#or screenshot it trying to avoid any kind of crazy hunting people down or whatever

[thelioncourts]

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[fair-fae]

In an ideal world, calling light to someone’s harmful behaviors wouldn’t result in angry people latching onto it as an excuse to spew hate at the accused. Sadly, this is far from an ideal world, but it’s the harmful behavior and the hateful attacks that are an issue, and not transparency being brought to behaviors that will likely hurt people. Threats, personal attacks, slurs, doxxing, leaking unrelated personal info, suicide baiting, anon hate, lies and slander--these are all absolutely abhorrent. I do not condone them, I do not participate in them, and I do not associate with anyone who I know does. Conflating raising awareness of abusers and holding them and their enablers accountable with these vile actions is at best ignorant, and at worst a malicious attempt to undermine victims and those supporting them. Asking for accountability, genuine apologies, and changed behavior is not an attempt to make someone kill themselves or run them out of any community and I very sincerely hope that these things are not what anyone is referring to with those claims because it could be not further from the truth. “Call outs” can serve a purpose and that is just an objective fact. When someone has a pattern of behaviors so harmful, so long-standing, and that so many people have been burned by, sometimes the most logical thing to do is warn the community at large. Equating any and every “call out,” any time a victim steps forward, any time someone is concerned with something people should be rightfully concerned about with “bullying” and “witch hunts” and “crusades” and “defamation” and imagined criminal activity is dangerous, either accidentally or intentionally. You are undermining victims, you are depriving them of a voice, you are cutting off potential future victims from information that could have helped them dodge the bullet, you are telling past victims of abuse and concerned bystanders that their safety and worries do not matter as much as your discomfort at seeing something unpleasant on your dash or being upset that your friend’s actions had consequences for them. Victims are not hurt just by abusers. They are hurt by enablers. They are hurt by people and systems who turn away from them when they ask for help. They are hurt by people who try to shut them down when they try to speak up. They are hurt when their attempts to reach out are met with insults and attacks. They are hurt when they are slandered to gaslight them, isolate them, and discredit their stories. Acting like it’s only acceptable for victims to be upset with their abusers and not all those who worsened, aided in, prolonged, or complicated their abuse and that no one but the abuser needs to take responsibility, apologize, and re-evaluate their thoughts and actions is absolutely foolish. In most cases of abuse, more than one person dropped the ball. And I do have to wonder, how many people would be able to avoid abuse entirely or escape it more quickly if their abuser did not have help? Crazy, slutty, thirsty, dramatic, confused, petty. These are words used to gaslight victims and make their stories seem less believable. But more than that, these are accusations women face every day in their lives in a society that normalizes this sort of dismissal and degradation of women and their experiences. It’s okay to abstain from judgment until you have seen proof something. Please understand, automatically insinuating a woman is a liar or somehow incorrect or malicious is not abstaining from judgment. You are taking a side, you’re just not taking the one that you think is being expected of you. If you need proof someone is abusive despite multiple testimonies, then why shouldn’t you need proof these women are being disingenuous before jumping to that conclusion? The problem was never waiting for screenshots. The problem was being more eager to tear down victims (especially women) than to listen to them. Politely brushing off women to their faces and then slandering them behind their backs does not create an environment where women feel comfortable divulging details and collecting screenshots for you. It does not create an environment where they feel like they can continue to come to you privately with their concerns and criticisms. It does not make them feel like they can talk to you about their problems. They did try to address things quietly and privately, both times. It didn’t work. How many times must victims talk at a wall before you acknowledge they made an attempt? I could talk more about enabling and censorship and how much more power it grants abusers and strips from victims but tbh that would be a whole tl;dr post of its own. So instead, on some personal notes? I tag my posts “discourse” so that anything controversial, opinionated, sensitive, long-winded, or negative can be blocked by anyone who doesn’t want to see it. Not to proclaim “THIS IS MINE HOLY DISCOURSE, READ IT AND AGREE WITH IT, PEONS” or... whatever exactly is being alleged there. It’s solely for your blacklisting pleasure. 

As for hurt feelings? I genuinely mean it when I say it, and I do not feel bad for it and will not apologize for it. If acknowledging enabling as a thing and expecting those responsible to, well, take responsibility hurts your feelings? Good. They deserve to be hurt and I hope you will learn something from it. That is not on me. I am not so insecure or idealistic I expect everyone to like me and everything I say or do. People will disagree, people will even be upset sometimes, that’s life, that’s reality. I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that “enabling abuse is bad” was too spicy of a take for some people. And I wonder, for all your concern about feelings, did you care about the feelings of the victims of both men? The feelings of those let down by G&G’s officers? Did you care when you personally might have reopened those wounds when you denied their failings, protected them, and praised them? Did you care when the victims were undermined when someone proudly proclaimed that she told Kale off so they could have, too, if they weren’t so pitiful! Or did you give her a pat on the back because she was arguing for your side? Did you care about feelings when someone made a post calling people “sociopaths” and throwing around all kinds of personal insults, or did you applaud it and reblog it because it was an argument in your favor? Did you care about feelings when G&G couldn’t issue an apology without trying again to discredit one of the victims who had come forward? That’s the thing about toxic positivity. All the peace and love and happiness and open-mindedness? It only ever seems to apply when you want it to, when it’s your friend, when it’s something you agree with. Otherwise, it goes out the window, or better yet, it’s just a tool to get your way. “Don’t say that, because it makes me unhappy. Don’t do that, because I think it’s mean.” There’s no thought given to anyone else, their wants, their needs. It becomes nothing more than a means to force your will and control the narrative.

Sometimes in life your friends screw up and they gotta deal with that, and you do, too. Just because someone is good to you doesn’t mean they weren’t bad to someone else. Everyone is capable of both. That doesn’t mean you have to stop being their friend. In those times is when they need your love and support the most. However, love and support isn’t denying their flaws and mistakes and failings. It’s not shielding them from the consequences of their actions. It’s not attacking people who are justly critical of them. It’s not coddling them and making excuses for them. It’s helping them improve, helping them learn things, being honest with them with they’ve screwed up. It’s doing all of that no matter how hard it might be and being there for them despite it.