An opportunity for healing? April 4, 2025 7:06 AM Subscribe
I had an upsetting thing happen to me yesterday as a trans man, and was trying to find some solace in reading Metafilter, and instead ran into the train wreck of the metatalk on antisemitism. The whole experience got me thinking a lot about the quote "divided we fall, united we stand" in the face of the current fascist rise in this country (sorry to be so US focused), and made me wonder whether this might be an opportunity for understanding and reconciliation rather than leaving that thread be as is and letting it become an old wound that just festers.
First, I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but I have been paying some attention since a powerful image ran in my local newspaper when I was a teen portraying the coffins of all that had died in a recent conflict with the flag of their 'nationality' draped over the casket. As a result, I have long questioned the dominant narrative of Palestinians being the aggressors. Most of my Jewish friends oppose many of Israel's policies, and so I also know I'm not getting all opinions on that front either. So, I want to acknowledge that positionality. I am also neither Jewish nor of any other middle-eastern origin, and so am a bit of an outsider.
Some things I noticed in that thread that lead to misunderstanding and harm were:
1) Imprecise language being interpreted to mean totally different things by different people, typically with hostility.
2) People responding from past poor interactions rather than what was actually said.
3) People fighting rather than trying to understand the other person's perspective.
What I got to thinking about is the equitable dialogues framework, which I am in no way an expert in, but which provides some guidelines for who to try to move towards dialogue rather than debate, understanding rather than winning, etc.
One tenant is to listen to understand rather than to craft a response. Another is to respond with open-ended questions focusing on personal experiences rather than concepts or lofty goals.
I wondered whether I could invite those in that thread and those not in that thread to try out seeing if we could just have a redo with a better container that might allow for some dialogue and learning.
As a not particularly exemplary example, rather than
"I'm Jewish and I've never experienced antisemitism only anti-Zionism on this site." (period, full stop, end of comment)
How about:
"While I've been able to recognize significant anti-black racism and transphobia on this site, I don't tend to think of it as being filled with antisemitism. I've seen opposing Israel's treatment of Palestinians conflated with antisemitism, and so my initial emotional response is to be defensive due to the repeated attacks on me as being a 'bad' Jew or antisemitic because of my opposition to Israel's actions. I'm wondering if you could add specific examples, not because I don’t believe they aren't there, but because I'm having trouble knowing how we can move forward as a community with such an open-ended and currently weaponized question?"
And, I think it's worth acknowledging, each and every one of us, how hard this really is. How it's impossible to understand the Middle East without understanding trauma. How hard it is, from trauma, to hold other perspectives. When I'm feeling optimistic and safe and seen, then I can have the thought that I know my own history with transphobia makes it hard to recognize the humanity in the people in Mom's for Liberty. Yet, when I do, I can see a glimmer of hope in the idea that we share a profoundly important value of protecting our kids. To be clear, it is never a reasonable expectation of me to approach them, as they are advocating for my oppression.
Similarly, I think almost everyone has a sentence they could try saying like that. "Because of my history with …. I do recognize that I have trouble holding the humanity of …. "
I'm so fortunate to have had two beautiful conversations recently. One with a middle-eastern man (I'm not sure from where) saying that he struggles to hold the pain of the millennia of oppression of Jews given the actions of Isreal, and another, a Jewish woman saying that she's always been taught to understand violence from Gaza and the West Bank as a result of brainwashing by Hamas and their predecessors to promote violence, and that makes it hard to see the human rights violations of the state of Isreal for what they are.
And, I don't think a reasonable discussion on any of these issues will be possible unless we lay out some of the ideas that were discussed and collided in that discussion. So I thought I would enumerate some ideas I saw, while acknowledging my own biases and limited worldview. That is, I know that the below are not neutral, because I don't even know how to be neutral on this issue. I also know this list is incomplete.
1) We are living in a time of profound propaganda on all sides about the situation in both Isreal and Palestine. It is the best interest of the powers that be in the United States and elsewhere to continue the conflict in that region, e.g. so that the US can maintain a military presence there. More generally, my sense is that leadership in Isreal, in Gaza, and in the rest of the middle east doesn't typically hold the best interest of the people in that region well, and tends to use propaganda to promote their own power. As a result, there is a huge amount of mis-information about the reality of life as a Palestinian person, the treatment of Palestinians by Isreal and by many other middle eastern nations, and of the importance and role of Isreal to Jews. There is also a massive conflation on all sides of the policies and practices of the country of Isreal and of Jewish people both within and outside of Isreal. The result is that discussions tend to start from opinions rather than facts, from accusations rather than curiosity. The result is also that we live in a world where generally reasonable people can think of the people as Palestine as trained by Hamas as the main aggressor and others as Isreal as a long-standing perpetrator of horrific apartheid. And so when we try to have conversations on the topic, we tend to get stuck because of the profoundly different mindset differences that might be better approached by first acknowledging the disparate worldviews, experiences and upbringings. "I've always been taught that Palestinians are taught to be violent" vs "If you want to stop violent opposition to apartheid, stop the apartheid."
