Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts

Friday, 11 July 2014

Nethui, Trolls and the time I swore at a judge.

I missed Nethui's second day because Real Life intervened (I regret nothing) but today I was back with a hiss and a roar and WHAT a day to be roaring.

There's a lot I could discuss about the various workshops I attended and the wonderful people I met (and the reuben sandwich I ate at Federal Deli- I could talk that up for a long time) but instead I'll skip right to the meat. Enter the trolls.
Seriously. You owe it to yourself.

I wasn't even going to go to the session on Trolling. I wanted to keep this as professional development, so after an excellent session on gender issues I found myself in a session on education that somehow managed to be talking about everything other than what I was interested in, and after twenty minutes of reading the twitterfeed from the troll room I made my excuses and left.
You know when you walk into something late and you can hear pretty much every word that's already been said, just from the atmosphere in the room? NZ4 at Skycity had that. It was an oppressive heaviness in the air that felt like walking into a wall. I took a seat at the back and got listening, a huge double screen showing the twitterfeed in real time.

The conversation was fast-moving and had a snark-factor that made it clear that the people in the room who didn't take trolling seriously were being louder than the ones who do. 
The feed and the spoken words were not matching up, much to the obvious discomfort of the facilitator who was battling hard against a weirdly hostile group. 
It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a safe space. I gave up on being nice and took the mic after a couple of comfy-looking white guys agreed with each other on the joys of playing "Devil's advocate". It was time to stand up.

I'm not going to repeat myself verbatim, because too adrenalined, too fast-speaking, but my point was this, once I'd told them to stick their "Devil's advocacy up your arse"

If you are in a position of privilege, you are arguing purely from an intellectual standpoint. You can be as difficult and contrary as you like because at the end of the discussion, you have not been directly affected. But the person you're arguing against? It's not just an intellectual discussion. It is a judgement on who they are. It goes to the core of their being. These discussions are triggering. They are emotional. They are draining. And for you to joke about the joys of devilish advocacy shows your lack of empathy and understanding of the issues that you are advocating against. That's what trolling is to us. It's an attack on our selfhood, our experiences. And you should knock it the hell off.

 
 There was a bit more to it. I got personal. I talked about me. I  got a round of applause though, and there seemed to be a shift in mood. A swing away from the self-congratulatory types and not before time. I thought I was done, and started thinking about how I was going to write this down.

Then THIS GUY happened. Old white man, a few rows in front, who trotted out....

"Maybe it's just my generation, but in my opinion "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me"...."

If I'd stood up harder I'd have literally hit the roof instead of just figuratively. Mic in hand, already switched on.....

"With all due respect I think your opinion is horseshit."

I COULD HAVE MIC DROPPED RIGHT THERE AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME YOU GUYS. But instead I went all-out. Again, not verbatim, but....

Saying that words have no power to damage is to disregard the experiences of marginalised, oppressed and abused people of every age, gender and colour. It disregards the huge emotional, mental and social damage done by verbal abuse in relationships, the classroom, the street. Ask many victims of domestic violence and they will tell you that the bruises will heal but the put-downs, the erosion of self-esteem, the insults take years, a lifetime even, to recover from. Some never do. Children attempt suicide over "just words". To sit there and tell this room that words have no power shows the casualness and disregard with which you clearly use yours.

I sat down, heart going like I'd collapsed over the finish line to some race I didn't know I was running. Mercifully, the time bell went and we were done.



 I felt like I'd shrunk. Like I'd yelled into space and I was waiting for space to yell back, to tell me to shut the hell up. I was waiting for violence, I now realise. Curled up against the punishment for arguing with my societal "betters". It's hard to shrug off that feeling you shouldn't argue in public, even when you're sure you're right. It's still hard.

