Hi,
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, I’m specifically curious to see how blahaj.zone, feels about this topic.
I recently made a post Discussion: Do Not Reject Imperfect Allies
In this post I open up the discussion as to how we should treat imperfect allies, and made some crude examples one of which relates to people who are Pro-Trans but not fully.
What do you feel is the best way to approach these scenarios, and influence positive change?
If someone is acting like a bigot and not willing to take criticism about that, I don’t think that it necessarily follows that what’s needed is for minorities impacted to stop being critical.
Certainly not morally, but there is a pragmatic question of how to best achieve political ends, injustice often creates situations where what brings about the best outcome requires less than perfect choices - in this case, engaging with “imperfect allies” to maintain alliances might be pragmatic even if it puts an unfair burden on minorities.
Not to say all minorities are compelled to do that labor, I do think it’s reasonable to make choices about when to invest vs when to protect yourself.
Also worth pointing out than an extreme form of political pragmatism can easily turn into a race to the bottom and undermine important principles - it’s not easy to know when or how much to sacrifice in the name of pragmatism.
Psychologically pragmatism can also be used to rationalize and justify toxic respectability politics, throwing the most vulnerable and least desirable elements under the bus (like we see with “transmedicalism”).
Completely agree, there’s situations where it’s important to have allies you can work with in common cause, even if they’re imperfect. As well agree that you can’t let tolerance of imperfections turn into complacency in the face of bad behavior or tolerating bad actors.