Relying on systems that harm us

The lessons of marginalisation - how they might prepare us for a new America

Life is full of little tells, that society is not built for you. Some trivial, just a fact of life. Some less so – the story of marginalisation, discrimination, things that contribute to decades off your life expectancy, risk of imprisonment or a violent death.

I think as a society – at least western society, and especially western Europe – we need to prepare more for that. Work out who we can depend on. And who we depend on, even though it’s not in our interests.

I know, in my life, there are many times I’ve had to lean on a system that’s indifferent or hostile to me. Look for acceptance, for love, for help – that comes packaged in a way I can’t properly access.

Some tells from my childhood. Most of them are trivial. They add up.

A hymn sung during primary school “As God is our father, brothers all are we.” See also expressions like “mankind”. Developing a sense of myself as female. By definition, I am no one’s brother. It was something I had to learn to navigate.

Suppressing my love for big frilly fussy dresses – I remember being six or seven, and my favourite party dresses were covered in roses, with lace collars and petticoats. It thrilled me. I gleaned that this was frippery, trivial, and my intellect would be underestimated. It wasn’t until my thirties that I came back to my love of fussy, over the top, super feminine clothing. Not just with the innocent love of feeling pretty, but with a hard won “and you can kiss my arse if you don’t like it”. I am intelligent, I am serious, and my performative femininity takes nothing away from that.

The cognitive dissonance of media and advertising “walking in a winter wonderland”, childhood cartoons showing jumpers and snowmen – when Christmas can top 30 and even 40 Celsius. That was preschool, and I’m still occasionally condescended to by Europeans and Americans who are affronted by my audacity that seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere.

Photo by Simone Viani on Unsplash

Being told repeatedly that I was stupid, or broken, or unacceptable. Childhood bullying. Teachers who didn’t understand me. Authority figures disciplining me in ways that sent me into spirals of despair, terror, depression, suicidal ideation. I’m talking about primary school. I’m also talking about realising, in secondary school and beyond, that I would not “grow out of” my profound inadequacy, that I would never be “normal”.  (When people say that the 1990s were idyllic, I have to remember not to take it personally. I experienced suicidal ideation long before I knew what suicide meant. Not for a lack of vocabulary.)

A memory I try to suppress, because even thinking about it is difficult. I’m typing through tears and ignoring the profound sense of worthlessness it brings. A very important person in my life, someone I have always wanted to love dearly (I’ve tried more than I think anyone appreciates). Someone who repeatedly screamed at me for not being normal, for hurting them with all the struggles in my life. They were on the inside in ways we didn’t understand, and I was not. My despair, my difference, my ostracism and struggle to cling to a will to live – they had to be associated with that, which was more terrible than I could possibly know. They negated everything I was supposed to be to them, because I was not enough, not worthy, somehow less than human. Sometimes they made me feel like I didn’t deserve to live. (I’m being deliberately vague. I don’t want to identify them.)

I have had no choice but to cling to the systems that bring me this pain, this dissonance (or, sometimes, this annoyance. Christmas in winter isn’t that deep.) It is the world I live in, it is the people and structures I have relied and still rely on. I couldn’t ask an autism supportive teacher for help – there were none.

Whether you’re marginalised or not, we all have to cling to systems that are less than ideal. I could say much about racial inequality in criminal justice, the work to break glass ceilings and endure sexual harassment and worse, racial profiling of young Black men, and more besides. It’s an extension – a worse one* - of some of my experiences above.

(* suffering is not a competition)

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I worry that our security, in the west, is about to be ripped out from underneath us. That our current normal, the norms that have existed for all of our lifetimes, are about to undergo fundamental shifts. That the systems we rely on – both suboptimal and otherwise – will undergo radical change.

So far, outside the United States (or the relevant states), we have largely been able to ignore restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of access to information. Sure, it’s terrible that Florida is restricting access to books in its schools, for example. But in England, I can get these books.

What happens when these restrictions are not state-level, but federal level? If some of the rumblings about the new administration and the press come to pass?

I write this on Substack, which is based in the United States. I use Gmail, which is based in the United States. I use Bluesky, based in the United States. So much of our communication infrastructure relies on the norms of the United States – including their laws about freedom of speech.

American-style freedom of speech, as it stands in 2024, has its own problems. The rise of threats of death and violence, and tolerance of neo-Nazi marches shows this. (And yes, I understand that restricting speech is a slippery slope. I also think that tolerating hatred and stochastic terrorism both inhibits free expression and the freedom of those targeted by it, even if it is not the government directly inhibiting speech and freedom.)

