#countering bigotry

[samaspic31]

it is unbelievably easy to not only get in bubbles on here and anywhere on the interent, but more importantly to forget we are in one (there's nothing wrong with existing in niche communities, we just mustn't forget it's not the universal state of existing which our brains like to assume very quickly. also my god tumblr works a lot like wider society with its semi segreated communities), and as someone who got a year long depressin mainly interacting with my family, friends, and tumblr, the return to uni has been. rough. i had forgor how it felt brushing elbows with passive aggressively racist teachers and people who hate me for being trans (even in goddamn art school with half queer students it's a nightmare), it's not i had forgotten transphobes existed, nor that they were in power and the state didn't care (impossible with the wave of anti trans laws in america) but it was less tangible, less frequent, and i had the freedom to leave

anyways this post is about remembering that every single person is acting and thinking the way they are because they believe it to be right or the best behavioral option and lack exposure to alterantive point of view they cna understand. Everyone thinks they're the norm, the standard, that their personal stance is the neutrality; from zionists to tankies, they believe themselves to be right partially out of chosen biased media diet, their upbringing, the linguistic tools at their disposition, the way they interpret their experiences, their parent's beliefs and their attitude towards it, and because of strong entrenched psychic mechanisms. most people have huge gaps in their education due to how specialized, incomplete, state dictated, and hierachised the education system i(and classist) and people com from all kinds of cultural backgrounds that each comes a set of specific ethics and beliefs. those gaps in formation to have a comprehensive knowledge of the world in as many of its aspects as possible should have been fixed by individuqls before they become a politician, alas it's not like political classes are great at teaching ethics and as if people don't have financial incentives to stay ignorant.

Which is not to mean they can't be judged for their actions or for enacting or endorsing cruelty ; on the contrary. everyone has a responsability to unlearn bigotry and use critical thinking when it comes to news media and fiction. But winning debates, explaining your point of view and convincing people is easier when you understand the underlying mental pathways and the cultural consumption leading to the opinions of the opposing parties; that way your stance cannot be construed as myopic: you've considered the other stances you could hold, you've understood them and looked into what motivates people to hold it, the history behing it, and you still chose the one you did and hold if for more ethical.

[soryualeksi]

German "anti racists" around here breathing a sigh of relief like, "FINALLY I can say it again, but I've ALWAYS thought that The Muslims were kinda sus..."

Feels bad, man.

[gorepill]

also abt my tags on that anon; im not ace or aspec but I think bigotry can affect everyone on some level ! ^-^ just like transphobia can affect cis people (iee. freaks """"clocking""" cis ppl in the bathroom and harassing them cuz they think they're trans,) aphobia can affect allos. Tbh I'm just thinking out loud but I do think I am correct, based, and awesome pilled as per usual :3

[adlamu]

me every time i see [insert alt subculture (which definitely came about as part of their respective iconic, identifiable music) here] discourse across any of the three socials i actively use:

[psychotrenny]

People really love to cynically abuse that whole "old dead white men" line don't they. Like there is a very genuine issue with how various systems of oppression (racism, misogyny etc.) mean that thinkers from privileged backgrounds got a disproportionate amount of attention and praise compared to those from a more marginalised position, with the theoretically contributions of the latter getting frequently mis-attributed or outright ignored. It doesn't mean that the contributions from said privileged thinkers are all inherently worthless on that basis alone.

Like it's a classic example of the way that liberals take structural critiques and turn them into a matter of personal morality. "Overrepresentation of privileged thinkers is bad" gets turned into "Privileged thinkers are all bad people". And it always gets used in the most cynical way possible. You hardly ever see this line used on thorough reactionaries like Nietzsche. It's mainly used to denounce progressive thinkers who, whatever flaws they had and bigotries they were unable to escape, still made innumerable contributions to the causes of liberation and laid the groundwork that was later developed and expanded by marginalised theoreticians. Like people should definitely read more Ho Chi Minh and Amilcar Cabral and Angela Davis, but that doesn't diminish the value of Marx and Lenin.

