Slurred Speech · 5:08pm Jul 17th, 2020
There’s something powerful about old, traditional insults. Something wince-inducing. You hear words like “bastard” or “pig”, and there’s strength in that, there’s character.
Smug, elaborate Internet arguments love to write long diatribes, you see intelligent insults, you see clever turns of phrase. And those are fun to read? But they’re not the same.
“Rat.” “Snake,” “liar”, “toad.” In person, these are sharp, these cut you, when said with the right tone. “Rat” is simple, it’s just rage. It’s what you say when your brain is so full of fire you can’t come up with anything clever.
I was called a “traitor” once, to the face. The person was so angry that it’s all they could think of. “Traitor. You’re a traitor.”
I laughed at their face, of course. I could do that—we were in public, in a small town where my father is well-regarded, and I’m a popular guy with a splendid rags-to-riches reputation. I’m funny, and charming, and they couldn’t fucking touch me, so I laughed, and I left.
Many people wouldn’t have been able to do that, though. Many people aren’t lucky enough to be white twenty-something guys in a society so obnoxiously biased in favor of white twenty-something guys; the amount of privilege I showed in that moment is insane to anyone outside this very narrow category.
Against them, this person wouldn’t have used short, ancient insults. They would’ve used slurs. And those invoke a completely different kind of fear—because slurs indicate an ideology, a previously held motivation. Slurs imply premeditation. Not anger; hatred.
This is a blog about my highschool years, and my highschool friends.
I had a very fun time in highschool.
It was a good highschool, I think. The teachers cared, and the children weren’t the worst. I was well-known and well-liked by every classmate of mine, and even though I could blend in pretty much any group, I had my own clique, a group of guys I hung up with every day. And those guys were great.
Real life groups of friends don’t have a “leader”, but someone has to call the shots, and in this case there was two of us. Whenever we met up—we’d be the ones saying what to do, where to go, what to say. Do we play videogames or board games today? We two will take care of it. When is this summer trip gonna happen? We two will take care of it. We didn’t give any orders, obviously, but we made the decisions. It was fun.
And then we grew up, and things got political.
There were shades of this before. My family has always been very radical left—we’re republicans (check that there’s a lowercase “r” there; remember that Spain is a monarchy still), we’re hardcore socialists, we have a lot of cool stories regarding that good ol’ Spanish Civil War. And in highschool, well, I wasn’t very into politics at first, but—you could tell.
The other leader of the group, the other member of our little duumvirate, wasn’t like that. He was very right-leaning, if not straight up right-wing; I talked more and more often, so he chose to stay silent around me? But whenever we got drunk, he’d get real, and fireworks would fly.
We’d had fun about it! Out of the ten people in that group, us two were the closest of the bunch. Whenever we talked politics, we’d disagree, but we’d also laugh so much. We once spent three hours discussing bullfighting: in favor or against. He’d call me a commie, a reddie. I’d call him a fascist, Franco’s heir. Neither of us was any of those things, we both knew this, and that was the whole point. Good times.
Only, as time passed, our political differences increased. It happened naturally—we were approaching the voting age, and Spain had a leftist Government (“leftist,” you get me; it was the Socialist Party, which is more center-left than anything; I know that sounds insane to Americans, but such is life), which raised some concerns in my friends.
And the drunk conversations happened while sober, and fireworks would fly again, and we’d go with the “commie/fascist” route, but still mean well. Only now it’d be a bit more extreme. He’d start talking race, immigrants, gay people. I’d start talking gay rights, religion, republics.
Looking back, there’s a lot I should’ve seen back then already, but I was a child, and kind of stupid. There were plenty of racist comments back then, a lot of homophobia going around. But, you know, I thought it was in good faith. I know I never used slurs, even back then; I remember that they used to make light fun of me about it (“Come on, you pussy, it’s just a word.” “Oh, fuck off.” Cue laughter). Knowing fifteen year olds, though, I’d be surprised if I didn’t laugh at the gay jokes, or make some myself.
Children are susceptible to prejudice. I advocated for gay rights, as a kid, and I knew racism was to be fought; thank my parents for that. But I grew up in a part of society where bigotry, transphobia, and homophobia weren’t just rampant—they were the standard. They were so normalized, I just assumed they were normal.
And, I mean, if I say I’m all for gay rights the very next breath after laughing at a joke at killing gay people, aren’t I being an ally?
Now I can see the hypocrisy in that sentiment. Clarifying “Oh, but gay rights are important” right after dehumanizing a person doesn’t actually do anything to fight for their rights, but it surely dehumanizes them.
Back then, though, I didn’t think that. Instead, I always thought, hey, I’m not actually being homophobic, or I’m not actually being racist. I just want to make my friends laugh. I knew that kind of thing would make them laugh, so it was okay—I never engaged with those ideas outside of the field of comedy.
Only some people weren’t joking. And the people who didn’t take it as a joke didn’t tell me.
We finished highschool, and I moved out of town, more than 200 km away. Everybody else went to the same city, most of them lived together in pairs or trios—but I was by myself. I wanted fresh air.
I’d come back to visit often, though; I still hung out with my friends. Only, things were getting increasingly uncomfortable. The first time I got really scared was during a camping trip, where my friend, the other leader, started with the obvious “no homo” jokes, and then moved on to slightly harder, crueler gay jokes, and then he got drunk.
