16 - much to think about, aka calling out right wing rhetoric for what it is
I had been reading this post from Suliman (and the rather crass response crashout that came after it from someone I won't name for the sake of not giving them any more attention (but you could probably guess)) and some of the other responses that came after (absurdpirate's being my favorite so far).
I had the suspicion that the person that these blog posts talk about is right wing just from the way they responded to Suliman alone, but there was one post that Suliman linked that gave my contextless Southeast Asian mind some confusion — to me it vaguely sounded like right wing, anti-immigrant rhetoric (the post about "losing European culture", I mean). I talked about it with my other Southeast Asian friend and it was also perplexing her.
A white friend of ours from Netherlands who we share the same discord server with helped us figure it out. "Oh yeah, this shit IS anti-immigrant dogwhistle" he said, immediately after reading the same archived post. He explained to me that posts like these are very common to see coming from American/European white supremacists, though in hindsight, I really should have clued in on it the moment I read the sentence "They (Europe) have been invaded by cultures that do not want to progress". But unpacking that is a story for another day (and you can read that archived post from Suliman's blog).
It was kind of funny to me at first, because damn, trust a white person to be able to identify what white supremacy sounds like! Secondly, it does make me feel a little ashamed that I couldn't tell to begin with. Now, I don't think I'm leftist or anything, nor do I feel like I deserve to be called one - but I do believe in a lot of things that align with leftist politics and knowing what I do now I don't really think that Suliman was too far off the mark for calling that person a Nazi out in the open.
And I think that does speak a lot about how heinous this kind of right wing rhetoric is. I've been seeing that a lot these days on the Recent tab even, and I'm ashamed to say how many times already I've upvoted a post only to find that it stinks of right-wing politics, of actually hateful opinions that sound so "reasonable". And that's the danger of it, isn't it? Their subtlety is their weapon. They rely on people like Suliman, or anyone else that thinks otherwise really (like me), to "crash out" and then act like the "wounded soul who's just trying to be reasonable and logical" when people rightfully call out on their hateful rhetoric, painting the other party as the aggressive and hysterical one.
I know these kind of behaviours (blogs specifically naming each other especially) aren't really acceptable as per the blog's Code of Conduct, but I will say I appreciate that people are able to see through these seemingly innocent posts & are willing to call out these harmful, hateful opinions that are disguised so cleverly as "personal opinions". If that sends a message to right wingers that they're not welcome, then I hope this momentum keeps going. When the hatred and bigotry comes in dulcet tones and honeyed words, it's so important to combat it with direct frankness and compassionate honesty.