neurodiversitysci:

fierceawakening:

olennawhitewyne:

fierceawakening:

olennawhitewyne:

I can’t believe that in the Year of Our Lord 2017 there are still people who not only spend significant time on SJ Tumblr/Twitter but even claim to have a cultural studies background, who believe that “I have gay/black/autistic friends” is a legitimate and complete rebuttal to accusations of bigotry

I… kinda think it is, though?

I mean, I’m sure there is context here I don’t know, but honestly… taking the SJ thing that says “your friends are not an argument” too seriously leads to a REALLY unpleasant thing where members of the group who disagree with SJ are treated as if they are not real members of the group.

With POC, I’ve seen people demand they post selfies because “only a white person would think that’s ok”

I… I’m tired of seeing people treated this way, so my mind changed about “never ask your friends. Who cares what your friends think?”

Me! That’s why I’m friends with them.

I had a big long response until I realized we’re talking about completely different things here.

You’re talking about “I don’t think that’s homophobic. I asked my gay friend and he thinks it’s ok” or “My black friend doesn’t think I’m racist.” Stuff that actually takes into account the opinions and agency of those friends. And yeah, I think those arguments can be valid.

But that’s not what I was referring to in this post, or what most people are referring to when they complain about the Black Friends Argument. It’s the one that’s literally just “I can’t be a racist because I have black friends.”

I don’t think I should have to explain what’s wrong with that? Like, I’m bi and I had homophobic religiously-conservative friends growing up. I’ve had POC friends who’ve dated people who turned out to be pretty racist. In both cases, these opinions were voiced, but even if they weren’t, it’s pretty fucking shitty to assume “person of a marginalized group enjoys my presence sometimes” absolves you of all bigotry. That denies the agency and complexity and variety among people from marginalized groups.

I know in the specific context too that this is a person who has received flack from their LGBTQ+ friends for their homophobic opinions, so using them for “how dare people accuse me of homophobia!” is gross.

Ahhh okay. Yeah. “My friends complain about this sometimes, but they’re still my friends so it doesn’t matter” is gross. And not the thing I read this as.

When I’ve seen “don’t say ‘but my x friend says it’s ok!’” it’s usually been on LJ, which means in SJ dedicated communities, in a context like:

Long standing member of community: Drag is ~so transphobic~
Newbie: I… thought a lot of trans people started in that community? What do you mean?
LMC: lol I’m not here to educate you.
Newbie: …wtf. I went off and asked my bestie Kaylee, a trans woman, about this and her response was “omg lol! half my friends are queens!”
LMC: Your friend Kaylee is just putting up with you. She’s lying to suck up to the cis.

I do think there’s something of a point here–just because your friend isn’t offended by something doesn’t necessarily mean most people aren’t. But i feel like it gets made in ways that set up hierarchies that equate “most offended” with “most representative” without checking the facts.

Yeah, my perspective on this is similar to @fierceawakening’s. There’s different things people mean when they say “my autistic friend” (or whatever…), some of which are positive and some of which are defensive and tokenistic.

If a neurotypical person wants to know what it’s like to have ADHD, say, they need to learn that from people with ADHD. So, who are they going to ask? The people who are both most available and least scary to ask will be their friends with ADHD. So of course their first step will be to consult their friends. That’s good! Especially if they don’t stop there.

The other positive consequence is caring about people affected by an issue will make it seem more personal. So Bob the Straight Cis Dude can realize, “wow, it sucks that my gay friends can get beaten up and fired for who they love. I want to help change that so they can be safe and happy.”

Problems happen when:
1) Relatively privileged person treats having friends in x group as enough, and doesn’t try to listen and learn from them.
2) said person assumes without evidence that their friends are representative.
3) said person engages in selective listening. They listen to and support their friends when the friends agree with them. They ignore it when their friends disagree. Similarly, they only listen to others in the friend’s group when it supports their own point of view.

Also…Odds are, people from marginalized groups who become friends with clueless folks will probably be relatively thick-skinned and hard to offend. They might well not be representative. That doesn’t mean they’re not “real” members of their group or their opinions don’t matter, like the Discourse says. But it does mean it’s worth challenging people to do more than just make One Gay/Black/Autistic/etc. Friend.

I guess I’m trying to say, having autistic/LGBTQ+/etc friends doesn’t prevent someone from saying or doing something bigoted, but it might suggest they’re trying to do better. /Rambling