2) Charges of antisemitism in this country have been weaponized by Christian nationalists and fascists to justify the ongoing horrific human rights violations growing in this country. That means, that e.g. I, as a trans man, am always engaged in the active practice of trying to separate out the different meanings of antisemitism, which currently vary from an excuse to illegally and inhumanely imprison student protestors, to enable anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate (etc.), to undermine universities, free speech and the rule of law and so eventually to justify my oppression; to attacks of Jewish students falsely maligned because of they are blamed for the actions of a nation-state, or the long-standing underlying antisemitism that has lead to the horrific and violent slaughter of Jews in this country (e.g. Tree of Life massacre).
3) The language here is all very complicated, not just antisemitism. Even if we just consider Zionism, which isn't probably properly, but could be interpreted as meaning the right of Jewish people to a country of safety but I think more properly means a homeland in it's current location, with the current vision of that as Isreal. Conflating being opposed to Isreal's policies with opposing any version of a Jewish homeland denies us the creative exercise of trying to define one that recognizes the need of both Jews and Palestinians for safety. That is, I don't know of any of these words that don't have multiple meanings. And, the optimist in me holds that the current driving narrative and violence presumes the fallacy that Jewish safety can only be achieved at the expense of someone's else safety.
4) I don’t typically think it's worthwhile to play ones-ups-manship in terms of oppression, but I just wanted to name the unique position of anti-black and anti-indigenous oppressions as original sins of the US, and of anti-Jewish oppression as, similarly, an original sin of the western world more broadly. So that within this country, it can raise hackles to compare antisemitism to anti-Black racism. For example, one way to think about it is that many (but not all) hate crimes in the US against Jews are perpetrated by individuals, and the vast majority of anti-Black hate crimes are perpetrated by the state (e.g. mass imprisonment, police violence, etc.). Or that the primary target of state-sanctioned violence within this country is directed at Black and Indigenous people (our violence outside this country is a whole different problem and topic). I don't have time to find it, but the phenomenal and very relevant book "See No Stranger" which has a primary focus on anti-Sikh hate and violence, has a beautiful passage on anti-Black racism because of this country's history (I know nothing about that author's other work, so i.e. don't know whether she has been antisemitic). On the other hand, anti-Jewish hate, oppression, and genocide has existed for the history of Jews, and so in that context we need to hold front and center the need and right for Jewish people to have safety. (And to be repetitive, I believe that the safety of Jews does not necessarily predicate taking safety away from others).
5) That the main goal of the current administration, and the far-right more broadly is (and has been for years) to sow chaos and division between those who, if they stood together, could potentially support each other minimally, and fight this regime ideally. That means it's probably a good idea to look at any infighting and see whether it has a cause outside of the issue at hand, and more importantly about how the priority might be best as our shared humanity rather than our differences.
My favorite quote in this moment is Jame's Baldwin's, "We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist."
Can we please practice finding as much space as possible for disagreement, for dialogue, for shared learning while holding as precious as possible each of our individual humanity and the humanity of all people?
In summary, I am hoping to invite anyone who feels like they (while acknowledging how painful that thread was for many) to move past infighting and anger and towards healing and understanding. I propose this (feel free to add):
1) Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread with an open-ended question that seeks to build understanding. Not to trap someone in a logical error, not to win the argument, but simply to try to recognize the humanity of others and build and reinforce curiosity about their perspective.
2) Then, see if you can respond with a focus on your own personal experience to one of those questions and end again with a question.
3) Add ideas about how to frame dialogue that we could use as a community to try to better hold all of our humanity in the face of profoundly charged moment so that we can stay united in the face of oppression.
4) Add to the discourse on why we disagree so vehemently right now, focusing on ideas but not individual commenters.
I'm just one person on this forum, much less active than many others, and I am not particularly vested in this being the right solution, so feel free to move on or feel free to suggest a different path toward reconciliation. It does sadden me to see metafilter blow up like this, and then not do anything to try to repair and heal.
