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belenen

April 2021

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Expect to find curse words, nudity, (occasionally explicit) talk of sex, and angry ranting, but NEVER slurs or sexually violent language. I use TW when I am aware of the need and on request.

belenen: (antagonistic)
meta-journalling / do not mind your own business in the face of suffering / bystanders are worse
I didn't do that bad this month with posting every day, but I missed 8 days so I didn't do great either. I really want to share daily, so I'm going to share little bits and pieces on purpose, instead of just as filler. Here's something I wrote in response to someone claiming that when it comes to oppression, they mind their own business and put on a happy mindset:
The problem is that minding your own business is at least half of the reason that evil continues. If people minded their own business, there would be no child labor laws, no true citizenry for anyone other than white landowning men, and it would still be legal to for a man to rape a woman so long as he had the proper document (slave papers, marriage license). And there are widespread horrific problems today, like the prison industrial complex that is basically a new form of slavery. To mind one's own business while others suffer is to condone the evil that makes them suffer. So we have to learn, and we have to pay attention to people other than ourselves, find out what is needed to stop the suffering. If you are not the one suffering you can't figure out how to fix it: only those with the experience can tell you what will work.
Along the same lines, I feel if you watch someone suffer and do nothing, you are WORSE than the perpetrator. I say this because I felt far more betrayed by those who saw and did nothing than I did by the people who actually sexually abused me. Bystanders should absolutely be prosecuted as accessories to any violent crime, unless there is reasonable fear for their own safety. In a crowd of bystanders saying nothing and doing nothing while watching one person assault another without a weapon, all those pieces of shit should be thrown in prosecuted as much as the one who did it. Make that a law and there would be far fewer shitty people condoning rape and other hate crimes.

I've been doing a whole lot of interacting on facebook and that feels rather like screaming into a void, because those threads happen and are buried and forgotten. I want to be more consistent about saving my comments and putting them in my LJ.


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Facebook is too superficial.
This is part of why I chronicle my "Facebook drama"--because I think it's got real shit at its roots, and I hate that it happens someplace so superficial, where the conversation won't be taken seriously.

I don't know if I'd agree that witnessing is worse because I haven't had the same experiences. I'm reluctant to go into details publicly, but those worst things that happened to me were usually not witnessed, so I don't have enough experience to comment on that. It's definitely horrible, though, to witness something awful and do nothing, and I agree that it should carry harsh punishments. On more superficial wounds (people being oppressive is something I've experienced in a public setting) I find it more painful when a friend allows it to continue than I do when a stranger does it in the first place, so I think I can understand a little bit.

I'm getting off-topic. I'm trying to express support, if that isn't totally obvious. And support in your attempts to educate via FB, because that shit is hard.
I didn't mean it was worse categorically, just that it feels much worse to me personally.

thank you friend <3
I completely agree on everything you've said. If someone isn't standing up for those being oppressed or victimized, then they are also an oppressor. And Facebook is totally like screaming into a void. I barely engage on there anymore. Actually, that's all of the internet.
I don't know why I've been engaging more on FB lately, letting annoyance drag me by the nose I suppose. I think it's all this rape culture shit being right at the surface thanks to that misogynist murderer.

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