And then he stopped making jokes and told us that he was incredibly homophobic.
He used the term explicitly, and clarified: emphasis on -phobic, phobia. He, he told us, frowning, was scared of gay people, hated them so much. If there was a gay guy here, he explained, looking around, I don’t know what I’d do. Run around, maybe. Break his forehead inwards with this beer can, and then dump him in the lake.
He raised his beer can and waggled it.
Some of my other friends laughed.
I wasn’t sure of my sexuality back then, like most people—but straight, let me tell you, I am probably not. That one I understood fast, and I was sure of it already.
So yeah, that was an uncomfortable camping trip. I told the guy the stuff he was saying was actively heinous, that if it was a joke—and I knew it wasn’t a joke—it wasn’t fucking funny. Reactions to that were mixed; at best they laughed, thinking I was adding to the bit, at worst they asked if I was one of them or what. I kept insisting, they kept reacting, we talked in circles for what felt like hours, but we managed to avoid a full-on fight because a couple guys were keen on mediation.
So we—we didn’t agree to disagree, frankly. We just muttered insults at each other, but then changed topics, and tried to stop thinking about it.
And then one of my friends forgot his sleeping bag, so he had to sleep with me, and that got the jokes running again, and oh lord this is so fun, isn’t it, boys.
I have no fucking idea why I kept hanging out with them after this. I remember telling my family about it—how this guy, this guy I spent all of highschool with, this guy who knew things about me nobody else knew—had just, like. Made a comment like that with a straight face.
How do you actually say shit like that out loud, and not have a moment of introspection, a small personal revelation? How can you admit that you hate gay people in such monstrous terms and not consider your worldview? How do you not look at yourself?
I don’t know. My father told me, is this guy that guy? The one I always said was a dipshit? I said, yeah. Dad said, yeah.
Flash forward six months or so; I barely saw my friends during that time, but still, nothing that hardcore happened again. So I thought, hey, maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it was the beer talking, and he doesn’t actually think all this stuff. Maybe it’s just words and I’m overreacting or something.
Then one night, we sat down at our favorite bar. And I want to say we got drunk, but we didn’t. The beers weren’t on the fucking table yet, and the guy started talking. Turns out, college wasn’t like he expected—he wasn’t getting laid, nobody was getting laid, and this was a travesty.
He’d had enough.
He started talking about how much he hated women. How he despised them. They’re not like us, you can’t talk to them, you can’t look at them, it’s bullshit. They’re worse than us and they think themselves better. You know, back during the Franco times, they were forced to obey their husband, couldn’t even speak if he didn’t speak first? He said, we should go back to that. I’m okay with them voting, but can’t we go back to that? At least?
By this point they’d caught on to my obvious lack of interest in women, and I’d already gotten a couple funny looks—so I’d told them a made up a story about making out with a girl in Barcelona, to clear those waters. Only, the story ended with the girl dumping me, to justify me not talking about her much—so this guy hugged my shoulders, sympathetic.
“They’re all whores,” he said. “Isn’t that right? Like that girl of yours. They’re all fucking whores. All of them but our mothers.”
Some folks laughed.
I just left. I told them I didn’t find that funny in the slightest, which started a bit of a fight. I waited for ten minutes once that was over, finished my drink, and just came up with the first excuse I could find—sorry guys, I’m busy, gotta work tomorrow, no I can’t stay, I’m sorry bye—and fucking left. Raced home. Wasn’t even 1am, my family was still awake. “You okay?” Dad asked.
“No,” I replied.
I stopped visiting them after that.
There wasn’t a clear-cut change in personality. It was gradual. Hindsight is 20/20; I can remember a lot of things he said and did back in the day, and draw a literal timeline of how he went from “I just think privatization would make healthcare more competitive” to “women shouldn’t fucking vote”. Dude sure made a lot of racist jokes back in the day, huh? Dude sure loved to insult the Romanian guy in class behind his back, saying he smelled foul, that he was subhuman. A lot of pieces clicked.
I unfriended them on facebook and stopped replying to their texts. My hometown is small, so sometimes we’d walk into each other—my father, after all, lives there; I would spend my summers with him—and I’d wave and then keep walking. I know the guy started openly supporting the alt-right, fascist pro-Franco party (you know, the one who wants to go back to the times before the Constitution? When women couldn’t vote? That party! Just in case you thought that was a joke) and I know he’s not the only one.
Years passed, I graduated college, so did he. Nobody else in that old group of friends has managed, as far as I know; they were very intelligent people, but kind of garbage students. I moved to Barcelona full-time, and now my father visits us during the summer.
And then, out of the blue, I got a message one weekend. One of my old friends—not the guy; another member of the group—asked me where I was, how it was going, also happy new year. And I was so surprised that I just replied in that moment, going: Happy new year!
Dude was quite startled to see me reply like that, so we talked a bit. I explained that I was going to my hometown for the first time in almost a year—which was true. He said that was a weird coincidence—which was also true. He said, a lot of things have changed around here. He made a slant reference to why I had stopped hanging out with them; I wasn’t exactly subtle about it, after all, and he implied I might’ve been in the right. Then he said, hey. Wanna meet up?
I said, sure. Why not.
That’s when the other leader of the band, the guy who’d always been my closest friend, called me a traitor. That’s when the scene that opens this blog happened.
“You fucking traitor.”
And I laughed, and I left.
