Jesus fucking Christ, Cory, this is patently ridiculous.

[asweetgentleman@mstdn.social]

@artemis So basically the guy's saying "the metaphor illustrating this concept is incorrect therefore the idea must be incorrect."

That's a well-known technique used to deflect attention from the real issue when you have no argument.

[cy@fedicy.us.to]

Especially since it's wrong, like really wrong, like past missing the point he knows he's wrong and just wants to fool people into being slaves. Actual bullshit!

Audre: the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house
Some putz: There is no toolset better suited to conduct an orderly dismantling of a structure than the tools that built it.
Anyone with half a brain: But then they're not the master's tools. They're the slave's tools. So slaves should sieze the means of their master's production?
Some putz: uhhhh noooo they should stay slaves and masters will dismantle their own house... voluntarily. ...Reagan...

[eestileib@tech.lgbt]

@VulpineAmethyst @sayonaraminasan @artemis

White guys who think they've overall benefitted from capitalism needed a word that described how it affected them.

[eestileib@tech.lgbt]

@sayonaraminasan @artemis

_Red Team Blues_ was a fun read imo.

[sallystrange@eldritch.cafe]

@artemis
Yeah I had that thought too once upon a time. Then I read and learned more about slavery, and I realized that the master's tools are the whip, the koffel, the gun, etc.

[2something@transfem.social]

@artemis@dice.camp Fuck

[sayonaraminasan@urusai.social]

@cy this guy doesn’t sound that smart lol

[cy@fedicy.us.to]

that might be my dumbness shining through

[shrigglepuss@godforsaken.website]

@artemis that's truly horrific vibes

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis "i am a very privileged white man with no history of enslaved family members, and i am very clever. hold my beer." --Cory Doctorow

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis it's pedantic racism and it doesn't even make any sense. who tf lives in a house where the tools that built the house are left behind?

[primavera@void.lgbt]

@YKantRachelRead @artemis it is time for ethical racism to take the wheel

[primavera@void.lgbt]

@artemis you can tell outside of the terrrifyingly bad take you can rly tell this guy doesn't build houses you do not in fact use the same tools for building as you do for dismantling those are two entirely different fields of activity lol

[flippac@types.pl]

@VulpineAmethyst @sayonaraminasan @artemis I mean, a word isn't a bad thing when the pace is so much faster than it used to be, but that doesn't make him some genius analyst rather than someone who copied Marx's homework and specialised it to the industries he knew best

[burnoutqueen@todon.nl]

@artemis cory will become a trumper by years end

[bascule@mas.to]

@artemis ugh, such cringe. Doctorow is a douchebag

[ykantrachelread@social.treehouse.systems]

@Primavera @artemis honestly this is one of the most commonly misinterpreted feminist sound-bytes in social justice-oriented spaces, and it irrationally annoys the hell out of me

"the master's tools" in this metaphor aren't the tools used to build the house. they're the tools that he uses to keep us from destroying it. they're the tools that he uses to keep privileged women and marginalized women from expressing gender-class solidarity with one another and, together, from burning the whole thing to the ground.

in other words, Doctorow is just completely missing the point.

(for the record, the other common misinterpretation I see is from e.g. liberals preaching nonviolence on the assumption that violence is one of the master's tools - and that's equally ridiculous given the above.)

[xenophora@mastodon.art]

@artemis

What always trips me up in these exchanges is my confusion between whether someone means a tool (as in "a hammer") versus a tool that belongs to the master. IOW, is the beef in any given scenario the tool itself or is the real point of contention the fact that it's still always in the master's hands and the master won't be persuaded to part with it in any meaningful way?

Unless someone like C.D. makes that clear I'm not even sure what we're debating.

[xenophora@mastodon.art]

@sayonaraminasan @artemis

The ahistoric need for folks like him to chant "Trump Bad!' around the clock is breaking a lot of brains, I think.

Note: I agree that Trump is bad but too often they act like he came out of nowhere and everything was peaches and cream before that.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@xenophora
Well, that's the thing really: he isn't interested in talking about this & has little to do with what he is saying.

In the blog post, he moves on immediately after this paragraph. It's like it was inserted just for flavor.

At which point, I gotta ask why is he bringing up a Black woman to say that she is wrong about something he doesn't actually even want to talk about.