This is a living document which may (likely will) be supplemented as necessary. If you have received this link in response to a comment, it’s because I’m tired. Cancer fatigue necessitates I create more efficient methods of communication. Items are numbered to make referencing points easier, not necessarily by priority.
This document was not directed at anyone specifically or in response to any specific remark at the time I wrote it. I just found myself repeating a lot of things over and over to people and thought this would save me some time and heartache as I try to take care of myself.
It is not uncommon for me to be assumed rude, disrespectful, mentally unwell, or just a “bitch” for being unwilling to listen to “reason” when I bluntly disengage from “debates” with others. Mostly because people who don’t routinely set their own boundaries don’t recognize mine. Some of these boundaries have been set for ages. Others are relatively new, borne of necessity because of my presence on social media.
Comments are turned off. If you don’t understand why, I probably can’t explain it to you. So I won’t bother.
–Emily
1/9/2021
- Censorship by private companies is not comparable to censorship by the government.
- You cannot reasonably argue that your Aunt Betty shouldn’t have to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple but Simon and Schuster should have to publish a nazi’s book or TLC should have to keep Duck Dynasty on the air.
- If a sitting senator, such as Josh Hawley of Missouri, forced a book publisher to distribute ANY kind of writing, the United States would be guilty of the very things we have long accused countries like China, Russia, and North Korea of doing.
- The First Amendment protects citizens from retribution by the government for criticism of the government. It does not protect you or me from being grounded by our parents for saying fuck or guarantee you your own talk show.
- Also, SCOTUS has ruled there are limits to your right to free speech. If you cannot at a minimum explain to me in your own words the crux of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s SCOTUS opinion about shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater, I will not further entertain your First Amendment grievances on behalf of criminals.
- To deny the existence of white privilege is to further the cause of white supremacy. A person does not have to write or speak racist slurs, be a member of the Klan or the Proud Boys, or make people drink at separate water fountains to be a racist.
- A person does not have to be aware of their racism to be a racist in the same way that a person does not have to know that fishing without a license is against the law to break that law. Ignorance can be considered a cause of racism, but not an excuse for it.
- The United States is a racist nation for many reasons. Chief among them are the discrepancies in how Black and brown bodies are policed, denied equal justice under the law (bail, sentencing, use of solitary, juvenile jail, etc), disenfranchised, and systematically excluded from rights to life, liberty, and happiness.
- If you cannot at a minimum define the words sharecropping and redlining, I will not subject myself to your whining about “special rights” let alone your opposition to reparations for Black and indigenous people.
- The Confederate flag is the flag of white supremacy. The Civil War was fought because of slavery. It was only about “states’ rights” in that some states claimed that slaveholding was their Christian duty. If you cannot at a minimum, tell me from where the following quote originates, I will assume you want to defend the defenseless position of white supremacy and end the conversation.
The quote: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.”
- “Heritage not hate” is a shibboleth for our racist contemporaries. It is not a catchphrase used by people who are just really into confederate history.
- Donald Trump is a white supremacist; white supremacism is terrorism. Therefore, people who support Donald Trump support white supremacist terrorism.
- Nothing you can argue will dissuade me from acknowledging this reality or excuse you for it. If I know you to be a Trump supporter, I will treat you as I would any white supremacist. To be welcome in my sphere, you must cease being a white supremacist. There is no workaround.
We can disagree on many other political, religious, social, and philosophical things and still maintain a friendship or a loving familial relationship, but not this.
- I am not responsible for the version of me you have created in your mind, and it is not my responsibility to protect your delusion.
- I am not hiding who I am from you in order to deceive. If you are shocked to learn that I swear, speak my mind, publicly name doctors who have harmed me, bluntly respond to unwelcome comments on the internet, etc—it’s probably because you were assuming facts about me not in evidence.
- Insisting that I be positive about or simply “get over” any of my trauma is not welcome at anytime. If you minimize my trauma during a particularly stressful time, you should expect to hear what I think about your actions.
- I witnessed via real-time video a violent, deadly coup attempt—carried out by the President of the United States, members of the Republican party, members of law enforcement and white supremacist militias—in which people died.
For four years I was treated by many as an alarmist for noting how Trump’s presidency would and did parallel the historical rise of fascism around the world. I was told that there was no difference between Hillary and Trump. I was told there was no difference between any Democrats or Trump.
I was gaslit repeatedly about Trump and many other things. I have been traumatized by the constant gaslighting. In addition to those traumas I have spent four years wondering if I’d be denied healthcare, lose my house, die of cancer, continue to watch my Black, brown, immigrant, native, and Jewish friends and fellow humans endure hate crime after hate crime, all while my federal government let us die of and encouraged others to promote the spread of a deadly virus. I am not OK, and I will not likely be for a long time. I will not apologize for not being OK or attempt to make anyone else more comfortable with how not OK I am.
- My post-traumatic stress episodes bypass the parts of my brain concerned with your feelings and all processing resources are directed to protecting and deflecting harm. IMPORTANT: You do not have a say in what words and actions my brain deems harmful. Your good intentions cannot be factored into the equation until the episode ends, at the absolute earliest. Pressing for immediate reconciliation by insisting you didn’t “mean it like that” will make things worse 100% of the time.
