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Title: Breaking the Code Author: dot matrix Date: 2006, Fall-Winter Language: en Topics: activism, jargon, leftism, post-left, AJODA, AJODA #62 Source: From AJODA #62 Notes: AJODA #62, Fall-Winter, 2006, Vol. 24, No. 2
Caveat: these words are occasionally used by people in good faith. Most
of the time though, they are used by people who are looking to win
arguments and perhaps to bond along certain simplistic lines — not to
understand things better or to have different kinds of conversations. Be
particularly wary when you hear (or use!) two or more of these words in
close proximity to each other.
These terms can be categorized into three themes — action (vs. theory),
safety and identity. In practice these themes are closely connected
because of the underlying assumptions of the people who most commonly
use them. These assumptions are that answers are clear (therefore don’t
require particularly deep thought or especially complicated challenges
to anyone), that the necessary actions might be hard, but they’re
obvious, that the person who can make a good case for being the most
victimized should have the most attention paid to them. The connecting
motivation for these themes is guilt — guilt about having power, guilt
about not having power (both are sins in this culture), and perhaps a
confusion about the difference between privilege and power. If power is
seen as the capacity to get things done, to make change, then having it
implies that we are responsible for things continuing the way that they
are. Not having power both absolves us of that responsibility and also
makes us anathema in a society that emphasizes a myth of autonomy and
boundless personal (isolated) potential. Privilege is being able to
benefit from the way things are, and power is the capacity to change the
way things are. They are sometimes connected, but definitely not the
same thing.
used for a wide range of situations, from blatantly physical, painful,
and coercive interactions to the more subtle emotional, political, and
social; frequently used as part of a Safe Space argument, to encourage
the dangerous people to take the claimant seriously; strongly alludes to
extremely polarized power dynamics (of the helpless victim/dastardly
villain variety).[1]
blame
what someone calls themself (or is called) to express a strong
commitment to Someone Else’s struggle, when Someone Else is seen to be
more authentic than the ally. This status gives vicarious legitimacy to
the statements of the ally, particularly when the ally is confirmed by a
representative Someone Else.
very common in tacit usage, usually implying that a certain group
understands more about how the world works due to a particular social
(oppressed) status, leading members of this group (and their allies) to
believe that members of this group are more relevant to significant
social change than others.
gender-neutral pronoun(s) replacing he, she, him, her, an indication
that the code user is more hip, more conscientious, more accountable
than the non-code user, and more likely to use the words “abusive,”
“safe space,” and “ally.” Co is derived from the word comrade.
1. the basis of validity, the font of Authenticity, from which all
organizer and activist legitimacy flows.
2. paradise, an amorphous phenomenon that is all things to all people
and represents everything good that we lack; a form of utopia that we
could find or create if we tried really hard; frequently sensed in far
off places; frequently confused with the practice of liking everyone or
having everyone like us.
this word has two mutually exclusive definitions, one of which involves
people higher in a hierarchy permitting more control and autonomy to
people lower in that hierarchy; the other describes people taking more
autonomy and control in their own lives. Frequently used in radical
circles with some confusion as to which definition they are applying.
one of a variety of terms referring to feelings as something that other
people must take care of; this is closely related to Safe Space.
a demand that people stop talking about whatever concerns, questions or
disagreements they have (in fact preferably that they pretend to have no
concerns, questions, or disagreements) and work harder to get more
people involved in whatever the expected task is; classic example of
this attitude:“Too much theory is a byproduct of having not enough to
do.”
see Getting Shit Done.
refers to the ultimate good (in keeping with its biblical base),
involves various implications and assumptions including that it is
always obvious what is just in any given situation, that the speakers
(or at least the important speakers) share the same understanding of
what is just, and that justice is always relevant. Also implies some
level of punishment.
see Getting Shit Done.
another catch-all word, means anything from cross-cultural historic
tendencies to how your mother treated you, or, more relevantly, how
someone is feeling treated badly in a meeting or interaction that is
supposed to be Safe Space. [2]
usually used by people to blame others for their discomfort, with the
expectation that someone else is responsible for them feeling better,
especially around huge issues like racism, sexism, and classism; less
commonly refers to safety from physical harm; is frequently used in
mediated scenarios like meetings, email lists, or online forums.
engaging in feel-good rhetorical activities.
what we are all supposed to engage in at all times (except, perhaps,
when we are in Safe Space); apparently an end in itself.
doing the same thing harder, in the hope that more of it will have
dramatically different effects. (As Einstein put it, “Insanity is doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”)
see Taking the Next Step.
lack of perceived significant disagreement; perception being much of the
point, Unity is used frequently to encourage people to shut up. See
Getting Shit Done.
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[1] The point of noting when words have multiple definitions that are
widely divergent in their emotional impact, is to point out that using
those words calls into play the strongest of the emotional meanings.
Take for example, Clarence Thomas’s use of the word “lynching.” While
the word might have had some relevance to him personally — perhaps he
felt at that point like his life was about to be over, and that the
emotional impact of having to defend his actions was as bad as being
kidnapped, tortured and hung — but most people would not see his
experience as that. The history of lynching is that it happens to people
who are socially disenfranchised. Thomas’s political stance, the reason
he was nominated for the Supreme Court in the first place, was because
he was denying the relevance of that disenfranchisement. By using that
word he benefits from an identity that he has gotten money and power for
rejecting, and he calls up emotions and social context that may be a way
to understand his feelings (if we give him the benefit of the doubt) but
have little to do with understanding the complexities of the external
situation.
Rape is another word that describes a physical event, but also is used
to describe an emotional impact.
The case for this kind of usage is that it demystifies these words by
connecting them to experiences that are more common to all of us. But
the stronger impact is to further mystify the experience of the person
who is using the word. On some level, someone claiming raped status is
claiming to be beyond reproach, an ultimate innocent victim.
[2] See previous note