But I was kind of sad about it.
He’d first told the rest of my friends through text, when he learned I was coming to town—he’s a rat, a fucking snake, do not talk to him. He abandoned us, he left for Catalonia, he’s a fucking communist, he’ll get to your head and set you against me. Do not hang out with him. Do not fucking hang out with him.
He called me some obvious slurs too, but I’d rather not repeat them. You can imagine the general gist of it.
I don’t like slurs. I suppose the message has been made clear through this blog, but still, it bears repeating. It’s one of those things that at best are viscerally unpleasant, and at worst reveal terrible things about you.
This blog is heavily censored; you can probably guess that the guy never used the word “gay”, he used colorful alternatives. Spanish doesn’t have something as specific as the n-word, but we definitely get close with certain terms, and this person used them all.
I’ve been thinking about this story a lot lately. And I’ve gotten into arguments about it—people saying it’s fine to draw swastikas, to glorify Nazism, to say slurs. It’s just a joke, it’s something you say among friends because you can get away with it, so on, so forth.
Some users really enjoy blogging about how much they love free speech, as long as it refers to swastikas; anything to stay relevant, I guess. Controversy clicks are still clicks. Pathetic? Yeah, but you’ve heard about them, haven’t you?
I don’t think you can talk like that, though, or say things like those, or consume things of that nature, without changing the way you view the world. I think you end up poisoning yourself with your own irony, convincing yourself that it’s fine. “I don’t actually mean it, and thus, it’s okay”, is something I got told not that long ago, by a user explaining that why yes, they do use the n-word literally every time they can get away with it, but it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not racist. They’re joking.
A rose by any other name, etcetera, etcetera.
Radicalization, the art of starting at “I believe in the free market” and ending at “the West must protect itself against these degenerates,” has many faces. Getting increasingly more comfortable with bigoted opinions through the lens of edgy humor is a common one.
I wish there was a lesson I could attach at the end of this blog to convince people that racism and homophobia are inherently evil, to make the message stick. But if I had one of those, I would’ve opened with it.
All I keep coming back to is just that guy talking about how he feared gays, he hated gay people, he wanted to run away in fear and then turn around and hurt them, and me thinking, “how can someone say something like this, and not have a single moment of introspection?”
Because they’ve been saying it every day for years, that’s why. They just stopped trying to be funny about it.
Scarlet made a pretty good primer on leftist politics and terminologies; I really recommend it. The points about solidarity, intersectionality, queernes, anti-racism, and the left are particularly relevant to this blog, but read the whole thing.
The BLM protest are still going on, even if the media has stopped talking about them. I’m aware that this is a horse website, and we’re all focused on the Nazis that keep popping from under every fucking stone, but there’s an entire world out there, and it matters so much more. Just like last time, here are some links if you want to help, and here’s the 8toabolition page.
There’s an ending to this, though. There’s a part of the story I haven’t told you yet.
I hung out with my friends for a couple hours, after being called a traitor, but soon enough, they had to leave. All of them except one, who remained behind with me. He asked me if I wanted to go do some errands with him? He’d drive me home afterward. And I said, oh, you got your license? Sure!
So we got into the car.
The moment the doors closed, he turned to me. “I’m bisexual, and I have a boyfriend,” he explained. Completely unprompted. “He’s great, he lives in another country, I’m saving up so I can go visit him or maybe even move out with him—I can’t tell anyone, because, I mean, you know.”
And I blinked, and went “Oh huh. Wow. Nice! Dude, nice! Congrats!”
“Yeah!”
“So this came out of absolutely nowhere. Do your parents know?”
“Only my brother. My boyfriend’s trans, and they’re not very…” He waved a hand in the air. “And now you know too.”
“You didn’t tell anyone other than your brother?”
“And you. I mean, I can’t tell our friends, they just won’t get it, and I just, I had to tell someone.”
So we laughed, and talked about it for a long time. He told me about how they met, why they liked each other, what their plans were for that summer. I had a lot of fun. Dude’s funny, and his boyfriend sounds great.
There’s a happy ending to him, in that he got out of that place, last I checked he’s living with his boyfriend in another country. But on the other hand, how the fuck is that a happy ending. He had to escape, he had to physically leave that town, because the ironic homophobic jokes that his friends kept making—those jokes that surely meant nothing at the start, it’s just edgy humor, only then devolved into actual fucking bigotry—made it impossible for him to stay without fearing for his safety.
I wonder if he, too, is called a traitor for it. I hope he isn’t, because I don’t think they’ll let him laugh it off, and I’m terrified of that.
The free speech advocates will be happy to draw pictures of a Nazi doing terrible things to minorities, and then say, hey, if you don’t like it, speak against it, freedom of speech. But that’s not how it works. Asking for freedom to attack others under the pretext that they can defend themselves is still forcing the fight on them. It applies an amount of pressure—“you’re not wanted here”, “you’re not safe here”, “you’re subhuman”—that makes it so hard to exist in those spaces.
You think I’m going to speak up against the fucking mob telling me I’m subhuman? The amount of effort and opposition you’re going to get, the amount of hatred thrown in your direction—it’s just not worth it. It’s mentally and emotionally exhausting, it’s borderline torture. Eventually, either you hide, or you leave. Fighting the good fight sounds romantic and nice, but not everybody can laugh and walk away. I know you can, Nazi-poster. That’s part of the problem, here.
