Small Stands Tall
being part of collective action is cool
“I, Robin Taylor, hereby sign this open letter in solidarity with other small publications seeking to build community and embody our shared values. We are all publishing this letter on our individual Substacks for visibility. Thank you for reading.”
Small Stands Tall
Dear Substack Community -
When you came to Substack to write or create or read, you probably thought this would be a cool place to grow and explore. And it is. But Substack leadership has put a lot of mechanisms in place to promote and platform voices that are large, hateful, and intent on harming others through disinformation.
We—the collective, small voices of creators and community members on Substack—believe that this is wrong, it is hurtful, and it has the potential to stifle growth for many of us. Worse, it further marginalizes many of us who are actively targeted by the increasing wave of local and global laws, policies, and social stigmas being promoted around us.
Small voices have big power when we stand together in solidarity, and most of the publications on Substack are small, just like us. This means we get to decide how and where we spend our time, money, and attention.
Signers of this letter believe in the following:
We help our neighbors by calling out hate-speech, racism, misogyny, intolerance, bigotry, xenomisia, homomisia, transmisia, ableism, genocide, and violence when and where we see it by reporting and blocking such content and sharing the collective knowledge about harmful accounts.
We endeavor to build community by caring for one another. Caring means showing up for one another even (especially) when it is hard or scary to do.
We reject the intentional platforming of voices that spread hatred and disinformation.
We stand proudly for kindness and inclusivity, and we invite you to stand with us. Small voices can achieve huge change when we unite.
Signed,
Small Voices against Big Hatred
Hey, friends. It’s been a difficult few weeks and months as we end one tumultuous year and begin another. Maybe you’re feeling it, too—the fear, the anxiety, the need to hide. Maybe you’re feeling devastation. Maybe you’re feeling hope. A lot of us in this community have struggled to involve ourselves in anything but the most mundane tasks. I don’t feel unusual or exceptional at all in the midst of this. I feel like a scared kid in need of support and community.
But I’m not a kid anymore, and if communities need to be built and supported, them some of that work needs to come from me. This week I took a bold step with my other publication, SmallStack, and I wrote and published the letter above. That letter was tweaked and refined and fussed over by many of my friends on the SmallStack Team, for which I am more grateful than words can express. I humbly thank them here, individually, for being some of the most marvelous people I’ve ever had the luck to spend time with.
, , , , , and , thank you for being my friends.Plenty of other wonderful people have also stepped up to join in this collective effort to be kind and open to others around us. I hope some of you reading this message from me today will consider joining us in solidarity. You can read more about this open letter on SmallStack.
Your trans friend,
Robin
Shared on Armchair Rebel 💪🏻 💞
Hugs to all!!!