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Transcript

Live with Kristin Wolf · Come Unity Village Transmissions

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: ...The other day in response to the viral Facebook post that I had the other day.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Bring me to the table.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I write about constitutional drift,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: rape culture, sexism, and the schism tearing this country apart.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The one nobody wants to name out loud.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what I get back for it is an argument.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's bots.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Coordinated accounts...
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Strangers who have never read one full sentence of what I actually wrote,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: deciding they know my character well enough to attack it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: That should scare you more than anything I've ever posted.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because when somebody can't win on the merits, they don't stop talking.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just move the target.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: They stop arguing with the idea and start attacking the person who said it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody screenshots one line Strips it out of everything around it,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: turns it into a meme, and that becomes the whole conversation.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not debate.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I watched it happen to my own writing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The constitutional piece,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: the piece about who protects abusers and who protects survivors,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: and instead of one person saying, Here's where I think you're wrong and here's why.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I get a bot account and a pile on.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: The people who actually know me,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: the ones on this page, in this group, in my LinkedIn, they know I'm not perfect.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've never once claimed to be.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: They know I'm passionate.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm loud.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I say the raw version before I've smoothed around the edges.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: They know I won't stay quiet when something in front of me is wrong.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they know my heart.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a bot has never sat across a table from me and felt that because it can't.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I could not care less if I ever sell a copy of anything I've written.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was never the point of any of this.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I raised my voice and I put it out there and now it's permanent.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the whole goal.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not revenue, not going viral, witnessing.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what actually gets me.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: When people argue with a meme instead of a real sentence, they don't look strong.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: They look like they've got nothing.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I watch people I otherwise respect do this.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because they're stupid.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's because actually sitting with what I'm saying about power,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: about who gets protected, who gets sacrificed would cost them something.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the meme becomes that exit.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Attack the woman, skip the words.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm asking.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Straight.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Straight.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: No hedge on it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you disagree with something I wrote, read it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: All of it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Start to finish.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not the piece somebody weaponized out of context.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then come find me.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Bring me to the table.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me where I'm wrong and why.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show up for you every single time.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have never once run from an argument in my life.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm asking.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, sorry.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: What I won't do is pretend the meme is a rebuttal.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I won't let a bot account stand in for an actual human being with an actual position.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to let people Assassinate my character as a substitute for
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: the conversation this country actually needs right now.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're living through a moment that requires real thinking,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: real reading, real willingness to stay in the room with somebody who challenges you.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Instead,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of us are handing that job to bots and algorithms and whoever can throw
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: the loudest meme the fastest.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And every time we do that,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: we lose a little more of the muscle that actually holds a democracy together.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to disagree with a human being without trying to destroy them.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going anywhere.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not getting quieter.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The bots can keep doing what they're programmed to do.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be at the table.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Come find me there.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hi sis.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.