[sudo-discuss] cuddling it

[rachel lyra hospodar]

I am really sad about this whole thread.

Anthony, I think I know you well enough to say that your intent here was
not to be offensive, but unfortunately... Here we are. I am responding to
the specific message below because it is the one that made me want to
unsubscribe from this mailing list and unassociate myself from this group.
Everything that came after, gah.

Anti-oppression for the priveleged class, ie not being an unintentional
giant jerkface: if someone points out that you are offending or harming
them, they are not seeking an explanation, but a change in behavior.
Perhaps an apology or acknowledgement, even a query. If someone says 'i
think your POV is fucked up and harmful' please do not go on to elaborate
on your POV to them. Even if you think they don't get your amazing nuances.
Your amazing nuances are not always important, and part of 'oppression' is
that some peoples' nuances are always shoved in other people's faces.
Sometimes being a friend means keeping your opinion to your damn self.

This relates to something that eddan has on occasion termed 'the trump
card'.  We are all individuals, and as such we ultimately need to keep our
own house in order. The trump card concept relates to safe spaces - as safe
as eddan might feel in a space, I'm not going to average it together with
my safety levels to achieve some sort of average safety rating. My safety
reading of a space will always, for me, trump eddan's, and while I am happy
if he feels safe it doesn't really matter to my safety level.

The interesting thing about telling most people they are making you feel
unsafe, or that they are offending you, is that for some reason their
response is almost never 'gosh, whoops!'. It's more usually like what
happened here - a bunch of longwinded explanation that completely misses
the point, and then a perceived ally of the offender jumping in, also
talking a lot, and sucking all the air out of the room.  People always have
reasoning for why they did what they did. Requiring offended folks to read
about your reasoning for why you said what you said misses the point, and
to me makes this conversation read like you don't care if you were
offensive.

It's deja vu to me that you are giving all this definition and explanation
around the terms you used. It seems identical to our debate around the use
of 'constable' and it is sad to me to see you take refuge in the same
pattern of defense. It doesn't matter about the etymological history of a
phrase. It doesn't. As fun as you may find it to think about, the way
things are *heard*, by others, NOW, is a trump card for many.

Anthony, I hope you can understand that I have taken the time out of my
life to write this message in the hopes of helping you to modulate your
behavior to be less offensive. I am sure you remember the first time I
engaged with you on this topic, at Marina's house. Perhaps you'll remember
the aha moment when you *stopped defending* and simply accepted the input,
thanking me. Perhaps you'll find in that a sort of meditative place of
return.

Good luck to you all. I enjoy many things about sudo community and am sure
I will stay connected in many ways.

R.
 On May 3, 2013 3:05 PM, "Anthony Di Franco" <di.franco at gmail.com> wrote:

> Doesn't the civilized psyche secretly crave the things it sets itself
> apart from and gives up and projects on its image of the noble savage
> though?
>
> Your description seems more like meditatively flowing through it.
>
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:58 PM, netdiva <netdiva at sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> Here I was thinking "killing it" was just another example of
>> appropriation of african american vernacular by the mainstream.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/3/2013 2:46 PM, Leonid Kozhukh wrote:
>>
>>> "killing it" is a recently popular term to denote excellence and immense
>>> progress. it has a violent, forceful connotation.
>>>
>>> friends in the circus community - through empirical evidence - have
>>> established a belief that operating at the highest levels of talent
>>> requires mindfulness, awareness, and calm. thus, a better term, which they
>>> have started to playfully use, is "cuddling it."
>>>
>>> thought sudoers would appreciate this.
>>>
>>> cuddling it,
>>>
>>> --
>>> len
>>>
>>> founder, ligertail
>>> http://ligertail.com
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>
>
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