I also did not read the entire thread, so perhaps this already happened there in some form. If so, apologies for the duplication. I thought about re-reading and re-editing this a million times, but I am just putting it out there, knowing there are flaws and imperfections. My apologies for that.
First, I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but I have been paying some attention since a powerful image ran in my local newspaper when I was a teen portraying the coffins of all that had died in a recent conflict with the flag of their 'nationality' draped over the casket. As a result, I have long questioned the dominant narrative of Palestinians being the aggressors. Most of my Jewish friends oppose many of Israel's policies, and so I also know I'm not getting all opinions on that front either. So, I want to acknowledge that positionality. I am also neither Jewish nor of any other middle-eastern origin, and so am a bit of an outsider.
Some things I noticed in that thread that lead to misunderstanding and harm were:
1) Imprecise language being interpreted to mean totally different things by different people, typically with hostility.
2) People responding from past poor interactions rather than what was actually said.
3) People fighting rather than trying to understand the other person's perspective.
What I got to thinking about is the equitable dialogues framework, which I am in no way an expert in, but which provides some guidelines for who to try to move towards dialogue rather than debate, understanding rather than winning, etc.
One tenant is to listen to understand rather than to craft a response. Another is to respond with open-ended questions focusing on personal experiences rather than concepts or lofty goals.
I wondered whether I could invite those in that thread and those not in that thread to try out seeing if we could just have a redo with a better container that might allow for some dialogue and learning.
As a not particularly exemplary example, rather than
"I'm Jewish and I've never experienced antisemitism only anti-Zionism on this site." (period, full stop, end of comment)
How about:
"While I've been able to recognize significant anti-black racism and transphobia on this site, I don't tend to think of it as being filled with antisemitism. I've seen opposing Israel's treatment of Palestinians conflated with antisemitism, and so my initial emotional response is to be defensive due to the repeated attacks on me as being a 'bad' Jew or antisemitic because of my opposition to Israel's actions. I'm wondering if you could add specific examples, not because I don’t believe they aren't there, but because I'm having trouble knowing how we can move forward as a community with such an open-ended and currently weaponized question?"
And, I think it's worth acknowledging, each and every one of us, how hard this really is. How it's impossible to understand the Middle East without understanding trauma. How hard it is, from trauma, to hold other perspectives. When I'm feeling optimistic and safe and seen, then I can have the thought that I know my own history with transphobia makes it hard to recognize the humanity in the people in Mom's for Liberty. Yet, when I do, I can see a glimmer of hope in the idea that we share a profoundly important value of protecting our kids. To be clear, it is never a reasonable expectation of me to approach them, as they are advocating for my oppression.
Similarly, I think almost everyone has a sentence they could try saying like that. "Because of my history with …. I do recognize that I have trouble holding the humanity of …. "
I'm so fortunate to have had two beautiful conversations recently. One with a middle-eastern man (I'm not sure from where) saying that he struggles to hold the pain of the millennia of oppression of Jews given the actions of Isreal, and another, a Jewish woman saying that she's always been taught to understand violence from Gaza and the West Bank as a result of brainwashing by Hamas and their predecessors to promote violence, and that makes it hard to see the human rights violations of the state of Isreal for what they are.
And, I don't think a reasonable discussion on any of these issues will be possible unless we lay out some of the ideas that were discussed and collided in that discussion. So I thought I would enumerate some ideas I saw, while acknowledging my own biases and limited worldview. That is, I know that the below are not neutral, because I don't even know how to be neutral on this issue. I also know this list is incomplete.
1) We are living in a time of profound propaganda on all sides about the situation in both Isreal and Palestine. It is the best interest of the powers that be in the United States and elsewhere to continue the conflict in that region, e.g. so that the US can maintain a military presence there. More generally, my sense is that leadership in Isreal, in Gaza, and in the rest of the middle east doesn't typically hold the best interest of the people in that region well, and tends to use propaganda to promote their own power. As a result, there is a huge amount of mis-information about the reality of life as a Palestinian person, the treatment of Palestinians by Isreal and by many other middle eastern nations, and of the importance and role of Isreal to Jews. There is also a massive conflation on all sides of the policies and practices of the country of Isreal and of Jewish people both within and outside of Isreal. The result is that discussions tend to start from opinions rather than facts, from accusations rather than curiosity. The result is also that we live in a world where generally reasonable people can think of the people as Palestine as trained by Hamas as the main aggressor and others as Isreal as a long-standing perpetrator of horrific apartheid. And so when we try to have conversations on the topic, we tend to get stuck because of the profoundly different mindset differences that might be better approached by first acknowledging the disparate worldviews, experiences and upbringings. "I've always been taught that Palestinians are taught to be violent" vs "If you want to stop violent opposition to apartheid, stop the apartheid."