You know, one of the two users who inspired this blog got told to fuck off, once. I was the one saying that. This person got so inhumanly angry they created an alt account to yell at me—“do you even KNOW who you’re TALKING TO?? Are you even AWARE of who they ARE??”—and has been blogging about this ever since. One time, they got challenged, and it’s been like a year, and they still aren’t over it.
This person then looks at anyone who’s not themselves, and says, “put up with that, every day, for the rest of your life, and never complain.” And then she throws Nazi imagery at you, and their friends laugh, and shake their beercans, and yell the n-word at each other, and imply trans people should burn at the stake.
“We don’t mean it, though.”
Yeah. I’m sure you believe that.
Who were the users?
Alcohol removes inhibitions. On that basis, drunk you has more you-ness to him than sober you. The latter just understands the consequences of his actions well enough to hide how much of a shithead he is unless he's behind a screen.
Forget the old adage; words hurt. Speech being free doesn't mean it's still alright to manifest your misguided hatred into vitriol. Even in cases where slurs aren't used. There's a reason teen suicides as a result of cyberbullying have risen dramatically. Call someone worthless or ugly enough times, and they will suffer. Heck, at least the effects of tear gas aren't permanent.
I had a couple of close friends in high school I used to spend time with (both were male, as was I at the time), and one of them was a little weird at times and we always used to laugh it off. Like, one time, I poured a glass of Kool-Aid in his house, and I didn't like the flavor so I was going to pour it out. He ended up screaming at me that I needed to "drink the Kool-Aid" because I poured it(?) in his house(?), which freaked me and my other friend out. Like, he literally screamed for a couple of minutes, so finally I drank it just to escape. I guess the idea was he didn't want me to "waste it", but there was this strict adherence to rule and authority that he required that didn't make much sense.
He would also rules-lawyer himself out of arguments a lot. Like, if his mom told him to do something, he might twist the meaning of one of the words to get out of the chore, then angrily argue that he was right because the important thing was what she literally said, not her intent, even when her intent was very clear.
My other friend and I thought it was funny how he took pride in his German heritage even though he knew very little about it. He would complain about how hard and unfair it was being White, because he couldn't do things Black people could, like say the n-word, even though there's no reason he should want to. It was very much the same thing as the rule adherence. Rules had to be applied evenly to everypony in all cases, context not considered, reason be damned.
It took me about ten years after I left the state to have the epiphany that my friend was racist.
Last I heard, he works for the police department in the metropolis where we went to high school.
In college (about 10 years in the rearview mirror, at this point), I had a buddy. Said buddy and I had a black teacher for a couple of our education classes. She was, by any objective means, an absolutely terrible teacher - I want to make that clear, she was bad, and shouldn't have been tenured, and pretty much everyone who was forced to take her class hated the way she taught it, and her attitude, and... look, she was just awful.
So my buddy and I, along with perhaps a half-dozen of our other college friends, are getting drunk at a house party, and he and I are bitching about this teacher, when he says, "She is such a fuckin' n-----r. Like, there's lots of blacks that aren't n----rs, but she? Is a fuckin' n-----r. You know what I mean?"
And one of the people there, bless his soul, looks my buddy in his beer-hazed eyes and says, "No, I don't know what you mean. And I don't think it's appropriate to call someone that, ever."
Just like that. Like it was a TV PSA or something. It felt completely surreal.
But my buddy said, "Sorry," and after a bit of a stumble he went on bitching minus the slur, and after a couple minutes the mood picked back up and the party continued. And as best I remember, he didn't use that word again - not just that night, not just in this other guy's presence, but in mine either.
I've been thinking about that incident a lot, the last few months. Because I wasn't going to say anything. My buddy wasn't racist, and I knew that, and he was pretty drunk. People say stupid stuff they don't mean when they're drunk, and I knew what he meant - she was an awful teacher, and that's all he was really trying to get at.
I'd have let that slide without comment, if someone else at the party hadn't spoken up. Probably, I'd have nodded along; "Yeah, I know what you mean." And my buddy would've learned that that's an okay thing to say, and I'd have learned it's okay the hang around people who talk like that.
Instead, he learned that that's not cool, and (since he's not a racist; there are some people who would've gotten offended and started arguing right there, and fuck them categorically), he stopped doing that. And I learned it's okay not to make excuses for people, and to clearly, firmly tell them they're out of line.
I've been wondering lately how my buddy's life would be different if nobody had drawn a line for him - at that party, or later, or ever. I've been wondering how mine would've been if nobody had drawn that line right in front of me, too.
I wonder if we'd have ended up like your friends.
Great essay. Thank you.
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Calling him out was the best thing that person could have done.
It's the bully who tells the teacher that the reason the little kid has a black eye is that they were "just playing."
It's the wife-beater who tells the police that she "fell down the stairs."
It's the bigot who was testing the waters who says, "It was just a joke."
If you give them an inch, they'll have another inch. And inch by inch they'll eat the world. Don't give an inch.
I don't think we will ever get rid of bigotry. It seems to be part of humanity's basic makeup. But we can make it unacceptable to spread it, act on it, or normalize it.
Damn. That's rough... and even rougher for the people who have to quietly shrug off or pretend they don't hear the insults every day.
I just want to add here; Aragon and I both said and believed some really bad shit when we met, and joked about it, and laughed.
