The toxic past time of everyday domination

Karla's piece finally came on my radar after reading about the grift of the founder of Raheem AI. I did not expect this to come out such of an organization, but as I've mentioned to her on BlueSky in response, this is a subtle growing (if not already metastasizing) issue within leftist coalitions and how we deal with money. I can't lie, someone using organizational funds to blow $50,000 on ridesharing is wild to me: was he paying for himself and the community? We'll never know.

Karla's point here is something that resonates with me (emphasis mine):

For as much as the left — which I’m defining loosely for the purposes of this writing as a coalition of people fighting for MRC Democracy — would deny we were culturally impacted by that movement, we have taken up a few of its toxic cultural tendencies. A very human thing to do when you are surrounded by toxicity. I am most concerned with the use of domination as a primary tool to get what we want and even as a form of entertainment. This toxicity has infected our friends, families, communities, and institutions. It is a poison that will silo us and have us reject coalition at every turn.

That bit about using domination as a form of entertainment is really deeply ingrained in so much of how we approach life: we're exposed to it as a concept since our early youth. Compeition, though seemingly healthy for growth, in my opinion, plays a big role in this, when it spirals to be mainly a competition of the "biggest, best and boldest". Something that's a core component of Silicon Valley's culture (and what American culture is at large).

The four points Karla makes around the forms of domination give me echos of experiences I've seen (and have engaged in) online across the Fediverse and Twitter^[1]. I also see examples of it in how conversations unfold about who and what is allowed in one's perception of the "greater community".

Another point she makes reminds of something I'm learning in "No More Heros": the idea of having a spokesperson of your toxic stance (emphasis mine):

That being said, when those tradeoffs are made, we tend to villainize each other. We also tend to elevate someone who is either a grifter or seeking attention who says we can have everything we want without pain or sacrifice.

A singular human is never the reason big sweeping glorious change happens. Equally, a singular human is not how big, life-destroying pain happens — unless you have THAT much power and your blast radius is just that wide. This means that making those tradeoffs cannot be how we come to write each other off. I don’t mean a sustained pattern where the same people are paying the cost of tradeoffs over and over isn’t immoral and shouldn’t be called out. We should. I mean boiling every situation down to — they made that tradeoff that impacted me and that means they must be evil. I am not saying this tool shouldn’t be used either — I find it quite useful for known bad actors like white supremacists trying to change Overton windows. But not everything is that, some things require depth of conversation and negotiation in a diverse society — or as sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom calls them — thick conversations.

One point of emphasis that I do appreciate is her highlighting of this angle of a singular point (or person) being the cause of something (notwithstanding a sort of gravitional pull). This is something media (social or broadcast) leans into a lot due to the simplification of the message. It's a lot more digestable of a sound bite to understand something like Donald Trump being the source of racism in the United States versus parsing the last century^[2] and the racism that has now become "normal behavior".

Karla's point on the use of identity as a potential anchor that prevents deeper conversation is something I have to admit I've subscribed to (and am aggressively working to stop):

Using the label does not get us to the change we seek, it calcifies the conversation — freezing it in place because even talking about it somehow makes us immoral. Naming the behavior that is upsetting us and how it is influenced by our social biases gives us more room to learn in community. It is not the strategy for the far enemy that I’m talking about, it is the needs of coalitions I’m concerned about. I understand many of us have not had language for this kind of specificity but the shortcuts we used to take are not going to work in a world where leaders of color have consequential power.

This is why I've spent so much time over the last three years reading more from folks who've been doing this before I came to be (let alone moved into this space). It's a responsiblity to use this position and space wisely^[3]. Her final point is the one I'm working on the hardest and was what inspired my post on the wrong ideas:

I get what I want or I take all my marbles with me is not a way to create democratic governance. It creates smaller and smaller groups run through authoritarian norms. That [accustoms] people to authoritarianism in the small ways, not prepares them for shared power in the big ways we will need to build necessary muscles around.

This is hard for me because I believe I needed to draw very clear lines in the sand as to where people can bring me and where I was willing to do. But I forget that it's sand: that these lines can be redrawn, that people are not single-issue and it's possible to work across lines. Don't get me wrong, this isn't easy. It's sorely needed when it comes to how the Left handles and approaches money, for example, but it's a process in relationship building that's needed if we actually want to build power.