Be Kind: Rewind.

Indagare disabled his account himself. He told me to tell you that he's taking time away from FA for a bit to think things over. He hasn't been happy about how things fell apart on his journal. It'll be a couple days until he can re-enable his account again, due to how the system works.

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Speaking personally about the whole thing, I think FA's suspensions of LongTom and HeavenSteed were the wrong thing to do. Not only did it deny them the chance to apologize, but in HS's case, it completely validated his opinions. HS didn't care so much about what was or wasn't genocide; what most of his comment was about, was how "the left" cancels and silences anyone who disagrees with them; that the left isn't interested in debate and understanding, but only in power and domination. By getting Twitter's attention to call him out and suspend him, Tonya proved him right.

(i do appreciate your, on gare's behalf, relaying that message for me — if nothing else)


is it okay though rimme if i, for now..
..limit my response, to you, to the following?


my relaying to you, my curiosity towards knowing what you'd have to say to me later on: should neither LongTom nor HeavenSteed, upon return from their suspensions, ever get around to saying "sorry" (as you presume they might have had) — a "sorry" in which they properly explain what they are apologizing to tonya and gare (and anyone else who were taken aback by their words) for?


***giving an actual, worth-a-damn apology, by the way.
not one of those "i'm sorry if i offended you" / "i'm sorry you feel that way" 'apologies.'***


if, instead, the first action these two take, is making the rounds of consorting with their own sympathizers: to lament how "screwed" they feel they were: that a private company made the decision to side with the marginalized individual — the one who'd complained to site moderators about the direction of the discourse she (tonya) was subjected to?

---

for the record: just know i remain unconvinced neither individual are remorseful.
secondly: neither i, nor tonya, nor gare are interested in hollow apologies.
we'd rather they spare their words if they don't mean them.



also: i attempt to be respectful to you here rimme...
...yet i must declare, you and i won't have much else to talk about, if you truly hold the belief leftists engage in censorship / "canceling" significantly-more than rightists.

i, as a moderate, assert that both sides engage in this practice 'about equally' — those on the left simply tend to be consistently more open and straight-forward with their efforts.

(and i say "tend to" — not always.)



the caveat i feel i must express (as i've done in a few of indagare's previous journals), is i need to differentiate between "conservative folk" and "extremist / fundamentalist."

i'm fine with someone making the argument of limiting "welfare" for the poor — as long as they also argue for limiting government assistance granted for the rich.
i'm fine with someone declaring they, themselves, won't abort a fetus — as long as they don't attempt to mandate others into same.
i'm fine, in general, with their practicing their christianity — as long as they don't mandate others into same; nor compel special, reasonable accommodations granted, that they're not willing to grant people of other religions.
(as i am sure tonya will concur: it'd be kinda fucked up to deign attempt modeling this country as a christian one, when said 'country' was stolen from first nationers.
just because their numbers are few now {due to the acts of terrorism of the "christian" colonizers!!} doesn't make them any less relevant.)

i will never be fine with anyone who persecutes / demonizes LGBTQ+ for simply being LGBTQ+.
i will never be fine with anyone who apologizes / justifies Person-of-Colour oppression / disenfranchisement perpetrated by whites.
i will never be fine with anyone who points towards the subsequent, further degradationing of Person-of-Colour communities, as stemming from attributes inherent to us — opposed to being natural consequences of our being subjected to inhuman treatment for centuries.
(at this point, who rightfully is to declare what's "self-inflicted" and what isn't?)
as tonya rightfully pointed out: europeans, themselves, used to wallow in filth.
indeed: charles dickens (1812 - 1870) published several chronicles, detailing the lovely conditions which his fellow englishmen lived in.
no one, here, is pristine.





dammit.


i still went on longer than i'd intended to.


this, thus, rimme, shall be my wrap up: so you believe the suspensions weren't the way to go.....

.....what would you have done, then?

if you were in tonya's position?
in fur affinity's position?

I've been giving this comment a lot of thought, and I'll admit to a few things that will invalidate my previous comment:

I don't know HeavenSteed well. I don't know TonyaSong well. I do know that both of them showed up often in Indagare's journals, and I do know that Indagare's journals tend to involve a lot of head-butting on political lines. It's likely that the two of them have a long history against each other, and that this isn't the first time HS mentioned Native Americans, and denied or minimized the US's genocide of them; it's also possible that in the past, he's made similar racially insensitive comments or personal attacks against others. I don't know for sure, and I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but if this is something that HS has had repeated opportunity to fix, then suspending him is completely justified.

