noracharles | Entries tagged with politics: ableism

I'm one of the editors of the White Collar Roundup - I collect the White Collar content posted to dreamwidth.

That's how I first came across the comm then called fanspastic. The name offended me, and I hated linking to content on a comm like that, but I want our newsletter to be inclusive, and I'll link to everything regardless of my personal feelings about its authors.

Now the comm has been renamed to

fangasmic, which is a huge improvement! Thank you

mark for taking care of that before renaming is officially possible.

I went to look at the comm, thinking the mods might just be ignorant, and maybe it's not a horrible place after all. LOL, wrong.

Is using the word "spaz" in the mod post explaining the rename supposed to be ironic, and do the mods think that it is therefore funny?

An emotion is not an opinion. We can not agree or disagree with an emotion, but we can sympathize (feel the same) or empathize (understand or care about the person's emotions).

An experience is not an opinion. We can not agree or disagree with it, but we can believe or disbelieve, or understand the experience being relayed.

An opinion is an opinion, and we can agree or disagree with it, or argue for or against it.

Someone who has a mental health issue and reacts in an unusual way emotionally may have emotions we can't sympathize with. But that doesn't mean we have to disbelieve their experiences, or disagree with their opinions.

Irrational is a not a synonym for wrong, or "thing I disbelieve" or "thing I disagree with."

Sane is not a synonym for right, or "thing I believe" or "thing I agree with."

And a pertinent example:

"Because of my social anxiety, I don't like having my fic archived on public archives, including the AO3" is not the same as "I have political or philosophical objections to the AO3".

When you use mental health to judge who are right and who are wrong in a disagreement, you are not just arguing for your opinion, you are also contributing to the oppression of all people with mental health issues (including those who agree with you about the matter at hand).

This is a post about the accessibility of fandom fests for people with social anxieties.

( Supporters of yuletide have taken it upon themselves to wage a campaign of social pressure on members not to remove any fics from the archive. Merricatk talks about the anxiety this causes her. )

Dear reader, should

merricatk's opinions on anything influence your opinion on whether supporters of a fest can create an atmosphere which excludes people with social anxieties from taking part in fests?

And, dear reader, if accessibility is only for the good people with disabilities, and

merricatk is a bad person with a disability, does the fact that she used herself as an example of a fan with social anxiety crying over a fest mean that you should not care about the other fans with social anxiety

possibly being triggered by the atmosphere of social pressure surrounding the yuletide move
possibly being scared away from seeking information from the actual official representatives of the fest
and possibly being scared away from ever participating in a fandom fest in the future?

( How can we do better? )

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I will not be able to moderate any discussion that takes place here continuously. Try to stay on topic, and don't allow the discussion to be derailed.

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Nora Charles

(no subject)

A clarification for the privileged

On the accessibility of fandom fests

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October 2018

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