If you read the comments here, you’ll see a small glimpse of the gaslighting and disbelief when you speak out about something.

The dictionary account is tagged in every single one of these tweets, which means I have to read this over and over: https://twitter.com/mhartington/status/1268287262065819650?s=21

When you’re a dude in tech who has a bunch of followers like this, you need to reflect on how you’re going to handle people responding to your new found “bravery” to speak out.

You’re going to realise a lot of your followers don’t like this content and they’re going to lash out.

The most annoying part about it is that the whole construction is dogwhistles RELIES on people who “want to take it back” or “think we’ve taken it too far;” the strategy builds this in.

People who read one article and decide, “I’d rather not inconvenience myself with changing.”

Unless you have seen Pr*ud B*ys throw up the symbol while in a large group and are of a group that they want to be dead, I’m not sure that your “take back” campaign means much to me.

If you don’t experience that fear, then you have no skin in this game.

I will never know if you’re just a stubborn techbro who is arrogant enough to think he knows better or a white supremacist. Or both.

I brought this up to several people in my life who continued to use it and they got defencive. How could you think I am a white supremacist?

Well, bud, I don’t know for sure. I will never know for sure. And besides, it’s less about whether you don the hood and burn crosses in peoples’ yards, it’s how complicit you are in upholding systemic white supremacy.

And guess what? Right now, that’s what you’re doing.

The way people cling onto branch names and symbols without ever reading an article about how white supremacist groups work.

I wonder if they—you—stop to think about what they’re doing. They’re denying the lived experiences of people most harmed to maintain using a thing.

The energy and time wasted on arguing when you could just stop using a thing you’ve been told is harmful and move on.

All the arguing says to me is that racism is systemic and people don’t even realise how they’re cogs in that factory.

At once, they both argue that the symbol is banal and harmless but also cling onto every dear hope to use it. We can’t give the Nazis the power!

Well, friend, you already are by buying into their careful dog whistling strategy.

Neoliberal white people love to think that the white supremacists aren’t as smart or clever as them, but the reality is that their use of symbols and organisation is far superior. They have strategies to ensure their own kind is easily identifiable and can quickly assemble.

I’m tired of explaining dog whistling repeatedly to “well-meaning” folks who will agree that Heiling and swastikas are clear symbols of hate but deny their modern equivalents.

The gaslighting is exhausting, dehumanising, and shows you’re more on the other side than you think.

Me: this symbol terrifies and hurts me, has been shown to be a hate symbol [cites 20 articles]

Friend: it’s used for diving and even though I’ve never been diving we must take it back

Me: ok, well diving is one thing but you using it in Slack is triggering

Friend: look at this one article that says it’s a hoax

Me: yes I know, that’s one of the 20 articles I cited but did you read the one about the hoax strategy is an intentional part is how they get us to infight and allow the symbol to prosper? They’re banking on this “confusion”

Friend: I can’t believe you think I’m a white supremacist

Me: honestly you can never know, that’s the problem, so I’m asking you to align your actions

Friend: the sacrifice of a single gesture isnt worth making you feel safer I’m so mad you think I’m a white supeemacist

I’ve had that discussion dozens of times and honestly at this point, I just have to walk away from those friendships.

It’s one thing to have a random account gaslight you, it’s another to have friends do it. It’s exhausting, dehumanising, and makes me feel really hopeless.