As important as it is to remind people of the contributions that marginalised people all over the world have made to Marxism (if only because even many Marxists themselves fail to appreciate this*), using it counter the whole "dead white guys" gotcha misses the point of why it's such a stupid thing to say. Because that line is a critique of a system, and it loses all power and meaning when removed from that context applied on the level of individuals. Bigotry is a dialectical structure and not a metaphysical condition; possessing privilege matters in terms of interaction with the broader world not as an ontological fact of your existence. Individuals do matter to some extent, but mainly in terms of how they fit into broader systems and not how systems fit around individuals. You need to realise all this if you want to get anywhere. This individualist bullshit only works as a tool for personal gratification and flagellation; it's masturbatory in the worst possible way

*even if you consciously support an ideology of anti-bigotry, it takes discipline and vigilance to properly unlearn all the biases instilled by life under Imperialist Capitalism and not everyone is successful at applying this

[metamatar]

To counter what they view as a rising tide of prejudice, the HAF and other Hindu American groups have turned to American Jewish organizations, which they have long seen as “the gold standard in terms of political activism,” as Maryland State Delegate Kumar Barve said in 2003. Since the early 2000s, Indian Americans have modeled their congressional activism on that of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and AIPAC; Indian lobbyists have partnered with these groups to achieve shared defense goals, including arms deals between India and Israel and a landmark nuclear agreement between India and the US. Along the way, these Jewish groups have trained a generation of Hindu lobbyists and advocates, offering strategies at joint summits and providing a steady stream of informal advice. “We shared with them the Jewish approach to political activism,” Ann Schaffer, an AJC leader, told the Forward in 2002. “We want to give them the tools to further their political agenda.” Shukla told Jewish Currents that the HAF continues to work closely with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the AJC, whether by “being co-amici curiae on briefs to the US Supreme Court,” or by “lending our support to one another’s letters to Congress.”

[...] Faced with rising scrutiny over India’s worsening human rights record, Hindu groups have used “the same playbook and even sometimes the same terms” as Israel-advocacy groups, “copy-pasted from the Zionist context,” said Nikhil Mandalaparthy of the anti-Hindutva group Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Hindu groups have especially taken note of their Jewish counterparts’ recent efforts to codify a definition of antisemitism—the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition—that places much criticism of Israel out-of-bounds, asserting that claims like “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” constitute examples of anti-Jewish bigotry.

[...] In 2003, Gary Ackerman—a Jewish former congressman who was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor for helping to found the Congressional Caucus on India—told a gathering of AJC and AIPAC representatives and their Indian counterparts that “Israel [is] surrounded by 120 million Muslims,” while “India has 120 million [within].” Tom Lantos, another Jewish member of the caucus, likewise enjoined the two communities to collaborate: “We are drawn together by mindless, vicious, fanatic, Islamic terrorism.”

Driven by that sense of shared purpose, the AJC and AIPAC helped train new Indian American political groups—such as the Indian American Political Action Committee and the United States India Political Action Committee—to achieve their aims in Washington. The AJC hosted seminars on political activism in DC and New York; it also brought several delegations of Indian Americans to Israel to meet with members of the Israeli government and military. “We’re fighting the same extremist enemy,” the AJC’s capital region director Charles Brooks told the Forward in 2002.

[tpwrtrmnky]

The thing is that "There is a problem with bigotry against [group that is marginalized in society as a whole] in [community that isn't explicitly working to counter that bigotry within the community]" is always a safe null hypothesis.

[dazed-and-confused23]

Golden Rule

Summary: Lucy is presented with her first case of Ghoul Bigotry, and it goes as well as what you think it might.

Pairings: The Ghoul | Cooper Howard x Lucy Maclean

Warnings: Eh none? This was just for funnsies lol. Short and sweet

"Oi. Get your rotter outta here, Vaultie. We don't like his kind around here."

Lucy looks at the merchant in shock. The woman had been perfectly cordial until Cooper had come inside, and her attitude had changed immediately to disgusted annoyance. She cuts her eyes back at Cooper, who doesn't look affected by the harsh words whatsoever, but Lucy can't believe her ears.

"Excuse me?" Lucy demands once she's gotten over her initial shock. Her hands ball into fists, and she squares her shoulders, "What the heck did you just call him?"

The woman sneers at the vault dweller, "A rotter. A zombie. Get it the fuck outta my shop."

Lucy feels her face go hot in anger. How dare this woman say such mean things about Cooper. He was an asshole and rough around the edges, but Lucy would never even dream of calling the ghoul such ugly words.

