#And people misidentify protecting comfort or their beliefs as protecting g their actual lives

[thisismenow3]

Part of it too is that no one who does a righteous thing starts off doing it for the right reasons, unless maybe they are within the oppressed group they’re helping but even then. I do t know OP or their dad, but looking at old interviews shows JKR’s ‘color blind’ racism denial early. The way she wrote the books around not just anti semetic stereotypes as inhuman beings and Toni’s being genderqueer but ‘magically grows out of it once she meets her true love!’ shows that no matter how much mental energy she put into wanting to be virtuous, she put no effort into analyzing her own viewpoints and trying to always find areas she might need to change. JKR is an example of how slippery a slope falling into reactionary movements can be. But looking at who she actually was before the terf shit started shows why she was ripe for it. I spent too much of my life ‘being liberal/progressive’ while still refusing to deal with the internalized toxic masculinity around my sexuality. It was only once I did that I realized I was being extremely cognitively dissonant my entire adolescence and post highschool. I can’t reject toxic masculinity and deep down feel like I had to sleep with as many women as possible to ‘be a real man.’ Cause when push came to shove, would going my ow way and being progressive actually win? Most people don’t look for their flaws in a real way, even fewer get therapy and actually begin to fix them. JKR started out writing books while feeling rightfully persecuted by an ex and a sexist industry. While writing these books she included a plot line about how a species of sapient beings really yearned for servitude and how silly is Hermione for trying to emancipate them? It’s not surprising she became a vocal terf, the UK is worse than America on race in the sense that at least somewhere near half of whites people in America actually believe systemic racism EXISTS and is effecting black people, not really a thing in white communities on terf island.

OP is right that people are complex but OP is making it seem like people start amazing and become bad. We all are growing up and living in a post colonial, current reactionary backlash. No one is without faults that can fester, no matter how well intentioned they actually are at points in their life. The spirit of OP’s post, that we can still prevent people giving in to their demons, is accurate. I just don’t think we can actually do that if we think situations like JKR start with someone who wasn’t a terf and then became one. What actually happened is sadly in old and recent interviews. She just can’t see it for what it is. Her own trauma combined with seeing media like silence of the lambs to make her curdle with time. She started as someone who thought little of trans people except that they ‘were mentally unwell,’ like a lot of people all the way up to some point in the last 20 years. She started focusing on that more and more because long after her traumas she continued to see problems with men and mysogyny as intractable. And then those old ways of thinking combined with that. Cause people want to fight when they feel threatened, but most people only want to fight when deep down they feel there’s a power imbalance. Plenty of Americans who ‘stand their ground’ consciously felt afraid. But they only felt that way because they wanted to ‘take back our country’ but weren’t insane or zealously driven enough to pull a Dylan roof or George Zimmerman. So they shoot a young black boy ringing their door bell or walking down the street, etc. JKR is doing a version of that. She’s not actually gonna fight the power structure, cause she benefits from it and that’s the way she would actually be unsafe, with reactionaries targeting her for trying to fight patriarchy and the economic gangsterism of her country that has knock on effects to oppressed groups even more, like women. Nah, instead she gasses herself into believing trans people are all Norman Bates so she can punch down while pretending she’s not. Her own words outline all this, but tragically in typical reactionary fashion she doesn’t logically deconstruct or follow her rationale to what is really happening. She stays stuck ignoring how she’s the one ignoring science, history, reality.

so yeah. Anyone can call down the slippery slope of reactionary movements. But that’s only because most people don’t want to accurately reflect on their own lives. They think rationalizing is the same thing. And if you are close to people enough to know “oh man, Jo always thought that transphobic shit in silence of the lambs was realistic,” then you gotta find ways to reprogram that. Cause if you don’t, some Joe Rogan guest or the equivalent will activate those priors into a trapdoor to some rancid shit. Like being an active terf.

Lost followers after reblogging that whole thing about JKR being radicalized over the years, and that disturbs me.

Like if you think saying that people can be radicalized and manipulated into hate is somehow justifying it, yikes. And if you think that people are somehow just good or evil and that you are not at risk of buying into propaganda, have I got some very red flag news about that!

Idk if its because I am an older Millennial maybe (most who unfollowed were younger) but I watched a ton of that generation slide from one of the most progressive to the far right before my every eyes. Hell, my dad fought alongside his black friends in the Detroit race riots and now he watches Fox News 24/7 and talks about the border wall. Yet still claims he could never be racist because of how he used to be. He doesn’t even realize what he has become.

JKR isn’t a deluded old woman or innately evil, but in fact THE prime example of how well-meaning ignorance and privilege can be weaponized and encouraged down a pipeline, until it turns into a force of hate, and should be a cautionary tale about why educating and being open about these issues are necessary. Because there are those out there who will use those divisions and ignorance to their own ends. And just digging in our heels and saying “that could never be me!” is the very thing that puts you more at risk. I’ve lost so many loved ones down that pipeline and it is more slippery than most realize.

Stay alert, stay compassionate, stay humble, and make sure you move through life guided by reason rather than reaction. I love y’all and don’t want to see your passion twisted to get used against the world.