A. Okay, here’s a tweet thread about asking people to “be kind” & “forget the last four years of abuse from MAGAs”.

This seems to have occurred in response to @JoeBiden saying he wanted to govern for “all America”, which many have taken to mean he said MAGAs should be forgiven.

B. I don’t believe Biden meant that. In any case he has little choice but to say that, as his literal job is to try to find common ground with everyone he governs.

That’s not true for everyone.

So extrapolating that everyone needs to do that is not only wrong, but it’s abusive.

C. Ppl who’ve spent 4 years being specifically told they shouldn’t be alive, or should be locked up or tortured, have no obligation to forgive/forget.

Because it’s a denial of absolutely justified anger & pain. It makes ppl feel that what happened to them doesn’t matter.

D. This is also true in other situations. Imagine a woman who’d been raped was told to forgive her rapist because she should “be a bigger person”?

In fact, women are told ALL THE TIME they should forgive the offence. Often this hurts more than the original crime (it did for me).

E. Whatever way ppl have been hurt, telling them be kind makes ppl feel there’ll be no punishment & no effort to right wrongs.

In fact, it puts the onus for action & doing the hard work back onto the survivor, not perpetrator. It’s as bad as it gets.

But wait: there’s more.

F. Asking ppl to be silent or forgiving doesn’t work.

Ppl should google “Paradox of Tolerance” by Karl Popper. It explains how too much tolerance leads to a death of tolerance.

Being told to be endlessly & forgiving is violent in itself, & can actually lead to more violence.

G. If ppl are too kind, it allows violence to flourish as it’s never seen, understood or rectified.

There’s nothing wrong with kindness, or forgiveness. But being asked or expected or be nice to or forgive someone who wants you in pain or dead is terrible.

H. Worst of all, the calls to be kind almost always come from highly privileged people. People who’ve never faced the oppression being talked about.

They need to know they’ve no place asking those who’ve been traumatised by violence to now practice togetherness. It’s obscene.

I. Hurt ppl have the right to celebrate overcoming those who’ve hurt them. They’ve the right to seek retribution & justice.

They even have the right to talk about how they feel without ever being asked to “calm down” or “put it behind them”. They should be listened to.

J. If ppl want to forgive (whether it’s Trump or their own abuser/attacker) they’ll do it in their own time. It’s not anyone’s place to force or hurry that process.

Also, nobody should be told to stop posting memes like this one (yes, have seen this happen yesterday).

K. It’s true that terrible ppl probs don’t get better from being mocked or yelled at. That’s an issue. But saying they should avoid consequences isn’t right, either.

& mocking ppl isn’t the same as wishing others were dead, locked up or deported. Those crimes aren’t equivalent.

L. This thread explains why MFW don’t ignore terrible behaviour or tell ppl to disregard it.

We call it out, & civilly tell awful ppl they’re wrong.

If they won’t change, we’ll try to make them using collective action.

It’s not everything, but it is something.

Ends.