"....and you didn't even say "Your honour""
What I got was more shoulder-pats, thank yous and affirmations of my words than I had ever thought I deserved. My phone went bananas as people messaged me with thumbs-ups and likes and positivity. The twitterfeed petered out, a few critical of my language (yeah, I could have been more polite, but it's hard being the one always having to take the high ground in order to be heard),  lots of support from others. I decamped to a nearby cafe for a sandwich and a debrief with a couple of wonderful, engaging people from my many nights on twitter talking about these things. It was there that I found out that Mr. Sticks and Stones was in fact Judge David Harvey, international expert on online legal issues. And I called him out in front of a packed room with an international live stream. There's something you don't get to do every day.
 I'm still processing how I feel about all this. Recently, I have felt safe enough and found the courage to speak out about issues of violence against women, politics and abuse both online and in real life platforms and it has been one of the most rewarding, though challenging, things I have ever done. I have had to come out as a victim of abuse, of assault, to people who see arguing the personal experience of others as a fun thing to do of an evening. I have laid myself bare in public in an attempt to make people see the culture we really live in, as opposed to the one we kid ourselves we inhabit. I speak out because I have met too many people who are never heard, never believed, never given any chance to talk without interruption and if through throwing myself out like this I can force out some space for other people to speak freely and tell their stories then the trolling, the insults and the dismissal will have been worth it.
So Matt Bellamy is me, and the hole is Twitter. Every. Damn. Day.

As ever, I like to do more than just reflect but move things forward. If you were there, if you were following, if you're just reading this for whatever reason, then please, please bear in mind the following. It'd be great.

  • The person talking about their personal experience, especially if it is unpleasant, is doing so for a reason. It is not easy to relate these experiences, especially in public. Please listen with respect and without interruption. Do not press for more details, interject or object. 
  • Like playing "Devil's Advocate"? Think about the position you are arguing for. Who are you arguing against? Why do you feel the need to do that? If you are DAing with someone who's clearly uncomfortable with your line of argument, knock it the hell off. One man who read and commented extremely negatively on my article on rape culture admitted he wasn't interested in the issue of partner violence at all, he just wanted "to make a point". Not interested in the topic? Then listen or bugger off. 
  • Just because a topic is being discussed does not mean another issues does not exist. Talking about violence against women DOES NOT mean that those discussing it are saying partner violence against men does not exist, or that partner violence does not exist in GLBT relationships. It just means that violence against women is being discussed. Don't want to discuss it? Go away. Want to talk about the violence men suffer? THAT'S A DIFFERENT (if related) CONVERSATION. 
  • When you interject a conversation about minority issues with "what about the men/white people/straight people" then you actually just need to go away as you are trolling and you know it
  • It is NOT the job of the people having the conversation to educate you. Don't understand something? Google it for goodness' sake. In the time it takes for you to derail the conversation with your questions, you'd have found it out yourself already. 
I'm a white person so I have that privilege. I confess that there have been times when a person of colour has made a statement about white people and I have felt that rush of "But I'm not like that!" I've had to work to keep my damn mouth shut. It's hard to confront the negativity with which the group(s) you belong to are viewed by others who don't have your privilege, but if you want to be a decent person you have to deal with that discomfort and learn from it. Compared to living in fear of ridicule, hate and violence I'd say you/me get off extremely lightly. It's the least we can do to shut the hell up and listen instead of just listening to ourselves tell everyone else there is no problem.

If we're ever going to fix the ills we live with, we first have to acknowledge they exist.

Thanks to everyone who supported me to speak out today, and every day. You're all pretty amazing.
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Sunday, 2 February 2014

Do U even twitter bro?

New Zealand commercial radio is a strange and lawless place. Our Prime minister adores it and is far more likely to be answering questions about whether he prefers vegemite or marmite on a classic hits breakfast show than he is discussing charter schools on our chronically underfunded yet vaguely intelligent public broadcast news programs. Breakfast shows offer listeners the chance to win divorces, wives (not at the same time) and drivetime noodleheads appear in Pride parades after losing bets on-air. As you can imagine many of these professional journalists have their own twitter accounts, and I enjoy not following any of them on my timeline.