Largely, though, the current American model is workable. It’s a wide canvas. A variety of voices can be heard, blocks are reasonably effective, and other countries have more robust protections against hatred and threats of violence. (No matter how much Americans dislike that.)

What happens, though, if that changes?

Donald Trump has vowed to punish American media, particularly CBS; and there are discussions about government interference in social media’s “censorship” and “bias”, Orwellian terms that have come to mean something like “anything other than viewpoints we don’t like”. (Orwell is often cited by the right to criticise the left. I’m not convinced any of them have ever opened 1984. If they have read it, they either didn’t understand it, or are lying about it.)

Will Substack, Google, Amazon (hosting a huge number of web services), Microsoft (I’m writing this in Word), and other platforms be forced to comply with this?

Photo by Anna Sullivan on Unsplash

It’s clear that Elon Musk, who has the ear of the president-elect, has no regard for the laws of other countries – take the UK, take Australia, take Brazil. (I have my doubts about his regard for American law, too.) He’s currently grandstanding and threatening to exert his power over UK Parliament.

How do we navigate our national discourses – largely online – while our communication infrastructure is overwhelmingly American? What will American companies do, if these changes come to pass?

I can envision a world where it’s harder to point to the evidence of Russian interference in democratic processes (of which there is significant evidence); harder to push back against fascistic threats against refugees in Britain; harder to maintain laws against promoting the Nazis in Germany. I sincerely hope the last point will never need justification.

Without pushback, news from the United States could begin to look more like Russia Today – using ‘political technologies’ (to borrow from Putin) to ‘flood the zone with shit’ (to borrow from Steve Bannon). As if we don’t already wade through enough informational excrement in the modern era. (I wonder if there will be a divergence in histories and commentaries like between the former Soviet Union and the West – eventually.)

Some of this we will have to tolerate. The United States has significant power, and we cannot do without all of it. We do not have the technological infrastructure to be able to ignore them (let alone military, on which I can’t comment knowledgeably). Like I had to rely on a system that painted me as broken and tried to cast me out. We make the best with what we’ve got, even if it leads us into therapy (or whatever the national equivalent might be). Tiptoeing around harmful systems is something that some of us are already used to.

(I’d argue that the current norms around the western internet – the American first amendment, section 230, etc – are also tiptoeing around a suboptimal system. But it’s usually closer to being told that Christmas in summer is impossible – more annoying than anything else.)

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But a system where the US government does not just allow algorithmic bias (amorphous but clearly present), but might even require it – that is far more damaging. I write in public with the knowledge I will not be prosecuted or fined for what I say. (I’m not 100% sure where the line of freedom of speech is in the UK, but I’m confident I’m nowhere near the limits. I think the most odious thing I’ve ever said on this platform is that I can understand why Palestinians might be driven to act out of desperation – there, but for the grace of God, go I, as a fellow human. On any other platform… well, sometimes I lose my rag. It amounts to calling people idiots, though, not threatening them.)

We will need to do what many marginalised people do – work out how to disengage from systems that damage us. I feel much more seen, valid, loved, when I interact with fellow neurodivergent people – those who don’t tell me I’m wrong, broken, unlovable, unemployable, a non-human who has no light behind my eyes. It gives me the strength to deal with those who – deliberately or otherwise – demean me for my neurology. We share tactics, commiserate with one another.

I don’t know what that looks like nationally, or internationally. It’s uncharted territory. (And, indeed, I don’t know to what extent these threats are bluster.)  My fear is that centrism, and negotiating with the powerful, will prevail. That our ability to communicate plainly, in line with our local law, will be stifled, because power trumps policy. (No pun intended)

My hope is that we can protect ourselves and build alternatives. My fantasy (I think this is unlikely) is that our governments will be able to protect us, and our national discourses, from the restrictions promised in the United States.

I am preparing with the business I’m building – teaching transferable skills including critical thinking and essay writing. I am examining every piece of technology and infrastructure, and trying to avoid relying on anything American where possible, and using open-source software. I doubt I’d be a target, but I also don’t think it’s worth the risk. (Social media marketing/ advertising is one flaw in my plan. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.) My most important personal communication is on Signal, which seems the least worst option at this time.

Are you thinking about changing the way you communicate, considering the infrastructure you rely on? Are you concerned that changing American communication policies will reach into our lives, the way their First Amendment discourse has? (I hope I’m overreacting. I really do. I also think it’s worth considering.)

Do you think that navigating a hostile world, as a marginalised person, has given you the tools to think laterally about the coming changes? I’d love to hear from you.