User:Woozle/Zinnia Jones

Background

This page is for ongoing analysis of claims that Zinnia Jones is a fascist or an anti-Semite or some such thing. I'm aware that there are a lot of right-wingers and trolls who like to dishonestly paint her in the worst possible light, so I'd always dismissed these claims – until someone credible to me started making similar claims, at which point I felt compelled to investigate (August 2017).

Just so you know where I'm coming from: I became aware of ZJ via Pharyngula, shortly before she had even realized she was trans (maybe 5 years ago?). I don't follow her on Twitter; I do follow her on YouTube, but I had to actually check to be sure because I rarely watch her videos; I mainly use them as reference arguments in case the same subject comes up elsewhere.

That said, I do know she has been attacked personally over and over again, usually (but not always) by people of a right-wing or at least authoritarian bent, and I have found her defenses to be well-reasoned and ethically sound.

For the record, my August 21 take on the situation is here. On August 25, after many hours of following up some additional leads, I finally located the Tweetstorm to which many people have referred, which (naturally) substantially alters my take on the matter.

Fisking

2010

• 12-22 21:33 Holiday stupid: Someone commenting to tell me people are born Jewish and have no choice of whether to be Jewish. (archive.is)

Yep, that was kind of oblivious. When Jewish people are persecuted, it is generally through racial accusations rather than their beliefs; persecutors do not give their targets the choice to opt out.

That said, I don't think it was intentionally offensive or a dog-whistle. (I seem to recall making the same mistake in my early political naivete, possibly when I was older than ZJ is now; fortunately Twitter hadn't been discovered yet, so I didn't have the opportunity to leave a permanent record of my error.) I would have liked to see the follow-up on that – but apparently this wasn't a comment people were truly incensed about; there were no replies, not even in the 2017 thread where it was brought up again. I doubt very much that this reflects ZJ's current understanding of anti-Semitism.

2016

September 4

• 05:17 If she directly ordered me to murder an innocent human being I would still choose her over him. Every time. In every possible universe.
  • I don't know who "she" is, or what she means by "choose", so I have no context with which to evaluate what she's saying. What I do see is people using this as an example of "liberal bullshit" without actually explaining why it's bullshit, which makes me inclined to think ZJ is probably in the right, whatever the dispute may be.
  • On Reddit, the quote is used in a way that almost certainly misrepresents her argument, whatever it was.
  • 05:17 Because there are things that are bigger than that.
    • 10-18 15:29 (@politiquestions) Like republicans' illegally hoarded ballots. Who will think of the direct material support for the guy you fearmonger about all day -- "the guy you fearmonger about": who? Donald? Bernie?
    • Given her other comments, I'm pretty sure she's talking about Hillary vs. Donald -- in which case I'd have to agree with her.

