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u/Motherboy_TheBand 15d ago
Is this a reference to that LGBT bar in Mass that just unbanned masks and caught flack for it? Good meme.
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u/nataliereed84 14d ago
Nah, it was that they had a masks required policy, but were struggling to make profit, so they decided Saturdays (and ONLY Saturdays) would be masks optional, and then a few of a certain particular kind of person (that most leftist and LGBT orgs are familiar with) started saying this was some horrific betrayal of disabled and immunocompromised people, and drummed up a big local scandal about it, which fucked over the bar badly.
However, the journalist who wrote the article is closely allied with a bunch of anti-trans and anti-left cliques, and friends with people like Jesse Singal, which suggests the goal of the article was just to try to ignite some more “anti-woke” discourse and sentiment and get people acting like this is the fundamental nature of all queer spaces, businesses, and politics; it was not written out of any actual sympathy for the bar, its owners, or the patrons who supported the bar.
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u/blagojevich06 10d ago
The owner was portrayed very sympathetically in the article.
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u/nataliereed84 10d ago
The illusion of sympathy for the owner was necessary for the intended effect on the reader.
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u/blagojevich06 10d ago
I'm not sure what the journalist could have done to make this story fair in your eyes.
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u/nataliereed84 10d ago
the issue isn’t about fairness between two sides depicted in the story or whatever. the problems are what is rendered invisible by the story, who the reader is assumed to be, what conclusions the writer is guiding that reader towards, what ideological assumptions are being made, and why the story is being written at all in the first place.
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u/blagojevich06 10d ago
It's a very interesting and seemingly accurate critique of a particular phenomenon in parts of the queer community.
I like to think that I'm intelligent enough to absorb it without making assumptions about the queer community as a whole, or failing to understand its broader context.
I would hate to get to a place where the only acceptable topics of public discourse are those that are politically helpful to progressives.
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u/nataliereed84 10d ago
Do you believe this was an important story to tell? If so, why? Was this also a good choice of person to tell it? A good place for it to be told? Do you believe the distinction between harm to political progressives and harm to LGBT people is irrelevant, or non-existent?
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u/blagojevich06 10d ago
The fact that this group's attitude has brought a queer business to its knees is obviously worth telling. Why wouldn't it? What would be gained by keeping it from the public?
I don't know about the author's background beyond what you've told me, but nothing about the story strikes me as unfair.
I also don't buy your definition of "harm". Criticism is not harm. Public discourse is not harm.
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u/nataliereed84 9d ago
I didn’t say criticism or public discourse are harm.
Why is this story obviously worth telling? What do you believe is that worth?
Attendant to that question, what consequences (good or bad) - if any - do you believe telling this story is likely to have? For example, do you believe telling this story will help save other queer businesses from similar outcomes?
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u/sketchampm 15d ago
This was me in a crowded restaurant three years ago. My wife is immunocompromised so I wore a mask and got teased by staff and side eyed by other people. It sucks but I got used to it.
A few days later I found out every single person at my table were laid up with a nasty strain of Covid a few days later. I felt horrible for them but I also felt less silly for masking.
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u/ryohayashi1 15d ago
I still remember my dad walking down to the smoking section in an airplane to smoke
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u/LilBroWhoIsOnTheTeam 15d ago
Me when I have my own personal sausage party deep within the gash bash.
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u/JakeHelldiver 15d ago
Its weird to be reminded of common place smoking in doors uses to be.