The Thing About Safety Pins
Nov. 15th, 2016 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2eXB4Vs:
ariaste:
Hello, cishet white people. I am a fellow cishet white person, and we gotta have a bit of a heart-to-heart.
Some of you have decided to do that wear-a-safety-pin-to-show-solidarity thing. Thank you for making that decision. I shake your hand and give you a friendly clap on the back. Seriously. When the choices are “show solidarity” or “meh”? You made the right choice. You have shown that your heart is in the right place. Yay!
But here is the thing. It’s not enough for your heart to be in the right place. In the coming weeks, months, and years, it’s going to take deliberate action, not just good intentions. When your friend breaks their leg, you help them, right? You call an ambulance, or you take them to the hospital, and you help pull them out of immediate danger so they don’t get even more hurt. And then, THEN, once they’re getting medical treatment, then you say, “Get well soon!” or decide to pray for their quick recovery.
If you watch your friend break their leg, and then stand there saying, “Oh no, this is terrible. Let me know if you need anything, okay?? I’m here for you!”… You see what I’m getting at? A good friend says, “Oh shit, oh fuck, you have health insurance, right? Does it cover ambulances or should we try to get you in my car??”
Our country has broken its leg.
Well, okay, let’s be honest – the country broke its leg a long time ago. Last week it also got hit by a high-speed orange train.
And now we come back to the safety pins. You’ve put them on your lapels to designate yourself a safe space. Good start. But, fellow cishet white people, I’m hearing that some of you who have safety pins are standing by and watching while other people get bullied and harrassed. What’s that about, friendo?
I kinda know what it’s about. Privilege blinds us to a lot of what other people go through, and now your eyes are starting to open and you want to help but… you saw something going down and you froze. You didn’t have a mental script for how to help. Your brain went “!!!!!!!!” on five different levels and threw up 404 errors and while you were standing there trying to reboot quick enough to make a decision about oh my god what do I do… the person being harassed looked over, saw your safety pin, saw you standing there doing nothing to help, and felt like you personally had betrayed them.
I think you’ll agree that that’s the exact opposite of what you meant to do.
Fellow cishet white people, I gotta be honest with you: You have to ask yourselves why you’re wearing the pin. Because it’s a responsibility, and some of you just aren’t ready to be shouldering that, just like how we don’t ask someone with zero first-aid training to be on the front lines of an emergency because they’re more likely to hurt than to help. Or they, y’know, freeze up.
But you want the safety pin, you want to help, you want to be part of the fight! Again, good! GOOD! Yes! Welcome! We want you to want that! But you’re gonna need some training first. So I have a few small suggestions for you:
FIRST: Put the safety pin on the inside of your jacket (or the inside of your purse, or in your wallet, or a photograph of it as your cellphone background), somewhere that you’ll see it and touch it often, but where it’s not visible to anyone else. It’s not a sign for anyone else now; you have nothing to be showing off about. It’s a sign for YOU.
In the Renaissance, rich folk would carry around these things called prayer nuts: tiny wooden spheres that opened in two halves like a walnut. Inside would be carvings of Biblical scenes of particular significance to the owners, and they’d use them to remind themselves of the sins they were trying to vanquish and the virtues they aspired to.
The pin is now your prayer nut. It’s a reminder to you that you have a duty of honor, a social obligation, to be part of the fight and to stand up for people who need help. It is a reminder that you have to try every day to be better. Whenever you see it or touch it, I want you to think, “Did I do enough? Can I be doing more?” It’s for YOU and your betterment, not a sign to anyone else. Not yet.
SECOND: You’re concerned, I bet. You feel a little weird about putting it on the inside of your jacket. You wanted something to show that you’re part of the movement. Maybe something to signal that you’re not a threat, that you’re not about to launch into horrible racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic rhetoric, and you thought the pin was a pretty good symbol of that. I’m stiiiiiill gonna ask you to keep the pin as a prayer nut for now. Instead, go out and get yourself some of those lapel buttons for causes you specifically support: the LGBT rainbow buttons, BLM buttons, anti-ICE buttons… Put those on your clothes. Your message of, “I’m on the good guys’ team” is still there, but you’re also not designating yourself as a Person Who Will Instantly Leap to Someone’s Defense.
