Education Policy’s Roost (On Social Justice Warriors)
Less than a year ago, I was in a heated conversation (we’ll call it that) where a few folks who disagreed on education policy brought their frustrations to full display. Unbeknownst to the folks who I agreed with, the conservative dissenters are encouraged to engage with, start sh*t, and frustrate folks like us. At one point, after one of the folks in “my” group decided she couldn’t take the direction of the conversation, a dissenter promptly called her a Nazi. Observers from afar thought that the argument between the two groups would have cut across color lines, but not necessarily. At the point where one dissenter called one of my people a Nazi, no one in the dissenter clique decided to call him in, even the people of color. In fact, they cheered the use of Nazi actively, flooding her mentions and getting favorites and retweets for engaging in kind.
It reminded me of two lessons: 1) not all my skinfolk are kinfolk and 2) sometimes, to many people, the side of the debate you’re on is stronger than the principle of social justice you supposedly espouse.
After I rebuked this dissenter for analogizing simple disagreement with outright fascism, I too found myself in a conundrum. For those who follow me on social media and beyond, they’ve seen my Education Policy's Roost (On Social Justice Warriors) | The Jose Vilson:
