Ppl.
It’s a twitter abbreviation I’ve seen a lot lately, usually with some sort of modifier in front of it and a glaring generalization of thought patterns, activity or something attached behind it.
White Ppl
Black Ppl.
Latinx Ppl.
Native Ppl
Gay Ppl.
Ace Ppl.
Bi Ppl.
Straight Ppl
Pagan Ppl
Xtian Ppl.
I can keep going? Yes? No?
Or do you get my drift.
So, I qualify as… let’s see… 6 of those.
How do you think it makes me (and anyone else like me) feel when we see this type of thing?
White PPL do X, they’re against us.
Black PPL do X, they’re against us.
Ace PPL do X, they’re against us.
Pagan PPL do X, they’re against us.
et cetera ad nauseum.
I’m tired y’all. So tired of it, because you know what ANYONE who would use some sort of designation like that is missing?
The PEOPLE part of that.
We aren’t monoliths. Not every person falling into any one of those categories is going to be the same, think the same, have the same beliefs or thoughts… and there is so much hatred being tossed around.
Yeah, and there’s bullying too. I’ve spoken out about bullying before, and I have a Masters in education and many hours of attending professional development seminars about that very topic, so it’s not like I’m talking out of my ass here.
It’s easy to hate. It’s so easy. It’s one hell of a lot easier to throw around hate and accusations of ‘you just want us to be nice’ and ‘you’re talking over XXX’ and ‘it’s not bullying to call out XXX’.
It’s SO much easier to devolve to name-calling… and FYI? Name calling is bullying, by legal and technical definition AND by the experience of it.
You can label actions, you can’t label people, it’s wrong. So stop it.
Someone recently suggested that it’s the same thing, to call someone a sexist or racist-as it is to call someone a baker or a hairdresser. I had to sit with that one for a while. It isn’t the same at all. That’s a fallacious argument. Calling someONE (not their actions, you can call out racist actions all you want, and we all SHOULD when we see it), but calling someONE a sexist or racist is a helluva great way to make them stop listening to you.
IF your goal is to actually educate and enact change, don’t LABEL people with any word ending in -ist or -phobe. If it isn’t, and all you want to do is foment more hate, keep tossing words like that at people.
Homophobe, Psychotic, Sociopath, Racist, Bigot, Biphobe, Acephobe, Sexist, Misogynist, I could keep going, and then I could segue into the ethnic slurs.
I won’t… but do feel free to educate yourself on what to NEVER use in language… I’ll link it here.
It’s so much easier to stop following people who hold different viewpoints than you do. Trust me, in the past few days I’ve really wanted to.
But you know what? I’m not going to learn anything if I stop listening, and unfollowing is a way to very easily stop listening.
I’m not going to learn how to NOT HARM (a rather important part of my faith, if you’ll remember) if I don’t listen and learn.
So. I’m still listening. Are you?