Fighting White Supremacy: Sincerity

I am pretty sick of humanity right now. That is the virus spreading, of course, but not exclusively.

This particular complaint comes from a tweet by Amanda Marcotte, a blogger and writer who is considered liberal, but I would say is more leftist, at least in terms of tendency to criticize more traditional  liberal positions.

This particular tweet was part of a short thread complaining about people who have been vaccinated still wearing masks.

https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1416078552953409544

I have been pretty consistent on this: due to the number of people that are still not vaccinated, allowing more mutation; plus the already present Delta variant; plus as a means of keeping things safer for those working public-facing jobs in a world where there are people who would like to spread the disease as a proof of their defiant conservatism, there are plenty of reasons why masking and social distancing should remain the norm for now. You see all of those disease spikes as people started easing restrictions? Maybe that means it was premature.

Now, is it specifically the vaccinated people not wearing masks who are spreading it? With the Delta variant, that is a real possibility.

In five tweets, Marcotte refers to "mask theater", a way of performing political identity (that she can't relate to, because she prefers concert T-shirts), and accuses it of making the pandemic worse because it politicizes COVID fear as a liberal concern.

It's condescending, and not well-reasoned, but that level of condescension usually is not built on great reasoning. After all, facts can really get in the way of a superiority complex.

Also, I think it might be reasonable to say that conservatives have politicized everything about the virus so much that nothing liberals can do will depoliticize it. The off-chance that being completely reckless will bring them around is too irresponsible even if it were likely to work. It is not.

This is why I assume Marcotte is more of a leftist than a liberal; no matter how bad conservatives get, it is always liberals' fault, and the need to change is on them.

That is irritating, but it's not why I am writing this post. It is the part about "identity performance".

Marcotte got a lot of disagreeing replies (including from me), with people masking for their children, their fragile seniors, and their immune-compromised loved ones. No one appears to be doing it to own the conservatives.

In fact, most of them seem to be motivated by love for those they know, and concern and generosity for those they don't know.

It is more common to use "woke" for an epithet now, but once upon a time it was SJW, for Social Justice Warrior. (I'm sure it still gets used.)

When I first heard the term I didn't think that I could be called a warrior for anything, but how was it an insult that you would fight for justice of any kind? Was it the social part?

In fact, the insult was the assumption that any arguments or actions that people took was to look good. No one sincerely cared about social justice, but people who felt guilty about that would pretend, so the real courage and authenticity was, apparently, proud racism. 

There may also be people who think it's a stupid thing to care about social justice, or at least pointless, but yes, at the time I remember that the arguments mainly impugned the sincerity.

Humans are complicated, and the things we do may have multiple motivations. I still know that I sincerely care about others, and I am not alone in that. 

For as much as I get tired of people, I still know people that I love. I still see people that I do not know being patient or kind or looking tired or trying, and I feel love for them.

I get that there is a certain satisfaction that can come from looking down on the sheeple trying to prove things that you are way too cool to care about, but I want to punch people who find that satisfying. I don't, because I am trying to be better. 

In fact, I am trying to be like Christ. Not with his power to heal, but at least doing what I can to not spread disease.

In fact, if the only way in which you fight for social justice or any kind of human welfare is to score points on those who aren't doing it right, I promise you that you are upholding white supremacy.