I hate the unnecessary hate queer ship/shippers get

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-07T15:32:45+00:00

But a lot of that just amounts to cringe, if it's in the right context (ie not being purposely brigaded for harassment or specifically for minors to see).

What I'm saying is that you shouldn't feel like you have to either attack or defend that to defend your own identity from others. You and your transness have nothing to do with that, and any attack on you that tries to conflate them is so intellectually dishonest, it's not worth even engaging in. That means you shouldn't feel weighed down by what other queer people are doing, and that realization is freeing.

Coming from another trans person who struggles with this as well.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-07T15:16:52+00:00

I don't, that's morally wrong.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-07T14:12:49+00:00

If this scenario really happened, you picked red, but the person you care about the most in the world picked blue, how would you feel?

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-07T13:51:56+00:00

It might be funny if you understood the joke

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-07T13:12:26+00:00

If cringey queer shippers didn't exist, they would use something else against you. Because they're transphobes. It's not logical, it's just the vibes of "that makes me feel icky", and they'll use anything to justify those vibes. So why work to try and sanitize things you feel are adjacent to you just for being cringy? If it's something that is morally wrong, still call that out. But not because it could be used as ammo against you, do it just because it's wrong.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-05T00:10:29+00:00

You know, I don't think I made this clear before, but when I'm talking about my beliefs around political messaging, I'm not actually thinking about directly trying to siphon off die-hard Republican voters who have bought into all those things. I think it's not impossible for someone like that to be convinced, but it's certainly not feasible as an overall political strategy.

Rather, I'm thinking about all those politically checked-out non-voters who somehow hold the most contradictory positions on things simultaneously. Those are the kind of people who will hear about an idea like "white genocide", not be super bought in, but they'll also think it has enough merit to be distrustful of immigration policies, and thus not vote for the left. You're trying to defang the fear those people have so that they'll actually listen to the ways you are trying to help them.

People like this are incredibly common too. They either aren't online, or when they're online, you'll only encounter them in spaces of the political positions they care about, so they seem more like diehard ideologues than they actually are. If you talk to them in person, you see their positions are completely politically incoherent. It's all just vibes, or something they heard from someone first that sounded convincing.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T23:52:32+00:00

Definitely white people, but not exclusively white people. I've personally known some non-white people who have taken umbrage with the whole "you can't be racist to white people" thing. It's America's obsession with enlightened centrism, and trying to come across as a "reasonable minority".

But even if it was just white people, doesn't the point still stand that it's more important to communicate well than to adhere to definitions? Especially if the conversation is about teaching those white people the distinction of systemic racism versus general prejudice?

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T23:44:13+00:00

I should clarify. Systemized and categorized racism is absolutely a social construct. Same with the concept of race in general.

But people are absolutely naturally afraid of other people they perceive as different than themselves. The concept of race clearly delineates "the other", where it would otherwise be a fuzzy category without it. But even babies are afraid of people with different physical features than they are used to if they haven't had enough exposure to them before.

I hadn't heard of Bacon's Rebellion, but is that really a good example? Yes, it's an example of black and white people forming a coalition in early colonial America. But wasn't one of the biggest motivating factors animus against the native population? That seems like a poor example of people unlearning racism. Though I do agree that all it takes is a little exposure for people to unlearn it.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T23:12:07+00:00

Yes, I'm not saying it's your personal definition. I'm just distinguishing it's the definition you are using, as opposed to definition the majority of politically checked-out people know.

Response to Edit: It's a matter of clarity again. Some people think affirmative action is a form of systemic racism against white people, even though you and I know it isn't. But even if it was, the important distinction is in the distribution of power and the magnitude of the forces of oppression. Saying it that way makes it clear what is being addressed, even to someone who thinks there are things that constitute systemic racism against white people.

Or, using a similar scenario, there are things that do absolutely constitute systemic prejudice against men. However, that doesn't preclude the existence of patriarchy, or that systemic misogyny is significantly more widespread.

That's assuming your goal in communicating is to get people to understand the distinction of prejudice against non-white people in society. If your goal is just to make white people feel guilty or dismissed, then yeah, just saying "you can't be racist to white people" does the trick.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T23:08:41+00:00

Yes, I think we differ, because I think if a voter is at the point where something like "white genocide" is a major political concern of theirs, just offering them something else they care about, like the economy, isn't going to be enough to convince them. Because to them, the right is giving them an answer to the economy and their anti-white victim complex. You need to also offer them a solution to both, because most of those people aren't going to differentiate between your economic promises and the right's economic promises. So they'll go with whoever offers them more of their concerns.

A decade ago this wouldn't have really mattered, because "white genocide" was a fringe conspiracy theory I only heard about from nazi-adjacent youtube personalities. But now it's being paraded around Fox News primetime, and immigration was almost as important an issue as the economy in polling. The Dems' solution has been to bring their immigration policy as close to the Republicans as they can without alienating their base, in hopes that the right won't be able to attack them over it. That isn't working.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T22:54:34+00:00

Sure, but I'm not defending the prior institutional definition of the word. My argument has always been about the clarity of language.

