I'm always surprised at the number of people on twitter who think that they are perfect, or at least see twitter as a forum in which to act out perfect judgment, perfect humility, perfect "learning from mistakes" than never are, above all perfect identification of failure in others. These people are magic; they don't need visible error to know you are in the wrong. They just sense it. They see through whatever you say, right through, to the opposite meaning, the perfect failure that they know is behind it. Then they reword it and leave you fighting with shadows while the rumour spreads.
About a month ago I called out abusive behaviour on twitter (in white women. If names are needed, Zoe, Sarah, Katie, Jemima, Joanna, Claire. Not the most radical list of names, but there we are). Since then I have become, thanks to their lies: racist, transphobic, biphobic, whorephobic, an ideal bigot. I might not have seemed it before but oh, that's because it was always lurking beneath the surface. The perfect people know this. I know that there is no point arguing because I am not perfect myself (the perfect people say they're not either, but they've checked their privilege in some arbitrary sense that means that, to all intents and purposes, they are). That's the thing that always gets you. Unless you claim ultimate knowledge of all that is right, whatever the perfect people decree must be the truth. In a moral sense. Or some sense. Or possibly none at all.
Once you engage, it eats away at you, because you can't fight things that have no substance. You can't say "look, I said this!" because it doesn't matter. What you actually do or say is an irrelevant sideshow to the deep, inner bigotry that has been identified. You give up but it stays in your head, and cuts into the time when you should be with other people, thinking about them. You become mistrustful, and slightly obsessed with all your own disadvantages, all the slights against you that you could embolden if you were but perfect. You know this is wrong but you do it anyhow. You know it's affecting your mental health, and making you a less generous person, less willing to listen to others because you are afraid. You think "fine, I really will ignore it this time. Looking outwards, focussing on other people is what matters." But every now and then the lies pop up again to surprise you and you are surprised at how much they still have the capacity to push you back into that sense of powerlessness and fear at the reach of your other, evil self. You know, too, that if you were someone else, you might believe the lies, too. After all, there's always a bit of prejudice in everyone's soul. Maybe the perfect people have found the key to measuring it precisely?
I wrote this because I don't want to write about it again, or even think about it again, but wipe it clear and focus on people and errors that are real. But I want people to know that the impact of these lies and what casual reproduction can do. It stops people functioning. It doesn't correct any form of behaviour, it inhibits. And it won't make anyone perfect.

Reply · Report Post