I object to tolerance. When an event or place says, \u201cwe are open to everyone,\u201d my hackles go up. When they say, \u201cthis is a safe space for everyone,\u201d I start to feel unsafe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has been the case for a long time, but it took me a while to understand why. Now that I do, I\u2019d like to share, for any who have that same vague discomfort, or who think that being tolerant of everyone is a good thing. It seems like a lot of people are familiar with the \u201cnazi bar\u201d allegory, which is making the same point I am trying to here, but clearly many are not acting on that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shortest explanation is, you should not be tolerant of nazis. You should not be tolerant of misogynists, or racists, or anyone else who identifies with and propagates an ideology based on hate. These beliefs are not just repulsive in and of themselves. They are also predicated on the idea that some of us are not fully human, or not deserving of basic respect, or kindness, or equal rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And because of this, you cannot welcome them in and also welcome in those they oppress. If you try, then the ones with the societal legitimacy, the ones on top of the power hierarchies \u2013 the bigots \u2013 will do the work of excising the marginalized among us for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have seen, many times, small business owners and community events volunteers be surprised when exactly this happens. They also almost never take any kind of reparative action on behalf of the marginalized people who are driven out, and also usually harmed and\/or traumatized. We are lucky if we even get an apology. They are usually privileged and wealthy, and thus, they are not beholden to account for their actions. Usually, they just continue perpetuating the cycle without a moment of reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will add that the bigots who have immunity due to social acceptability \u2013 because of the tolerant \u2013 are acutely aware of it. They know how to play their victims against the tolerant in such a way as to make us look like the bad guys, and it works far too often. Their Black\/brown\/trans\/etc targets tend not to feel like it\u2019s \u201clegitimate\u201d to react to their drip-fed microaggressions, always escalating, ever so slowly. And for what it\u2019s worth, it isn\u2019t, in the eyes of most. \u201cTolerant\u201d folks love to stop being tolerant right when bigots\u2019 victims reach our breaking point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, either we hit our limit and respond in kind, and in so doing get made out to be the real villain, or no one does anything until the bigots get bold enough to do something so obviously awful that even the tolerant can\u2019t keep looking the other way, at least without risking their own status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I think that tolerance, as deployed by well-intentioned, petit bourgeois cis white libs, is much more a threat to safety and community than a boon to them. And I\u2019ll go further: I think we should<\/em> defend ourselves when the microaggressions start ramping up with that telltale, malicious, intentional glee. We worry about being seen as overreacting, as touchy \u2013 who the fuck cares?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tolerant are not the supportive or respectful, certainly not the loving. I think that, deep down, and usually only on an unconscious level, they agree with the bigots\u2019 estimation of us. They\u2019re just too acutely aware of optics at all times to let themselves think it or say it out loud. But nonetheless they are always happy to receive an opportunity to tell us we\u2019re no longer welcome. It\u2019s tiring and difficult for them to perform their tolerance to us, to get our pronouns right and avoid the most obvious and egregious microaggressions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Their tolerance is of no value to us. We shouldn\u2019t covet it, especially at the cost of our own dignity and equilibrium in spaces that are allegedly meant to be inclusive of us. We should assert basic self-respect even when discriminatory social norms tell us we should take the abuse. We deserve that much, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I object to tolerance. When an event or place says, \u201cwe are open to everyone,\u201d my hackles go up. When they say, \u201cthis is a safe space for everyone,\u201d I start to feel unsafe. This has been the case for a long time, but it took me a while to understand why. Now that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":277085423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8518],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phmf02-5k","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=158","url_meta":{"origin":330,"position":0},"title":"The Bitter Taste of Vengeance (Unknown Armies scenario)","author":"Moonglummer","date":"February 11, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Proof that I still do RPG stuff on here!! This is a scenario I wrote for the latest game jam on the UA fan discord, which is themed around death, rebirth, sex, and other things associated with early Spring holidays\/traditions. Also cannibalism (CW for that, and also references to nazis.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RPGs"","block_context":{"text":"RPGs","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?cat=156081"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=152","url_meta":{"origin":330,"position":1},"title":"Psychology is Complicit in Capitalism","author":"Moonglummer","date":"January 25, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Originally written for\u00a0the September 2025 issue of Rochester Red Star. As socialists, we must be critical of capitalist thought and systems. Even ever-present concepts like free will, intelligence, and mental health cannot be taken for granted. None of these are innate to humanity any more than jobs, money, or socioeconomic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nonfiction"","block_context":{"text":"Nonfiction","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?cat=8518"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=70","url_meta":{"origin":330,"position":2},"title":"Lesorro: an alternate setting for Blades in the Dark","author":"Moonglummer","date":"February 21, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I've played a lot of Blades in the Dark at this point, so when I got the urge to run it again recently, I decided it was time to leave the default setting of Doskvol. This coincided with a desire to revisit a setting I devised about five years ago\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RPGs"","block_context":{"text":"RPGs","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?cat=156081"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=125","url_meta":{"origin":330,"position":3},"title":"Statospheric Saturdays: I Was a Teenage Werefrog","author":"Moonglummer","date":"October 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"My second entry for the game jam I mentioned last week. Content warning for harm to children, again (don't worry about this become a pattern. It's FINE). This is a mess in dire need of editing because I was rushing to meet the deadline. For now I'm posting it as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RPGs"","block_context":{"text":"RPGs","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?cat=156081"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/277085423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}