His embarrassment is embarrassing
Ugh, this is why people hate the left. It’s why much of the left hates the left.
Dear White People, Your Safety Pins Are Embarrassing
I already hate it, and that’s just the title.
And of course the author is white.
Seriously? This is a thing now? Wear a safety pin to show “you’re an ally?” So immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others who were targeted and persecuted and (further) marginalized by the Trump Campaign will know they’re “safe” with you?
No. Just no. Please, take it off.
Let me explain something, white people: We just fucked up. Bad. We elected a racist demagogue who has promised to do serious harm to almost every person who isn’t a straight white male, and whose rhetoric has already stirred up hate crimes nationwide. White people were 70% of the voters in the 2016 election, and we’re the only demographic Trump won. It doesn’t matter why. What matters is there’s a white nationalist moving into the Oval Office, and white people — only white people — put him there.
That’s not analysis, it’s masochistic breast-beating in aid of Advanced Virtue Signaling. I don’t always like the label “virtue signaling” or think it’s apt, but here – yes, this is some heavy duty virtue signaling. Christopher Keelty is letting the world know he’s more woke than anyone else.
So to interrupt the masochistic breast-beating for the sake of a little skepticism, allow me to point out that I did not elect Trump despite being white. Keelty is equivocating between “white people elected Trump” in the sense that white people voted for Trump in larger numbers than any other group (although you could add modifiers to make groups that would have voted for him in much bigger percentages), and “white people as such, white people in general, voted for Trump.” He’s implying the second while leaving himself room to say he meant the first, or at least to point out that the first is true.
We don’t get to make ourselves feel better by putting on safety pins and self-designating ourselves as allies.
And make no mistake, that’s what the safety pins are for. Making White people feel better. They’ll do little or nothing to reassure the marginalized populations they are allegedly there to reassure; marginalized people know full well the long history of white people calling themselves allies while doing nothing to help, or even inflicting harm on, non-white Americans.
Of course, there is the little detail that he doesn’t know that…but it signals virtue, and it sounds woke, so who cares if it’s true or not.
Not my left.
Hmm. Perhaps someone should draw this fellow a Venn diagram.
Fuck him. It proved useful and appreciated by a number of victims in the surge of post-brexit hatred.
Anyway, what’s the alternative. Sit on the train with your head down in shame while some poor person gets harassed or worse because you don’t want to ‘make yourself feel better’ by getting involved? Frankly I want Keelty to pull his head out of his woeful arse, just so I can jamb it back in there. /angry
*Thinks: Don’t snipe. Don’t snipe. Don’t snipe. OK, here goes…*
I observe some similarity between arguments in the paragraph before the last quote and #notallmen, although, generally speaking, #notallmen is derided by feminists, and thought I would call the aforesaid similarity to the reader’s attention.
(Oh shit, I think I just sniped.)
@Rob:
Quite. I had a whole load of my usual waffly nonsense almost ready to paste into this comment but I’m leaving it at “quite” instead.
One thing I can’t help but point out is that Amazon is selling *tactical* safety pins. Yeah. You don’t want to be wearing any old safety pin, it should be a tactical one.
From what I can tell, tactical safety pins are black, presumably so that babies are harder to see in the dark when they are carrying out their missions.
The bedrock of The Left must be Solidarity. These guys don’t get that.
Yes I know that Silentbob. I’m not that stupid. On the other hand I’m not particularly fond of “Notallmen” and I don’t think I’ve used it much. If I ever did I think I stopped before long. And to get into an infinite regress…yes some feminists deride the not all men argument but that doesn’t mean I do.
At any rate, even if sometimes cries of “not all men” are fatuous, other times they’re not. This article is stupid and crude and its denunciations are crude and stupid.
So whatever. You got me. Gold star for you.
It’s also ironic that this Woke White Person doesn’t seem to have consulted with any people of colour regarding their feelings on the pins. From what I have seen, many people of colour, immigrants and Hispanics are embracing the idea. But I guess they should have asked a WWP whether they’re allowed to like them first.
And not my Left either. These people are completely politically ineffective. I bet this guy was too woke to vote for Clinton. Apparently many of the protestors protesting Trump’s victory didn’t even vote because Clinton wasn’t Left enough for them. Yet there they are, protesting. If you didn’t vote, and you could have, then YES, Trump is YOUR President. You should be apologising, and reflecting on your momentous fuck up, and working to fix your mistake.
Do I sound bitter? That’s because I am. So fucking bitter right now.
Emily, I don’t even live in the US and I’m bitter, angry, frightened and appalled in pretty much equal measure. Watching him form his administration is so mind boggling I would have rejected a TV drama script based on this as hyperbolic and unbelievable. The horror you locals must all be feeling at developments…
I wonder why poppies in the UK aren’t embarrassing for.. you know what? I’m not even sure who they are supposed to be for. You can actually give money to charities whenever you like, including ones that support…well… you know…. you know what that poppy charity supports, right?
Do you? I’m not entirely sure I do and I’ve lived here for close to 50 years.
But here in the UK it is absolutely forbidden to not wear a poppy symbol at around this time of year if you’d like to appear in public, especially on the BBC.
