It would be nice to be able to say that Druidry should have room for everyone. In practice, if you try and organise that way, not only will you exclude people but you will be most likely to exclude the most vulnerable and most marginalised people.
Dealing with abuse, aggression and actual threats drives people away. If you have the privilege of not being much affected by other people's differing world views, you can't assume that's true for everyone. Dealing with prejudice and abuse - overt or covert - is at best exhausting and threatening, and at worst damaging and unbearable. People aren't going to stay for that.
If you include the white supremacist, then when they start expressing those views, if you let them continue then you effectively exclude everyone who isn't white. If you include the person who thinks all queer people are an abomination, there will very quickly be no LGBTQ people in the room. If you allow ableism, all the ramps in the world won't get disabled people to stay in that space. If you want to be understanding of the gropy man who doesn't respect boundaries, you will find women don't stay in the space. If you allow some people to routinely talk over, ignore, undermine and otherwise treat people with disrespect, those mistreated people will leave.
I would rather include the people who wish to grow community, share fairly and treat each other with respect. If I have to exclude bullies, sexist people, classist people, racist people, and so forth then I'll do it without hesitation. I've been the person who had to leave because they didn't feel safe. If I'm in a place where I can call out the problem and give people a chance to learn and do better, then I'll try and do that. But, I'm not going to sacrifice the wellbeing of someone who did nothing wrong for the comfort of someone who was acting badly. If someone has a problem with other people even existing, I don't want those views in my space. They can do that someplace else, or ideally, they can sort themselves out. There's a world of difference between not wanting people to exist, and not wanting people to bring their hate into your space.
Doing nothing is not a neutral choice. It isn't the moral highground. There's nothing actually Druidic about neutrality outside of Dungeons and Dragons games. Justice is part of the Druid path, and we don't get justice by doing nothing. To have a just community we have to be willing to protect those who have least power from those who are controlling, aggressive, and unreasonable.
No comments:
Post a Comment