In fact, I think it is both likely and true, given the tone of Tonya's tweet, and that she felt he deserved to have his handle exposed in public, in contrast to others deeper in her timeline.

And besides... it's a suspension, not a ban. It'll probably be a week or a month before he's back.

Part of me still wants to believe that HS was just being ignorant and arrogant, but not really hateful or racist towards Native Americans. Part of me wishes people (HS, Tonya, myself, everyone on Twitter, even Indagare) could keep their emotions in check before they make dramatic public posts on the Internet. Part of me still worries that this was HS's plan all along -- to deliberately provoke Tonya to "prove" the left will silence him (and I recognize that his comment was him trying to silence her viewpoint first) -- that he deliberately caused this so that he wouldn't have to learn anything from it.

Regardless, I just want to be there for the people I am friends with, like Indagare, and lend them my support through the uncertain times ahead.

all right.
this time, i am leaving ya an "at brief" response rimme — a 'first parter' if you while, while i finish gathering my thoughts:

1.) it is my further belief: the reason we do respond to these situations how we—at least for individuals like me and tonya—respond is, she and i readily appreciate that these matters, at their cores, correspond to literal Life and Death for us

innocent people have died; are dying now; and will continue to die over That, you put forth, for which [we] should hold our emotions in check

1a.) on most days, i hold the opinion that 22 - 67% of the current population should be blinked out of existence

in spite of this sentiment, i still simultaneously "give a damn" about people — about those who i deem "innocent" in these matters
(Innocents who were victimized, especially)
even i, somehow, still find the will to want to live ..... in spite of every hardship i needlessly-endure everyday

thusly, rimme: it is this '`damn´ giving' which, in part, fuels Emotions

2.) i don't buy into this "compassion for the enemy" mentality — why would i ever turn the other cheek for those who patently don't care about me?

it's one thing for tonya and gare to discourage others from "piling on" the wrong-doers (a stance which i don't agree with either, when it pertains to matters of this severity — matters for which, again, scads of innocent people needlessly lose their lives over); but, to voluntarily disable their accounts, over the backlash (minimal as it honestly appears to me) the apologists\sympathizers'd faced?

i still don't get that.

a.) longtom's and heavensteed's pages are still up and quite accessible — any of their submissions can be favourited ..... sympathizers can leave them with Words Of Encouragement, still!!
b.) in contrast: tonyasong's and indagare's pages are ghosted — no one currently can benefit from their previous displays of socio•political thoughtfulness / conscientiousness.. ..or publicly leave them with Words Of Encouragement; nor interact with 'em in any other meaningful way, for that matter

how is this equitable?

3.) hateful or racist; ignorant and arrogant — whichever it was, heavensteed should not have been

triply-so, as a so-called "christian"

no?

---

that's my first part, rimme — i didn't want to continue to leave you hanging; so i tried formulating this much to express, at least

The main problem is that when it became about them it stopped being about the larger problem. Tonya's point wasn't to get people to harass HS and LT because, like you mentioned, this is an ongoing problem. Her point was to show that genocide denial is still going on because a lot of people have trouble believing that the same way folks have trouble believing it when they encounter Shoah (Holocaust) deniers. I don't blame her because those two were going out of their way to be nasty about it, but I could wish people had stayed focus on the topic of denialism instead of forming a mob to attack two people who were just the latest in a long line of haters.

As for the pages, it's the nature of how FA works and has nothing to do with fairness in that sense. If one chooses to disable ones account the materials are no longer viewable; that's just how it works. It can be argued whether or not it should work that way, but right now it's just how it does.

you might be pleased to know: if nothing else, i haven't left 'commentary' (of any kind) on either of these gentleman's pages


i guess, one of my overarching points is: i feel like you had nothing to punish yourself for gare
you had no control over the others who elected to pursue the "negative" route of flocking lt / hs


i suppose, one of my own wishes is, more furs had left "encouraging words" for tonya during these last journals of yours — not words to tell her to "calm down" of course but, rather, to assure her that there are also others who censure those who espouse the kind of words heavensteed and longtom left her


life or death.
being part of a marginalized group, who is saddled with additional pratfalls to make life even more fraught with danger — being made marginalized and, accordingly, endangered for, frankly, really shitty, dumb ass reasons.

