Katherine Cross Profile picture
Sociologist, Info Sci Scholar, Techie TransLatina; words in @Gamasutra | @Verge. Scholar @UW_iSchool; researching Ethics in Tech and Online Harassment.
Sep 10, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read
Breaking your expensive electronics to own the kids?
bbc.com/news/entertain… This is what @CaseyExplosion usefully calls "privilege flexing"--doing something destructive and foolish because you can, and because you want to *show* that you can. But this is also a form of parental abuse, quite frankly.
Sep 10, 2018 10 tweets 2 min read
It feels perverse to invest a normatively sexed body with this much importance, particularly for a feminist, but here we are.

To her point, bigots always assume a marginalised group's rights conflict with theirs. To this day, gay people are accused of wanting "special rights." It's a debate that rages still with every discussion of the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling. Yes, homophobic het people perceive gay rights as an imposition on their rights, religious or otherwise. They also use the same threat-rhetoric.
Aug 28, 2018 7 tweets 2 min read
And here's the formal response I promised. As ever, I do like to be precise. As someone once said, "You don't support free speech if you think it should have limitations. You don't support free speech if you do not defend your enemy's right to use it." And that someone was...*checks notes* Huh, Blaire White. Go figure.
Aug 28, 2018 4 tweets 2 min read
Just so you all know, this is the sort of thing I've been inundated with since yesterday morning. Tweet 1 is mildly criticising me, tweet 2 is the same guy attacking another trans woman. These are White's fans. Of course, the "joke" being defended is the "Aryan" thing. Such japes! There are so many similar japes as well, like this uproarious post about gassing refugees, or coyly tweeting at Richard Spencer.
pbs.twimg.com/media/C5ZprHgV… archive.is/XsAdW
Aug 10, 2018 10 tweets 2 min read
I love all these folks decrying Ocasio-Cortez for being "nasty" to Ben Shapiro--a man who's danced on the grave of murdered children. Just as we saw with Sarah Jeong, it's one set of rules for them, another for women they hate. Shapiro can hurl witless abuse at Palestinians, or make hay attacking trans people with cliches, but AOC's the witch for not giving him the time of day.
Aug 9, 2018 10 tweets 2 min read
May as well hit the ground running: here's some nonsense I saw bubble up earlier. In this white woman's words I see so much of the sneering that has been directed at me and other Latinas who didn't go to the "right" schools/social groups. We're lazy and talking above ourselves. To say AOC did not "do the work" is staggeringly infuriating. She joins many first-time candidates whose previous political experience was confined to volunteer work. Her legwork (of a literal sort) won her longshot primary; that much should be beyond dispute.
Aug 4, 2018 13 tweets 3 min read
One has to be struck by the bad faith and hypocrisy radiating from all the people boldly declaring Sarah Jeong a racist and a sexist. Most of whom are, themselves, apologists for Trump's endless bigotry and vulgarity and who otherwise equivocate in every discussion of prejudice. That was made clear when I saw a bunch of replies to @HeerJeet's tweet criticising NY Mag for publishing Steve Bannon try to argue that *Bannon* isn't a racist, but Jeong somehow magically is. Despite the man being a literal anti-Semite and white supremacist.
Aug 3, 2018 8 tweets 2 min read
When white conservatives see racism against POC: "You think that's racism? Who can really say? Prove it by citing 88 peer-reviewed studies from Ivy League scholars I'd approve of."

When white conservatives see jokes about white people: "THAT'S SO RACISM OMG WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!11" Recent events remind us that our discourse about "offence," and the widespread delusion that racism is merely found in rudeness, have consequences. "Being offended" is not the primary consequence of actual bigotry. Rude words or meanness are not the heart of real prejudice.
Jul 29, 2018 13 tweets 3 min read
So, this has been a back and forth debate for a good couple of years now. As someone who's made the argument that the left and the Democrats shouldn't try to compete for Trump's base, I feel I should clarify where I stand on this issue and why. 1) I am not suggesting these people are lost forever, only that they seem beyond reach while Trump remains popular in their narrow circles. Despite recent events and Trump's manifest failings, they continue to support him. It suggests persuasion is better directed elsewhere.
Jul 28, 2018 20 tweets 4 min read
"Socially constructed" does not mean "fake."