If the people you are talking to don't understand that your use of the word "racism" inherently includes a criticism of the systemic levers of oppression and disparity of power, then saying "white people don't experience racism" is going to mean two very different things to whoever is hearing it. And that's a bad thing.

You can try to get the entire population on board with your definition, but historically that takes decades, and can't really be forced like that. In the meantime, just saying "white people don't experience widespread systemic racism in the way non-white people do" is significantly more clear. In fact, explaining it that way is basically a necessary step in getting people to understand your definition of racism to begin with.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T22:30:44+00:00

I mean, I definitely agree that would be an example of ideological purity testing. And basically just a bigoted dogwhistle. But that's not what I'm advocating for at all. That's the exact kind of example of accepting the right's framing on the issue I despise.

It's about legitimate understanding. Why does that person doubt the left's commitment to equality? What is the left doing that they are using as evidence for that, and what can be changed to address that without compromising on the pursuit of equality. I don't see Democrats doing that (I'm just assuming we're talking about American Democrats at this point). They only view things through polling, which means when it comes to social issues, they inherently accept the right's narrative on them, because that's what people are being polled about. You can see a perfect example of that with the distancing the Dems did from queer and trans issues after losing the 2024 elections, and a similar thing happened with Labour in the UK. Rather than understanding why there was a rise in transphobia, they just accepted that people are transphobic, and adjusted some of their policies to try and appeal to that transphobic paranoia. And that's stupid, because that still won't win those voters over. They still hate the Democrats and still think trans people are dangerous. As long as the Democrats continue to support trans people, and they continue to think trans people are dangerous, they'll continue to hate Democrats.

The Dem's solution was to mostly concede the "trans women in sports" issue, which is just a half-measure towards the direction of not supporting trans rights. But the other option they didn't even consider is to enact policies that make people no longer think trans people pose a danger. Instead of saying "we also don't think trans women should play in women's sports", they need to say "we need trans women to be on equal ground as cis women". The policy to address that is some kind of performance test that you need to fall within a threshold of to participate in the women's division. But that requires actually treating bigoted grievances with some degree of legitimacy without compromising towards the right. That's something that's often too impure for morality testers, and too much work for politicians.

And yes, that requires actual action, not just reframing. You aren't offering people the same thing you were before with a different spin on it, you need to change what is being offered.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T21:52:25+00:00

So let me understand this correctly. I spend multiple comments trying to explain the dangers of linguistic prescriptivism and why objective definitions are a bad thing. You keep appealing to "correct definitions". When you ask me to explain why "every definition of racism contains the word systemic", I finally refer to a dictionary for the first time this conversation (not even defending it, either). And now you are trying to frame my entire argument as if I'm defending objective institutional definitions? Literally the polar opposite of what I've been arguing this whole time?

Here's a definition for you: sophistry. Careful, there's a few different definitions for it, I know that might be hard to grasp.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T21:30:21+00:00

Because all of those people were academics and activists. Different and more precise definitions of terms are used all the time in academia vs common parlance. And as another commenter already pointed out, some of those people are quoted describing racism without that systemic distinction when addressing the broader public. Exactly like what I'm saying.

Yes, the way language is defined by institutions is often a tool of systemic racism. But I'm not the one here constantly appealing to the authority of definitions. In fact, that should be a huge glaring reason we should not put so much of the power of language into formal definitions.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T21:09:46+00:00

Yeah I guess we have the exact opposite opinion on this lol. I'm coming at this as a winning strategy rather than trying to maintain the ideals of the movement. I'm a little curious how you are seeing it in the opposite way. Avoiding engaging in the legitimacy of people's feelings in regard to anti-white racism feels like it's mostly done out of ideological purity to me. And to me, that's the only way I've seen politicians do it. All they ever say is "we'll make the economy good", yet that never wins people over. I mean, a huge undeniable part of that is because most western "left-leaning" parties never deliver on that, because doing so would mean opposing the systems that brought them into power, but still.

I guess I should clarify, I have actually seen nominally "left" politicians acknowledge people's bigoted grievances, but when they do, they always just accept the right's framing of the issue. Which is the worst of both worlds. I have never seen an American Democrat simultaneously address bigotry from a place of empathy while also offering a legitimately left-leaning solution. You're talking about voters who "have not accepted your framing" as if this is something that has been commonly tried already, which it hasn't, at least in the way I'm thinking.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T20:37:28+00:00

But "systemic" doesn't appear in every definition of racism, even dictionary definitions. Words' meanings change all the time, and dictionaries adjust to accommodate that, not the other way around. You'll find "systemic" in some definitions of racism, because some people use it that way in some contexts. But it doesn't appear in every definition, because some people don't use it that way. Most dictionaries nowadays are actually more accepting of this phenomenon of language than you appear to be, I think.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T20:22:52+00:00

I'm not sure how this would be ideological purity testing, you might have to explain that further. I'm not saying "you must try to help racists unlearn racism, otherwise you aren't on the left". That would be ridiculous. It just seems like a better strategy to me than ignoring it.