I don't want to say we grew out of it, because that implies that it was just getting older that changed that. It wasn't. There are plenty who learn it younger than we did, and there are plenty more twice our age who never did. All age does is give you the time to learn from the mistakes you're making, but you have to deliberately choose to learn from them.
We had to learn to feel really bad about what we'd done, and were doing, in order to stop doing it. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that, especially when they see their friends doing the same thing and think - well, I don't think they're bad are they?
People can change and be better, and it's good to encourage that. But part of what made us change is the realization we were hurting people - and other people didn't owe us getting hurt, just so we could have a character arc. Especially because there was no guarantee that we would learn from it - and a lot of people never do.
We said a lot of hateful stuff because we "knew" we weren't hateful; Bigotry creates tension, and tension's how you set up a joke to make people laugh. We felt safe to say those things because we knew that, in our heart of hearts, we didn't mean it. But nobody gets to see your heart of hearts when you make those jokes - they just see you making it clear you think that's stuff's okay to say.
And, like. It shouldn't be. Because not everyone's in on the joke - and not everyone's really joking.
Heartbreaking to see a friend sink so deep into fear and hatred. Even more so that he failed to ever take a look at himself in the process. At least the rest of us can learn something from it.
I have an acquaintance - not a friend, but connected - who was posting anti-BLM memes on Facebook during the height of the protests. Not overtly racist, not using direct insults or calling for violence, but the sort of thing that's floating around to try and undermine the movement. "Police lives matter," they posted, and "This white guy got murdered by cops, why no riots for him?" Enough to make me uncomfortable.
They dismissed it as just joking, shitposting, playing devil's advocate, "to see people's reactions and opinions". But each time one of them appeared on my feed, I'd have to wonder... is this guy I've shared food and drink and board games with actually a bad guy, who's letting some of that leak out under cover of a "joke"? Or is he a good guy who doesn't entirely realise what he's saying? Should I engage, talk to him, try to explain the error of his ways; or should I back off and avoid him?
After reading this article, and the comments, I think I'm going to talk to him. I don't know if it'll be well received, but I think I have to try.
Really good post as usual. Thanks for sharing your experience!
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There's a story there, one that I've thought about but never got around to writing. Rarity tries to share that adage with Sweetie Belle, but someone else is there and takes issue with it. Deconstructs her entire persona, her entire worldview, has her a genuine wreck on the floor rather than the theatrics we usually see from her, and then ends it with "I bet you'd rather the sticks and stones now, wouldn't you? Broken bones would heal."
It is always interesting to observe the inherently pathetic nature of people on the far right, Nobody really becomes a Nazi or a Fascist because they're happy with how their life's going. Even basic conservative ideology is similar in that regard. These sorts of politics don't come as a matter of philosophy, or of practical experience. They develop as a way to cover up one's flaws.
I'm Brazilian, though I live in America. Ever since Bolsonaro came into power, I've seen family members fall down that rabbit hole far too easily (you should have seen the shitstorm when it came out he got corona). And of the family that's gone to bat for him, it's always one of a few stories. Either they were dumb, or didn't get laid, or weren't making money. Something wasn't going right in their lives and they ran to far right politics as way of protecting themselves. Their politics were a shield, not a belief.
I'm not far out of high school myself, and seeing how most of my friends have reacted to the BLM and similar issues has been vindicating. Of course, I do see plenty of people posting conservative dreck, or just ignoring the whole thing. Some of them were even friends of mine. It's a type: a straight, white, man. Usually into sports of some sort (interestingly, the sports they play in tend to be the ones with more minorities in them, like basketball or soccer). Has few minority friends, whether sexually or racially. Most of them are sexist, and tend towards never having had sex. Middling to decent academic performance, who feel that they are very smart, it's just that [insert excuse of your choice], and that they are 'street smart' not 'book smart'. And after high school, they've either started working or gone to community college.
In summary: someone normal in most ways, who thinks of them self as exceptional. This gap between their perceived position and their actual position makes them unhappy. They feel entitled to do better in life. And that entitlement stems from their inherent properties. Being straight, white, and male means they will never face oppression or discrimination. They have a large advantage in life just from being, but not large enough for them. They use right wing politics to cover this dissonance between their perceived reality and their real reality, between what life is and what they deserve. And due to their perception of them self, they can't change politically, too much is tied up in their political identity. Realizing they were wrong is admitting most of their problems are their own fault. In a trap of their own design, they can only stay where they are or go farther left.
I'm lucky enough to not have anyone I know personally go full Nazi or Fascist. But I do have classmates who were alt-right. I'm almost certain some of the people who are now conservative are going to end up like your friend, and it scares me. I mean, shit, when I was in high school there were kids who were Nazis. It's scary. It's a problem of happiness. Once again, no one becomes a Fascist because they're satisfied with their life. Remember, if there's anything we have over the enemy (besides, y'know, facts, history, intelligence, and that we aren't actual fucking Nazis), at least we've seen the world for what it is and have stayed happy and fulfilled despite that.
I think there is a tendency for freedom to be looked at as a goal, as opposed to a path. There is confusion in my own country where Freedom is touted as an an absolute good in and of itself instead of freedom to choose, freedom to be safe from harm, freedom from persecution, freedom to practice your own religion, etc... There is an, often unspoken but very real, addendum that goes along with that. -so long as it doesn't harm anyone else or infringe upon the rights of others.
