Original post: hollie.micro.blog/2025/01/23/my-husband-asked-me-tonight.html
Jan 23, 2025
My husband asked me tonight, “Did you see the post Vincent Ritter made?”
I said I had, and he asked me what I thought of it. I told him. I wondered aloud if I should share my thoughts and he encouraged me to do so. I don’t usually write things like this. I’m not sure how it will feel when it’s out there.
Quick background: For those of you confused, all of this started for me, today, when I read Adam’s post, “Accountability”. It was disappointing and difficult to read, but I’m really grateful to Adam for writing it, and I told him so tonight.
This whole thing has sucked - maybe not the most eloquent phrasing, but it’s very late and I’m tired. I don’t want to leave micro.blog, I love it here. Absolutely love it. I’ve been here for years and I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m not as tech savvy as the rest of you, and trying to self-host a Hugo blog (Hugo is what micro.blog sits on) a couple years ago, had me in tears. I want to stay here. So I really wanted to like Vincent’s post.
Unfortunately it didn’t land great for me. In my opinion, it’s missing things. For an apology to work, especially something this public, it should have the “four elements": (1) acknowledge what they did, (2) explain what happened, (3) express remorse, and (4) offer to make amends.
The acknowledgement (1) is sort of there, but for what? I can’t tell from his post what even happened (2). Why the vague references? I have to try and surmise a few things, which I can only do because other people have kept receipts on this. Which, let’s just point out how important this can be, especially when, as in this case, comments are later deleted. As a Mastodon moderator I have personal experience with a person pulling this routine and we were unable to publicly explain our actions because we didn’t have receipts.
I assume Vincent’s referring to what Adam describes here, and the screenshots of the later-deleted comments here.
So, right away, I’m not super comfortable with someone apologizing for something and not explaining exactly what they did wrong, what actually happened - leaving that to someone else.
He does express remorse (3) (but again, I have difficulty feeling moved when I don’t know what the apology is for).
But amends? (4) That doesn’t appear anywhere.
This felt incomplete.
Tomorrow we get Manton’s response…
There’s a ton of context and conversation happening in these comments to Manton’s post. My comments are near the bottom I think.
Manton says he’s going to write something tomorrow, and I will want to read it, as it will probably determine whether I stay here or not.
More notes on all this…
This comment on Manton’s post today, from Scott Walters, a person I don’t know, really got to me:
I have spent my career doing theater, and I have a Queer child. Many of my favorite students are trans, queer, gay, lesbian, and bisexual. And I care about them all. But I find Adam’s insistence that everyone should pass some purity test in order to be allowed to write code unreasonable. One of the reasons I like micro.blog is that privacy seems to be respected. We can reveal as much or as little about ourselves as we wish. I understand that nerves are frayed, and we all gave a right to our own emotions, but that includes everybody. I think Adam needs to learn about boundaries, and what we have a right to insist upon. Casually throwing around the word “bigot” for reasons that are, at best, an interpretation (e.g., a blue check is not a white hood) simply creates a hostile environment. I don’t appreciate it, and I would like Adam to mind their own business.
Everything wrong with this situation feels encapsulated in this one comment.
The person I referred to, a few paragraphs above, when I said that as a moderator I wished we’d gotten receipts, sounded a lot like this person. The Mastodon person had told me in a DM that his post (which had been reported) couldn’t be considered racist because he has biracial children, and they would tell him if he was a racist. When I read that, it felt so entitled and weird, I was stunned (hi, I’m naive, nice to meet you), and I didn’t immediately reply (or get a screenshot) because I wanted the other mods to read it and let me know their thoughts. They never got the chance, because he immediately deleted our entire conversation and moved to a different instance.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone, but you can have a child or a loved one who is Black, and still be racist. You can have a child or loved one who is queer, and still be homophobic or transphobic. You don’t get to drop the job of examining and acknowledging your own societal conditioning just because you’re conveniently adjacent to a marginalized group. Allyship is action, not geography.
Adam doesn’t need to “learn about boundaries”. He isn’t trying to ruin anyone, he’s trying to protect our marginalized community members. He hasn’t lied or conjured things, he has referenced specific events, explained what’s wrong with them, and asked for people in charge to acknowledge and respond. This is rational, reasonable behavior, and we need more of it, not less. We should be thanking him, not telling him to take a hike.
Also, this line, referring to Vincent apparently being a supporting member of X, i.e. paying for his own blue check mark:
“a blue check is not a white hood”
Pardon my language, mama bear coming out here, but what the fuck is it then?
Elon Musk just gave a Sieg Heil at the inauguration. TWICE. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to back this administration, one that is making it a primary mission to erase trans people entirely and villainize and deport immigrants. I fail to see any appreciable difference between the agendas of these organizations. Go ahead, change my mind.
This might be the longest post I’ve ever made. Sigh.
It’s late. I hope everyone is asleep, sleeps well, and wakes up to some good news.