ted bundy might have been problematic” phrasing i have seen. he was not problematic. he was the fucking problem.
meanwhile, it encourages positive behavior. okay, a person blundered. they apologized and seem to have continued to educate and rebuild themselves. they are acting in good faith. oh, actually they never apologized and continue doing this nonsense. this person is no longer acting in good faith.
sure, call out people who are not acting in good faith. i agree. there are plenty who deserve it. but when you pick apart all media/efforts made by activists with a fine-tooth comb looking for something you can “cancel” the person on, you’re doing more harm than good. if the person spends their life trying to help homeless lgbt+ children get off the streets but accidentally takes in an abuser while doing so, they’re still net-good. they were acting in good faith, the abuser is at fault here. if a person spends their life making youtube videos and not once but twice uses a racial slur, they are not acting in good faith. unfortunately, we attack the first person more than the second.
people make mistakes all the time. none of us are perfect. shows can try their best to be good and representationally accurate and take a slight misstep, books can have one problematic trope - if theyre acting in good faith, okay. like, maybe fix it in the future, but okay.
keep critiquing things. keep noticing what needs to change. but learn the difference between “this is a mistake” and “this is evidence of evil.”
inkskinned:
okay. i don’t want to discourse on discourse. because that’s pretty silly.
but.
the truth is we absolutely should move away from “cancel culture” and towards
what i’m calling “good faith” culture. the way i propose this works will be demonstrated by calling out myself for something “problematic” i have done.
i have scratched a child in my care. it was not the first child i scratched, nor the last. she is worth mentioning because it was the deepest of the scratches, and, when asked if i would do it again, i absolutely would.
cancel culture: “tumblr user inkskinned literally thinks it’s okay to violently scratch children, like? she takes care of these kids and she fucking scratches them (and who knows what else if she’s so fucking confident in admitting that) and like she has even drawn blood in a few of these instances. these are 3 and 4 year olds we’re talking about. one child she scratched while she was forcibly restraining and she is even proud of that moment. she’s fucking disgusting and i’m sick knowing she still is a teacher. she blew off violence. cancelled.”
good faith culture: “okay, she admitted to scratching children. she did not say it was violently or on purpose. after talking to people who work/live with young kids, almost all of them admit that, at some point, you will accidentally scratch your child. this is because we are mammals with soft skin and claws, and, similar to accidentally scratching yourself with the edge of your nail, is very easy to do with a wiggly object, particularly young ones. i don’t know about the restraining situation, let me go look into the source. maybe she apologized?”
me myself and i: i absolutely did apologize after it happened. i also did forcibly hold a child, who was the one i injured. she had slipped past (? how? the world will never know) three teachers and six ropes and had gotten to an absolutely-off-limits-for-children area, climbed up the very small retaining wall, and was about to take a forty-foot drop off the other side. I literally snatched her out of the air, and, in doing so, caught my nail on her wrist. she did bleed, but i obtained stickers and a bandaid to cure that problem.
cancel culture: “i find it extremely unlikely that a child could do that by themselves. probably she is a very bad teacher who let a child go somewhere they shouldn’t and get into this situation to begin with. on top of that, if she knows she can accidentally scratch a child, why weren’t her nails trimmed? no offense but she needs to quit her “activism” and step down. i also don’t fucking believe her apology when she said right there she would do it again. bandaids don’t solve the trauma she allowed to happen.”
good faith culture: “okay. children do this kind of thing all the time, because they are children. this situation is clearly one where yes, a bad thing happened, but she used reasonable care. since she actively does not try to hurt children, and she was actually trying to protect one (albeit clumsily), we can see she’s just a normal human being who was acting in good faith.”
the reason i propose good faith culture is because i find the majority of “cancelled” people are activists and/or minorities. these people are targeted for incredibly small altercations or behaviors, despite the fact that they’re acting in good faith. i know for a fact mras/alt-right ppl make fake “liberal” accounts that target these people using the language of cancel culture, because it’s easily picked up on - it’s explosive, passionate language without true sourcing (or out-of-context sourcing) that encourages knee-jerk reactions. this breeds infighting and cruelty when we need to be a unified front.
good faith culture also makes a line between “problematic” and “genuinely cruel/disturbing/etc”. you cannot abuse, threaten, or otherwise intentionally harm someone in good faith. this is intentionally to prevent the god-awful “ted bundy might have been problematic” phrasing i have seen. he was not problematic. he was the fucking problem.
meanwhile, it encourages positive behavior. okay, a person blundered. they apologized and seem to have continued to educate and rebuild themselves. they are acting in good faith. oh, actually they never apologized and continue doing this nonsense. this person is no longer acting in good faith.
sure, call out people who are not acting in good faith. i agree. there are plenty who deserve it. but when you pick apart all media/efforts made by activists with a fine-tooth comb looking for something you can “cancel” the person on, you’re doing more harm than good. if the person spends their life trying to help homeless lgbt+ children get off the streets but accidentally takes in an abuser while doing so, they’re still net-good. they were acting in good faith, the abuser is at fault here. if a person spends their life making youtube videos and not once but twice uses a racial slur, they are not acting in good faith. unfortunately, we attack the first person more than the second.
people make mistakes all the time. none of us are perfect. shows can try their best to be good and representationally accurate and take a slight misstep, books can have one problematic trope - if theyre acting in good faith, okay. like, maybe fix it in the future, but okay.
keep critiquing things. keep noticing what needs to change. but learn the difference between “this is a mistake” and “this is evidence of evil.”
