I have nothing against Martinez I don't begrudge her her experience of love and acceptance that, in her case, allowed her to unwind herself from white supremacist ideology, and she's devoting her life to making amends, fine She's still a massive beneficiary of "luck"
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I know they deliberately described Selby's motivations for taking her in in deliberately emotive, irrational terms in order to humanize the moment Even so Selby decided to give her a second chance and treat her as worthy of redemption *because of what she looked like*
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She *looked* like a "precious little elf" She had neotenous features that some AFAB people are lucky enough to be born with (if they happen to like being seen as "cute" and "childike") She was short and thin and had a high-pitched voice -- and, let's be blunt, pale skin
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All of these things create a powerful psychological impression of someone being "harmless" in most people in our culture who see you for the first time It's unconscious and immediate, even if you don't admit it to yourself -- this is how our brains judge people And it's *false*
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Like, look, yes, Selby had the "moral luck" to stumble on someone who happened to respond well to this treatment and let go of her ideology and try to turn her life around in a short time That's by chance, it's not because the fucking shape of your face indicates your character
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Martinez WASN'T harmless She'd already thrown a fucking tear gas grenade into an LGBT club, hoping to cause a mass panic and trampling It's only the "moral luck" of her failing to actually lock and bar the door that makes her not a fucking murderer
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Your brain tells you that people who *look like* elfin little girls are harmless, that they're the recipients of trauma and pain rather than inflicting it, that you have a hardwired moral duty to protect and nurture and save them That part of your brain is fucking stupid
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This is literally prejudice and overcoming it is what the rest of your brain is supposed to be for For all the traumas and suffering that "pushed" Martinez to become a Nazi (which I don't deny were real), she also had a mountain of privilege that protected her the whole time
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It's why she made it as long as she did harassing and assaulting people and ended up at this woman's doorstep and not inside a prison cell It's why this woman took pity on her and nursemaided her out of Nazism -- letting her play with her kids! -- rather than calling the cops
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You want to talk about "moral luck", in the alternate universe where Martinez was 6'3", broad shouldered and muscular, Selby freaked out, got scared and called 911 as soon as she saw her, and now she's in prison today
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This timeline's version of Selby has the "moral luck" of getting to feel like a compassionate, empathetic person who never gives up on people because she saw a 5-foot-tall "elf" and her hindbrain got tickled in a certain way that felt like compassion
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But I don't know that the real Selby would even judge the alternate-universe Selby for kicking the scary-jacked-dude version of Martinez out of her house You gotta keep yourself safe, after all (even though the real Martinez had already proven herself to be dangerous)
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I'm not saying this to attack Selby and say she's a bad person -- certainly she's probably a better person overall than me I concede that this questions are complicated and that the world is probably better off with Martinez as she is now than a Nazi teen who died homeless
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Still and all, it strikes me how fucking arbitrary the way we dole out compassion and empathy is, how kneejerk childish prejudice is impossible to escape, no matter how much you're preaching the ideology of universal lovingkindness
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Just imagining playing with Photoshop and altering Martinez's facial features as a teen until I hit the exact threshold point where if her eyes get a tiny bit bigger and closer together she gets saved and a tiny bit smaller and farther apart she stays a Nazi
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This isn't a small fucking thing, either This is why cops open fire on Black 12-year-old boys who automatically get upgraded into "almost-adults", while abusive white CEOs in their 40s who carefully dress like endearingly sloppy teenagers "still have a lot of growing to do"
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The Onion did this pitch-dark satire of the news media's "photogenic white woman" syndrome that's still one of the best things I've ever seen them dohttps://www.theonion.com/judge-rules-white-girl-will-be-tried-as-black-adult-1819594949 …
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People don't do enough self-crit about this, I feel Not willing enough to really engage with the idea they might be the same shallow horny animals as everyone else "This isn't empathy and compassion, you just think they're hot and you want to sleep with them"
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"Or you feel a visceral discomfort because they literally *physically* remind you of your own children, or yourself at a younger age If they didn't, you wouldn't care"
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End of conversation
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