For example, listening to the news, I hear of the mask controversy in the US. I find it silly. Wearing a mask, if we all do it, it can save lives. Does it measurably prevent you from enjoying your life? Probably not. Is it illegal to make you wear one? I am not a lawyer, but if there can be laws forcing people to wear clothes to cover certain parts of their bodies to protect "decency", then I can't see why not.
Edit: typo correction.
Happy to see you’re on the good side.
I'm not usually a political person, nor do I usually comment on blogs. I shouldn't be admitting to this, but not just a year and a half ago, when my life wasn't going so great and I began dipping my toes into the beast of 4chan, I got called out for that and a couple of other things I shouldn't have said. Even though the memory had faded until today, the words stuck, and I can only be thankful for those few common-sense individuals -- who knows where I would've ended up otherwise.
I don't think I have the sufficient words to fully convey my thoughts, but this blog changed my mind a little. Thank you.
Thank you. Reading posts like this, especially after reading others that quite literally contain the phrase "I'm not a Nazi" followed shortly afterwards by "...but"...
Well. It helps, a lot.
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Of course, we only use that adage to try to comfort someone AFTER the damage has already been done... To varying degrees of success. There was a good fic somewhere on the site where babysitter Cadance and filly Twilight were discussing bullying and Twi "improves" the saying to make it more accurate.
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"We said that and laughed because we knew that we weren't hateful"
My brain's free-association wheel makes me feel compelled to share my hypothesis as to why so many 8-year-olds love to shout the n-word on XBL. Their mother and teachers (almost universally female at those grade levels in the US) have drilled it into them that that particular word is the worst possible thing they can possibly say. They say it proudly once they know that no one they know is nearby to hear them as a power trip. Even though it's a racial slur, the impetus for prepubescent boys shouting it is misogynistic contrarianism against the female authority figures in their lives.
The path of how they then add racism is obvious: racists are the only ones who give positive reinforcement for that behavior instead of ignoring it (muting voice chat) or giving expected negative reactions.
This was a fantastic blog. By virtue of never being all that extroverted, I never really had this experience with real life people. However, I definitely recall people I knew on GameFAQs absolutely loving the "double n-word" meme, and jokes about Black people. I never used them, to my recollection, but I never called out people that did. I was a young teen, and I thought maybe it was OK for them to use it as long as they were being funny. Meanwhile, I wasn't confident about my humor, so I was afraid I'd come off as actually racist if I joked like that. To my recollection, it never got past that point, but I also left well before real life politics really started bleeding into gaming. I have no idea what those people are like now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Franco regime the one that thought Hitler was cool? Wasn't that the fucking awful fascist regime marked by executions and labor/death camps...?
I don't have anything else to really add. I think you're a solid dude Ara.
I grew troubled following you. Not out of any distaste towards you, but as a fellow comedian, I know how well we're trained to be able say the truth in effective, sharp hatred. You are an amazing comedian Aragon, what I believe to be the best on the site, and you are incredibly good at saying the truth in hate. Never without a purpose usually, but it was to the point I looked at it, said "I can't take that, even with purpose, it's too gross for me to look at, especially when I respect the person." and I unfollowed you.
This blog was very, very well said~!
Good grief, being potent and blunt, and being tasteful and merciful, is a hard line to walk. I wanna say that I respect you for walking it. I'm not good at being forceful. I've only realized lately how much goodwill has been taken advantage to do some truly wretched things, so I respect people speaking the truth in effective hate, even if I don't like it.
What a time.
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"Hey, I'm not a white nationalist, but really, what do blacks and Hispanics really contribute to society, am I right? Would you like to hear about these statistics I pulled out of my ass that show why non-whites are a drain on society, which by the way, was created by white men?"
I have heard people say this, almost word-for-word.
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Yup, that's the one. They received tons of aid during the civil war from the Nazis and Fascist Italy. Even changed their time zone to align with the Nazi's. As the years went, it was more of a heavily conservative dictatorship than full-on fascism, but it was brutal in the early years. Some people try to defend Franco on the grounds that "The Republicans were just as bad!", but it does not hold up to scrutiny, especially in hindsight.
Great essay! Just have .02 cents to add (from the land with a center-right socialist party
):
Castilian has the OG N-word
; it's not exclusively a derogatory slur but I'd argue that makes it more insidious (and in a cruel twist it's also more inclusive 
as it also applies to aboriginal peoples (content warning: slur usage in Castilian, he lost his position as minister shortly after that interview), at least throughout Latin America).
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Yes (although both Spain and Portugal, which was also under a fascist dictatorship at the time, "remained neutral"/for the most part didn't have any significant military deployment during WWII). However, the main sticking points of his regime and rise to power are the Bombing of Guernica and his ban on teaching and publicly speaking all Non-Castilian 'living' native languages in Spain (Galego*, Euskera, Catalá).
*: Franco was from Galicia; and according to a Galician friend/coworker of mine throughout the XX and XXI the Galician language academy has been pushing its spelling/grammar closer to Castilian (particularly changing '-nh-' to '-ñ-').
Thanks. This is a good blog. I'm fortunate enough to not have dealt with anything quite as bad, but I've definitely seen people I thought were friends go from "edgy" humor to full-blown bigotry. I wish I'd spoken out more before it got so bad. Maybe it wouldn't have done anything, but still.
