Is there a point here? I'm not sure.

One of the things I really struggle with on Tumblr these days is the hypersensitivity of the collective Tumblr community to being... well, politically correct is the best way I can think of to phrase it. I will frequently find myself composing a post and then have to go back and edit my language and add in disclaimers and trigger warnings, and I finally just delete the whole thing in frustration. It can be exhausting to have discussions on Tumblr, frankly. People seem so often to be more concerned about the way something is said rather than what is actually being said.

And I do totally get that language is important, and that the ways we use language have historically excluded and marginalized and erased various groups of people. I understand that, and I really, genuinely, try so hard. But after a while, it actually has the effect of making me not want to participate in the conversation. And maybe that's the desired effect, now that I think about it. Maybe the idea is to make people in privileged groups feel marginalized and erased.

( Cut for rambling )

But my point (and I do have one) is that I'm finding myself at a point where I'm choosing not to engage rather than to get in there anyway. Am I afraid of making mistakes and being criticized? Maybe. Am I just too lazy to make the effort? Possibly. I have this classic Southern white female please-everyone complex, and I hate the idea that something I say or do will make anyone else feel bad, so I often choose to say or do nothing instead of taking the chance. And that is ridiculous and cowardly, I know, but I feel stuck right now.

I don't even know what I'm hoping to get here. Commiseration, possibly, or reassurance that it's really okay to say stupid things occasionally and learn from your mistakes. Only, the culture of Tumblr is such that mistakes are amplified and mocked and passed around as an example of how not to do it, and that makes me less likely to want to make them in the first place. :-/