2) Charges of antisemitism in this country have been weaponized by Christian nationalists and fascists to justify the ongoing horrific human rights violations growing in this country. That means, that e.g. I, as a trans man, am always engaged in the active practice of trying to separate out the different meanings of antisemitism, which currently vary from an excuse to illegally and inhumanely imprison student protestors, to enable anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate (etc.), to undermine universities, free speech and the rule of law and so eventually to justify my oppression; to attacks of Jewish students falsely maligned because of they are blamed for the actions of a nation-state, or the long-standing underlying antisemitism that has lead to the horrific and violent slaughter of Jews in this country (e.g. Tree of Life massacre).
3) The language here is all very complicated, not just antisemitism. Even if we just consider Zionism, which isn't probably properly, but could be interpreted as meaning the right of Jewish people to a country of safety but I think more properly means a homeland in it's current location, with the current vision of that as Isreal. Conflating being opposed to Isreal's policies with opposing any version of a Jewish homeland denies us the creative exercise of trying to define one that recognizes the need of both Jews and Palestinians for safety. That is, I don't know of any of these words that don't have multiple meanings. And, the optimist in me holds that the current driving narrative and violence presumes the fallacy that Jewish safety can only be achieved at the expense of someone's else safety.
4) I don’t typically think it's worthwhile to play ones-ups-manship in terms of oppression, but I just wanted to name the unique position of anti-black and anti-indigenous oppressions as original sins of the US, and of anti-Jewish oppression as, similarly, an original sin of the western world more broadly. So that within this country, it can raise hackles to compare antisemitism to anti-Black racism. For example, one way to think about it is that many (but not all) hate crimes in the US against Jews are perpetrated by individuals, and the vast majority of anti-Black hate crimes are perpetrated by the state (e.g. mass imprisonment, police violence, etc.). Or that the primary target of state-sanctioned violence within this country is directed at Black and Indigenous people (our violence outside this country is a whole different problem and topic). I don't have time to find it, but the phenomenal and very relevant book "See No Stranger" which has a primary focus on anti-Sikh hate and violence, has a beautiful passage on anti-Black racism because of this country's history (I know nothing about that author's other work, so i.e. don't know whether she has been antisemitic). On the other hand, anti-Jewish hate, oppression, and genocide has existed for the history of Jews, and so in that context we need to hold front and center the need and right for Jewish people to have safety. (And to be repetitive, I believe that the safety of Jews does not necessarily predicate taking safety away from others).
5) That the main goal of the current administration, and the far-right more broadly is (and has been for years) to sow chaos and division between those who, if they stood together, could potentially support each other minimally, and fight this regime ideally. That means it's probably a good idea to look at any infighting and see whether it has a cause outside of the issue at hand, and more importantly about how the priority might be best as our shared humanity rather than our differences.
My favorite quote in this moment is Jame's Baldwin's, "We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist."
Can we please practice finding as much space as possible for disagreement, for dialogue, for shared learning while holding as precious as possible each of our individual humanity and the humanity of all people?
In summary, I am hoping to invite anyone who feels like they (while acknowledging how painful that thread was for many) to move past infighting and anger and towards healing and understanding. I propose this (feel free to add):
1) Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread with an open-ended question that seeks to build understanding. Not to trap someone in a logical error, not to win the argument, but simply to try to recognize the humanity of others and build and reinforce curiosity about their perspective.
2) Then, see if you can respond with a focus on your own personal experience to one of those questions and end again with a question.
3) Add ideas about how to frame dialogue that we could use as a community to try to better hold all of our humanity in the face of profoundly charged moment so that we can stay united in the face of oppression.
4) Add to the discourse on why we disagree so vehemently right now, focusing on ideas but not individual commenters.
I'm just one person on this forum, much less active than many others, and I am not particularly vested in this being the right solution, so feel free to move on or feel free to suggest a different path toward reconciliation. It does sadden me to see metafilter blow up like this, and then not do anything to try to repair and heal.