THIRD: Seriously, sit down with pen and paper and come up with some things you as an individual can do to help when you see someone being harassed. Come up with scripts and scenarios and rehearse them in your head. I’m not kidding. Half the reason that bystanders are bystanders are because they can’t fucking decide what to do, if anything! So make a decision BEFOREHAND, in a calm, secure, sober environment, and practice it a bit so your brain will be able to cope. You know how trainee pilots do flight simulations of all kinds of different scenarios so they’ll be ready if any of them happen? Same thing. Educate yourself! Read articles, listen to people from marginalized and threatened communities, use what you learn to revisit and modify your mental scripts.
Not all of us are social justice warriors. Some of us are social justice clerics, and that’s okay. If you’re not the type to get in someone’s face and scream at them, then there are other ways you can help. Figure out what they are. Some action is better than no action. And maybe after a while when you’ve gotten some practice, you’ll find yourself shouting someone down even though you never thought you would.
I’m not requiring you to be a certified superhero by tomorrow. I’m just asking you to figure out your plan of attack so you can be a little more effective. This is going to be a growing experience for you. (Just don’t expect your marginalized friends to give you cookies and pats on the head for your growth. I’m sure they appreciate you and your friendship and solidarity, but again, they’ve got enough on their plates right now, so chill out.)
FOURTH: Execute your mental scripts when you see someone being harassed. Do this until you achieve some kind of minimum level of proficiency and you can count on yourself to be an ACTIVE helper, as in: a helper who TAKES ACTION.
FIFTH: Then and only then, move your safety pin to the outside of your jacket. To be able to say that you’re a safe space, you have to be able to defend people and keep them safe.
Go forth, fellow cishet white people. Educate thyselves, and don’t let other people down by claiming more proficiency and confidence than you currently possess. Do your flight simulations. Actively practice! And then USE THEM, cause we’re going to need all the help we can get.
And hey, thanks for reading this far. If you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask. The newly-founded @rebelrouser tumblr is also aiming to be a good resource for people who are wondering how best to help!
ariaste:
Hello, cishet white people. I am a fellow cishet white person, and we gotta have a bit of a heart-to-heart.
Some of you have decided to do that wear-a-safety-pin-to-show-solidarity thing. Thank you for making that decision. I shake your hand and give you a friendly clap on the back. Seriously. When the choices are “show solidarity” or “meh”? You made the right choice. You have shown that your heart is in the right place. Yay!
But here is the thing. It’s not enough for your heart to be in the right place. In the coming weeks, months, and years, it’s going to take deliberate action, not just good intentions. When your friend breaks their leg, you help them, right? You call an ambulance, or you take them to the hospital, and you help pull them out of immediate danger so they don’t get even more hurt. And then, THEN, once they’re getting medical treatment, then you say, “Get well soon!” or decide to pray for their quick recovery.
If you watch your friend break their leg, and then stand there saying, “Oh no, this is terrible. Let me know if you need anything, okay?? I’m here for you!”… You see what I’m getting at? A good friend says, “Oh shit, oh fuck, you have health insurance, right? Does it cover ambulances or should we try to get you in my car??”
Our country has broken its leg.
Well, okay, let’s be honest – the country broke its leg a long time ago. Last week it also got hit by a high-speed orange train.
And now we come back to the safety pins. You’ve put them on your lapels to designate yourself a safe space. Good start. But, fellow cishet white people, I’m hearing that some of you who have safety pins are standing by and watching while other people get bullied and harrassed. What’s that about, friendo?
I kinda know what it’s about. Privilege blinds us to a lot of what other people go through, and now your eyes are starting to open and you want to help but… you saw something going down and you froze. You didn’t have a mental script for how to help. Your brain went “!!!!!!!!” on five different levels and threw up 404 errors and while you were standing there trying to reboot quick enough to make a decision about oh my god what do I do… the person being harassed looked over, saw your safety pin, saw you standing there doing nothing to help, and felt like you personally had betrayed them.
I think you’ll agree that that’s the exact opposite of what you meant to do.
