What is the distinction between being a social justice warrior and a reasonable level of speaking out against discrimination?

Good question. It’s kind of a derogatory term used to belittle certain types of behavior. Mainly when I think of a social justice warrior I get the picture of someone who is a little radicalized and is perfectly ok with the ends justify the means. These folks are ok with disgusting behavior if the end result pushes their agenda forward. Some are pushing their agenda for profit or for recognition. Examples would be feminist bloggers or college liberal arts professors who write incendiary articles or papers that push some new movement that fights against some situation or scenario with little basis in reality. They do this for personal gain. College rape culture would be an example.
Another example would be race baiting which is doing considerable social damage.
What enrages me about some of this behavior is how blindly seemingly intelligent people are more than willing follow and be used as pawns.
We all lose real progress with actual social justice when we let some of these yahoos lead the dialog.

You can’t define “social justice warrior” because you’re not butthurt at losing the privilege you grew up with. The phrase is solely used by those with privilege to describe those who aim to remove it.

Don’t worry about it.

“Social justice warrior,” “white knight,” “Feminazi,“and the like are all code for “I don’t have an argument, so I’ll use a label instead.” Yeah, there are extremists in every movement. But if you’re arguing with one of them, that’s on you. And labeling them won’t convince them of anything. And if you’re not arguing with one of them, the label is irrelevant.

I have used the SJW term to describe a certain form of radicalism, and it’s an incredibly interesting phenomenon to me because these are radicals who have taken ideas that I generally agree with to such an extreme that they became unpalatable to even me. As a result, I can’t imagine how much it might be alienating others who are less inclined to agree with even the more moderate view of social justice.

For example, a teenage artist on tumblr was recently bullied to the point of attempting suicide because of Steven Universe fan-art that she drew. I’m not super familiar with Steven Universe, but apparently the artist’s sins were that she drew one of the black characters with her hair in a different style than her usual afro, for which she got blasted for black-erasure, racism, etc. Similarly I think she drew one of the heavier characters skinny and got blasted for fat-erasure, fatphobia etc. She was literally getting hate mail every day telling her that she was a horrible person for her drawings, and the bullies thought they were doing something good on the behalf of traditionally subjugated groups.

One time I got some tumblr hate mail of my own because I had the audacity to suggest that we shouldn’t boycott the Red Cross on the behalf of gay men, who are currently barred from donating blood. This was an eye opening experience for me because I thought I was being a pretty good humanist by advocating for blood donation, since it helps the chronically ill. On that day I learned that SJWs might claim to be acting in the best interests of the subjugated, but some of them might have their own favorite group (in this case, LGBTQ folk), and might be willing to harm another group in order to benefit their golden child. I hated experiencing this incident because it actually made me feel bitter and doubt my social justice leanings for awhile. This kind of extremist behavior alienates people from the cause.

Another hallmark of the SJW is that they do a lot of slacktivism. They think they’re helping anybody by reblogging pro-social justice stuff on tumblr, or by starting flame wars with people who don’t agree with everything they say. But when given the opportunity to make an actual difference, you won’t find them making any personal sacrifices. I did a fundraiser for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America a little while ago, and I posted about it on tumblr, thinking a site with such strong social justice leanings would net me a lot of donations. In the end I got some 50 reblogs – plenty of people saw it and reblogged to “raise awareness” – but not a single dollar was actually donated by anybody on tumblr.

Yes, social justice, despite being a platform I generally agree with, does have the ability to be pushed to such an extreme that it is no longer beneficial. These are the people I reserve the SJW label for. It is a derogatory term in my eyes.

@Mariah could not have said it any better. Yet.. any criticism is usually labled as blowback or “butthurt.” It’s so insulting to people who are actually doing things. Very painful to watch.

As if my rant wasn’t already long enough, I realized I have one more point to make about the difference between a toxic SJW and a sane humanist. You’ll see SJWs using social justice as a weapon. It is a platform they take to make themselves feel like good people, and they use it to tell others that they are bad people.

A humanist wants to use social justice to make people’s lives better; a SJW wants to use social justice to demonize anyone whose views don’t perfectly align with their own. Yes, we should call out bigotry where we see it, but SJWs split hairs to blast anyone who is 99% on their side for the 1% in which they differ.

Again, I don’t see anyone denying the fact that there are extremists. I can agree with everything @Mariah said. That doesn’t mean the term is useful in any actual discussion, which was the point I made above. It’s never helpful, so drawing the distinction is pointless. If someone brings up the term, ask them to make a substantive point instead of resorting to a lazy label.

The other problem with the label is that it accepts the claim that these extremists are somehow promoting social justice instead of perverting the ideas that they claim to represent. Since @ARE_you_kidding_me has made such a show of respecting the people who really are interested in social justice, how does it respect them to let intellectually lazy people dismiss a whole movement by focusing on a small group of loud people who don’t even understand the rhetoric they are misusing? Don’t call them social justice warriors (which isn’t even an insult—social justice is something we should want to fight for). Call them unrepresentative hypocrites. That’s what they are.

I agree that labels are lazy, @Uberwench. It’s just been a struggle for me to have to accept there is a form of social justice that is too extreme for me to support. It’s easy for me to denounce extreme forms of something I already dislike, like conservatism, than to recognize there is a portion of social justice that I also have to distance myself from as well.

I’ve found the label can be useful in debate with someone who, for example, doesn’t think feminism needs to exist in the modern day. We’re going to disagree about a lot of things, so I like to say right away “I don’t consider myself a SJW” so they know I’m not going to start hurling ‘die cis scum’ at them and actually want to have a reasonable discussion about the topic.

But yeah, if someone tries to discount social justice in general by just saying “well I don’t have to listen to you because you’re a SJW” that is lazy and really unfortunate.

A “SJW” is a strawman that does not actually exist in reality.
Invented for the sole purpose of dismissing someone else’s opinion without having to actually form an argument.

@Mariah I think it’s just as easy, and also more accurate, to say “I’m not as extreme as you might assume” rather than “I’m not a SJW.” And since the term “SJW” is often used to be dismissive, I don’t see any reason to give the term credence.

I don’t really agree. It’s fitting, like “truther” or “anti-vaxer” I don’t need to justify using it as dismissive when what is coming from the other end needs to be dismissed. If the person can offer up something that can’t be dismissed then that is not gitting the derogatory label then right? Fighting a crusade to take back the term “SJW” is something well… an SJW would do.

@Uberwench I can do the passive-agressive back handed thing too

~

@Uberwench You make a good point, that it’s unfortunate that the label actually has “social justice” in it and demeans the social justice movement in that way. Maybe next time I will take the approach you suggest – thanks.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I’m not a huge fan of those terms either. Adherents of those movements sometimes embrace them, though, which makes them a little bit better. And unfortunately, the answer to your question is “no.” People often get dismissed out of hand before they’re even allowed to make their argument. But you have misunderstood me. I’m not trying to take back the term. I’d rather see it dropped altogether.

And it’s not passive-aggressive or backhanded when I mention you by name, state my point of disagreement, and say why I disagree.

I was referring to the “such a show” comment.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Get yourself a dictionary. Passive-aggression and backhandedness both involve obliquity, and my comment was not oblique.