"You can't just call him things like that, ma'am. Cooper is just as human as me or you," Lucy snaps at the woman, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

"I can call that zombie whatever the hell I want, girl. Now, if you ain't got the caps, get the hell out."

Lucy huffs, lips screwing up and gearing up to tell this lady what's what, when Cooper appears behind her, one hand curling over her shoulder to pull her away from the counter. She lets herself be led away from the counter but can't stop the last retort from falling past her lips.

"Fine! I didn't want to trade with an old hag like you anyway!"

Cooper snickers as he drags her through the door and back out into the wastes. It'd been a long time since someone had stuck up for him like that.

"Let it go, Sweetheart. Some people are just too set in their ways," Cooper scoffed and tugged her along when Lucy huffed and crossed her arms indignantly.

"It's still not right. You're better looking than half the men I've seen out here, anyway."

Cooper laughs at that one and sends the smoothskin a wink, "Keep talkin' like that Darlin' and I'll start thinkin' you actually like me."

@therulerofallpotatos

[apas-95]

small reminder stalinism isn't communism, there is no such a thing as "socialism in one country" + stalinists are often queerphobes helping bigotry + you're still an environment killer

surrendering 100 years of successful revolutionary practice and theory to the immensurate wisdom of your 'vibes-based analysis'. I'd suggest you go read desert and then kill yourself but I guess reading isn't your forte so like. idk live a long life and watch as your ideology does literally nothing, just like it's done literally nothing so far in history. btw the people's republic of china just reached peak greenhouse gas emissions and has been installing more green power than the rest of the world combined. it's weird you only learned the word 'han chinese' when the US started its "Pivot to Asia" and funneled billions of USD into "countering Chinese influence", but hey, no need to think about that when you know 'stalinists' are homophobes

[nothorses]

Do you think that trans men experience internalized misogyny?

From my initial understanding I believed that internalized misogyny was the misogynistic beliefs you had weaponized against yourself. Although apparently this includes the way you externalize it as well if you’re affected? Though, when people talk about trans men, they just call them misogynistic, as opposed to cis women who tend to be given the benefit of the doubt more and are told they have internalized misogyny.

Now I don’t doubt that trans men experience misogyny, and will continue to be affected by it even if they pass (though I’m sure how can shift). But it always feels as though some people believe trans men’s misogyny is more harmful than other demographics affected?

Tbh, I think "internalized misogyny" is more useful when it's defined in a more narrow and specific way than, like, any misogyny that is expressed by any woman.

This feels like a really solid "defining factor" for me, personally:

(From the Wikipedia page for "Inernalized Oppression")

I like the phrasing here of "against their own best interest" a lot. While it could be argued that any form of oppression is inherently against everyone's best interests, including the so-called "privileged" group-- and I would absolutely agree with that idea-- I think it's fairly easy to understand the difference between oppression that is perpetuated for (perceived) self-gain, vs. oppression that is perpetuated because one earnestly buys into the idea that they are inherently less valuable in some way.

I think this also avoids the tendency to define oppression as "internalized" or not based on the amount of harm caused, or to excuse certain people's bigotry because it also harms them personally.

Internalized misogyny really isn't inherently less harmful when women are the ones perpetuating it, and that framing isn't helping anyone! There are certain situations in which (cis) women have less power to perpetuate misogynistic violence or oppression than (cis) men do, absolutely. But that is a question of power to act in the first place, not the actual impact of those actions.

If anything, I would argue that I personally have suffered far more, and more severe, misogynistic violence at the hands of cis women than I have ever suffered from cis men. It genuinely doesn't matter to me whether those women were acting out of "internalized misogyny" or not.

It can be really helpful to understand the cause of someone's misogyny; why someone is motivated to perpetuate those ideas is going to inform the best approach to changing their beliefs and behavior. But that's a different question than "how harmful is this", or "should we excuse this person's bigotry".

So yes, transmascs can experience internalized misogyny. So much misogyny runs counter to our best interests. The same goes for transfems, and trans folks who don't fit into either category. I'd argue that anyone can experience internalized misogyny; including cis men, because, again, oppression ultimately runs counter to everyone's best interests.

More importantly, though, I think we need to be asking ourselves why we want to know whether someone's misogyny is "internalized" or not. What are we going to do with that information? Is it an excuse for the person perpetuating it, or do we need to answer that question in order to strategize, and push for growth and change?