October

• 10-08 10:08 Donald Trump is best understood as an entity sent by Yahweh of the Bible/Yeshu of Nazareth. (archive.is)
  • 10-17 10:58 (@AKA m33n4h) do you realise how offensive it is to compare a dude who does constant anti-semitic dog whistles to Yahweh?
    • Another Tweeter tries to explain why the comparison is apt, but AKA m33n4h sarcastically dismisses their argument.
  • 10-18: presumably what's being discussed here is the September 4 thread.
    • 20:12 (reply) you aren't Jewish this isn't your place. This is reading as antisemitic
      • 20:13 (ZJ) I would've chosen a different word given people interpreted it as just about Judaism. It's not, though.
      • 20:14 (ZJ) It was meant to refer to Christianity's deity, Islam's, LDS Church's, etc.
      • 20:15 (ZJ) Sorry I phrased it that way. But a faith I don't believe doesn't have to first permit me my "place" before I can criticize it.
      • 20:16 (ZJ) If anything it's not your place to tell me I'm somehow not allowed to critically analyze the character God in religious texts.
  • 11:01 Also the Old Testament is one long record of God straight-up fucking over the Israelites in every imaginable way (archive.is)
  • 11:04 No? Nothing in anything I said was speaking of actual practices of Jewish people. The Bible is fiction.
• 10-18:
  • 12:04 (ZJ) "wonder how much drone fuel that'll cover" Hopefully a lot? I wouldn't have made this joke, but I understand the point she was trying to make -- and it did not earn the rage it apparently evoked. Did anyone even ask if she was serious? Reasonable people seemed to understand that it was just in bad taste.
  • 20:33 Tweetstorm: I agree with pretty much everything she said here. "BECAUSE YOU JOKED ABOUT IT" completely misses the point.
• 10-20:
  • 13:48 (@hyenagirl64) "Moral core of the trans community." *shakes head*
  • 13:50 (@hyenagirl64) It's almost like these folks have no involvement in the community and have no idea who anyone is besides their twitter faves.
  • 13:52 (@hyenagirl64) I mean, if you asked me to name someone I'd name Janet Mox, or Laverne Cox, or the Wachowskis, or Chelsea Manning, or Tobi Hill-mayer...
  • 13:53 (@hyenagirl64) ...and I wouldn't even name them because I know there are hundreds of hard working community organizers out there who go unnamed...
  • 13:53 (@hyenagirl64) ...who are doing far more for the whole community than any blogger ever will.
  • 13:55 (@hyenagirl64) Fuck, I'd name kadybat before Zinnia. Kadybat is helping run a sonic themed charity event for the transgender law center. How trans is that?
  • 19:04 (ZJ) I actually don't want to be some moral center, nobody should be that and I don't think communities should work that way
  • 20:52 (@PrincessOtC) then please stop talking and digging yourself into a bigger hole. stop presenting yourself as such a figure.
  • 21:00 (ZJ) I don't want to. I think them seeing me as such a figure amplified the perceived urgency of this, to them.
  • 21:06 (@PrincessOtC) when you go on lengthy authoritative sounding rants like this and project an ego it's what happens
  • 21:11 (ZJ) the alternative being? what makes it lengthy or authoritative-sounding that I shouldn't be doing?
  • 21:14 (@PrincessOtC) maybe not telling jews their jewish opinions don't matter for a start. sometimes you just need to take a backseat.
  • 21:15 (ZJ) that's authoritative sounding but... what they said isn't? how do you figure?
    • 21:19 (@PrincessOtC) Because she's actually fucking jewish and can tell you what antisemitism looks like. Jesus christ, Zinnia. Cop on.
      • 21:20 (ZJ) I've been told by more Jewish people that this is not antisemitic than have ever said it is antisemitic
      • 21:22 (@PrincessOtC) Where are these binders full of jews, Zinnia, that have told you this? Every jew I've shown your shit is disgusted.
      • 21:23 (ZJ) Uh what? Where exactly is your binder?
      • 21:25 (@PrincessOtC) you need to learn to shut the fuck up and actually listen to people that aren't your shitty liberal token friends.
      • 21:29 (ZJ) You just called Jewish people "shitty liberal token[s". What would you say that is? Rhymes with 'ranty pacific']
      • 21:31 (@PrincessOtC) you're the one who's been taking a dump on actual jews in all this, continually. people who've been tweeting you.
      • 21:32 (@hyenagirl64) I don't have anything to add to this discussion. Please un-@ me.
    • 21:20 (@PrincessOtC) How would you like a cis person cisplaining to you like this? Getting snarky, saying your trans views don't matter.

What people got upset about, apparently, was ZJ comparing Trump to God using the Old Testament word "Yahweh" to refer to God.

A few people took this as anti-Semitic, for reasons that remain unclear; ZJ clarified that she hadn't intended to target the Jewish faith, but rather all monotheism ("Christianity's deity, Islam's, LDS Church's, etc.") and then apologized for her poor choice of phrasing.

It should be noted that she also implicated Jesus Christ ("Yeshu of Nazareth") in her comparison, so how is this singling out Jewish people? The accusation seems dishonest, given this.

Meanwhile the same people are trying to tell ZJ that criticizing Yahweh "isn't your place" (implicit argument: you may not criticize a religion unless you are a member of that religion – although this is never explained straight out). ZJ rightly declines to be bound by the unspoken rules of a religion she does not follow.

