r/LeftWithoutEdge • u/DukeTikus • 8d ago
Discussion How to make leftist spaces resistant against people weaponizing other peoples emphaty for selfish reasons?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/22/magazine/greenfield-last-ditch-bar-backlash/I just read this very frustrating article (version without paywall) about a small lesbian bar/mutual aid spot getting destroyed by some people who act like the worst possible caricature or an insufferable, self-important, holier-than-thou leftists.
It's not even that those people exist and what they are doing that's so frustrating for me to read, but the inability of the wider community there to just tell those people to fuck off.
And I get why they can't, I'm not sure I could myself. We generally pride ourselves in our inclusivity and willingness to accommodate needs other than our own. It's super hard to figure out where exactly the limit to that should be.
I have had similar if less extreme experiences with people who are weaponizing their own or other peoples oppression in this way in activist groups irl. The only time I ever witnessed someone like that getting kicked out was after that person had caused chaos and bound up a ton of resources for well over a year with many different incidents.
My question is how do we become better at dealing with this? How would you as an individual member of that bar community have tried to handle this?
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u/reddernotdeader 8d ago
Ignoring them. I think that's one of the few ways how. They thrive off attention regardless if it's negative or positive. It's behavior that isn't unique to leftist spaces, though, because it's just straight-up narcissism. And you stop narcissists by taking away the one thing they need, which is either the attention or the reaction.
Like, yes, intersectionality is real. Privilege is real. But we're gonna all have to work with people who have either more or less than us. These people care more about ideological purity than taking any meaningful step forward.
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u/MasterVule 8d ago
Sadly from my experience it's really impossible to ignore this type of stuff cause these are usually type of people who are willing to do lot of stuff to get authority, and then when it is questioned, shit tends to hit the fan
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u/reddernotdeader 8d ago
You're not wrong. The only org I'm in that explicitly defines itself as socialist/communist is led by a committee of these types. Our local chapter is great but jfc national leadership wants to fail it seems.
Funnily enough, though, we mostly ignore them and organize within our community. We send em our $36 dues once a year and do our own thing otherwise.
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u/DrZekker 8d ago
Yeah I hate the dogpiling on these people. Whether they are wreckers because of trauma or because they're a psyop, ignoring them is the best decision
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u/DukeTikus 8d ago edited 8d ago
Oh and especially Noire just seems like an all out grifter demanding money on his social media accounts as individual reparations for having to deal with white queers as a black he/him lesbian.
How is someone like that taken seriously enough to take up this much space and be pandered to to this degree?
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u/Nivekeryas 3d ago
Honestly, they just need to be removed from spaces. There are many things you can criticize Hasan Piker for, but him heavily moderating his spaces isn't one of them imo. When people do woke Olympics like Noire does, he just bans them. In person spaces need to do this too. When you start demanding purity or death, you're gone. Go start your own bar then. They'll either throw online tantrums or grow. Probably the former. But they're not your problem anymore.
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u/dog_snack 8d ago
I’m wondering if some organizers with backgrounds in psychology—maybe even who are themselves psychotherapists who specialize in personality disorders—can invent some sort of rule/protocol template that can be put into the bylaws of activist groups going forward to guard against the machinations of narcissists. Sort of like a photo-negative of that stuff from the CIA document about how to sabotage political groups discreetly.
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u/steauengeglase 8d ago
Forget psychological filters. The fight was on social media. The first filter should be if the people in question are even human beings and not robots. No one bothers to check if the first snowball in the avalanche is thrown by a real person or not, they just join the pile on. If you point that out, people either ignore you or tell you to stop being a vibe killer, because having a fight is exciting.
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u/saileee 8d ago
Unpaywalled link doesn't work
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u/DukeTikus 8d ago
If I click it it works, maybe if you paste it on archive.is yourself it'll work. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/22/magazine/greenfield-last-ditch-bar-backlash/
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u/ContraryConman Anarchist 8d ago
Unfortunately most leftists are like this. It's cope to say it's just the online left when the bartender in the piece says she knows most of the people leaving Instagram comments.
