ziq OP wrote
One of the articles yam posted in defense of RMS also had examples of his racism / colonialism and transphobia, so by advocating for him, yam was really breaking almost every terms of service violation at once.
People are so endlessly disappointing.
edmund_the_destroyer wrote
Only bother answering if you're interested, but I'm curious what was racist and transphobic in those statements?
kin wrote (edited )
Racist is pretty clear from the remarks about POC and Natives, and First Nations. He is not blatantly white supremacist there (/S), their downplaying of the structural racism and colonialist talking points are textbook definition of whiteness.
The transphobia I don't know about, but with his misogyny pretty well documented I am not surprised at all.
Edit: the transphobia came from their explanation about the pronouns and why avoid they/them. He evens try to make it woke it all the twisted logic that actually reinforces all his bigotry.
ziq OP wrote
He has a long pattern of ignoring and talking over marginalized groups, the pronoun thing is a good example. Idk why the nerd has so much trouble calling someone by the pronoun they ask to be called by. It's so toxic.
edmund_the_destroyer wrote
I'm going to play armchair jackass here. I have an autistic kid, and he finds things to argue about and be upset about that I think are not reasonable. So for example, he has a favorite bowl for meals. He gets upset when someone else uses it, even if they clean it immediately and it is available for his next meal.
He has also been arguing with the family over trans ethics. We were able to convince him it's unacceptable to deny anyone their chosen pronouns, and he doesn't care who uses what bathroom. But my spouse, myself, and our other kids accept that a person that labels themself a woman is a woman, a person that labels themself a man is a man, gender fluid is gender fluid, non-binary is non-binary. My autistic child will not accept it, he'll give each person their chosen labels but is emphatic that in truth only the genitals you have at birth matter. We're at a loss to convince him.
But my broader point is that I see the same kind of odd hangups over labels and specifics not pertinent to core issues in Stallman. I don't know if anyone would be insulted by this metaphor, but I would call it a kind of OCD for language.
It doesn't excuse the harm he creates and enables. It just explains a bit about the personality behind it.
kin wrote
Very good point, give me lots to think about
Neurodiversity can play a role here, and your parenting experience demonstrate that is not always easy to figure out what is the best way.
I truly don't have any experience in this but my own, not sure what are the limits of a Neurodiverse adult etc. Usually to avoid being woke without reason or when things got to complicated I step back and think: Is this harming someone? Is this making someone unsafe or feel unsafe? Am I silencing this person voice, or am I hijacking his "place"?
kin wrote
Thanksn for the downvotes, but if it is not clear I am not defending RMS, I barely know all this free software stuff.
Again, I am not using disability or neurodiversity as a defense for bad behavior, if it is not clear I apologize for my bad english. If I said something wrong please correct me, I don't mind.
kin wrote
My reply was exclusively for edmund and the case of his son
masque wrote
This is my take as well. I don't know if he's been diagnosed with anything, but Stallman is pretty clearly neurodivergent in some way, and I do actually think that some of his problematic statements can be interpreted differently in light of this.
kin wrote
A lot of folks are blinded by their own privileges and the main toxic culture. When you deny someone's identity, or feelings, or history, etc, you can cause an scar that may never heal. I don't expect everyone to be empathetic towards other's, but then they can't complain about the struggle of others
edmund_the_destroyer wrote
Thank you for responding. I'm sorry, I thought there was something trans in the specific listed Twitter post. I think Stallman's remarks on pronouns were not there - though I may have missed it. They were elsewhere, right?
I don't see how he downplayed structural racism. I interpreted most of the quoted comments as being pointlessly pedantic about terminology, not disputing anything about structural racism's existence or severity.
To be clear, being pointlessly pedantic over the terminology in an injustice is harmful. It takes focus away from addressing injustice, onto something less relevant. But I didn't see his posts there as overtly or implicitly characterizing non-whites as inferior, and neither did I see it defending unequal treatment.
edmund_the_destroyer wrote
Thanks for providing the information.
The former is a dick move, the latter misses the forest for the trees.
ziq OP wrote
it was in the original link too, it was the first reply to the tweet
edmund_the_destroyer wrote
Oh sorry, I was stupid and only read the first tweet and not any of the replies.
kin wrote
Yeah, I think in one of the replies below in the thread, but all this is in the Stalman's page also.
This Whiteness presented in his arguments are surreptitiously appealing to the a liberal sentiment, like you said diverting the attention for the real issue on those topics. i am not trying to be woke here, and I lack skills to forge a better response, there is this graph that give a great view what I meant by whiteness.
He may not say clearly but denying someone's struggle is harmful in its own way.
not_yam wrote (edited )
To be clear, being pointlessly pedantic over the terminology in an injustice is harmful.
FIY the quotes are from his Glossary page, which may partially explain his being pedantic about terminology there. For his views about racism, see for example the Racism section in the Reasons not to use Facebook page.
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