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I have to admit that the one tiny silver lining of our horrific current moment is that you just don’t see people shanking each other over stuff like “is it cultural appropriation for a white woman to sell coconut water” anymore

James@gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social

>remembering that people used to knife fight for weeks about how fusion cuisine was imperialism

(I also couldn’t help but notice at the time that white *men* running restaurants and selling products from cultures they didn’t originate from usually got way more of a free pass than white women doing the same thing, but well, so it goes).

The other one i still think about frequently are the posters (inevitably white themselves) who were convinced white people saying “y’all”, because they are Southern, are Deeply Problematic

And yes, we of course should still call out white people who are being shitheads who refuse to acknowledge who they got their ideas from or who inspired them, but I still think deeming randos history’s greatest monsters over stuff like coconut water was not, perhaps, the best use of our energy

at least in my social world, I’m not seeing a retreat from social justice, but I am seeing a pretty encouraging degree of “perhaps we should focus less on being right on the internet as a way to fight bigots, and more on actually doing stuff”

I have been INCREDIBLY encouraged to watch the new generation of ravers tackle these same issues with so much more grace, compassion, patience, and thoughtfulness. There are still occasional excesses but it's just such a healthier approach - they learned from our mistakes.

The "woke mob" was widely overhyped by the far right BUT really did exist (I think more a consequence of occurring alongside the advent of social media rather than anything particular to wokeness) and I feel confident asserting it did more harm than good. But the principles have endured in good ways

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