Monday, August 28, 2017

Balancing activism, "free speech" & "call-out culture"

Last week, I published an essay called Refusing to Tolerate Intolerance, which makes the case that we must challenge and refuse to tolerate acts that are intended to dehumanize, intimidate, and silence minority/marginalized groups. I also explain why those who claim that we *should* tolerate said acts because of "free speech" 1) are misapplying the concept, 2) do not understand how marginalization actually works, 3) are behaving hypocritically, or 4) some combination thereof.

At the end of the piece, I mentioned that I am currently working on a follow up to that essay: “Hate Speech versus Call-Out Culture.” I have written about “call-out culture” at great length in the past, specifically in my second book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (shown to the right).

To the best of my knowledge, “call-out culture” is a term that originated within intra-activist discourses to describe expressions of activism that seemed misguided or unduly harsh to other activists. Back in the late zeros/aughts and early tens/teens, those of us who discussed this problem recognized that activism was crucial and that some call-outs are indeed necessary, and we were trying to balance that need with the fact that sometimes call-outs (in certain cases and contexts) can do more harm than good. Unfortunately, the phrase has since been appropriated by non-activists as a pejorative to smear any expression of activism that they dislike or disagree with.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

my music on Bandcamp - special offer!

Tomorrow (Friday, August 3rd), Bandcamp is donating 100% of their profits to the Transgender Law Center (a wonderful organization). So I encourage you to check out my old noise-pop band Bitesize and my current solo music project *soft vowels sounds* on that platform. Via those links, you can listen to all the songs for free, and if you enjoy them, please consider purchasing them tomorrow!

If you are unfamiliar with my music, feel free to check out my blogpost Transgender-themed artists, bands, music, songs & anthems, which shares many of my trans-themed songs (including my "Lola" parody: "Ray"), plus links to lists of many other transgender musical artists that you can also support...