Social Justice Warrior?

[rowyn]

grrm has been writing about the Hugos lately, and one of his side issues has been that he finds the term "SJW" very offensive, and wants "his side" to be called "liberals" or "progressives" instead.

I am fascinated by this, for a couple of reasons. One: I rather like the term "Social Justice Warrior". I prefer "social justice cleric" for myself, but I'm fine with SJW. I find it a convenient term for distinguishing those with a keen interest in social justice and tolerance of diversity in many and varied forms. I know SJW was originally a conservative jab at us, but I thought it had been reclaimed, like "gay" or "queer". The other is that I think of myself as an SJW, but not a liberal or a progressive. So the substitution doesn't work for me. I suppose SJWs could claim "egalitarian" instead, but who would claim to be anti-egalitarian?

Then again, who wants to come out as antisocial injustice pacifists? As insults go, SJW has never had a lot of sting. n_n

EDIT: I've locked comments to this entry, 'cause I'm not enjoying some of the conversation the topic is generating. Y'all feel free to carry on in your own journals if you've more to say. :)

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

If you called a Vietnamese man who was formerly VC 'oriental' ... they might be angry.

Why should I care about the anger of a man who fought to enslave South Vietnam to Communists by means of committing horrible atrocities against the South Vietnamese people, any more than I would care about the anger of an former SS man at being called a "Nazi?"

Oh wait, I forgot, the VC got the approval of the correct people, and hence the deaths of villagers who first saw their wives and children raped and hacked to pieces in front of them, and of course those wives and children, are okay and we have no right to condemn the killers.

Gotcha. Dead Jews and Slavs bad, dead Southeast Asians good.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

While your invective may be on point for that example, the discussion is wider terminology. You have scored on a technicality but will likely lose your audience and the game with your method.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

No more than you should care about the anger of the whites who are being called racist. After all, they committed the same atrocities against the Native Americans and are still committing atrocities against their former slaves.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I was not aware that any of the slaveowning whites or former slaves were still alive! Since slavery ended everywhere in the United States of America in 1863 and the Confederacy was conqured in 1865, , if one was born just before the surrender of the last Confederate forces he would have to be 150 (!) years old, which exceeds the known maximum human lifespan by about 25%!!

This is very welcome news! Are research scientists investigating this longevity factor? Perhaps one day it can be applied to the betterment of the human race as a whole!

And ... what atrocities? The city of Baltimore has a mostly-black government and a large black component to its police force. Are you saying that the whites of Baltimore ordered the black police officers to be cruel to black people beause they were black people?

[octantis.livejournal.com]

What you think of a VC isn't really relative. You can care what he thinks, or not, it's your prerogative. The point I'm making is about the term 'oriental', and a VC guy happens to be one of the examples, because they're alive and still exist. I'm not sure where I said 'yay dead Southeast Asians'.

For what it's worth though, I recently made a trip to Vietnam. My mother was born in Hanoi, and escaped the fall of Saigon with my father, an American airman. With us were a former marine and former army serviceman. We visited a small village, the head of which was former VC, and they all talked.

The Viet Cong were south Vietnamese too, in fact. From their perspective, they were fighting off colonial rule by the French. (And then the Americans, who backed the French.) They believed the then South Vietnamese government to be a tool of the colonials. They fought a guerilla war on their own soil with old AKs and sharp sticks, digging tunnels with baskets and hand picks, against an adversary with overwhelmingly superior forces who bombed their region until it "looked like the moon" to use their words. Militarily, they (and the NVA) lost every fight with staggering casualties, even with the Tet Offensive. This was hardly the Third Reich marching into Poland.

You may not care, and that's fine. But since you seem passionate about this, I like to think that you might have cared if you'd been standing there with us as these men, all of them simple ground soldiers, shook hands. I could share pictures if you like, it was very moving. These days, North and South Vietnamese still discuss the war that has indelibly marked their country to this day. There are still disagreements and different perspectives, but they can do so in a civilized manner, presumably as we do about our own civil war.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I have some sympathy too for the Germans who fought in World War II. And I'm descended from Polish and Russian Jews, and the Germans killed the part of my family that didn't emigrate to America.

My problem with the North Vietnamese is that we never made any attempt to capture and punish those culpable for their war crimes. My problem is less than it would otherwise be, because Linebacker left scars in the North which they are still feeling, and a sanguinary warning that even if one wins a war against the United States of America, it may be a bittersweet victory indeed.

Thus should always perish our foes.

[rowyn]

Hey, Jordan -- would you please be polite in leaving comments on my blog posts? I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

[rowyn]

Hey, Jordan -- would you please be polite in leaving comments on my blog posts? I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

[rowyn]

Hey, Jordan -- would you please be polite in leaving comments on my blog posts? I'd appreciate it. Thanks!