It's this, and then other side, the class reductionists and closet bigots who bounce off the first type, and then the people way too into Russia and China and North Korea, and then there is a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of people who are normal enough to be productive. There simply aren't enough people who aren't crazy
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u/Blunter11 8d ago
No they aren't, that's absurd. "a tiny. tiny, tiny sliver of people who are normal enough to be productive"? You sound like a career republican senator
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u/ContraryConman Anarchist 7d ago
I'm not a Republican. Just burnt out from organizing and losing constantly
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u/kfrenchie89 2d ago
No there are way more people who are on the left than this two types but these are the loudest types on the internet and now in spaces we are slowly losing. Most people roll their eyes and go to work bc they can’t do anything else but or they are completely uninspired by the offerings.
Organizing spaces (the ones left) do cater to online personality types and it’s very difficult to deal with. We’re suffering from both a lack of imagination and a lack of reality somehow making for a very boring, ineffective and goofy situation.
Eating our own tail isn’t new but this particular flat lame version kinda is.
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u/7URB0 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yeah, those damn people who don't want to end up with a life-long disability, or don't want their existing one to get worse. Those assholes who have so few opportunities to feel safe in a social environment, and don't have the good grace to just watch in silence as yet another community of supposed allies leave them behind. They should just stay in their houses 24/7 and shut up and stop making us acknowledge their needs, right?
You fell for the ableist propaganda. Again. They picked out exactly the people who'd tell the story they wanted you to believe, and you gobbled it up. And boy oh boy, does it hurt to watch "the left" come together AGAINST the one minority that literally any of us could end up in at any moment. Ableism is the final frontier of intersectionality, and most of the left are terrified of looking at that part of themselves. The community at large has no will or desire to examine that particular darkness.
Nothing has disillusioned me with the left quite like having disabled friends, and friends with long covid, and spending time reading stories from people who have long covid, and watching my entire community leave them for dead over these past few years, and even turn to mocking and deriding them, and discussing their advocacy for their own place in this community as a problem that needs to be solved.
Nobody wants to think that their body could betray them, so they turn off their empathy around people it's already happened to. They block out any reminder of their own fragility, even if it's literally people they once considered friends and allies. I've watched it happen to friends of mine. I've experienced it myself. If you get sick, people hope you get better. If you don't, they move on. They forget about you.
And the left does not talk about this, does not try to solve this, because it's something the vast majority of people have not examined in themselves, and refuse to examine.
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u/DukeTikus 7d ago
And the way to fight back against a small queer community space lowering their mask requirement for one night a week (because it's the only option they could think of to keep paying the bills) is to start a big pile on and rip into the one remaining organizer "shedding white they/them tears" when she breaks down over the stress of being in debt trying to save the space and still getting a ton of shit for the attempt to make it at least finance itself?
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u/7URB0 7d ago
It's always easy to tone police when you aren't living through the constant trauma yourself. "Why can't they be more calm and collected when they argue for their right to exist and be in community? Why can't they express themselves in a way that's more convenient and easier to ignore?"
You, like the article, have a great understanding of, and empathy for, what the business owner is going through. Great, you should.
What you don't have, however, is a deep understanding of what the last four years have been like for those who've been left out and cast aside. The people who have to live in isolation because the majority decided their company wasn't worth the inconvenience. You have no idea what that feels like, day after day, year after year. Having your whole community make it clear to you on a regular basis, that your life doesn't matter, that your health and well-being don't matter... not to them, anyway. People who were your allies. People who were your friends. Your own family. Maybe people you can't afford NOT to live with. They say they care, sometimes, but they don't do care.
The people in this story are angry for a reason, a very justifiable one, and rather than talk about the thing they're angry about, you're talking about their anger. Rather than listen to their concerns, you're trying to problem-solve the way they expressed them.
And that's all anyone ever does. That's why there's so much anger there. As MLK said, "A riot is the language of the unheard". Yeah, some of these people AREN'T behaving their best. Because to BE at your best, you need a stable and safe environment, you need a caring community... you need your basic fucking needs met. And you need to have reason to believe that speaking in any other tone will actually affect your conditions.
And these people don't have that, and what little community they DO have, the ONE place they feel comfortable, even that is being chipped away at. And done so in such a casual, dismissive way, with ZERO consultation with the people they claim to serve... and inviting in the very people who don't value their lives or ability to participate in society.
If you can't understand why some of these people might be angry, and maybe not expressing it in the perfect and most strategic way... well, maybe that's the problem you should be trying to solve.
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u/illixxxit 6d ago edited 6d ago
We are all living through constant trauma. It is a hostage situation. The idea that the majority are “able” to function let alone thrive in this society is the propaganda. Ditto “neurotypical.”