I also did not read the entire thread, so perhaps this already happened there in some form. If so, apologies for the duplication. I thought about re-reading and re-editing this a million times, but I am just putting it out there, knowing there are flaws and imperfections. My apologies for that.
Why does this pattern keep repeating:
- interested/aggrieved party posts a MeTa to the queue
- mods refuse to post it
- aggrievance percolates
- uninvolved no skin in the game third party posts a MeTa to relitigate the aggrievance
- mods DO allow it through the queue
- everything goes to hell
cf. anotherpanacea just asking questions about nouvelle-personne and dubious_dude; Jacqueline making a "bland" post on behalf of Violet Blue
Are the moderation choices really saving the community any grief by refusing to allow people to speak for themselves?
posted by phunniemee at 8:15 AM on April 4 [32 favorites]
- interested/aggrieved party posts a MeTa to the queue
- mods refuse to post it
- aggrievance percolates
- uninvolved no skin in the game third party posts a MeTa to relitigate the aggrievance
- mods DO allow it through the queue
- everything goes to hell
cf. anotherpanacea just asking questions about nouvelle-personne and dubious_dude; Jacqueline making a "bland" post on behalf of Violet Blue
Are the moderation choices really saving the community any grief by refusing to allow people to speak for themselves?
posted by phunniemee at 8:15 AM on April 4 [32 favorites]
I'm not an expert in this area by any means
I am not particularly vested in this being the right solution
I also did not read the entire thread
I truly believe it is okay if we do not redo the multiple antisemitism threads (there were more than just one) in a new thread with this framing.
posted by mittens at 8:31 AM on April 4 [41 favorites]
I am not particularly vested in this being the right solution
I also did not read the entire thread
I truly believe it is okay if we do not redo the multiple antisemitism threads (there were more than just one) in a new thread with this framing.
posted by mittens at 8:31 AM on April 4 [41 favorites]
lol Isreal
posted by windbox at 8:39 AM on April 4 [9 favorites]
posted by windbox at 8:39 AM on April 4 [9 favorites]
As a trans guy who is not Jewish I have decided to keep my mouth shut on this topic, even if I see parallels between this discussion and ones that relate to my personal experience. I'm sorry about the experience you had that was disheartening to you as a trans man. It sounds like your feelings on that have gotten tangled up in the antisemitism thread experience, which is something that has certainly happened to me in the past. But I don't think this is an appropriate frame either individually or as a community through which to process it. If you'd like to talk to someone about what happened privately with someone who understands the trans man piece of it, feel free to Me-Mail me.
posted by brook horse at 8:50 AM on April 4 [22 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 8:50 AM on April 4 [22 favorites]
If you want to make a long-winded post about anti-semitism as a non-Jew, I strongly recommend you first learn the proper English spelling of the word Israel.
posted by Frayed Knot at 9:12 AM on April 4 [16 favorites]
posted by Frayed Knot at 9:12 AM on April 4 [16 favorites]
Your sincere post reminds me of that scene in the movie Breaking Away, where a young cyclist who loves Italian racing rides up to the lead team from Italy and speaks to them in broken Italian, but they just insult him and then dangerously crash him off the road into the weeds. (Afterwards, he tearfully hugs his stodgy dad, saying the mighty line: "Everybody cheats, I just didn't know.") My point is that the "middle-east" conflict centered around Israel has been almost daily front page news since an oil embargo in 1973, non-stop, no exaggeration. It is a theological feud over monotheism that even the smartest people mistake for a resolvable boundary dispute.
posted by Brian B. at 9:50 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 9:50 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
I'll sound like a broken record but... Moderating this complex topic is nearly impossible, and our team cannot claim definitive authority on such a nuanced discussion.
The Israel-Palestine situation is an ongoing catastrophe with mounting casualties, where participants bring varying levels of personal involvement, trauma, perspectives, and stakes.
So even if we expect members to engage in these threads without resorting to discriminatory and bad faith comments, and we can moderate I/P threads and intervene when the Content Policy or Guidelines are overstepped, none of this can be solved at a policy or moderation level but rather at both the community and individual level. I believe this site exists for mutual listening and learning with genuine understanding, and the more we keep that in mind the more we'll be able to have these discussions without making them unnecessarily hostile to anyone willing to share their perspective.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:51 AM on April 4 [6 favorites]
The Israel-Palestine situation is an ongoing catastrophe with mounting casualties, where participants bring varying levels of personal involvement, trauma, perspectives, and stakes.
