Thursday, December 15, 2016

The Brave War On Safe Spaces!

Since I see so much regular mocking of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and content notes, would it be helpful to the people for whom such things trigger their cruelty if I added content notes for the fact that some of my post have content notes?

JUST WONDERING!

But seriously, people have been mocking content notes and trigger warnings for years. If that's the metric they use to automatically dismiss a person, or their posts, it's their loss. If they have so few actual problems in their lives that content notes and trigger warnings are the hill they want to die on with respect to Internet dialogue, I guess that must be nice for them?

When I see someone mocking safe spaces, and the mechanisms people use to create them, I know I'm dealing with someone who resents other people setting boundaries. Alert Alert Alert! The hot take about them is: OMG liberals/progressives are so ridiculously over-sensitive. But really, imagine a person hating boundary-setting via a simple note at the top of a post so much that they take time out of their life - spending time with loved ones, reading a book, watching a good show - to be a jerk about this topic. (Also related: people who think it's a human rights violation to be blocked or unfriended on social media! The horror!)

It's really indicative, I think, of a larger cultural disdain for boundary-setting.

Have you noticed, for instance, that the mocking of safe spaces and trigger warnings is a favored taunt of the gloating Trump supporter?

As Trump is someone who had admitted on tape to grabbing women's genitals without their consent and ran a campaign promising to strike a blow against that great national threat/terror-of-terrors "political correctness," this War Against Safe Spaces is especially amped up right now.

I think about the dialogue in terms of this favored meme of Trump fans:



The moral equation these folks make is that white bigots having to be "ruled" by a black man is akin to women and people of color having to be "ruled" by a racist sexual predator.  The racists were in pain for 8 years, so now it's your turn! 

Sure, Trump may destroy the economy, re-align the US with Russia, stock his Cabinet with Goldman Sachs elites, send people to die in who knows how many wars, and make most of his fans' lives financially worse off, but hey, the important thing right now is that bigots get to gloat at Clinton supporters and cackle at [content note: ableist slur] "butthurt* libtard tears" for the next four years!

Isn't conquering political correctness via dank meme what's really important in life, once you stop to think about it? The bigots, oppressed by safe spaces, shall truly overcome!


*Why is the adjective often "butthurt" with these people?
**LOL at the meme: "no riots or tantrums." Isn't electing the supremely-unqualified Trump the ultimate in-your-face man-baby tantrum of all time?

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