A thread. It's rather popular to suggest that a social construct is something without consequential referents; something that, by definition, can be changed on a whim like a child playing pretend.
Jul 26, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
"Divisive egotist," where have we heard that before? In a world where women, especially WOC, are told to be modest and deferential "egotist" is a highly charged insult. Beyond that, though, despite the hooplah made about Kansas race she's supported plenty of women in their bids for office.
Jul 26, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read
The conservative attacks on Ocasio-Cortez are expected--and even comical in how easily they're turned into campaign ads for her. What's less amusing is the liberal condescension towards her, abetted by a thinly-disguised sexism. I've even seen it come from people I otherwise respect: Ocasio-Cortez being held to a pernicious double standard. I never thought I'd see some of these people subject a woman of colour to the "work twice as hard to be seen as half as good" metric.
Jul 26, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
In Seattle's Capitol Hill, a loved one and her partner were treated grotesquely by staff at a restaurant/tavern because they were an interracial couple. "Liberal enclaves" simply offer a more passive-aggressive flavour of racism. This kind of obnoxious back-slapping always comes from white people who've never experienced the complex reality of POC in a "liberal city," who either have no non-white friends or whose POC friends don't trust them enough to discuss this stuff with.
Jul 25, 2018 8 tweets 2 min read
Well, this Slate contrarianism didn't take very long, did it? Clearly Yascha Mounk watched Trevor Noah's segment, but it seems he didn't really absorb what he was saying.
slate.com/news-and-polit… The issue, which Noah highlighted in Özil's resignation from the German national team, is that a person of colour is accepted only conditionally as French or German when they win; if they lose or err, they're African, Turkish, a "migrant," etc, framed as an exiling insult.
Jul 24, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read
This is why I push back vehemently against those who, with irritating vigour, suggest that the cause of our current woes are nebulously defined "stupid people." It generates horrifying proposals like this It is a comforting liberal fantasy to suggest that the sole obstacle to democratic utopia is the stupidity of the average voter. The problem is devilishly more complex than that. The educated, the rich, and the petit bourgeoisie have all given us fascism, after all.
Jul 21, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
Hi Times Higher Ed. Sociologist and woman-who-can-read here. That would not be a standard definition for the Millennial age range. While not always clear cut, this definition is closer to the emerging consensus: pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018… The year 2000 is the latest date used by respectable groups and agencies, which would make some current university students Millennials, but it's an increasingly minoritarian viewpoint.
Jul 19, 2018 5 tweets 1 min read
It's hard enough getting leftists to take the Russia stuff seriously without this kind of garbage. Russia is not the goddamn Soviet Union. It is a right wing, fascist regime. That is what makes its influence operations so dangerous. There are some on the far left who want to pretend Putin's Russia is as much of a nexus for a Marxist International as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. Then there are the idiot liberals who still use Soviet iconography and terms to refer to Russia.
Jul 18, 2018 5 tweets 1 min read
Zuckerberg's latest round of BS is a bog-standard "defend to the death" sentiment on free speech. It only stands out because he took the extra step of openly stating its normally *implicit* assumption of good faith. The apocryphal-Voltaire "I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it" notion has always relied on a fundamental assumption that even the most noxious speaker means no harm. You have to believe that in order for this position to be ethical.
Jul 18, 2018 8 tweets 2 min read
Journalism is dead because a guy wrote a Quora post dunking on tweets he didn't like. Stop the presses. Musk stans are so dense that light bends around them. The Quora piece, on top of everything else, tries to justify Musk's "pedo" slur by invoking the same racial stereotypes that motivated Musk. That's not exculpatory, it's sharing his (ridiculous) opinion.
Jul 18, 2018 14 tweets 4 min read
Hm, I have some spare time. What should I do to amuse myself? Oh, I know, look at the WoW forums! There is no salt mine on Earth richer than WoW General when the realms are down.
Jul 17, 2018 5 tweets 1 min read
In the midst of this SheRa-ge (ho ho I slay me) there's something I've been thinking about: the characterisation of the new She-Ra as "boyish" or masculine. Now, there's nothing wrong with tomboys, of course, but the new She-Ra seems to be quite...femme? I'm quite feminine and I could see myself rocking She-Ra's look happily; it wouldn't feel like "butching up" to me. But it's telling that these angry middle aged men find it to be both masculine and unattractive.