People think (group X) gets things for free or easily - jobs, admission to uni, sexual partners, funding, whatever.

This causes resentment on both sides: “Why not me?”, and, funnily enough, also “Why not me?”

The trick is you have to be *appropriately* X to get these perks.

One example is how we will enthusiastically give charity, but only to people who look appropriately pathetic and in need, but still virtuous.

- thin (not fat!)
- visibly used but clean clothes (not smelly/dirty!)
- sad (not angry or happy!)

A performance is required.

A corollary is that people seemingly hold conflicting beliefs on X, because they are not naming these extra preconditions.

Some poverty narratives:

- “poor but proud”
- “lazy poor”
- “welfare queen”
- “dangerous immigrant poor”
- “criminal poor”
- “addicted poor”
- “crazy poor”

When people argue on “what is to be done with the poor/immigrants/men/women/Muslims/whatever”, and they disagree, they seemingly debate X, but disagree on the modifiers (which lead into different narratives.)

X is not uniform, but we act as if it was.

https://twitter.com/drmaciver/status/1243892142109573122?s=21 https://twitter.com/drmaciver/status/1243892142109573122

This also leads to “no true Scotsman” and identity issues.

“If a poor person is thin, and I’m fat, am I really poor? No, I’m lazy, must fix myself.”

“If a poor person is fat, and I’m thin, am I really poor? No, I’m an industrious temporarily embarrassed millionaire.”

To clarify: people can seemingly contradict *themselves*, or appear hypocritical.

They are not; they just skipped naming the assumptions for current discourse.

https://twitter.com/fvathynevgl/status/1254334997445697546?s=21 https://twitter.com/fvathynevgl/status/1254334997445697546

This could be in either good or bad faith. It’s hard to distinguish.

When pressed, both result in annoyance: “I *know* not all X people are like that, stop derailing, that’s not what I want to talk about.”

In bad faith, they moved the goalposts. In good, they think you did.

But I’m more interested in identity of people who don’t fit X the way X is often performed.

- uncompetitive/agreeable man
- ugly/asocial woman
- raised in a culture that doesn’t match your skin colour
- non-economic migrant who doesn’t identify with their country of origin https://twitter.com/fvathynevgl/status/1254338932822683648

Cultural gender roles are *the weirdest*. You may be born as a man/woman, feel and identify as a man/woman, but if you don’t *act* like a man/woman, nobody knows what to do with you.

You are not a man/woman (but you are also not the other one.)

You are denied your own body.

I remember a story written by a Black British woman in the US.

She told of hostility from the local Black community, because she spoke with an accent associated with the white professional class. They read her as “not Black”, race traitor.

Denied her body and history.

People who don’t fit a story can only freely exist in places where no assumptions or stories can be made.

Big cities, internet.

However, when learned ways to navigate society fail, you no longer know how to avoid giving offence.

It’s safest not to interact.

Thus:
- loneliness of big cities
- the left eating itself as it becomes more inclusive
- “take the heat or get out of the kitchen” of internet https://twitter.com/tim_ber_wind/status/1254152423465091072

I used to wish for the kind of community support that comes with fitting in, but I seem to be an awkward combination of several wrong-X, so I only fit in unsafe spaces of no rules.

It’s time to stop chasing the dream and continue building myself as a resilient solitary unit.

And to conclude, here’s a classic, for some reason gone from the official channel.

End thread https://vimeo.com/4435893