Lately I've been thinking about who gets heard and who gets believed in Disabled communities.

I'm also thinking about why there seems to be so much of a reluctance to identify out loud when Popular Kid analogues are causing harm.

I've seen it happen a few times since 2015 where someone with significant power in Disabled communities gets exposed and sidelined. But only a few times.

I've been thinking about my personal motivations for not making a bigger deal about certain interactions I've had with other Disabled people on Twitter.

Partly it's just I make mistakes, too, and I want to extend to other people the same understanding I hope they extend to me.

Partly it's because I don't always trust that I have the whole story and I don't want to make myself look ridiculous.

A lot of it is for the understandable reason I don't want to lose friends who have been part of my most consistent support network. Which is selfish but true.

Especially I don't want to lose parts of my support network over something where I figure out that I'm wrong.

As you can see, I also try to be aware of the parts of me that aren't so virtuous and don't always lead me to make the best decisions in line with what I think I believe.

Which again, means I always have to be aware there's a good chance I'm in the wrong.

Plus, I worry a lot about the line between trying to understand a situation and trying to justify my own bad behavior.

Part of it is I try to make a distinction between hurt feelings and actual harm. But this makes it difficult for me to figure out where "hurting a lot of people's feelings" actually becomes harm. Because I think it might.

Part of it is I'm a firm believer of knowing and asserting your boundaries and enforcing them when needed.

I don't want to act like someone is in the wrong for simply enforcing their boundaries.

But lately I've been thinking about the nuances there.

Part of it is I don't want to... I dunno, act like I've earned more authority or deserve more responsibility than I have. I don't want to... think more highly of myself than I should?

I don't have a huge list of accomplishments or completed projects I can point to.

I don't even read the scholarly stuff Disabled academics are putting out there.

A lot of the stuff I don't do is because I don't have the energy to do it, but still, I don't feel like I've done the work to earn the authority?

Which isn't to say I don't think I do good work because I do think that.

But I don't really think that has earned me some sort of deference.

I also know that there's a sort of osmosis of ideas that happens on social media so I'm not always aware of where my ideas are coming from or if they're my ideas or something I saw from someone else.

Which means I try not to always assume when I see familiar that it's mine.

Which means I don't always know if I'm frustrated about something if I have anything real to be frustrated about.

Maybe it's just a clash of personalities, which. There are plenty of people I just think are annoying.

Also I know other people are dealing with stuff too. I don't want to be unfair to whoever it is I have a problem with.

Also I don't like conflict. That might sound weird if you've known me for a while but I really do not like conflict. I try to be brave about it because it's inevitable, but that doesn't mean I like it. Sometimes I hype myself up for it, but that's... a whole other thing.

Also it takes me a while to think through stuff and having to think through things quickly in a public conflict is very stressful.

Also I just prefer working together constructively to solve problems?

I don't like drama.

I also don't want to start a pileon of someone. I want to deal with the problem, but I don't want to be responsible for ruining someone's life.

There's also just the knowledge that the more prominent someone is in Disabled community, the harder it is to get other prominent people in Disabled community to take your concerns seriously.

And I am already not particularly popular among many prominent people in Disabled community, so.

I also suspect that sense that you're not going to get substantial enough support or attention if you try to point out a problem and so you don't point it out is one reason why people can get away with bad behavior for so long in Disabled communities?

Or any community really.

Another thing I try to keep in mind is that Disabled communities include LOTS of neurodivergent people who are trying our best but who get things wrong without meaning to.

This doesn't mean letting harmful behavior go unremarked, but it does mean extending patience where we can.

Also for a lot of us these online Disabled communities are our only or major source of socialization and support.

For many reasons outside of our control. People, including me, are understandably afraid of losing that.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at anymore. I'm just really frustrated at seeing so many Disabled people with the same legitimate concerns getting brushed aside by others with more power and influence.

It's bad enough to work yourself up to saying the thing in the first place, but then to have the people who really need to listen just NOT because they think they already know the story is extremely difficult to watch.

None of us are doing this for fun. This is not fun. But this is a community problem, not an individual one.

And for some of us that matters enough to step outside of our comfort zone and try to deal with it anyway.

By ignoring the folks who aren't willing to let the problem go unaddressed instead of actually listening to what we're saying, what's happening is a lot of people are beginning to lose trust in other Disabled folks who have taken it upon themselves to represent us.

There is a real divide being exposed here and it's not the kind of thing where ignoring it will do anything good in the long term.

Again, this is NOT about hurt feelings. It really isn't. I am not someone who puts a lot of weight on hurt feelings as an indicator of injustice which probably doesn't say good things about me but it's true.

I am bothered when I discover that a huge chunk of various Disabled communities has—over the course of years—been deliberately ignored by a prominent Disabled Disability Rights activist and they have no idea why.

And that a lot of them have been really hurt by it and have been trying to figure it out for years.

Because that's not just one person's hurt feelings. That's a pattern of not caring how one's actions affect fellow Disabled community members.

To me, that's a sign of a problem. That's something I want to have looked at seriously instead of written off as "Private accounts can block who they want".

Sure but can we also at least examine these patterns of behavior a bit?

It wouldn't matter as much who this private account blocked if they weren't someone with so much power in Disabled communities.

And if they weren't running a mutual aid program from that private account, which is where all this started for me.

Also, I put together a compilation of tweets I've written in favor of blocking. Just in case you might feel like I don't understand the issues here. https://twitter.com/EbThen/status/1484646414118440963