Subordinates
Or, Assume The Position.
A point made in the comments and possibly worth repeating:
From what I’ve seen over the years, the word ally is typically used, by the people who rush to use it, to mean something like advocate, or mouthpiece, or supplicant, or puppet. There’s no discernible interest in, or expectation of, reciprocation; no obvious shared goal or mutual benefit. Indeed, the role, once assumed, appears to entail saying dumb and vividly untrue things, thereby becoming unreliable and absurd.
Say, by insisting that odd, cross-dressing men are somehow, magically, women. Or that a reluctance to mouth fabulist pronouns, to affirm a person’s imaginary themness, is some life-threatening moral oversight.
And then there are the not infrequent detours into outright struggle sessions – as seen, for instance, here, where a disobedient woman finds herself being scolded by a man in an unconvincing wig for not doing the “work” expected of an ally – essentially cowed deference and dishonesty on demand.
Specifically,
This, then, is a world in which allyship – “listening to the community” – requires prostration, a suspension of cognitive faculties, and a surrendering of basic probity.
In the case above, regarding race, the duty of the ally would presumably be to announce, as Mr Zellie does, that preferring the civilised to the thuggish is “a white supremacist construct,” to regurgitate his assertions about the character and motives of “straight white men,” to demand the “defunding” of the police, as Mr Zellie does, and jumping through whatever rhetorical hoops, and taking whatever “action,” Mr Zellie deems appropriate or amusing.
The only benefit I can see for those willing to debase themselves in this way would be the hope that Mr Zellie won’t assert or imply that you’re a racist, or that you’re insufficiently “anti-racist.” And therefore racist.
Not, it has to be said, the most tempting offer.
As someone notes in reply to the post quoted above,
Not an unfair summary.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Which makes “white supremacy” sound highly desirable.
@David, it’s spelled civilized, not civilised.
OK, kinda breaking the rules but…Civil Eyes, band name. Though maybe better as an album name.
Added: Oops, too late. Thought that one was a bit too easy.
Album name–cheap play on Hall & Oates 1981 Private Eyes.
You can never please these people so don’t try.
It would seem to be a thankless task. Or a never-ending series of thankless tasks.
The Augean stables, but with more neuroticism.
This, from the archives, came to mind:
Among many others.
No thank you Indigenous activists, I refuse to ally with you by reciting a land acknowledgement. And no thank you Trans activists, I refuse to ally with your mental problems by stating my own pronouns as they are plainly self evident. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please make a note of it.
I did rather like this alternative.
And in high-tech security news.
Rules of punk.
I use “racist, Islamophobe, and misogynist” as my pronouns. Read em and weep.
He’s not wrong.
And you’re expected to eat the shøt.
Given a chance, they would eventually become genocidal murderers. Count on it.
Presumably no two-factor verification, either.
Betcha the people in charge were hired for political reasons rather than expertise and experience.
I have found telling people like Mr. Zellie to fuck off highly effective.
SNAP shut off, unintended consequences of enormous magnitude.
Punk…”punk” always was a phony pose. Possible exception being Johnny Ramone…maybe.
B-b-but it only costs the average taxpayer $3 a week. Or so I’m told.
“You can get used to anything if you do it long enough. Including hanging.” — Virginia Adams
Now do socialism…communism, really…
Land acknowledgements: in Australia they have recently reburied most (all?) of the prehistoric bones. In the US, the oldest bones found in North America (Kenniwick man and the two Clovis skulls) have been reburied. Anti-science for sure.
AND the people claiming the right to do that are almost certainly not even descendants of the persons whose bones are in dispute.
Rules of Punk: “no fatphobia” there is no such thing. It just elicits an instinctual feeling of disgust. It is also objectively true that 300lb persons WILL get diabetes and other serious problems.
“There is nothing extreme about not wanting to share your country with people who hate you.”
*Cough*
civilized
adjective (UK usually civilised)
Not sure that’s still true, judging by recent events. (Was that the meaning of your *cough*?)
I recall in the 1990s drawing fire from some oh-so-serious student organizer types for being “unserious” about all the terribly serious issues of the day. After receiving an unsolicited email from “Important Group!” soliciting profound sayings for their group letterhead or some such.
I replied “Semper Ubi Sububi.” Which is dog-Latin for “Always wear underwear.” It’s the kind of thing students love to put on letterheads.
I got served the entire panoply of then-current buzzphrases and fashionable terms, all boiling down to “don’t you understand this is IMPORTANT?!!!”
It was hilarious. I wish I’d saved it, I’d reproduce it here. The pampered sons and daughters of the rich, attending school at Prestigious Institution at great expense, pretending they were “Sticking It To The Man.”
Generally when encountering such idiots I ask them who buys their toothpaste. When they yell and pound the table because their mom still buys it, my job is done. ~:D
I was reminded of this campus drama:
And then, of course, there’s this:
Many other examples can be found in the archives.
They could avoid that “stress and trauma” by staying on a reservation and never setting foot in “white America”.
Related.
If my goal in life was to become a childless cat lady, I would strongly consider DePauw University.
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
“First time?” — Cowboy (James Franco), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
I can think of a certain greatest ally that has never done anything for us, ever.
Cloudbuster: hopefully your bank, to take but one example, is protected by a firewall. You might then look up where such a thing was first developed.
Florida tips for traveling Brits: falling iguana alert.
Helmets are available at a reasonable price out front from the trunk of my car. They also protect from drop bears, David.
I sorely hope this is parody.
A comment points out gibberish slogans on her buttons.
On the other hand, I have known shameless welfare cheats: perfectly capable of working but preferring to mooch off the rest of us.
We can argue about the ranking, but he’s got a good point.
Fields attract assholes in proportion to the opportunities for graft and the exercise of illegitimate power.
Is it them? Brawling between two HBCU’s.
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), an American corporation, in the ’80s.
Primary architect, William Cheswick, an American computer security and networking researcher.
Cloudbuster: and here’s where you learn the difference between noodling about an idea and actually building and selling it. To quote Wikipedia’s article on Check Point, “By February 1996, the company was named worldwide firewall market leader by IDC, with a market share of 40 percent.” How do you think they got there?
Next: have you ever used a USB drive?
Cornell professor befuddled by concept of supply and demand.
Scroll down for subsequent shock.
“I don’t think there’s anything harder than finding a liberal boyfriend,” says she.
Cornell professor befuddled by concept of supply and demand.Cornell professor befuddled.professor befuddled.
Living with one?
Good job on the goalpost moving. You asked where it was first developed. I told you.
Also 40% market share means 60% of the firewalls were being made by someone else. I think we would have managed without Checkpoint.
Cloudbuster: by that logic, da Vinci “developed” the helicopter.
Next, learn what a “plurality” means. And answer the question as to how that plurality came about.
Then also answer the part about USB drives.