[rutadales]

So instead of sending an ask clearing up misinformation on these tags bc that would be pointless and serve to only make people upset, instead I am going to illustrate to all of you how short, quippy, and wrong statements completely control the conversation. Any attempt to clear up misinfo is going to take twice as long and be a lot less clipable (tbc this person isn't doing this intentionally doing this (at least to my knowledge) but it goes to show how pervasive these quick and wrong statements are). Watch:

"dream gave gumball's va alcohol" completely wrong, dream and gumball here both went to a birthday party of a mutual friend and met 20 minutes prior to the interaction in the Uber. There's nothing to show that Dream even brought alcohol to the event, let alone saught out a 20 year old to give it to him.

"VA is underage" technically correct in the specific context of America's legal drinking age, but so misleading it feels intentional. For most people underage means below 18, a minor, and not a 20 year old adult making the decsion to drink a year before it's legal. Any reasonable person is going to assume 17 or younger here.

"VA had a bipolar swing" There's nothing to suggest this besides people decided it. You can't diagnose a manic episode from a 4 minute clip and the majority of you are not capable of diagnosing anytime at all. No one has confirmed this, not even gold statue Michaelangelo (who by the way has deleted every tweet involving the situation). But even in the scenario where he is manic in those clips, being manic is not a free pass to verbal harass minimum wage workers and be freely antisemitic, ablest, and homophobic. But I digress.

"and called Dream a faggot" yeah that parts true

Even more additional context that is relevant is Dream was physically assaulted by Gumball's VA. Gumball's VA directly asked if Dream was Jewish after saying Dream would never get rid of his money, called the Uber driver the r slur and said the Uber driver had down syndrome. He then threatened to kill or paralyze Dream.

See how long that took? Almost 400 words to counter 4 lines. And I'm giving the original commentor the benefit of the doubt here and assuming they're just repeating what they heard but you see how that's dangerous? You see how this method of controlling interactions keeps the flow on the side of the person who is factually wrong?

And I didn't even get into how this is a tactic of the alt right, how it serves to normalize using faggot as a weapon, how it actively desensitizes people to bigotry if the person on the receiving end "deserves it". Or how harmful instantly trying to make the assaulter in this situation the victim, or using mental illness as an excuse to assault and threaten to kill people is also bad! Because even though that is all true and absolutely necessary in this conversation, I can't get into it! Because it would take even longer and "I ain't reading all that" is the most annoying, damaging phrase on twitter right now.

[cardentist]

I just wrote up a more, emotional? reactive? take on this whole thing here [Link], but I wanted to try to say this in a way that's easier to parse.

people insist that trans mascs don't have any unique experiences (as Opposed to trans fems).

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face misogyny.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face physical violence.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face medical violence.

or if they Do, it's lesser than/misdirected from trans fems, to the point that it's presented as Wrong (if not active bigotry) to focus on/acknowledge them in conversations about these topics.

(even when, as we've established, people have actively invoked trans mascs to deny them these experiences).

in other words, trans mascs have been facing Active Erasure from within (and sometimes from Outside Of) the community, specifically intended to deny them their experiences and then Also frame any attempt from them to counter those claims as aggressive rather than defensive.

and this all hinges on an Extremely binary and gender-essentialist premise. both in denying trans-mascs their experiences based on their gender (asserting that there are innate properties to Being A Man that trans mascs invoke by being trans masc), AND by presenting trans fems and trans mascs as Opposites.

there is a seesaw, and if trans fems experience one thing then it must be presumed that trans mascs Don't, and so if trans masc try to insist that they experience these things Too then it Must Be that they're trying to take that experience away from trans fems.

and what's important to understand is that this framing is wrong. not just because of the harm that it causes to trans mascs, but because of the harm it causes To Everyone.

and I mean that on two fronts:

1: this is not a case of trans fems vs trans mascs, the seesaw Is Not Real. it's not trans women putting trans mascs down, it's Gender-Essentialists enforcing a gender binary within the trans and genderqueer communities. this rhetoric comes from all sorts of people, cis people, trans neutral people, trans masc people, and (yes) sometimes trans fem people.

and just the same, it's people who are Against gender-essentialism who speak up about the harm that this causes, and often those people are trans fem! and that Both means that nobody is served by directing negativity at trans fems AND that it is not appropriate to assume that trans mascs defending themselves and speaking on their experiences is causing harm to trans fems inherently.