All in all, this reads like fundamentalists taking umbrage at seeing their faith in any way impugned, and using accusations of anti-semitism as a soldier argument to attempt to shut that criticism down.

The only legit argument I see buried in all of this (and it's pretty deeply buried, so she can hardly be faulted for missing it) is that someone who has experienced anti-Semitism is likely to be a better judge of what comes across as anti-Semitic than someone who has never experienced that particular form of bigotry.

What I do not see is any legit arguments that ZJ is actually anti-Semitic, much less that she was putting out some sort of dog whistle as a covert invitation for an anti-Semitic pile-on.

2017

June 9

• 01:22 (@AliceAvizandum) 'well you picked a bad TIME to criticise our in-house Arab death fetishist' fuck off
• 02:02 (@MissMacSee) I'm out of so many loops, is it possible for you to say who this is about?
• 02:02 (@AliceAvizandum) Zinnia Jones, who's currently the trans piñata for Ray Blanchard and Fox News
  • This may be a reference to ZJ's frequent attacks on anti-trans propagandist Ray Blanchard.
• 02:03 (@AliceAvizandum) I promise you I'm not exaggerating, she had a weeks-long meltdown about how good drones were
  • Um, yeah, that's not just a huge exaggeration; it's downright dishonest. She didn't melt down, and the tweetstorm lasted less than 10 hours.
  • That said, there was a long sequence in which she was effectively satirizing her opponents by using their arguments in reverse, and a lot of people may have taken these comments as being intended literally – but in context, they are clearly intended to criticize the sort of reasoning being used against her by demonstrating how it cuts both ways.
  • AliceAvizandum does not seem to be making this mistake, however. I don't know how anyone could take what ZJ said and honestly think she was praising drones, unless AA simply didn't read anything beyond the "hopefully a lot" joke and assumed ZJ was defending it the whole time.
• 02:09 (@patienceinbee) months and months later, i can't un-see any of that
• 03:16 I was wrong. I'm sorry.
• 03:19 (@patienceinbee) could you expand a bit on this {\n\n} it hurt a *lot* of good people, Z
• 03:28 (ZJ) I treated it unseriously and it was way out of line and incredibly disrespectful. I understand that now. I don't support drone strikes.
• 03:32 (ZJ) There was no need for me to get into anything about antisemitism or communism. I could have just stepped away but I didn't.
• 03:36 (@patienceinbee) idk, working thru the anti-Semitism, rather than whether it was expressed or withheld, is probably a more constructive means of remediation
• 03:41 (ZJ) Okay. I wasn't intending to express any kind of antisemitism. I know now that I should have just listened.
• 03:46 (@patienceinbee) i think what came across as more crucial was an insistence on being right as logical premise & not on showing capacity for empathy/humility
• 03:50 (ZJ) You're right and that's something I neglected. I disregarded the emotional side of things and was very unempathetic. I shouldn't have.
• 04:04 (@patienceinbee) what i'm getting @: folks looked to you as a community organizer for work you've done. that twitterthon was a gesture of community sabotage...
• 04:05 (@patienceinbee) ...not to yourself, but to all affected by your doubling-down in notably anti-social conduct. contrition will weigh far less than atonement
• 04:10 (ZJ) I get that and I agree. It was needlessly and wantonly destructive. I am trying to make up for it.

Unless there's a lot more offensive stuff that ZJ said, this apology seems to me more than adequate; I'm not sure I'd have been so patient in her place. It feels to me like she was doing far more than her fair share of intellectual heavy-lifting as far as remaining calm and distilling valid arguments from the pretty low-content hostility that was leveled against her – a response which basically (though unintentionally) invites future concern trolling.

TLDR: You can say outrageous stupid shit to Zinnia and she'll fix it up for you, respond to it civilly, and apologize – every troll's dream-date. If anything, she tries too hard to find reason in the unreasonable, which just makes the accusations against her all the more ludicrous.