So even if we expect members to engage in these threads without resorting to discriminatory and bad faith comments, and we can moderate I/P threads and intervene when the Content Policy or Guidelines are overstepped, none of this can be solved at a policy or moderation level but rather at both the community and individual level. I believe this site exists for mutual listening and learning with genuine understanding, and the more we keep that in mind the more we'll be able to have these discussions without making them unnecessarily hostile to anyone willing to share their perspective.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:51 AM on April 4 [6 favorites]
Loup, the issue here--an issue here--is that even without a queue to review Metatalk posts, it should be fairly easy to see that given the structure of the post and the recent history of the topic, there is no positive way forward for this thread. I hope that the thread doesn't create a pile-on for the poster, who I do believe was posting with the best of intentions, but accidentally falling into a trap a lot of us do, when we try to start a conversation about a topic where we have no skin in the game. This is a case where a mod reaching out to the poster to discuss matters of framing--or whether it was the right post at the right time--could have been so beneficial.
posted by mittens at 9:55 AM on April 4 [20 favorites]
posted by mittens at 9:55 AM on April 4 [20 favorites]
I have time for good intentions and I think lab.beetle's intentions are good.
It's okay to not participate in a thread.
Full disclosure, I used to attend monthly church council meetings and every single meeting had to start with a blessing, and repeating (reading) these Circle of Trust statements and it would burn through 15 minutes and *I hated it* even while my brain could appreciate that some people need that, and maybe I really need it, who knows? I stopped serving in that capacity and no longer attend those meetings.
lab.beetle, good luck.
posted by ginger.beef at 9:59 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
It's okay to not participate in a thread.
Full disclosure, I used to attend monthly church council meetings and every single meeting had to start with a blessing, and repeating (reading) these Circle of Trust statements and it would burn through 15 minutes and *I hated it* even while my brain could appreciate that some people need that, and maybe I really need it, who knows? I stopped serving in that capacity and no longer attend those meetings.
lab.beetle, good luck.
posted by ginger.beef at 9:59 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
I think the mods could have worked with lab.beetle to make this sincere post a better jumping-off point for discussion. As it stands there’s too much going on for this to be constructive.
posted by donnagirl at 10:19 AM on April 4 [6 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 10:19 AM on April 4 [6 favorites]
As a trans man who is a Jew, I hereby bestow upon all cisgender goyishe Mefites my blessing and also my permission to go about your lives knowing that this is a complicated topic, and take from you the requirement to make any more MetaTalk posts about it. Please, please stop. Thank you. Shabbat shalom.
posted by fight or flight at 10:23 AM on April 4 [42 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 10:23 AM on April 4 [42 favorites]
But it seems kind of like a no-win scenario to me. It's my understanding, although I know this is disputed, that the mods tried to work with VB on the original antisemitism post to make it more productive, and that blew up.
We have a comment upthread from phunniemee that suggests we should simply allow people to speak for themselves, as lab.beetle is doing here.
So, do we just post things as they come in and let people speak for themselves and let the chips fall where they may, even when we can all see that as framed things are going to end poorly?
Or do we stop things from being posted so folks can collaborate for a more successful outcome? But then we have the equivalent of a sort of queue and people get their feelings hurt and feel they're being silenced?
I think I would prefer the later, but fuck if I know. What I do think is that whatever 'we' decide, we should do it consistently.
posted by kbanas at 10:25 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
We have a comment upthread from phunniemee that suggests we should simply allow people to speak for themselves, as lab.beetle is doing here.
So, do we just post things as they come in and let people speak for themselves and let the chips fall where they may, even when we can all see that as framed things are going to end poorly?
Or do we stop things from being posted so folks can collaborate for a more successful outcome? But then we have the equivalent of a sort of queue and people get their feelings hurt and feel they're being silenced?
I think I would prefer the later, but fuck if I know. What I do think is that whatever 'we' decide, we should do it consistently.
posted by kbanas at 10:25 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
this thread is going to turn into something unrelated to the poster's intentions, looks like
my question: if people think this MeTa is a bad idea, but also think we should not queue MeTas, then they could avoid this MeTa?
is there a rule that people must post to MeTas whether they think they're valid or not? If no-one posted to this, we'd have valuable information wouldn't we
but no, here we all are with our Opinions
posted by ginger.beef at 10:41 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]
my question: if people think this MeTa is a bad idea, but also think we should not queue MeTas, then they could avoid this MeTa?
