[sudo-discuss] cuddling it

Tue May 7 10:30:00 PDT 2013

+1, and Amen!

Anca.

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 10:26 AM, Alcides Gutierrez <alcides888 at gmail.com>wrote:

> If I may chime in, I think it would be awesome just to coin our own
> phrases and not try to replace anything. Instead of characterizing any
> current or past lingo, we could just go ahead and move on... NEW LINGO!
>
> I think this would lessen the chances of political/cultural/social
> frustrations due to sensitive associations and differing perspectives of
> describing whatever random related concepts.
>
> So, if we actually are interested in creating a new positive lingo, we can
> just submit positive words and tech words into a bucket and creatively
> combine them to attach to whatever cool concept. (BEAUTIFUL CODE! = GREAT
> DISCUSSION!)
>
> So, is there going to be a lingo raffle party!?!?!?! That sounds kinda fun
> to me!!! What if it was a raffle / poetry / public reading party???? I'm
> sure there would be great code there!
>
> Alcides Gutierrez
> http://e64.us
> On May 6, 2013 2:01 PM, "Max B" <maxb.personal at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  +1
>>
>> Thank you for that.
>>
>>
>> On 05/06/2013 01:40 PM, hep wrote:
>>
>> it is really sad that this list is literally turning into a game of
>> oppression bingo. i will make this brief.
>>
>>  1. using terms like "civilization" to refer to a class of dominant
>> majority with a huge history of colonialistic oppression, at the expense of
>> any class who has experiences colonialistic oppression is pretty offensive.
>> if you want to qualify this as "what they wrongly refer to themselves as"
>> then use quotes and indicate as such. ie "Doesn't the so-self-called
>> 'civilized' psyche secretly crave the things it sets itself apart from and
>> gives up and projects on its image of the noble savage though?" it would be
>> better however to reword this overall to say something like "Doesn't the
>> privileged majority psyche secretly crave the things it sets itself apart
>> from and gives up and projects on its image of the oppressed culture
>> though?"
>>
>>  2. using tropes like "noble savage" is ok as long as everyone involves
>> understand that you are referring to the named trope and not using that
>> term as an offensive term. this can be solved by referencing the trope at
>> hand. ie http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Noble_savage
>>
>>  3. some people are still going to be offended by this term, because it
>> is still hugely offensive to native peoples even as it is used as a handy
>> moniker to call out offensive behavior by the privileged majority.
>>
>>  4. using the term noble savage in reference to african americans is
>> doubly offensive, even if it fits the point you are trying to make fyi. if
>> you MUST use tropes to refer to POC, make sure you are using the correct
>> one that examines the colonial aspects of the behavior being discussed.
>>
>>  5. when someone is offended by your choice in language, the correct
>> thing to do is not double down and try to explain that you weren't being
>> offensive. the correct thing to do is to say something like "i am sorry my
>> language choice offended you. what i was trying to say was___". do not
>> attempt to use dictionary.com, etymology, wikipedia usage, etc to try
>> and prove that you weren't being offensive. offense is not in the eye of
>> the person who offended, it is in the eye of that person offended. so just
>> accept that you behaved offensively even as you did not intend to and move
>> on. trying to explain to the world at large how you totally weren't
>> offensive citing media to try and "prove" it just makes you more offensive,
>> and it is incredibly disrespectful to the person you are communicating with
>> who likely doesn't give a shit what you were actually trying to say at this
>> point, and did not sign on for a weeks long multiple page scroll email
>> battle/war of attention attrition. accept, move on. don't become a cliche.
>>
>>  6. free speech is not a get out of jail free card. you have the right
>> to say anything you want. and we all have the right to think of you as an
>> asshole for saying it. if someone says "don't say that" they aren't
>> depriving you of your right to free speech, they are trying to save you
>> from losing friends and allies in your community. "congress shall make no
>> law abridging free speech." there is nothing in there that says someone HAS
>> to remain your friend after you were unintentionally a racist asshole.
>>
>>  7. most people who fight oppression in their communities do not want to
>> argue about it in their hobbies. respect that. just because you have the
>> time and inclination to have a long-winded email argument does not mean
>> that you are not also being totally offensive by assuming the other person
>> wants/needs/is going to engage in it. often times i see people "win"
>> arguments on email lists only because they were the more persistant
>> asshole, not because they are right. and be aware that that is totally
>> obvious to people not involved but still reading.
>>
>>
>>  8. a point to everyone: native american peoples are not dead. there are