Fellow cishet white people, I gotta be honest with you: You have to ask yourselves why you’re wearing the pin. Because it’s a responsibility, and some of you just aren’t ready to be shouldering that, just like how we don’t ask someone with zero first-aid training to be on the front lines of an emergency because they’re more likely to hurt than to help. Or they, y’know, freeze up.
But you want the safety pin, you want to help, you want to be part of the fight! Again, good! GOOD! Yes! Welcome! We want you to want that! But you’re gonna need some training first. So I have a few small suggestions for you:
FIRST: Put the safety pin on the inside of your jacket (or the inside of your purse, or in your wallet, or a photograph of it as your cellphone background), somewhere that you’ll see it and touch it often, but where it’s not visible to anyone else. It’s not a sign for anyone else now; you have nothing to be showing off about. It’s a sign for YOU.
In the Renaissance, rich folk would carry around these things called prayer nuts: tiny wooden spheres that opened in two halves like a walnut. Inside would be carvings of Biblical scenes of particular significance to the owners, and they’d use them to remind themselves of the sins they were trying to vanquish and the virtues they aspired to.
The pin is now your prayer nut. It’s a reminder to you that you have a duty of honor, a social obligation, to be part of the fight and to stand up for people who need help. It is a reminder that you have to try every day to be better. Whenever you see it or touch it, I want you to think, “Did I do enough? Can I be doing more?” It’s for YOU and your betterment, not a sign to anyone else. Not yet.
SECOND: You’re concerned, I bet. You feel a little weird about putting it on the inside of your jacket. You wanted something to show that you’re part of the movement. Maybe something to signal that you’re not a threat, that you’re not about to launch into horrible racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic rhetoric, and you thought the pin was a pretty good symbol of that. I’m stiiiiiill gonna ask you to keep the pin as a prayer nut for now. Instead, go out and get yourself some of those lapel buttons for causes you specifically support: the LGBT rainbow buttons, BLM buttons, anti-ICE buttons… Put those on your clothes. Your message of, “I’m on the good guys’ team” is still there, but you’re also not designating yourself as a Person Who Will Instantly Leap to Someone’s Defense.
THIRD: Seriously, sit down with pen and paper and come up with some things you as an individual can do to help when you see someone being harassed. Come up with scripts and scenarios and rehearse them in your head. I’m not kidding. Half the reason that bystanders are bystanders are because they can’t fucking decide what to do, if anything! So make a decision BEFOREHAND, in a calm, secure, sober environment, and practice it a bit so your brain will be able to cope. You know how trainee pilots do flight simulations of all kinds of different scenarios so they’ll be ready if any of them happen? Same thing. Educate yourself! Read articles, listen to people from marginalized and threatened communities, use what you learn to revisit and modify your mental scripts.
Not all of us are social justice warriors. Some of us are social justice clerics, and that’s okay. If you’re not the type to get in someone’s face and scream at them, then there are other ways you can help. Figure out what they are. Some action is better than no action. And maybe after a while when you’ve gotten some practice, you’ll find yourself shouting someone down even though you never thought you would.
I’m not requiring you to be a certified superhero by tomorrow. I’m just asking you to figure out your plan of attack so you can be a little more effective. This is going to be a growing experience for you. (Just don’t expect your marginalized friends to give you cookies and pats on the head for your growth. I’m sure they appreciate you and your friendship and solidarity, but again, they’ve got enough on their plates right now, so chill out.)
FOURTH: Execute your mental scripts when you see someone being harassed. Do this until you achieve some kind of minimum level of proficiency and you can count on yourself to be an ACTIVE helper, as in: a helper who TAKES ACTION.
FIFTH: Then and only then, move your safety pin to the outside of your jacket. To be able to say that you’re a safe space, you have to be able to defend people and keep them safe.
Go forth, fellow cishet white people. Educate thyselves, and don’t let other people down by claiming more proficiency and confidence than you currently possess. Do your flight simulations. Actively practice! And then USE THEM, cause we’re going to need all the help we can get.
And hey, thanks for reading this far. If you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask. The newly-founded @rebelrouser tumblr is also aiming to be a good resource for people who are wondering how best to help!
