Concern Troll

Oh absolutely!

No, seriously!

You wholeheartedly,

Have my interests at heart.

I can tell,

Since your position,

Is telling me to shut up.

How comforting that would be...

   for you.

-o0o-

This was my status to my boyfriend's Facebook page:

This quote is somewhat related to two separate incidents in the last week, and one not regarding atheism at all, but I found the quote summed up concern trolls pretty well:

"As a blogger I've received a great deal of advice from believers on how atheists should run our movement. I got all comments and emails all the time from believers saying "This is, you know, it's like you just might wanna little, little word of advice on how you should run your movement." It's very difficult to avoid the observation that this advice is almost always in the direction of telling us to tone it down, telling us to be less confrontational, less visible. Y'know, I have almost never seen a believer advise the atheist movement to speak up more loudly and more passionately. You know, to not be afraid of offending people if we think we're right. You know to really be willing to get in people's faces about things that they don't wanna think about. I mean, I have gotten a lot of advice from believers on how atheists should run our movement and it is almost always in the direction of politely suggesting that we shut up. Uhm... Maybe I'm being cynical here... I don't think that's a coincidence. And again, when you look at the history of social change movements you see the same pattern again and again, it was true of the women's movement, the labour movement, the civil rights movement, the queer movement. As soon as a movement starts to get some real traction, as soon as a movement starts to get some real power, opponents start fear-mongering about how angry they are. They start fear-mongering about, you know, the angry blacks, the angry women, the angry communists in the labour movement, the angry queers, "They're gonna turn into this uncontrolled raging mob and they're gonna tear up your city!" Or else they start concern-trolling about how "Oh anger just alienates people and the movement needs to be sweet and diplomatic and, you know, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar". I don't need flies. And really, I don't think it's a coincidence that we're being advised to lay down our anger, one of the most powerful tools that any social change movement can have right at the time that we are beginning to get some real power.”

Greta Christina, in her Skepticon 4 (2011) speech entitled, “Why Are you Atheists so Angry.”

-o0o-