---

i didn't get the chance to review your last two journals before you'd temporarily disabled yer account; this morning, i took the opportunity to look them over

the direction-of-discourse, yet again involving tonya, taken in an appeal didn't sit right with me either; i wish JackTheLizard has lead off with this remark instead of pursuing, with a fair amount of fervor, the route of (essentially) victim-blaming her

the catch is, jack also seems to asserting people like tom and steed are reformable (or, at least, are able to become "reformed" with only a minimum of effort).



if we were struggling against "reasonable," "decent" individuals well..
..first-things-first, there'd be no "struggle" to speak of.
decent, reasonable people simply won't act the way The Censured had. (and i say this, while fully acknowledging they weren't speaking to tonya in a "traditionally" profane or obscene manner, as might typically be associated with lower-class troglodytes.)
they'd make efforts to form peaceful, amicable resolutions whenever possible, as often as possible — before resorting to more 'extreme' measures.


i find myself compelled to ask ya one more time gare: how are we, in the "here and now," to handle individuals who, patently, don't desire peaceful outcomes?
what steps are we to enact next, when Civilized Talking bears no fruits — when we deal with individuals who, instead, believe we are the "crazy" ones, for wanting to enforce integrity and decency?

believe it or not rimme: i want to strike the proper balance between allowing for [most people to point out] unwarranted "bad behaviour" committed by anyone — including those who i deem "marginalized"; while still, if nothing else, allowing for the accounting of the possibility that, for these so-called 'marginalized,' a lot of the bad behaviours we see them exhibit likely wouldn't be indulged in whatsoever, should their lot in life had been better than what it is now.


that's my vision.


i also want to ensure we-all continue to acknowledge, everyone is capable of being shitty — no matter their station in life; it's just easier to cast the spotlight on those who, either, are more powerless or / and (think they) don't care if others do witness their dirt

=====
the classic situation of mainstream media news cheerfully reporting on the latest Joe Blow who mugged an old woman on the street, relieving her of $226 — posting pictures of the suspect and everywhere.
meanwhile, our "hedge fund" friends in wall street continue doing shit that contributes towards the ever-rising inflation; or CEOs who already have a comfy few million dollars to their name get a bailout, in contrast to the rank-and-file associates who find themselves out of a job and out of their 401K.
they rarely ever get their mugshots plastered on the print, even though it is certifiable, their activities have lead to substantial loss of income and of life too — simply because, ordinarily, these white-collars commit their crimes with pens and keyboards; not knives and guns
=====

i don't want anyone to be automatically shut down, merely for pointing out another group's foibles ..... yet, there remains an obviously "wrong way" and a "right way" to approach this

---
and for tonya's situation:
• regardless of whatever transgressions the indigenous have previously engaged in, the fact remains there's still a whole lot of whites around while, in contrast, there's a scant few natives in existence

why is that?

• and unless 100% concrete, cogent evidence is presented me that demonstrates "otherwise" — i will remain convinced, whatever transgressions the natives had partook of, they're-all still readily eclipsed by what the colonizers eventually piled on top

• thirdly: the "rule of family" applies here.
you know the rule: in which members of the family can do or say certain things amongst their own ranks — acts which would get an outsider's ass kicked, should they try working it
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which is to say: no one should be talking down on anyone else, unprovoked, for the simple desire to inflict emotional harm.
when it comes to socio•political matters regarding us People of Colour, whites really should exercise even more caution.

a piece of advice which i'd leave, if it were other blacks, instead, who'd taken on the colonizer / oppressor role.
or arabs.
or vietnamese.
or peruvians.

if any of these had subjugated the world, to the extent that whites have been documented doing for millennia, my words would be unchanged.

---

human beings, in general, are trash.

as early as 16 or 15, i'd formulated this conclusion about us.

our trashiness transcends colour.

basically no one is "innocent."



that said: almost exactly as i predicted, longtom and heavensteed both are sticking to their guns.
true, the latter did express some remorse; but that remorse easily takes a back seat to his insistence of how evil "the left" is, and how culpable he believes the first nationers are for their current plight