FWIW I agree with you. I'm about to put said poster on ignore, constantly makes my blood absolutely boil. Bless your non-bs approach to this whole topic. Someone Such as yourself with their heart completely in the right place gets fed up at the nonsense people are coming with and then ends up getting banned themselves. Don't agree with that at all
My big worry with things like this is the kind of language we use on the forum can make it so that victims don't feel safe here.
When the Kavanaugh thing happened, we were 100% all in "fuck him" mode. Which makes sense, because we were all predisposed to believe the victim.
But with Biden, it's been a
bit different and that sort of works as a litmus test for our values as a community. That's the whole reason "believe victims" exists—you can't pick and choose to be principled about sexual assault when it's convenient
because that's how abuse replicates itself and is tolerated.
When that other OT (that's now locked, thank goodness) went up, I wasn't sure how to feel about it. Thinking about how difficult it is to stand up for yourself against a system that is
literally showing us, in real time, how it defends itself in
this very forum and on social media—we are seeing the narrative being built, and it's
NOT always through denying the events.
Oftentimes, it's through semantics. Through "waiting" for evidence (AKA hoping it blows over). Through expecting the victim to have a perfect alibi. Through carefully crafted words that make the situation seem less bad than it is. Through
"I'm not saying you should doubt her, but..."
The vocabulary and explanations used compared to people like Kavanaugh and Trump...it's different. Let's admit that it's difficult to be critical of people on "our side" but that's what makes it so much more important to stick to our principles—otherwise we fail past victims and we create the conditions for future victims to never come forward.