This evening, a young purveyor of opinion by name of Polly Gillespie, whose twitter bio invites us to listen to her on the breakfast show on ZM, as well as her columns in that august organ Women's Day, tweeted
Now, twitter is a strange and terrible beast. You only have 140 characters to get across your thought. This thought, hashtag and all, looks racist. If I need to unpack why then you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Naturally, the idea of someone hating on Asians wishing to visit New Zealand's most famous beach that isn't ninety miles long being espoused by a national radio presenter is rather concerning and I could help but wonder what her employers ZM and Women's Day might think about this. The more I read her feed however, the righteous leftie anger turned to a kind of pitying rage. When called on her missive by the twitter populace, her responses ranged from:


(apparently tweeting racist things is fine if you're a fan of reality TV)



(because the best way to react when being called out is with smilies and referring to social media buttons as twins)




(because calling out racism makes you creepy weirdo. Like that Mandela guy)

Over the course of many emoticons, kisses and indignation later it transpired that our heroine had been watching Piha Rescue and was concerned about the perceived high number of Asian people who seemed to need rescuing on the show. Her tweet was actually a suggestion that all visitors to our shores should be properly educated in surf safety lest they require the services of the brave men and women of Surf Rescue.
This fascinates me because the woman is a professional journalist. Regardless of how quality you may consider those outlets to be, she has at some point I am sure attended at least a couple of night classes on writing things and then saying them out loud to people. Surely, surely at some point the idea that using something like twitter to make a comment that absolutely does not work out of context (and barely works within it if I'm honest, but I'm trying to be nice) was discussed and it was explained why it would be phenomenally stupid to do so?

As I type this Ms Gillespie (Wife, mummy, dork) is describing her detractors as "crazy" (oh dear) and retweeting all the other watchers of Piha Rescue who, like, totally got what she meant. At present neither ZM or Women's Day haven't said whether they think their star presenter/columnist is actually very racist, or only slightly racist and very naive, but I'd hope they'd at least be having a please explain meeting tomorrow morning.

There's a lesson here for all of us, regardless of whether we earn our crust being a professional minor celeb or merely use twitter to post pictures of cats. Your 140 characters ARE your context. If you don't want to sound like a racist, don't write something that looks racist.


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Sunday, 21 July 2013

High-Pressure Navel Gazing: The 24 Hour Zine Challenge

At 6pm. We look, er, ready? Maybe?
As someone who's used the written word all my life to make sense of things it seems a bit odd that the world of zines has until now been a mystery to me. Aside from attending the Auckland Zinefest on a date with someone a couple of years ago I had dismissed zines as being a bit, well, hipster. A throwback to the days before blogs and the internet that were now the bastion of people with too much time on their hands and a penchant for gingham. So when I was invited to take part in the 24 Hour Zine challenge last Friday, the lure of trying something different proved irresistible. For me, it was more the writing side that appealed. Sitting down for a night and a day in a new environment where I could just write? Sounded pretty great. The whole idea of typing, drawing, laying out and creating a 24-page booklet seemed almost an afterthought.

So myself and a friend (do check out her website- some of it very NSFW) loaded ourselves up with caffeine drinks and jellybeans and hit the town centre, really not knowing what to expect. She and I both had a rough idea of what we wanted to do. She wanted to do something queer, sexy and femme-filthy, filled with glitter and claws, and I had the idea of writing 30 letters to various people, places and things that had impacted on me in some way over the last 30 years and would be filled with anger, love, soul-baring and honesty. Basically, our ideas are this photo in zine form:

I'll leave you to work out which is which.


They said "ass"
We arrived at the Auckland Old Folks' Association (wonderfully shortened to the Auckland Old Folk's Ass on the wall outside) and were unfashionably early. In our defense we thought the place was going to be MUCH busier than it turned out to be so we wanted a table to spread out all our junk brilliant ideas on.

Ground Zero for the next 20 or so hours
I got into the writing side almost straight away, just writing out the first 30 things I could think of. They're not necessarily the most important but throwing in the first 30 seemed appropriate. Fuelled by jellybeans and V I managed to write my 30 in an impressive 4 hours, even stopping for a quick vegan pizza break. I thought I'd managed 3000 words which seemed pretty good, only to find that it clocked in at a cool 5,135. Clearly, I had no idea how zines worked. I had decided to write at least part of this opus on a typewriter because, well, they were there and it was a zine, right? I mean, that's what they're like. I think. Typewriters and whimsy.