>> still many thriving native cultures, and people need to understand that
>> when they refer to native things or topics they are talking not just about
>> past people that were wiped out, but also active real working native
>> peoples still here. the bay area is full of native people who are active in
>> their tribal affiliations, who work to promote native rights, and who are
>> invested in the topics of native americans. when you frame out things like
>> that there is a "civlized" society, and native societies (implying not
>> civilized) many of those people are GOING to be super offended. Like when
>> native people try to call out white people on wearing headdresses as
>> culturally appropriative, and white people rebut with "YOU ARE ON THE
>> INTERNET. THAT WAS INVENTED BY US MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T USE THAT". fucked up.
>> (for the ignorant: native people are americans as well and have equal
>> rights to share in american culture as any other american. besides which:
>> last i checked many native peoples have also contributed to the internet,
>> even as there are colonial privileged oppressionistic usages of native
>> culture as well, such as apache.) try to keep that in mind as you use terms
>> that may evoke native americans, at the risk of being seen as a total
>> racist asshole.
>>
>>  also everything that rachel said.
>>
>>  -hep
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Anthony Di Franco <di.franco at aya.yale.edu
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>  Rachel, I've had a bit more time to reflect on what you wrote, and
>>> while I don't have anything to add about the immediate question beyond what
>>> I said yesterday, I'd like to talk about some of the broader context you
>>> brought up in your reply and the more general issues involved.
>>>
>>>  The first thing is that I am primarily viewing what we are trying to
>>> do as having a discussion, so it seems to me that when there are
>>> misunderstandings that is exactly when we should be having more discussion
>>> to clarify what we are trying to say and find out effective ways to say it,
>>> not less. Meanwhile, you are using the terms of some sort of power struggle
>>> where I am being attacked and defending myself and allegiances are forming
>>> and shifting around the patterns of conflict. I do not see a power struggle
>>> but rather a community trying to communicate and communication depends on
>>> shared understanding among senders and recipients of symbols and how to use
>>> them to convey meaning. Where this is not immediately clear, clarifying it
>>> explicitly seems the most direct way to move towards better mutual
>>> understanding. I hope this can be reconciled with your own views and I
>>> welcome further discussion on this.
>>>
>>>  Within the attacking and defending point of view, I am also
>>> uncomfortable with some things. To speak of attacking and defending and
>>> also then to say that the subject of the attack should *stop defending*
>>> reminds me too much of the revolting cries of "stop resisting" from police
>>> - I could certainly never meditate on such an ugly phrase and I find the
>>> suggestion grotesque. It's something I've heard while authoritarian thugs
>>> victimize people who are not resisting but only perhaps trying to maintain
>>> their safety and dignity under an uninvited attack, perhaps not even that,
>>> and one way the phrase is used is as a disingenuous way of framing the
>>> situation so that later, biased interpretations of what happened will have
>>> something to latch onto. I am glad we have much less at stake in our
>>> interactions here than in those situations but I still really don't like to
>>> see us internalizing that logic in how we handle communications in our
>>> group.
>>>
>>>  There is another aspect of this I am uncomfortable with, which is the
>>> idea that people should respond to feedback only by silently assenting.
>>> This reminds me too much of other situations where people, sometimes
>>> myself, were supposed to be seen and not heard, and it deprives people of
>>> agency over and responsibility for what they do by expecting them to let
>>> others determine their behavior unilaterally. I am happy to take feedback
>>> and, generally, I hope you can trust people to act on feedback
>>> appropriately rather than trying to short-circuit their agency. The more
>>> informative feedback is, then, the better, and it should contain
>>> information people can use themselves to evaluate what they are doing the
>>> way others do so they can figure out how to accommodate everyone's needs.
>>> When feedback consist simply of naked statements it is too much like
>>> trolling in the small or gaslighting in the large, and especially then,
>>> amounts to an insidious way to deprive people of agency by conditioning
>>> them to fear unpredictable pain when they exercise agency, and has a
>>> chilling effect. In general, the idea that certain people are less able
>>> than others to handle the responsibilities of being human, and so they
>>> should have their behaviors dictated to them unilaterally by others, is a
