Silence makes us complicit

There’s been a discussion—to put it mildly—happening within the indieweb circles I follow closely. I haven’t had the mental energy to write up my full thoughts¹ and adding to the already flooded threads² feels useless. But sitting back and saying nothing is also quite useless.

At the same time it feels silly to state simple facts³ like trans people are people who should be treated as such with dignity and nazis are bad. But maybe if more people were willing to simply say those things we’d be in a better place⁴.

Those of use who feel we can ignore politics for the next four years can only do so because we won’t be effected by the policies enacted. If we follow through and ignore what happens, we once again become complicit as people we claim to be allies to have to deal with the consequences.

We owe it to ourselves to openly receive feedback and criticism with sincerity, and rather than quickly jumping to defend or make excuses, take the time to understand where the feedback is coming from, ask questions, and learn from it. We don’t have to always agree on everything, discussion and debate is healthy, but when we don’t actually listen to what’s being said⁵, we just talk past each other and get nowhere.

Edit 1: I wanted to add that I’ve seen a lot of “we are on the same side” talk—my struggle with that is I want to be on the side that believes we can always improve and do better, but I don’t see that sentiment echoed from “both sides.”

Edit 2: Can you imagine if someone threw a hissy fit because the placards at a museum had braille? I like to think we’d ridicule that individual and seriously question why they are against making things accessible. What could possibly drive that person to feel strongly about taking something away from people who need it?

If this person were my friend or colleague and continued to beat this drum against braille or decided to ignore the critical feedback and go silent, pretending like nothing happened at all, I’d have serious reservations about keeping them in my life.

This is obviously a silly scenario and it isn’t meant to compare or contrast what different people go through⁶, but to hopefully paint a picture for those who don’t understand why a “dumb joke” could have escalated to this point. If we want an accessible and inclusive web, our words and our actions should represent those values instead of hiding and deflecting.

And now… some quotes:

[The great stumbling block in the stride towards freedom is the person]… more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.” — MLK [Paraphrased]

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. — James Baldwin

Being silent so that no straight white male gets made to feel uncomfortable is bullshit. — Lou Plummer,paraphrased

1. This post doesn’t capture all of my feelings and is a bit scattershot, but I needed to say something. 
2. Social media is almost never the right place to have these discussions, but it’s also the only place to hold people publicly accountable. 
3. I say “simple facts” because that’s what they are even if others would push back on this. 
4. And I appreciate Adam for sticking to his values and creating an inclusive and fun place on the Internet. 
5. Or just straight up deny people’s humanity, which is unacceptable. 
6. As far as I’m aware, no one is trying to deny blind people’s humanity or right to exist.