People who said slurs are okay to say as a joke clearly have never been at the receiving end of prejudice for just the way they are.
Fantastic write-up here, and I'm happy to see you're not alone, here, and in real life.
They start out supplying the slurs and racism for free as a joke... then they wind up high in their own supply
As somebody who used to be okay with slurs, told homophobic, sexist and racist jokes, and is now a completely different gender and sexuality and political leaning then I was back then... Yeah. I think maybe even one reason I took so long to come out to even myself was the normalization of that shit. I was surrounded by hatred in the form of jokes so much that I thought that was just how it was, that "those people" were others not like "us" and our inherent goodness. I caught on to it because that's just what you did, and then the people telling jokes started to quote biased statistics, and give faulty evidence, and we all slipped further down.
And I wondered why I hated myself so bad.
I despise slurs. I have flat out never said one because that shit just...the thought that I could say it makes me feel like something crawled in my chest and is slithering around, slimy, and waiting for more opportunities.
So I don't.
You can not believe me and that's fine, but I haven't and I don't. I hear it, I call people out. It's awful shit.
The worst excuse is "Well I heard my parents/grandparents use it, and they're from a different time!" Well fuck that, you ain't them and it's vile. I guess I got lucky that I have people in my life who taught me well enough that it's a garbage thought.
Thanks to you (and others in the comments) sharing your stories. I've got my fair share of friends all too willing to use slurs and such in their jokes, and it's posts like these that give me the impetus to at least try to shut that down as it comes up instead of letting it slide for the sake of civility.
I'm going to start off with something that is probably not very popular, but please bear with me. I love racist jokes. I think they're hilarious. As a middle aged white guy, I honestly wish there were more white-people jokes. I'm probably not alone in this, given the popularity of Jeff Dunham's 'Walter'. And if you dont think he's a sexist, racist stereotype, imagine him as a black woman. Anyways, I cant tell racist jokes any more. Because they're no longer funny. The humor used to derive from the agreement that the statements made by such jokes were just not said. They were so far outside of acceptable, polite behavior that they had to be satire. This is no longer the case. When the audience is no longer sure if I'm joking or serious, it's not funny any more. Its horrifying. I honestly wish for a world where racism is so unacceptable that it's a joke, but until then I'll just have to keep that part of my sense of humor quiet. Because I dont need to enable those who actually believe in it.
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If he wanted to publicly out them, I'm quite sure he would have. Who they are isn't important. What is important is what they've done and how they, and those like them, affect the world.
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Up until just recently, I would have been that guy who said I knew what he meant. And it would have been true. Words have meaning, but they also have subtext, context and associations. While the intent is clear enough, the ramifications of just being able to make the statement are too great to ignore. "But, freedom of speech!" Well some speech is a cancerous growth and if you dont remove it early and aggressively, it will only get worse.
Thanks for sharing, as ever.
Confucius says it's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. Often this takes the form of something small, like listening to someone who needs it. If nothing else, one can always comfort the afflicted.
I myself have done this whenever I've had time, and you've inspired me to keep doing it.
Aragon, this was beautiful and gripping. Even knowing that you're still here the narrative made me fear for you at sexual. I'm sad we never got a chance to meet.
Thanks very much for writing this, and Nazis can fuck off and die.
Call me wimpy, but I kind of cried a bit reading this.
This... this whole recent slew of 'Aryanne' fics has gotten me really worried.
People keep on going on and on about free speech and compromise and understanding, but I can't understand how they can even begin to understand people whose first and last stance is that the other side has to die. I just can't.
So many famous authors are jumping on this bandwagon and it's scary and it's nice to see something sane like this.
Take care Aragon.
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And the pony spaces in general are fucking burning down about this. It's crazy and disgusting.
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It's just bizarre and dangerous.
The Alt-Right has this habit of co-opting things. They co-opted the Buddhist Swastika, they co-opted norse mythology and signatures, they co-opted Pepe the Frog, they co-opted the OK handsign. THey just... THey just steal things and then make it racist.
So all of this Aryanne stuff? It wasn't cute in 2014 when it first got started and it ain't cute now.
It's downright tonedeaf at best and maliciously ignorant at worst with the shit that is 2020.
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"Ironic" neofasc posting hasn't been funny since 2001 (ebaumsworld)
The discrimination by SWM neofascists against Muslims in general and people of Arabic or Middle Eastern indo-aryan descent in particular who lived in the US for years and fucking loved our country that started approximately 9/12 wasn't ever funny either but here we are
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But here we are indeed.
Honestly though? I think we’re doing better than we have.
We’re fighting for it more. people may complain about PC culture but it’s better than what we used to have and at least we’re trying and actively becoming better
2020 is still a shit fucking year but at least somethings happening
Hopefully the changes are good and ladting
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It's our (or at least my) fault. X'ers and and Millennials had this concept that edgy and not caring was cool and shit kinda festered. It's up to the zennials and zoomers now...
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I don’t think it can be pinned on any one thing
It’s not important anyhow
What’s important is what we do from now on
I am glad to say I have never had to deal with that, being Mexican and living in Mexico, so we were educated different. One of the popular sayings was on the money for a while: "Slavery shall be forever outlawed, as well as the distinction between castes, separating an American from the other by vice and virtue."
It helps.
The closest I have seen is jokes about having been baked on too high an oven or having fallen inside a toaster when they were little for those that have darker skin, usually said by themselves too.