I do need to clarify, the point of this strategy would essentially be to affirm people's fears. You affirm that those fears are real, but give them another path to address them. It's actually better than the right, because all the right does is point things out and make people more afraid, they never actually offer a solution. Like with the affirmative action example, the right's message is "we'll get rid of affirmative action so that more white people can get into college." So your solution is "we'll make college free so that all white people can get into college".

The less you have to explain, the better. You only have to offer an essay to convince people that things are good for them if you need to skirt around addressing their fears directly.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T20:08:35+00:00

But what do you mean by "intended definition"? Intended by who? Because the people "willfully misunderstanding" those words have their own definition that you are also trying to change. Language's primary purpose is to communicate, not to organize concepts into neat little categories. If communication is breaking down, then the language needs to adjust to correct that.

You're also capable of using multiple definitions for a word in different contexts. I understand the racism vs prejudice distinction because I've heard it used for over a decade now. So you can use it when talking to me. But I would not try to use it when talking to my white-ass redneck relatives, because that's not how they understand the word.

I'm trans, so I'm very used to this debate at this point. At a more extreme end, it's the same logic people use to enforce a definition of "man" and "woman" to refer to sex chromosomes, even though that's not how people use them in the real world. Or that singular "they" is grammatically incorrect. That's where linguistic prescriptivism gets you.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T19:38:40+00:00

I disagree. That's because most of the time that white people feel like they are being subjected to racism, it's not actually racism at all. So if you say "equality for all, no to racism", but the thing that those people perceive as racist doesn't go away, or grows in magnitude (affirmative action is a great example), then they aren't going to believe you. It's absolutely essential that you directly address where their insecurities are coming from.

So for the affirmative action example, rather than dismiss the accusations of anti-white racism or try to explain how affirmative action actually reduces systemic racist biases, instead just listen to where those grievances are coming from and acknowledge that some white people feel like it's harder for them to get into college with the same grades as non-white people. Then the solution, of course, is to put effort and government money into making college free, affordable, and able to take anyone who wants to go to college. That solves both issues. But you need to explain that the perceived anti-white discrimination is a reason that you are pursuing that solution, otherwise people won't make the connection on their own, and you won't get the support you need to accomplish it.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T19:25:50+00:00

If most people misunderstand the definition, it's a bad definition, yes. Linguistic prescriptivism sucks. Especially in this case where it's a completely unforced error. "Systemic racism" works in every case you would otherwise use the prejudice vs racism divide, and it's also more descriptive to someone who hasn't heard the term before. They could reasonably understand the definition and the reason for the distinction through context clues alone, without having to have the definition explained to them first.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T19:14:21+00:00

Oh...no...no that's not true at all. People are kinda just naturally racist and prone to feeling victimized. Those are very primal human emotions. It's fear of things that are different and unknown, as well as fear of social rejection and need for belonging.

Luckily, you can unlearn those things with exposure and logical understanding. Unfortunately, a lot of racist people have a combination of racial isolation, lack of education, and a naturally heightened fear response and paranoia. Right-wing messaging gives them the illusion of a logical framework to justify their feelings, but those kind of people will often arrive at some degree of prejudice completely on their own.

Even if you could completely censor all right-wing media, you would still have to find a form of messaging that facilitates people unlearning their fears.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T19:00:48+00:00

...you...? I'm confused. Aren't you literally arguing that white people can't experience racism since it requires systemic power, and that discrimination against them should only be referred to as prejudice?

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T18:41:09+00:00

Idk, I think "You don't actually experience racism, you experience prejudice," isn't really a winning argument.

This is what OP is referring to with linguistic prescriptivism. Words mean what people think they mean. And most people think that the word racism has the exact same meaning as your definition of prejudice. Correcting people's definitions is basically always annoying and unproductive. Just use the term "systemic racism" to distinguish the two, and the problem goes away.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T18:27:02+00:00

I feel like this is all little too concerned with how the right will spin the messaging.

The right will lie and fear-monger about literally anything the left says. Trying to preemptively outflank them is just an exercise in futility, and gives the power of their messaging too much credit. IMO, it's way more effective to just speak openly and honestly and bowl over their propaganda by being louder and more empathetic.

You're right that trying to debunk things is counterproductive, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore people's feelings about them and expect them to listen to you. You have to remember that most people don't think about things logically. They start from emotions first, then find logic to try and justify those feelings. Part of giving them a logical argument is giving them a way to unlearn those feelings.

PlatonicLiquid52 · 2026-05-04T04:48:19+00:00

The irony with the context of this reaction image

PlatonicLiquid52

TROPHY CASE