2: this entire framing leaves trans neutral, genderqueer, and intersex people out in the cold. being an Inherently gender-essentialist and binary argument, these people who do not fit neatly into the binary are Heavily negatively impacted by it while Also being erased.

I have read someone (another trans masc, even), completely unironically, write the words "trans men have privilege over trans women because cis women have privilege over trans women." completely boiling trans mascs down to their agab and stripping them of their transness.

people are using tme (transmisogyny exempt) to refer to afab trans people (separating them Out from cis women), to deny these trans people experiences that they have had.

and this Does Not only affect binary trans men. there are afab intersex people who very actively experience transmisogyny, there are nonbinary people who are being boiled down to their agab, forcibly rebinarized and stripped of their transness, there are gnc people (cis and trans) who are treated as if they don't exist and actively attacked and erased if they try to speak up.

but the conversations is Framed like it's men vs women, the argument is presented as inherently binary.

and that makes it Incredibly difficult and frustrating to dismantle. just Look at this post, I had to very specifically go on an entire preamble about men and women just to begin unpacking the situation (and to undercut the ways that people try to actively silence people when they speak about it).

and even while actively Trying to be inclusive, trans neutral and genderqueer and intersex and gnc people read as a Footnote in the entire first half of this post that I wrote Specifically To Acknowledge Them. the very conversation itself Erases them, which is a Major Problem that's Incredibly frustrating and difficult to unpack.

to Say "trans people who I interpret as men/masculine are lesser than, and are harming trans people who I interpret as women/feminine" you Have to decide what Man and Woman and Masculine and Feminine mean. there is no trans inclusive way to do this, there is no way to do this without throwing people who challenge gender/sex binaries and gender norms under the bus.

(this even Actively Harms trans fems, whether those trans fems are gnc, genderqueer, intersex, pre transition, aren't able to/don't want to transition, or are just perceived as Too Masculine by these people vilifying queer masculinity. gender essentialism Is Inherently transphobic and harms All trans people.)

and in this case, it's Incredibly frustrating to talk about, because many people can't get past the idea that deciding that a gender is Innately Bad (just, the very definition of gender-essentialism) is Wrong.

trying to voice the harm that this causes to people Outside of the binary is bogged down by the first step. you can't unpack it without unpacking the essentialism being pointed at trans mascs, because people are Going to keep acting like this as long as they're convinced that they not only can but Should treat trans mascs this way.

and it needs to be said, that for as frustrating as it is to be put in this position we Have to acknowledge that the problem is with the situation, not with trans mascs trying to defend themselves.

I Do absolutely think that Everyone needs to make an active effort to think about and include All trans and genderqueer people in these conversations, to point out how incredibly exorsexist the conversation is Without just being a footnote or an aside or a gotcha. genderqueer people can't just be a tool we use to advocate for binary trans people.

but At The Same Time, the timeline of events cannot be

trans mascs are denied having unique lived experiences.

trans mascs are presented as not only lesser than, but actively privileged on the basis of their gender.

trans mascs assert their lived experiences and address the gendered violence they're experiencing.

trans mascs are criticized for framing their defense around the gendered violence that they're experiencing.

to say that The Reason trans mascs are in the wrong for discussing transandrophobia (or Whichever term you prefer) because there are no experiences unique to any gender or identity, while Not holding that same standard to transmisogyny or exorsexism, is very obviously singling trans mascs out and making it more difficult for them to combat their own erasure.

what's necessary here is Solidarity. Everyone needs to be put on the same playing field, to have All of their experiences matter. trans people need to be Equal.

and this means trans mascs and binary trans men making an active effort to include intersex, genderqueer, trans neutral, and gnc people in these conversations that affect them, and as More than just an afterthought.

and it Also means people recognizing that the conversation is inherently gender-essentialist, and that trans mascs have to be able to effectively advocate for themselves in the face of their own erasure and demonization. to blame them for the gendered violence they're experiencing isn't any more fair than the erasure genderqueer people are experiencing.