I now hate typewriters. Hate them hate them hate them. There is a reason why my parents ditched the golfball typewriter almost as soon as they could when word processors came out. They're horrible. My romantic notions of taking an hour or so to copy stuff over turned into an EIGHT HOUR marathon as I grappled with my machine, called Enid for reason other than I needed to give my nemesis an identity beyond "you bastard". They keys were heavy. The tape for the ink needed dicking around with almost every ten minutes as my hard-earned words faded in and out like pirate radio. Apostrophes became 8s about 50% of the time. It was horrible. Unfortunately, by the time I fully realised just how monumental this ordeal would be I felt like I'd done too much to just print off the rest and be damned, and I couldn't just bin the work I had already done. the long dark Night of the Typewriter had begun.

"But how does it WORK?"
It was about this time that most of the other people in the hall left, and there was about five of us still working, not including the "security guard" who came in, found a comfy seat and promptly passed out for the next seven hours, snoring loudly enough to be incredibly irritating. There was nothing but typing now. As my friend grappled with her (much more sensible) laptop, finding photos and content, I sat and laboriously copied out my work, taking twice as long to copy what had been original content. 

While I typed, I got to thinking about that content. It was very raw. I've not had the easiest of lives (though I understand that on the global scale I've had it easy yes I know) and there's been some really nasty points. Why the hell did I want to write about them, much less write about them, type them up, photocopy them into a little booklet and distribute for free? I found myself getting annoyed with the whole idea, round about 4am, feeling like I'd reached almost Amanda Palmer levels of self-obsession. That somehow this little booklet would come back and bite me on the arse. That I should be, what, ashamed of this stuff? It was an interesting thought train. At this point I was listening to some Slayer in order to push on through to the end, which may have done little for my mood but at least it kept me awake. 
I hate you.
And then, suddenly, it was done. At around 6am I put the date on the final letter and sat looking at the pile of paper I'd created. And then, reading through what I'd written, realised I'd have to take some of it out. I'm quite protective of my work and trying not to mix personal with professional so my big piece about my career might not mix in too well with stories of abuse and violence. I took it out, looked at the typewriter in horror, wrote a short apology and drew a picture of a guinea pig in a space suit to compensate. 

By around 7am I'd been staring slack-jawed at my booklet, sticky with glue and still not looking like much in particular when we decided that breakfast and some time outside was in order. Sitting in a cafe eating food that wasn't day-glo helped a lot, as we dissected the process and questioned our sanity. Re-entering the ass was not easy, especially as the sun was up and it looked to be a hell of a good day. 

I'd had vague rules when I sat down at 6pm. No handwriting (my handwriting is comically awful). Sensible photographs from magazines, no computer printing. My art skills are almost as bad as my handwriting, so that was out too. 

Best teapot ever.
By 9am, these rules had been dropkicked out the window. Letrasets were beyond the comprehension of a brain that had been awake for 24 hours on nothing stronger than caffeine and had been staring at the same 24 pages for 15 hours. Collages were beyond my ability to  spell, let alone create. Between us we developed a siege mentality, the need to get the thing done outweighing pretty much anything else. I hand wrote. I drew pictures that a 6 year old would pat me condescendingly on the head for. After half an hour of failing to find a picture of a shark (the closest I came in my 5th edition of National Geographic had the only photo of a shark ripped out. I nearly screamed) I ended up photocopying a photo of some ground squirrels and drawing on a fin with a sharpie. At this point I detested everything I had written, not just tonight but ever, and looked with rage at the lass who'd finished hers hours ago and was now sleeping peacefully in a chair. Finally, there was just a centrefold left. All of my text was stuck in place, everything else was completed and just this centrefold remained. Two pages. With a stroke of manic genius I turned it into an interlude, the halfway point bookended by a recount of some of the hideous things an ex had said and done to me, and a short piece about abortion. I figured any poor sod reading it would need a break as much as I did. 

"You look tired"
At 11am, 17 hours after I'd sat down at a blank screen, it was done. My zine "30430" (see what I did there?) was complete. I felt a bit odd. All that effort, all that time, and for what? Did I ever want anyone to read it? Why had I written it in the first place? I photocopied it a few times and pondered what the hell to do with it. It seemed like a massive waste to just bin it, or take it home and leave it in a drawer somewhere, but did I really want people to read it? Eventually my friend persuaded me that it should be read at least by somebody, and it's now in the zine library at Alphabet City. My friend's was brilliant, a gutsy, gleefully offensive introduction to hot sex and femme fabulousness. Mine looked absolutely depressing next to it, but at least it was done. We high-fived, had our photos taken, and went to our respective beds to try not to screw up our body clocks too much. 