is there a rule that people must post to MeTas whether they think they're valid or not? If no-one posted to this, we'd have valuable information wouldn't we
but no, here we all are with our Opinions
posted by ginger.beef at 10:41 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]
I think it is fine that this was posted. I think members can engage with this posting the way it proposes, or offer polite feedback about how they think this is not necessarily a productive way to create a discussion about this. Whatever the discussions are here, they will document the opinions of the members and could indicate some level of consensus about how MeTa can work. For example, I only read a small part of the original post because it was much longer than what I would be inclined to read based on the first few sentences.
posted by snofoam at 10:41 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 10:41 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
Circling back from skim reading the post (I didn't bother reading all of it, sorry) just to say that this is a terrible idea, let's all agree to please never do this, for fuck's sake:
Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread with an open-ended question that seeks to build understanding.
posted by fight or flight at 10:41 AM on April 4 [12 favorites]
Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread with an open-ended question that seeks to build understanding.
posted by fight or flight at 10:41 AM on April 4 [12 favorites]
We have a comment upthread from phunniemee that suggests we should simply allow people to speak for themselves, as lab.beetle is doing here.
No, lab.beetle said this:
1) Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread
which sounds like the exact opposite of people speaking for themselves. And it immediately made me wonder why mods are fine with this but then don't let n-p or VB have their own posts go through, speaking for themselves.
posted by phunniemee at 10:57 AM on April 4 [9 favorites]
No, lab.beetle said this:
1) Redo any of the responses (yours or someone else's) from the other thread
which sounds like the exact opposite of people speaking for themselves. And it immediately made me wonder why mods are fine with this but then don't let n-p or VB have their own posts go through, speaking for themselves.
posted by phunniemee at 10:57 AM on April 4 [9 favorites]
that is a valid point: consistency in terms of how mods apply rules and decisions
is that what this MeTa is about then?
I think the poster has good intentions, I don't personally want to engage with their framing but I support their right to post
posted by ginger.beef at 11:57 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]
is that what this MeTa is about then?
I think the poster has good intentions, I don't personally want to engage with their framing but I support their right to post
posted by ginger.beef at 11:57 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Heads Up: This post has received several flags asking us to close/freeze this thread for the weekend (when we have reduced moderation) to avoid it imploding throughout Saturday and Sunday. I've consulting with the mods covering the weekend shifts and they agree so I've reached out to lab.beetle confirm he's OK with this.
posted by loup (staff) at 11:58 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]
posted by loup (staff) at 11:58 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]
Metafilter: here we all are with our Opinions
posted by Vatnesine at 12:06 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
posted by Vatnesine at 12:06 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
As the Meta queue is being brought up I just want to add, for the sake of this conversation that:
– in the weird instances where anything in the queue is rejected, we explicitly tell members that we are open discuss a different approach other than just rejecting their post ad portas.
– The MataTalk queue is an artifact of a previous incarnation of MetaFilter and I agree that it should go as the new MeFi takes shape (both organizationally and technically).
– I (personally) avoid pushing back on the framing of a post with a user because I don't think it is our duty to tell people how to voice their thoughts, but we're more than happy to talk these through, should they want our input prior to posting a Meta.
posted by loup (staff) at 12:15 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
– in the weird instances where anything in the queue is rejected, we explicitly tell members that we are open discuss a different approach other than just rejecting their post ad portas.
– The MataTalk queue is an artifact of a previous incarnation of MetaFilter and I agree that it should go as the new MeFi takes shape (both organizationally and technically).
– I (personally) avoid pushing back on the framing of a post with a user because I don't think it is our duty to tell people how to voice their thoughts, but we're more than happy to talk these through, should they want our input prior to posting a Meta.
posted by loup (staff) at 12:15 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
we explicitly tell members that we are open discuss a different approach
I (personally) avoid pushing back on the framing of a post with a user because I don't think it is our duty to tell people how to voice their thoughts
Does "we" mean mods who are not loup? Am I missing a nuance here?
posted by phunniemee at 12:24 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
I (personally) avoid pushing back on the framing of a post with a user because I don't think it is our duty to tell people how to voice their thoughts
Does "we" mean mods who are not loup? Am I missing a nuance here?
posted by phunniemee at 12:24 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
My favorite quote in this moment is Jame's Baldwin's, "We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist."
Just a quick mid-day "well, actually" break, this is not something James Baldwin said. But someone did! It's a real quote, just not by Baldwin.
posted by kensington314 at 1:14 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]
Just a quick mid-day "well, actually" break, this is not something James Baldwin said. But someone did! It's a real quote, just not by Baldwin.
posted by kensington314 at 1:14 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]
Mod note: Closing the thread temporarily since folks have asked us to close/freeze the thread while we have reduced moderation this weekend. Thanks for everyone's patience.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:34 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:34 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]
is that what this MeTa is about then?