>>> key to justifying many regimes of oppression, especially modern ones, and
>>> because of that I am very uncomfortable when I see any example of that
>>> logic being internalized in our group dynamics.
>>>
>>>  I don't know what passed between you and Eddan involving trump cards
>>> but if the card game analogy really is apt then it may be a sign of
>>> trivializing the question of safe space by saying that certain people's
>>> concerns trump other people's concerns, based not on the concerns
>>> themselves, but only on who is raising the concerns. Both are important. I
>>> have heard some justifications for 'trumping' as I understand it that
>>> remind me of the debate around the Oscar Grant case. There, defenders of
>>> Mehserle's conduct claimed that police should be the judges of what
>>> legitimate police use of force is because they have special training and
>>> experience that give them a uniquely relevant perspective on what violence
>>> is justified and what demands of compliance they can legitimately make of
>>> people. Another justification I heard was that police are especially
>>> vulnerable due to the danger inherent in their duties and so things should
>>> be biased heavily towards a presumption of legitimacy when they use
>>> violence or demand compliance. To me both these justifications seem
>>> problematic because they create a class that can coerce others without
>>> accountability and can unilaterally force standards of conduct on others. I
>>> am happy that there is much less at stake among us here than there is in
>>> cases of police brutality or Oscar Grant's case, and that there is no
>>> comparison other than this logic being used. But the logic that certain
>>> people's perspectives are uniquely relevant, or that their vulnerability
>>> gives them license to force things upon others unilaterally, is still a
>>> logic I don't think we should internalize among ourselves, because it
>>> produces unaccountable authoritarianism that can be exploited for
>>> unintended ends, and does not help with the ostensibly intended ones
>>> anyway. It results in us 'policing' ourselves in a way much too much like
>>> the way the cities are policed to the detriment of many people and of
>>> values we share.
>>>
>>>  Finally, you mentioned the evening at Marina's apartment and I want to
>>> clarify my experience of what happened there. My 'aha' moment didn't have
>>> anything to do with the point you were trying to make - I can't even
>>> remember exactly what that point was, because it is so strongly
>>> overshadowed by my memory of how you treated me. You called me out for
>>> something that had passed between you and me in the middle of a social
>>> gathering among a mix of friends and strangers, none of whom were involved,
>>> which immediately put me in a very uncomfortable situation. Then, you
>>> dismissed my attempts to defer speaking to a more appropriate setting, and
>>> to open up a dialog with you where I shared my perspective. The only way
>>> out you gave me was to assent without comment to you. My 'aha' moment was
>>> when I realized that things between us had degenerated to that point; it
>>> was when I realized I was mistaken in trying to have a discussion because
>>> we were interacting like two territorial animals, or like a police
>>> interrogator and a suspect, and you were simply demanding a display of
>>> submission or contrition from me before you would let me slink off. While
>>> it felt degrading, I took the way out you offered to spare myself and the
>>> others in the room the experience of things continuing. I take the risk of
>>> sharing this openly with you now because I think we know each other much
>>> better than we did then and we would never again end up interacting like
>>> potentially hostile strangers passing in the night, or worse. I think we
>>> can and should and have been doing better, and overall it's best not to let
>>> a mistaken assumption about what I was thinking and how I felt influence an
>>> important discussion about how we treat one another in our community.
>>>
>>>  I, like you, hope you can appreciate that I am taking the time to
>>> write this admittedly long-winded reply, not to suck the air out of the
>>> room, whatever that means, but to contribute to a discussion that moves us
>>> towards a better shared understanding of how to respect our shared values
>>> and towards more appreciation of one another's perspectives.
>>>
>>>  Anthony
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 10:14 AM, rachel lyra hospodar <
>>> rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>  --
>> hep
>> hepic photography || www.hepic.net
>>     dis at gruntle.org || 415 867 9472
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sudo-discuss mailing listsudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.orghttp://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> sudo-discuss mailing list
> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>
>

-- 
-=-=-=-
Anca Mosoiu | Tech Liminal
anca at techliminal.com
M: (510) 220-6660
http://techliminal.com | T: @techliminal | F: facebook.com/techliminal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20130507/7cd5461e/attachment.html>