Curate, connect, and discover
Radicalization - Blog Posts
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJoP1f9h/
Eueyehehhehehehe
let's recap what we've learned about the United States in the last few days.
things that are terrorism:
allegedly shooting a healthcare CEO whose company generated more pure profit (not revenue, profit) in a year than the GDP of 94 countries, exclusively by denying coverage to people who pay for it
a 42-year-old mother of 2 using the wrong combination of 7 words during a heated conversation with a call center employee at a health insurance company who was in the process of denying her health coverage.
things that are not terrorism:
mass shooting in a Black church to incite a race war
going to a BLM protest specifically to kill protestors
a neo-nazi running over a crowd of people, killing a woman
targeting and killing 23 latinos in an el paso, texas walmart
killing 12 people in a theatre, shooting 58 others, rigging your apartment with explosives
a QAnon groyper killing 7 and shooting ~50 at a 4th of July parade
killing 3 people and shooting several others at a Planned Parenthood in defense of the unborn
stalking someone relentlessly and then killing them and their child despite months of the victim making police reports
any one of the 1,200 murders committed by US police yearly, the vast majority being minorities
tightening your border while ~100 immigrants (including children) drown every year in the Rio Grande
United Healthcare killing an unnknowable number of elderly people by using faulty AI to deny medically necessary coverage
Aetna killing a woman by refusing to cover her cancer care
Blue Cross killing a 6-year-old by denying her appendicitis surgery
Cigna killing a 17-year-old child by denying her liver transplant
the pharmaceutical industry killing half a million people with opioids in the name of producing revenues in 2023 that rivaled the GDPs of countries like Spain, Mexico, and Australia.
the United States killing 45,000 people a year because they can't access health coverage
make sure you keep this guide handy the next time you find yourself interacting with your insurance company or any other millionaire, billionaire, or an individual who is part of a protected class such as a CEO or president of a corporation.
People keep searching for ways to argue that JK Rowling has always been a horrible person deep down as a way of explaining her recent behaviour.
But here’s the thing: that’s probably not true at all.
Pretending it is discounts the harsher, scarier truth: that even decent, well-meaning people can be radicalised by dangerous, hateful, predatory groups, and given enough time they can become truly hideous versions of their former selves.
It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It can happen to any of us, given the right mix of circumstances. And over the past few years, we’ve seen it happen to one of the most famous children’s authors of our age.
Nobody is immune.
ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.
I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.
She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!
This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.
No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.