12/ This happened in November. We were approached later in November by another member of the secret FB group to see if she could be a mediator in this since she was contacted by Abby’s advisor about this. We said we would be happy to discuss things w/ her & also have a mediator.
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13/ So we waited for a discussion to be set up. The moderators have not discussed her publicly or even semi-publicly (i.e. on our FB accounts) in any way. I am sure the white supremacists have already tried to scour my social media to see if I have, but have come up w/ nothing.
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14/ We waited to see if we could work thru issues to bring her back into the group. However, we made the decision in Nov. that w/ her particular reaction, we would prioritize group safety & temporarily remove her w/ the possibility of her reintegration w/ further discussion.
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Dr. Dorothy Kim Retweeted Tressie McMillan Cottom
15/ This is something that is a regular practice in social activist circles as you can see in this thread from Tressie McCottom: https://twitter.com/tressiemcphd/status/1195751104505626625 ….
Dr. Dorothy Kim added,
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16/ To contextualize further, other medieval FB groups that are private, rather than secret, have even more rigorous moderation models. Ex. the SMFS FB group has, b/c of multiple leaks that have led members to being a target of the white supremacists,
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17/ adopted a rigorous safety model that means mods. will remove members immediately w/out discussion.The Early Medieval English group, b/c of leaks that went to white supremacists, closed the group entirely & started from scratch to add members in order to control group safety.
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18/ All scholarly medieval FB groups have had to deal w/ (since 2016) their discussion & posts being used & weaponized by white supremacists. This has put group members at risk to being white supremacist targets.
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19/ Since our position is even more vulnerable, it is absolutely necessary that group safety measures be upheld. The secret FB group moderators have kept this quiet & not discussed it publicly in order to leave open the possibility of working through these issues w/ Abby
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20/ & bringing her back to the group. Unfortunately, we do not think that will happen now. Open, honest, &evidence-based discussion is important to academic intellectual life & antiracist activism. o is evidence-based, thoughtful, and honest critique.
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21/ But this cannot happen if various parties remove themselves from such discussions entirely (either b/c of a refusal to work honestly or b/c they have refused to discuss). The caveat here obviously being that I am not interested in having “discourse” with fascists.
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22/ But I would like to ask people to please consider the safety of members as the white supremacist fringe of our field & also in general are using this information to mount further violent attacks.We continue to keep the members' safety in the secret FB group our top priority.
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23/ This issue was brought to the scholarly activist org. Medievalists of Color when Abby or her advisor (I am not sure which) contacted a senior member of the Steering Committee and it was then brought to the rest of the committee in December.
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