My biases, stated up front:

1. I want this site to survive
2. I want this site to be a place to organize against the corruption that's killing us
3. I want the people of this planet to rise against the corruption that's killing us before we die.

Now, my take on the issues of sexism, racism, homophobia and how it relates to people's freedom of speech on this site, with a side trek into how these issues are dividing up the infant Left:

First, as long as we're willing to buy into the opposition between economic injustice and other kinds of injustice--other kinds of injustice like

1) racial bigotry expressing itself some other way than poverty, labor discrimination, housing discrimination;
2) sexist bigotry expressing itself some other way than poverty, labor discrimination, etc--

As long as we accept the idea that those forms of injustice are somehow opposed to economic injustice, or not part of the same thing, we're going to have fights over which one trumps (heh) the others. We'll have a lot of people screaming at the economic activists that they're racist, and a lot of people screaming at the advocates against non-economic racism and sexism that they're contemptuous of working-class and poor white people.

In a similar way, as long as we're willing to buy into the opposition between the problem of political corruption and the problem of other kinds of injustice--sexism, racism, etc.--then we'll have fights over which one trumps the others.

And, no matter which side of this issue you are on--if our main fight is over what we say on this site, rather than fighting the people who are destroying our world, then we have a problem.

I realize you could say I'm buying into the opposition btw this fight over who can say what and the fight to stop the destruction of the world. But that's because the fight over what we can say here tends to consume the attention of the site and make people on here see each other as adversaries. And treat each other accordingly.

One of two things is going to happen: either one side is going to leave in irritation, or the two sides are going to choose to work together, at least on some things. Or, maybe, the whole site will go down in flames. I've seen similar things happen, both online and in Occupy.

My opinion is that, if I can stand with a bunch of "I love capitalism" Republican white guys in crew cuts against the NSA because I believe in the 4th amendment, I can stand with, say, a bunch of sexists if they want to join a fight for clean water against a gas company. That doesn't mean I endorse sexism. Sexism was the first form of oppression I ever encountered. If I don't talk about my abusive ex-stepfather on here, it's because I don't want to, not because I don't know what it's like to be a woman--in this case a girl child--oppressed by a man, and by the culture of male superiority which ensured that he got to hurt me for a long time.

I want us to survive. Both this site, and, more importantly, this planet. That's the bottom line for me.

I'll work with whoever I have to--as long as they are sincere about fighting the fight--so that we can survive.

That said, I think we could use a whole lot more kindness on this issue, and a lot more awareness of the fact that the people on this site are not our enemies.

In other words, if somebody is uncomfortable with something somebody else says, they should say "Hey, I'm uncomfortable with that." And if somebody said that to me, in most cases I'd say. "Oh. OK. I won't say that around you anymore." Now if somebody's "uncomfortable" because I say that I think 9-11 was an inside job, or that Hillary is taking blood money from Saudi Arabia, that's different. But if it's a simple word choice, I'd probably decide in favor of peace and quiet aboard this space station, to quote Jeffrey Sinclair. Like joe said in the first diary that started all this, how about avoiding certain words, not because you don't have the freedom to say them, but because you have the concern for the effect on the community if you do say them? How about avoiding certain words because they make your allies feel like they are scum on the bottom of your shoe?

http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Jeffrey_Sinclair

On the other side, if I were the one who was uncomfortable, I'd probably understand that I wasn't going to get everybody on the site who was using those words to do what I want. If it were only a few people who were unwilling to accomodate me, I'd probably just not go into those few people's diaries. If it's an endemic problem, then I'd have to decide whether it upset me enough to make me leave.

Bottom line: either one side will go off irritated, or both sides will decide to work together and make some accomodations. Or the whole site could crash and burn.

I know what I'd prefer.

UPDATE/EDIT:

This video pretty much expresses how I've felt in my quest, over the last fifteen years, to get America off of this horrible track we're on. I think it also expresses why I want this place to continue to exist.

The beginning of the video is *exactly* what it was like being an activist in DC. With the exception of one dear friend who worked on the Hill.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qVPNONdF58]