GamerGhazi has some good points about GamerGaters, here’s why

(Notice: I hereby have repudiated every claim in this article with this one:

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I decided to enter GamerGhazi on Reddit and get their perspective after initially complimenting Randi Harper on standing up for the dignity of Mercedes Carerra, and while it’s obvious there is a massive disparity of opinion between them and us GamerGaters, they pointed some things that make us look like assholes I really can’t argue with.

  • The racist, sexist meme shit (like the ‘Happy Merchant” Sarkeesian photoshop) is uncalled for: Okay, fine, if you have a certain sense of humor, calling Arthur Chu “Bombchu”, Randi Harper “Randwhale”, mocking Leigh Alexander as a drunk, and so on is “funny”, but in Ghazi’s defense, it makes us look like racist, sexist scum who resort to petty insults and immature namecalling. Me, I went in there with every intention of being respectful, and despite some understandable hostility, I was treated far nicer than I expected because I bent every effort to be respectful and not be a jackass. Besides, whether you’re on Reddit, Twitter, a Disqus comment thread, and so on, there are enough douchebags and pricks on the internet, let’s try not to make it worse, shall we?
  • We think they lionize some corrupt journalists. They feel the same way about us, and after discussing it with them, I can see they have a point I really can’t argue with: Breitbart and other publications that say nice things about GamerGaters ARE NOT PERFECT. For one, Breitbart has written some scummy garbage themselves, let’s not forget that one article where they named and shamed a regular twitter user with barely twenty followers and threw journalistic crap at her. That was pretty deplorable. Okay, so they still say nice things about us, I like that, but let not let that blind us to the fact they are human, they screw up, and just because they say nice things about us doesn’t mean they are above being called out for being pricks when they write tabloid scandal rag BS.
  • Ghazi has a bit of knee jerk reaction to us Gators, and after hearing them out, I can see why: They are used to us arrogantly presuming we’re right, not allowing a scintilla of doubt or admit we could possibly be wrong, at least how they see it. In their defense, after seeing some of the Twitter battles between them and us, some of us don’t come off much better than they do, so even if you think you’re right, showing humility and admitting you might be wrong is, if nothing else, showing grace and humanity. And besides, we genuinely MIGHT BE WRONG, let’s not forget that.
  • We both have our sacred cows and sacrosanct beliefs, fine, but in my discussions with them, even they had the decency to admit even they aren’t a monolithic entity that all think and act the same way. Yes, guys, it’s true, I got a variety of different responses, and no, not all of them were rejecting everything I had to say out of hand, though they were were pretty blunt about where they thought I was dead wrong, which is fair enough, we tend to be the same way on some subjects ourselves, but at the end of the day, neither of us are a hive mind, and if they were willing to debate me sternly yet with more civility than I expected, I think it’s only fair we return the favor.
  • Most of all, we need to remember, despite our ideological differences, members of r/GamerGhazi and those that oppose GamerGate in general are HUMAN BEINGS. They get upset, they have doubts, they bleed and feel pain like we do, and they are just as mortal as ourselves. Us Gators can be rather insensitive to that at times, especially from some of the crap I’ve seen on Twitter, and if we want them to, at the very least, not think so ill of us, compassion and basic human decency never hurt. From what I’ve gathered, they don’t expect that as much from us, let’s try to defy their expectations and respect them as human beings even if they disagree with our beliefs. If the religious and atheists can see past their differences and show each other basic decency, let’s give our opposition a little more respect than they usually expect every now and then.