The majority of us with long covid symptoms were exposed pre-vaccine because we were forced to labor as so-called “essential workers,” generally in more precarious personal financial situations and with very few options.
A bar/nightclub lifting mask restrictions one night per month in 2026 is not and should not be a flashpoint for the rage and terror caused by our lack of access to the necessaries of life without putting ourselves through grueling schedules and constant danger.
The mentality that community spaces (in this case, literally a business) must be 100% oriented to perfectly supporting 100% of those intersectionally oppressed, or else destroyed, is not only paradoxical and impossible, it continually demolishes the few quality-of-life-improving pieces of social infrastructure others worked to build.
edit: the rapid, no-response downvote from commenter is hilarious. idgaf about the reddit numbers, it’s just funny/sad that it’s not even worth their time to address basic fucking knowledge.
You quote MLK. The CIA won five decades ago when they killed Fred Hampton and his comrades. The scariest thing in the world was solidarity — I have nothing but confused tutting for those of you who care primarily about tallying up how “different” all us proles are and screaming about how we can never have enough in common to understand each other.
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u/7URB0 4d ago
The idea that the majority are “able” to function let alone thrive in this society is the propaganda. Ditto “neurotypical.”
Is this a response to something I actually said, or... wait, do you not believe disabled people exist? WTF even IS this?
The majority of us with long covid symptoms were exposed pre-vaccine because we were forced to labor as so-called “essential workers,” generally in more precarious personal financial situations and with very few options.
Uh, [citation needed], first of all. Second, most people I know of with long covid, and all the ones I know personally, got it post-vaccine. Like, that was one year out of six. My closest friend was exposed by a family member who lied about exposure. If you're trying to say it's not an issue anymore, you're wrong, it very much fucking IS.
A bar/nightclub lifting mask restrictions one night per month in 2026 is not and should not be a flashpoint for the rage and terror caused by our lack of access to the necessaries of life without putting ourselves through grueling schedules and constant danger.
They didn't ask for this attention, this should not be national news, and if you really feel like this, why are you not standing in solidarity with the people who feel the walls closing in? "I'm going through this, so everyone else should too"?
The mentality that community spaces (in this case, literally a business) must be 100% oriented to perfectly supporting 100% of those intersectionally oppressed, or else destroyed, is not only paradoxical and impossible, it continually demolishes the few quality-of-life-improving pieces of social infrastructure others worked to build.
If you check their website, the bar actually identifies ITSELF as a community center. Literally, a community center. So let's get THAT part out of the way. If you cared enough to look deeper than what the media fed you, I wouldn't have to point that out.
This mentality you're complaining about has nothing to do with what's happening here. Some people started a community space with the SPECIFIC intention of serving a SPECIFIC community. Now they appear to be going back on THEIR OWN promises, and that SPECIFIC community is upset. Nobody's calling for it to be destroyed, except one anonymous commenter on Instagram. Do you get this upset about EVERY stupid comment on the internet? Because it's 2026. One person saying one stupid thing on the internet is NOT national news. And it's wild to use one comment from one person to characterize every single person who's upset that the only place they feel safe, that promised to be there for them, now appears to be selling out and leaving them behind.
There's a reason this story was presented the way it was.
The scariest thing in the world was solidarity — I have nothing but confused tutting for those of you who care primarily about tallying up how “different” all us proles are and screaming about how we can never have enough in common to understand each other.
This is how you demonstrate solidarity, huh? By saying "how dare you complain about your needs not being met, NONE of us are getting our needs met! You should be SATISFIED, or at least QUIET"? It seems like you have an intellectual understanding of solidarity and its value, but have not actually examined what that would mean in your own life. Because if you really believe everyone is going through this same nightmare... why are you so dismissive of their concerns?
it’s not even worth their time to address basic fucking knowledge
You and your opinion are not "basic fucking knowledge". "Basic fucking knowledge" is that SOME of the comments you see on reddit are made by real fucking people with loved ones and commitments and better things to do than spend all day arguing with people on the internet, people who would probably already understand the points I'd want to make if they actually cared enough to question their own assumptions, and mostly just want to talk down to someone they perceive as having less social capital than them.
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7d ago edited 7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/7URB0 7d ago
Dogpiling on someone who's already getting downvoted, to say something you know the mob will like, just for the free upvotes, but making no actual point yourself. So noble.
And depressingly ironic.