Then the issue of the US of A comes in.
One person was denied his Visa for YEARS because his daughters looked too white to be his daughters; another - who knew that you have to have documentation for that - had his papers inside a suitcase and was denied on the spot because it was obvious that he wanted to do business in the US, despite being a lawyer and not having had an opportunity to present his documents.
So, yeah, I have dodged having to (personally) deal with bigotry so far, I just hope it lasts.
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Maybe the spinelessness of the folks running our fandom spaces who refuse to unilaterally declare such things to be unacceptable is a good place to start with the blame placement.
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I don't think Aryanne was ever cute.
She was never co-opted, she was the co-opter from the very beginning.
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I dont want to come off as rude or anything, but lately it is also a trend for the left party to label anything they disagree with as racist or fascist, throwing the term around so much that it has lost its meaning. We need to raise awareness of actual hate speech, but when we let things spiral out of control like cancel culture or other unethical actions behind the good-cause shield, the movement is forever tarnished. If that happens, it becomes the very intolerance culture it swore to destroy.
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this. This is what Im talking about. Just because he stated that police matters too, presumably talking about the black officer who got killed by looters, he is the bad guy? Thats the same thinking as the killers of that woman who said all lives matters, who was shot in front of her child. Let that sink in. Not everything is black or white (no pun intended), and he is not necessarily racist for disagreeing with blm actions, which I may add have been nothing sort of reprochable lately. I do agree that what he said about the white man killed was nitpicking a lot, but he shouldnt be called a nazi for that.
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"Cancel culture" is an alt-right buzzword btw.
I live in a sundowner town of sorts. It's not full on sundowner, not for a tourist town.
But skin color, religion, and where you are from, you will get different places open or closed to you.
Moving here at high school, alone, and apart, when you come from a broken, abusive home.
Yeah, it was a nightmare. From hiding from faculty, to fluke of luck to not be beaten to death in front of 100 people with no one batting an eye. Been there, won't recommend it. I knew where the safe places were, though the places I sat, no one else saw it that way. It was survival, pure and simple.
Fear, Hate, and however many failings for a person at its core, is learned. Its something that you build up, or are instructed in, or just see and either bury, or internalize/externalize.
I am white, yes. I am male, yes.
And if you saw what I went through, you'd ask how the heck im not a dyed in the wool republican. How could I not hate the black folks that tried to kill me, because they had the power to by being the principle's son? Or the teachers that did not care because I was the 'problem student' that fought back out of survival. (Don't rock the boat, that gets you fired.) When you have to bring a weapon to school to defend yourself from the less than subtle (assaults) 'nudges' that happen.
In the end, though, it did have its more or less desired effect. Trust is a luxury. Culture is little different than a cult (it only benefits you when you are at the top.), Race, skin tone, ethnic group, all ways to make it into us vs them.
Deprogramming that, im still at it 20 years later. It takes work, it takes progress. Let alone what it might take for others to set down their ideologies externally, if they even want to, or can see where they are coming from.
Anyhow, doubt folks will bother reading this far. Have a good day.
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Thats all you've got from the text? That a word that describes a movement that ruins people's lives for mere disagrements (not always is about racism and the likes) for what it is, is invented by the so-called "enemy"? Also, its worth noting that you were rather quick to call those who see the problems that said culture entails as extremists, in an attempt to undermine it as just a nazi insult or something.
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Here's a thought: If sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... then why is the pen mightier than the sword?
Remind people of that every chance you can.
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People say it is hard to be tolerant.
I say otherwise. I say it's VERY easy to be tolerant. It is easy to let a few bad words go by. It is easy to write it off as just an old folk's views. It is easy, far too easy, to whisper, "But they don't really mean it."
Tolerance is so very easy. It merely requires one to be a bystander.
Everybody likes to think about Martin Luther King Jr. About how he was so patient and marched and walked and hey! We have a holiday! Everybody likes to say Rosa Parks was brave for sitting on that chair. Everybody loves to decry Malcolm X for his 'violence'.
The thing is is that all three of them were intolerant. They didn't back down from the 'joke' of racism. They were 'filthy n*****rs' who were uppity and each one of them should've learnt their place. People think racism is abstract because all the big things are gone, but no.
It's grains of sand. It's the black joke that makes people laugh and the black man quiet. It's digs on slanty eyes that make Asian people glare harder, but you can't see it, because of their 'slanty eyes, nyuk nyuk'. It's 2 millenia and more of digs on 'gypsies' and 'jews' and 'how they're all money-grubbing digs' that let an atrocity come to rise.
People are very tolerant and of the most horrendous things.
So, I'll be intolerant of those who are intolerant of others. I'm not going to be a frog in the well who boils alive because they didn't jump out of the boiling pot. I'm going to be pissy little bitch who shoves it in people's faces:
That some jokes aren't really F****ing jokes.
I understand your fears over cancel culture. Look no further than the Johnny Depp Debacle. Where so many of us fell into the trap of believing what we had first hand. Even now, I understand that most of the fics we have now are just jokes.
But jokes can be done in bad taste and with the world as it is now and with who we have as President, they're bad taste at best and maliciously ignorant at worst.
So no. I say no the joke that is Aryanne. Because I'm not laughing. I don't think i can when that thing represents one of the worst aspects of humanity and does nothing to actually critique the ideology beyond looking cute.