It doesn’t matter whether you understand what the charity is about. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the nebulous and worrisome idea of the charity or with how the collected money is spent. If you don’t wear a poppy in public then you are evil, simple as that.
Obviously I know what the poppy appeal is supposed to be about. It’s ‘supposed’ to be about excellent things like funding relief for people who have been hurt by war. But it is actually about retired soldiers strutting around pretending that they are still soldiers. It’s about the war part not the not-war part and I hate it.
Rob, I am not American either. They must be feeling what I am feeling, only a million times worse. Maybe bitterness doesn’t seem appropriate for a non-American, but for whatever reason, my feelings are very much enmeshed with American politics. I had such hope riding on Clinton, such outrage at GOP lies, bullying and obstructionism . . . such abject, escalating horror at Trump. I think that what has happened in America is bad, that what is going to happen will be worse, and that it will affect me directly in terms of regional and economic instabilities, and indirectly in terms of shifting cultural norms.
Straight out of http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
Another obvious thing, at least to me, is this: if so many white people voted for racism, wearing a safety pin can at least let people breath more easily in the room with you. I look around at my neighbors and colleagues and have no certainty who I can trust. I do know for sure some that I can’t, but I’ve always known about them. In my red state, wearing a safety pin would require a major act of bravery.
Wearing a safety pin won’t magically eliminate racism or absolve anyone of their obligation to oppose racism. This is true, but so what? Maybe wearing a safety pin reminds the wearer of her or his duty to be decent. Maybe it signals to others that the wearer can be counted on for assistance or witness. Maybe it helps like-minded people see that not everyone is a racist shitbag.
Better not to do any of that?
“Notallmen” criticizes those who interrupt feminist analysis and discussion to soothe male egos by reminding everyone that not all men rape (or whatever.)
The “arguments in the paragraph before the last quote” do have “some similarity” with notallmen.
So?
The paragraph in question isn’t doing the work of a notallmen argument. Ophelia isn’t pleading “but not all white people are racist!” here. She certainly isn’t arguing “not all white people are racist, therefore stop this silly talk about white supremacy.” She’s saying, “White or not, a lot of us reject Trumpism and would like to signal our willingness to help to vulnerable people.”
Personally I think that paragraph’s beside the point, but it doesn’t require any superhuman effort to parse. Just a modicum of charity, as in Principle Of.
Here’s an article by a black woman (Ijeoma Oluo) expressing skepticism about the safety pin thing. Unlike the article Ophelia linked to, it’s substantive.
http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/11/13/questioning-safety-pin-solidarity-revealed-why-i-cant-trust-white-people/
Was he thinking that people who voted for trump would be wearing safety pins? Whom exactly is he addressing, since the first assumption of the article is that white people are the ones wearing safety pins? Is it it not clear that the point of the pins is to make those who are in minorities, who are now not safe, nearly by fiat, be able to distinguish between those who have either made them unsafe or are willing to actually attack them and those who didn’t and won’t attack them or will protect them?
This is one of those communications wherein the speaker so can’t tell the difference between talking about themselves and talking about a topic that that they are blind to the obvious and absurd inconsistencies within their own thinking.
I’m a white lady who has been wearing a safety pin. It’s not the only thing I do in the cause of trying to fight oppression but it’s a sign to others like me in this deep red state that they are not alone and I have heard many stories already of how people are seeing each other and publicly acknowledging their gratitude and solidarity. Giving people courage to speak out in this part of the country is no small thing. It’s also been comforting to frightened children who’s teachers are wearing it.
My boyfriend is black and grew up here in a poor community. I asked him to tell me his opinion as a black person (not as my boyfriend) what he thought of me wearing the safety pin. I explained both sides of the argument. He just looked at me and said “Wear the pin baby.”
This blog post assumes that people who wear safety pins genuinely want to help marginalized people who are attacked or otherwise in trouble, and offers some advice on what that entails and how to do that safely.
And of course, his piece ignores one of the key bits of the safety pin–it’s a pledge to help if approached by someone. One of the most damnable bits of privilege is the blinders it puts on you. By the time I notice that a situation has turned south, it may be far too late. But if I have the pin on, the targeted person can appeal to me for aid earlier. It’s not fair that they are often put in that position at all–I’d be a better person if I immediately recognized the situation for what it is. But if my privilege is blinding me to something that should be apparent, then I at least want the victim to know that they can ask for aid and I will respond.
Yes, Freemage. We have offices all over our campus emblazoned with a “Safe Space” sign. People know where they can go if they need help. I haven’t heard anyone protesting these “Safe Space” signs as being some sort of virtue signaling. They are regarded as what they are – signposts for people in need to find help from people who have the ability to give them the help.
The safety pin isn’t different, but it is a chance for the purity police to kick other people, and call them names.
The only thing that bothers me with the safety pin as opposed to the signs is the differential in knowledge and experience that might be present. While some people who put on a safety pin might genuinely know how to help, others might not have a clue. At least at our campus, we are issued those signs only after going through training that at least gives us a knowledge of resources in the area.
Re @14
This has been my concern in my red state as well. I haven’t heard of someone getting into a fight for wearing a safety pin, but I have heard of related incidents in the past, including a friend who was threatened for wearing an ACLU shirt.