[germiyahu]

I really want to think that they thought they were writing "zionists" with a Polish flag even though that's the Indonesian flag 🤡

You know with all the "go back to Poland!" that has to be their intention right? Jews (written in a calming green with peaceful looking Mediterranean/Levantine olives in the background), vs ZIONISTS (written in blood red but curiously bisected on the horizontal with white). I'm surprised they didn't make the letters drip blood honestly, maybe they didn't have enough paint.

"Spot the differences uwu" so you're meant to see counter protestors as white Europeans smacking of privilege assaulting beautiful brown indigenous people with words (but no antizionist slogans or rhetoric could be violence), while the Tru Jooz are sitting in Home Depot Drum Circles and are magically granted a non European aesthetic.

Reading too much into a demented sign? Perhaps, but like these student protestors have not hidden what they think, though they always deny it. So no actually, they think they can decide who Jews are, and that Jews who disagree with them, or even just try to check their bigotry, are not only not Jews, but not this sacred category of Non White~ and this shows the subtle threat. Jews that kowtow will be allowed to stay in the Islamic Arab Republic of Palestine (Hamas even wants some to stay so they can appropriate their labor and wealth). Jews who don't might as well gO bAck To pOLaNd! Yes, even American Jews. Because the Intifada will be globalized. All peoples will be Liberated from the yoke of the Ziofascist Apparatus!

I don't know of any other group in history that could be racially divided by their opinions on a country on the other side of the world. But surely if you're getting a degree at Columbia and Stanford you must be so smart you know something I don't 😂

[velvetvexations]

Something that continues to confuse me about the whole "it's regressive to admit that some transphobes don't view trans people as their gender" is like…I thought that was a given? The disconnect between the way the bigot views the people they hate/oppress and the actual lived reality of those hated and oppressed people is a huge part of what bigotry even is in the first place. Like I'm disabled, and I know the reason ableists hate me is because they think I'm lazy and a leech and a waste of resources and in some cases such a failed human that it would be kinder to let me die, and while obviously none of that is true, recognizing that that IS the way they see me isn't reductive, it's necessary to counter their bigotry. I am not ceding ground by pointing out that ableists see me as less than human because it's true. That is how they view me. The trick is to point out the way they think and then make it clear that they are wrong.

And yeah sometimes sure people just decide they hate a group and work backwards from there, and they'll take any position if it means hurting the people they want to hurt, and even the ones who do view trans people as our gender can come up with other reasons to hate us, but overall the central issue with the majority of transphobes is that they don't see trans people as our genders. That's why they go around misgendering us and making such a huge deal about "sex", it's because they don't think we are what we say we are, and our assertion that we are means we're dangerous freaks who must be removed from society by any means necessary.

I'm just so confused, it feels like we're just willfully denying how reality works for like??? No reason??? I do not understand the motivation behind pretending bigots believe something they clearly don't, and acknowledging the way someone thinks doesn't mean you agree with them. You are not any less valid in your gender if you recognize that some people don't see you as who you say you are. Suggesting that admitting transphobes don't see trans women as women means that we all no longer see trans women as women is just...it's a non-sequitur, it makes no logical sense at all. Especially given how the average transphobe's opening argument is usually "I don't think you can change your sex/gender you will never be a woman/man and trying to become one is disgusting and weird" like they are TELLING us what they think. What good comes from ignoring that??

Between this and the whole "saying that transandrophobia exists obviously means you think androphobia exists" just makes me feel like a lot of people have, idk for lack of a kinder phrase completely lost it. Neither of these arguments make any sense to me. I just don't get it.

It's literally just not wanting to admit that masculinity is in any way a negative in any context no matter what.

[ernmark]

I just stumbled across somebody saying how editing their own novel was too exhausting, and next time they'll run it through Grammerly instead.

For the love of writing, please do not trust AI to edit your work.

Listen. I get it. I am a writer, and I have worked as a professional editor. Writing is hard and editing is harder. There's a reason I did it for pay. Consequently, I also get that professional editors can be dearly expensive, and things like dyslexia can make it difficult to edit your own stuff.

Algorithms are not the solution to that.

Pay a newbie human editor. Trade favors with a friend. Beg an early birthday present from a sibling. I cannot stress enough how important it is that one of the editors be yourself, and at least one be somebody else.

Yourself, because you know what you intended to put on the page, and what is obviously counter to your intention.