Finished products
 So I still have seven copies of "30430" in my bag and I'm still at a bit of a loss. Personally, it was a great exercise. I find writing incredibly cathartic and there's something quite satisfying about all of these thoughts, experiences and recollections in a physical form, like now they're out there it feels easier for me in here. I feel a little apprehensive reading this stuff, but I rationalise it by thinking that people write and act and sing and perform their experiences and real lives all the time. There's nothing in there that I'm ashamed of, after all. Some might argue the truth of it, but it's experiences as remembered by me so it's as true for me as it ever will be. Maybe someone reading it some day will take something positive from it, or maybe they'll think I'm a self-indulgent asshole. Whatever. It's done.

Will I do it again? Maybe. It was a brilliant exercise in creating something new and stretching myself, but I did make my friend promise that if I said I'd do it again she was to hit me. Though that was at about 5am and I said a lot of things around that time.

I am damned if I'm ever using a typewriter again though.
The few, the proud, the bloody exhausted

Auckland Zine fest is on at St Kevin's Arcade on the 27th July 12-5. I might be there. 







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Monday, 13 May 2013

How to be a mate when your mate is leaving

Twenty and thirtysomethings like to emigrate. This year alone four friends of mine have upped sticks and left Aotearoa for colder if more prosperous shores. Four and a half years ago I decided the UK was a grey, grumpy, miserable little island and decided to up sticks to Auckland and never looked back. As a result I like to think I know a bit about leaving all you hold dear and reinventing yourself in pastures new, and present for your consideration some tips on how to be a good mate when your mate is abandoning you for the bright lights of the big hemisphere.
I typed "Departure" into google images. Er......

  • Make time. They'll be busy. There's a million things that need sold, moved, filled out and signed in the weeks before they leave, and tensions run high. Be the one to make time. Check in with them, ask how it's going, offer to help. Meet for a quick coffee. There's something quite depressing about your closest mates treating you like you've already left when you still have to plan the leaving do. 
  • Go to the leaving do, and don't be a dick. It's their leaving do. Go to it. Unless you really have something important on (or they're just not that good a mate), at least pop in for a bit. But remember that heaps of other people will be doing the same, and they'll all want to say goodbye too. Don't follow them around the whole night, and if you feel the urge to clutch them weeping about how awful it'll be without them it might be time to get a cab home
  • Don't smother them. Emigrating is a full-on business. They'll be busy as hell. Your mate will be up to their eyeballs and trying to see as many of their friends and family as they can. Check in, ask when they're free, be flexible around them but don't try and do the emigrating for them. 
  • Whatever they're feeling is how they should be feeling. It's a big deal, leaving. Excitement at all the awesome shopping/hiking/walrus polishing they have there, terror at leaving everything they know behind, panic at all the goddamn forms, frustration that they're not gone yet, worry that they're going too soon. Often all at once. If you manage to catch up with them for a coffee/moving the coffee table to auntie Caroline's, let them talk it out. They might be full of excitement and waxing lyrical about the hamster racing festival held in their new town, the next crying over how they'll miss kumara. Be patient with the mood swinginess.
  • Try not to make them feel worse. Asking lots of questions about what they'll miss most, or if they're worried about never seeing their grandad again? Don't be that person.
  • Check in when they leave. Send them the update about their local cafe getting a facelift. Ask about how it's going. Let them know they still exist in your universe! Just don't expect them to reply immediately and at length, what with all that exciting new stuff they're doing. Without you.
  • Move on. I found once I left that the most random people from the motherland were getting in touch a lot and talking about our acquaintanceship like we'd been in the trenches together. They'd make constant references to visiting despite never making the effort to catch up when I lived down the road. It's nice to let your friend know they're missed but don't give the idea that you've followed them and are hiding under the house. That behaviour only works in '80s romcoms before restraining orders were a thing.

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