Judith Butler on Executive Order 14168 [lrb/archive:]
Judith Butler on Executive Order 14168 [lrb/archive:]
What realities do they seek to create and normalise? The pace has been so quick that it has been impossible to take in the implications of all the individual orders; instead, we reel from their collective assault. But we can, given a little time, collectively take each one apart in public, and gradually build a counter-discourseposted by HearHere at 4:55 AM on April 9 [1 favorite]
...
Any effective response to the anti-gender movement will entail a critique of the new forms of authoritarianism and the passions they exploit. It is right, of course, that we defend ‘gender’, point by point, against those who wage an ignorant war against it, but that alone will not be enough. We need a better understanding of the fears exploited by authoritarians: who is this ‘migrant’, so dangerous they must be deported; this ‘Palestinian’ whose death secures the social and political order; this notion of ‘gender’ that is so threatening to self, family and society?
What is that 'better understanding' we need? We've been listening to those fears explained and explained for years. One of the frustrations of Butler's piece is that she starts talking about gametes and DSDs and like...dude...that's all just a macguffin, it's just some words strung together because even in authoritarianism you've got to say something slightly different than "because I said so." It doesn't have to hold together at all--in fact, if it did hold together, if it did have a consistent internal logic, they'd throw it away immediately, because authoritarianism demands a fluid relationship to reality and consistency. Everything must bow. This is how we tie ourselves in knots over all this stuff--antisemitism, tariffs--"well ACTUALLY if you look at what is happening--" No. What's happening is that we think our words have meaning, but meaning is swept away by the tide of absolute power.
We here on this small website are a microcosm of the discourse problem. We wonder why Metafilter Is Bad At X, when the whole world is suffering from an inability to talk about what's happening in a way that other people can understand and empathize with.
posted by mittens at 5:31 AM on April 9
We here on this small website are a microcosm of the discourse problem. We wonder why Metafilter Is Bad At X, when the whole world is suffering from an inability to talk about what's happening in a way that other people can understand and empathize with.
posted by mittens at 5:31 AM on April 9
What is that 'better understanding' we need?
“who is this ... ‘Palestinian’ whose death secures the social and political order”?
“who is this ... ‘Palestinian’ whose death secures the social and political order”?
[cnn]: When paramedic Hassan Hosni Al-Hila felt too sick to continue his late-night assignment with the Palestine Red Crescent Society on March 23, his son gladly agreed to cover his shift.posted by HearHere at 7:09 AM on April 9 [1 favorite]
That shift would prove to be 21-year-old Mohammad’s last.
...
The IDF claimed on April 1 without offering proof that “following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with 8 other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”
In a statement on Monday, the IDF revised that number, saying six Hamas operatives were identified among the casualties, without providing evidence.
But the aid agencies said the name given by the Israeli military did not match that of any emergency workers dispatched, and no Hamas militants were among the group. CNN obtained from the PRCS the names of 14 of those killed; none was identified as Mohammad Shubaki. A spokesperson with the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said the name of the 15th man killed – an UNRWA employee – was not shared out of respect for his family but was not the name given by the Israeli military.
Nah, should have left it closed.
posted by fight or flight at 10:52 AM on April 9 [6 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 10:52 AM on April 9 [6 favorites]
Hi OP. Like you I wish we could all be better at having deep conversations on challenging topics. I especially wish I were better at it. I don’t know if this thread is going as you hoped it might.
But you mentioned something that I’d never heard of before - the equitable dialogues framework. I wonder if that might be a subject for an FPP, just on that topic. Adding our difficult topics to it might be too much weight and make it harder to have a good conversation about it.
That’s just a thought. Thanks for caring about the site and for taking the time to post. I hope you’re having a good day.
posted by bunderful at 11:37 AM on April 11 [3 favorites]
But you mentioned something that I’d never heard of before - the equitable dialogues framework. I wonder if that might be a subject for an FPP, just on that topic. Adding our difficult topics to it might be too much weight and make it harder to have a good conversation about it.
That’s just a thought. Thanks for caring about the site and for taking the time to post. I hope you’re having a good day.
posted by bunderful at 11:37 AM on April 11 [3 favorites]
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posted by loup (staff) at 7:59 AM on April 4