The other person, because they're going to see the things that you can't notice. When you're reading your own writing, it's colored by what you expect to be on the page, and so your brain will frequently fill in missing words or make sense of things that don't actually parse well. They're also more likely to point out things that are outside your scope of knowledge.

Trust me, human editors are absolutely necessary for publishing.

If you convince yourself that you positively must run your work through an algorithm before submitting to an agent/publisher/self-pub site, do yourself and your readers a massive favor: get at least two sets of human eyeballs on your writing after the algorithm has done its work.

Because here's the thing:

AI draws from whatever data sets it's trained on, and those data sets famously aren't curated.

You cannot trust it to know whether that's an actual word or just a really common misspelling.

People break conventions of grammar to create a certain effect in the reader all the time. AI cannot be relied upon to know the difference between James Joyce and a bredlik and an actual coherent sentence, or which one is appropriate at any given part of the book.

AI picks up on patterns in its training data sets and imitates and magnifies those patterns-- especially bigotry, and particularly racism.

AI has also been known to lift entire passages wholesale. Listen to me: Plagiarism will end your career. And here's the awful thing-- if it's plagiarizing a source you aren't familiar with, there's a very good chance you wouldn't even know it's been done. This is another reason for other humans than yourself-- more people means a broader pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.

I know a writer who used this kind of software to help them find spelling mistakes, didn't realize that a setting had been turned on during an update, and had their entire work be turned into word salad-- and only found out when the editor at their publishing house called them on the phone and asked what the hell had happened to their latest book. And when I say 'their entire work', I'm not talking about their novel-- I'm talking about every single draft and document that the software had access to.

[tomorrowusa]

Silicon Valley has its own variety of racism. And you'll never guess who is the leading figure in spreading this poisonous ideology. [CLUE: He left South Africa at age 18 when the country had just begun the process of eliminating apartheid and moving to majority black rule.]

Racist pseudo-science is making a comeback thanks to Elon Musk. Recently, the tech billionaire has been retweeting prominent race scientist adherents on his platform X (formally known as Twitter), spreading misinformation about racial minorities’ intelligence and physiology to his audience of 176.3 million followers—a dynamic my colleague Garrison Hayes analyzes in his latest video for Mother Jones. X, and before it Twitter, has a long-held reputation for being a breeding ground for white supremacy. [ ... ] Musk is amplifying users who will incorporate cherry-picked data and misleading graphs into their argument as to why people of European descent are biologically superior, showing how fringe accounts, like user @eyeslasho, experience a drastic jump in followers after Musk shares their tweets. The @eyeslasho account has even thanked Musk for raising “awareness” in a thread last year. (Neither @eyeslasho nor Musk, via X, responded to Garrison’s request for an interview.) “People are almost more susceptible to simpler charts with race and IQ than they are to the really complicated stuff,” Will Stancil, a lawyer and research fellow at the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, told Garrison in a video interview. He added: “This is the most basic statistical error in the book: Correlation does not equal causation.”

Racist pseudo-science simply sprays cologne on the smelly bullshit of plain old irrational bigotry. Warped theology, which was used to justify slavery, passed the baton of officially sanctioned race prejudice to pseudo-science in the late 19th and early 20th century.

DNA and other real science not only undermine the pseudo-science of racism but has revealed that "race" is not even a valid scientific concept among humans. What is widely regarded as race is defined by rather generalized phenotypes.

There has always been petty bigotry. But racial pseudo-science has been used to justify exploitation, colonialism, and territorial expansion by the powerful and ignorant. Elon Musk certainly qualifies as both powerful and ignorant.

In 2022, just one week after Musk purchased Twitter, the Center for Countering Digital Hate —an online civil rights group— found that racial slurs against Black people had increased three times the year’s average, with homophobic and transphobic epithets also seeing a significant uptick, according to the Associated Press. More than a year later, Musk made headlines once again for tweeting racist dog whistles in a potential attempt to “woo” a recently fired Tucker Carlson. But, his new shift into sharing tech-bro-friendly bigotry carries its own unique set of consequences.

If you are still on Twitter/X then you are indirectly supporting the propagation of pseudo-scientific racism – as well as just plain hate. Like quitting alcohol and tobacco, ditching Twitter/X can be difficult. But after doing so, you'll eventually notice how much better you feel.