Will be clarifying our policies in regards to 'controversial' materials and free speech.

[Leila Raven]

Today or in the next few days I'll create a page outlining our policies in regards to everything from free speech, and dealing with controversial humour, controversial subjects, dealing with perceived prejudices and even outright hate literature, etc. To make a more clear statement on my policies and view on this.

To be honest, I've been unsure where I wanted to draw the lines in the sand exactly myself, and how I wanted to really deal with the issues of balancing freedom of speech, and maintaining dialogue around controversial issues in an effort to focus on education and healing, and keeping members protected and fostering inclusion. These are tricky issues.

In part my views on how to approach it have changed and grown, and it wasn't really until I've had a few situations arise that have helped me firm up exactly how I want to 'officially' handle things. Sometimes it take us facing conflicts to know how we want to deal with those conflicts, and sometimes it can be a process of trial and error.

So what I'm going to try to do, is outline a policy in terms of handling these things via social dialogue. In sociology we learned that when dealing with even serious cases of prejudice, such as racism, etc, the best thing to do actually make any kind of real change... is to work together, and to maintain an open dialogue. If we try to send the people we have conflict with away, nothing ever changes. It's a band-aid approach that 'protects' people at the expense of propagating the very threat we are trying to protect them from, it keeps the divisionary forces active, alive, and well.

 

I have a lot more to say on this, but it's germinating.. gestating.. it'll all get sorted out hopefully in my head and on some kind of policy page.. .one thing at a time.. lol.

 

[Leila Raven]

Thanks guys, won't be getting to it today.. still working through a few days of emails.. lol. and waiting for enough brain power to re-accumulate to articulate my thoughts well enough for this project!