William Gibson vs Margaret Thatcher
– Cory Doctorow

#PurityTests

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/17/technopolitics/

Y'all have definitely inspired me to add to this essay. I have a lot of things to add, including what the proscription may be for TCK's like myself who have made their own culture and for those whose cultural information has been lost to history.

There's a lot of pain here that we're tapping into that I think is really showing me how hard this hits with a lot of you.

We, people who benefit from white privilege, need to make a better world for POC now. We, POC, are owed that. (See what I did there? ;) ) I could definitely name, like, five populations that should come ahead of any of mine, but we do that with you, not against you, not over you, and can't really even without you.

So we make it work. Somehow. Fuck purity tests. This is about humanity. And we fucking suck sometimes. Acting like we're all beautiful is clearly fucking us up. Learning to live with the discomfort of a shitty history is part of growing up, and everyone has to do that some time.

I assure you, every POC has contended with what it's like to have a shitty past. Some of us contend with a shitty present. We know it's possible to do. I believe in you, and if I can help, fuck yes, please. 💙

There are other bigotries, I know. We'll fight them all. We have the energy, the motivation, and the fucking done-with-this-shittedness to make it happen.

We're not gonna get 'em all, but the point can't be to get rid of evil. In a universe where you have to eat to live and babies can die of nothing at all? Nah. That's impossible. The point is to corral it like an angry moose and point it towards the dark metal box that it just keeps getting out of every so often. And to minimize that frequency as much as humanly possible.

#AntiRacism #SocialJustice #PurityTests #Humanity #TCK #CoalitionBuilding #MakeItWork