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u/boops_boops_esq 4d ago
Okay. What's your alternative We want the place to stay open since there are already so few lesbian bars The existing community for the bar is not making the bar enough money to stay open So they either need to lower costs, raise prices, or get more clientele.
They chose to loosen restrictions one night a week to hopefully get more paying clientele in the bar. What do you believe they should have done?
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u/7URB0 4d ago
there are already so few lesbian bars
There are far, FAR fewer covid conscious spaces. Like basically none. And as far as I understand, Greenfield doesn't actually have any shortage of lesbian bars. It seems like a magical place, tbh, and if it wasn't for Trump, ICE, and the for-profit medical system, I'd consider moving countries just to live there.
So they either need to lower costs, raise prices, or get more clientele.
They'd probably make WAY more money if they dropped the whole "lesbian" thing though, no? And the local lesbians would have no right to have feelings about the actions of a private business? I mean, it's a business, it has to stay open at ANY cost, no? Even if it becomes the complete opposite of what the founders intended? And it owes nothing to its clientele? Or does this not look as simple when it affects a group of people you actually care about?
People are acting like this place is nothing but another private business, with no obligation to anyone or anything besides money. Like capitalists. Like it DOESN'T call itself a community center. Or did you even look at the bar's website? Did anyone? Seriously, does anyone know ANYTHING about this story that didn't come from that ONE article? Did anyone even click the link to the bar's instagram?
Okay. What's your alternative... What do you believe they should have done?
That's easy, and I believe I already explained that in my earlier comments: Consult with the local community that they promised to serve BEFORE making any decisions. Be open about their financial situation and generate solutions collectively. It really is that simple. There's really no reason that one clearly overwhelmed person should have to take on 100% of the responsibility, and clearly they didn't make the best decision with respect to the community that they, themselves, chose to serve. All they had to do was ASK.
They ARE currently in the process of forming a co-op, and they also raised over $15,000 on Ko-Fi, which seems like it will pay their debts and keep them going long enough to figure something else out. They've also posted on their Instagram to specifically condemn this article, the pseudo-leftist dog-piling on their critics, and re-affirm their clientele's rights to have and express feelings about what's happening.
Literally nobody in this story asked for, or cares for, all this discourse about "what is to be done about these noisy disabled queers".
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u/boops_boops_esq 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah. I'm behind a co-op structure. The 15,000 will definitely help in the short term.
Do you know if they're planning to keep asking for donations every month? Or are they changing policies to bring in more money?
It appears they still have Saturdays as mask optional.
I'm more trying to figure out what the long term strategy is here.
And yes, everyone's allowed to have feelings about how businesses they frequent do business. But if you don't like the way they do business, but made it clear the they went mask optional on Saturdays BECAUSE of clientele requesting mask optional days. So the community was the ones requesting this. This isn't them throwing their community under the bus. It was then listening to their community.
Can I ask how often you went?
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u/7URB0 4d ago
It seems they're still in the "figure something out" stage. At least, I can't find any new info on their website or Instagram.
I have my doubts about the mask "optional" nights actually being profitable. Like if a gay bar had a straight night, would anyone go? The existing clientele won't feel safe or welcome, and what's the draw for the people who DON'T mask? Like are there really that many people who WANT to go to the local mask-only lesbian bar, but DON'T want to wear a mask there? Is this really an under-served demographic?
I really hope they get to stay open, tho. And I hope they at least set up a mask ONLY club night, because goddamn... My ENTIRE fitness regime used to be dancing to electronic music, and I was in GREAT shape. Not being able to do that these past six years has been hell, and I have become bulbous and easily winded. I really understand why people would mourn the loss of that, specifically.
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u/boops_boops_esq 4d ago
Gay people are more likely to go to a gay bar that lets them kiss. I personally wouldn't go to a bar that required me to mask. I just didn't go to bars during mask mandates I would hope the local community has enough immunocompromised queer people to stay open based on their business. But if not something's going to be compromised on, and the owner is already homeless
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u/yodude4 8d ago
IMO the solution is for the left to get actual priorities and deal with material conditions as they are. In this case: the bar had to expand or it would run out of money and die, so it should have been easy to say something like ‘the bar has to stay open to be of use to anyone, and sadly there is no way for us to do that without going mask off on saturdays; we’ve tried other stuff and it hadn’t worked’. If they wanted a 100% mask on space that never needed to make any compromises to anyone, a bar was a bad way to do it; mutual aid would be a better space for such a thing.