“Recently, Janet (Mock) was supposed to come to Kentucky, and one of my sisters was like, ‘Well, I’m not coming to your house because she’s an abomination.’ And then she changed, she wanted to come, but she didn’t want to 'meet the abomination.’ And there are times then in our life when we have to choose, and I had to say, 'Well, you’re gonna have to stay away.’ Because I don’t allow that kind of violence. I don’t feel like, oh, it’s okay, I can just explain to you that this person has violent feelings about who you are. Not so. There are times when we have to stand for justice, and there are times that, in standing for justice, we have to turn away from people that we would ordinarily maybe want to be with. And that is a difficult part of struggle.”
bell hooks, in this conversation with Laverne Cox
I know I keep coming back to this talk but it keeps seeming so relevant. As I think about this whole ugly GamerGate situation, I feel like it’s important for sites and individuals to not feel the need to compromise. The truth is not “somewhere in the middle.” To say to the GamerGate movement, “Your perspective is welcome here, too” would be sort of like bell hooks asking Janet Mock to be around the sister who considers her an abomination. For all its pretense about journalistic ethics, the GamerGate mob ignores actual ethical issues and seeks to maintain a gaming culture that is hostile toward serious criticism and analysis, and deeply hostile toward women and queer folks and the idea of a more diverse and inclusive gaming space.
bell hooks is right when she characterizes her sister’s belief that Janet is an abomination as an act of violence, and so too are GamerGate’s demonstrated, manifested attitudes and behavior toward women and queer people acts of violence. To welcome GamerGate into your space is to say to those that GamerGate wants to drive away, “We are not going to stand up for you. You have to share this space with people who hate you and wish you would go away and leave gaming to them."
Again, the truth is not somewhere in the middle.
Notes
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westofawhitehouse reblogged this from agameofme and added: This needs to be said again and again. The truth is not somewhere in the middle.
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