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Edit: everyone, pls boost this as much as possible so more ppl involved in criticizing ro can see it

As a conscious temper and counterbalance to the outrage at Ro, I actually think people should maybe read this blog post of his that I saw someone pointing out: https://roiskinda.cool/2022/07/pride-for-a-straight-guy.html

I think this genuinely shows a good-hearted person who at least seems to understand the concept of solidarity and want to be more open and understanding, someone who is sympathetic to queer people.

This further strengthens my belief that Are0h isn't an evil person, but someone who has been burned by real life racism and the severe problem with racism we have here, and who is struggling with the sort of by-default queerphobia and transphobia that most people have (much in the same way that many white people are by-default racist), and because of all that, handled the creation of the bad space wrong, and is having a moment of weakness by giving into the sort of everyday narcissism — which I, personally, *know* I sometimes fall into — where we are just not willing to recognize and admit our mistakes. He is doubling down on accusing everyone of racism and insisting that fucking over a few queer and trans people is simply "the cost of making the fedi safe for black people" (omelette fallacy, major lapse of solitarity) because he's too far out on a limb now and can't stop, I think. And because of the core goal of his project was very very good and it feels like attacks against the project are attacks against the goal. Yes he is co-opting leftist and progressive language to defend himself, but that's not an unforgivable sin, again it's something that can happen naturally: when someone reaches for rationalizations, they can reach for any kind of justifying rhetoric.

This is not too pity him or infantilize him at all because I think he is still responsible for his words, and those words have been bad, but I feel like this is something important to say so that we can all get a sense of proportion and reality here. I'm hoping this will decrease the racist harassment he's experiencing.