Geeks Got Your Back (Backup Ribbon Project)

Dear Lord ‘n Butter, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I mean, between Australia being on fire and virus-stealing monkeys, it’s just been one thing after another, hasn’t it? So we thought we should pop in to give you a quick update.

We are somewhat in a holding pattern right now, as there are no in-person con events currently happening. Plus, we have no idea of exactly what the con scene will look like by the time this current…[insert Kermit flailing]…is over. So we will still be doing our thing, but at a low level, as we try to figure out where to go from here.

Buttons will still be available, of course! In the meantime, geek on with your badass selves, and let’s try to make the second half of the year a little less…Kermit flail-y.

We all want to be good friends and allies, and have each other’s back, especially now, when it seems as though politics, media, and even popular culture are working to divide us. With this in mind, this is the first part in an ongoing series of ways in which we can all work toward fighting against the urge to make being an ally about us, but instead about the community as a whole. In that spirit, we always appreciate feedback on how we can be better at supporting both marginalized groups within the geek community, as well as the geek community as a whole. Hope you enjoy!

It can feel exciting when you come across spaces where people are sharing their similar lived experiences, and you want to show that you understand their struggles and help make their journey an easier one. Your instinct may be to share your own experience to show your solidarity. This can be a good tactic if you have similar experiences or if you have the same level of privilege as those in the group you  are with. 

However, there are also times when the best way to show that you have other people’s back is by sitting quietly and listening to those with less privilege, who have a shared experience that is not yours. You can do this by acknowledging that their experience is real, and that it has caused them difficulty or pain, even if your lived experience is not the same thing.

You can then share your new understanding of other groups’ shared experiences by going out in the world and reminding your fellow travelers of their own privilege when they mock or express disbelief of the shared experiences of less-privileged people. The best way to have people’s back in this instance is not to convince those with less privilege that you “get” them, but to make others with your same privilege see those with less.

Waving your #MeToo hashtag at less-privileged people with a shared experience is like rolling up to a #BLM meeting and shouting “OK, SO THIS ONE TIME AT BANDCAMP…!!!” Don’t be surprised if you get firmly corrected for that.

TL;DR — Tread more lightly in others’ spaces. Stop, breathe and listen. Accept other people’s boundaries. Most importantly, apologize, pick up after yourself, and do better if you make a mistake. This is how you have each other’s back the best way possible. 

Geeks Got Your Back has made the decision to pull down our mirror site on Tumblr, in response to its decision to take down adult content, including that which supports the LGBTQ+ community (and teens in particular) and provides a safe means for sex workers to conduct business. Sadly, this decision means one less large, social-media platform for providing honest information to teens who may be questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. It will also push sex workers back to more dangerous ways to earn money.

As an organization founded on the idea of helping protect people who are in need, we feel that Tumblr’s decision to remove this type of content takes aim at people who are already marginalized and in need of backup.

We appreciate your support in this.

Yes, it’s still those of us here at the headquarters of the organization formerly known as Backup Ribbon Project. As you can see by the rather large new banner header, we are finally getting around to that rebranding as Geeks Got Your Back. If you typed in the old URL — backupribbonproject.com — you *should* (please, please, Great Internet Ghods) be redirected here to the new URL.

Needless to say, this means that there will likely be some hiccups, burps, and maybe some odd burnt-metal smells while we muddle our way through this. It’s our first time attempting something of this magnitude, so be gentle with us…

We are currently OUT OF RIBBONS and are in the process of sourcing the price for a new setup with the new URL. And because, of course these things all happen at the same time, we also will be setting up our fundraising site again with a new host. However, you can still donate directly by clicking on the Paypal button on the right sidebar.

As ever, we are grateful for your patience as we stagger forward into the next phase of this Rube Goldberg machine now known as Geeks Got Your Back!

(ED: The recent spate of sexual assault and harassment stories coming out of Hollywood speak directly to a long-running dilemma within the geek community of appreciating art created by people who are problematic. How should we respond to our love of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Firefly in the wake of what we now know about Harvey Weinstein and Joss Whedon? Guest blogger Bill Ernoehazy suggests a possible answer.)

How do they get away with it?

It is true that Harvey Weinstein is now hip deep in trouble. NOW. But for decades, he preyed on people with impunity. Assaults on people in public, simply looked away from and ignored. Sexual assault accusations, covered up by local DAs and senior law enforcement officials.

How do they get away with it?

It’s easy to say “powerful people do”. It puts the problem comfortably over THERE, makes it something we can deplore in others.

In others.

That’s comfortable. That’s also a half-truth, at best.

Consider, for a moment, Joss Whedon.

How many of you, reading this, were uncomfortable at that very sentence? How many of you have a friend who, when they heard the stories surface, said “that couldn’t be Joss”? Or accused the people coming forward of lying in order to get at Joss? Maybe, just maybe, some of you reading this actually thought that yourself. Said it. Wrote it.

How many people around Joss heard something… or knew something… and couldn’t bring themselves to believe it, because of their belief in him?

It’s easy to blame Weinstein’s defenders, because he had money, and power. It’s easy to consider them venal and corrupt and bought off. But Weinstein supported many causes near and dear to people’s’ hearts, was considered a powerful ally because he publicly supported causes that mattered. Just as Whedon did.

It’s easy to look away when you want to.

No; it’s easy to look away when WE want to.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the thing we should take away from the last month, from the revelations of Whedon’s ex-wife, to Weinstein’s fall, to even from Woody Allen trying to fly cover for abusers by crying “witch hunt” — too soon, Woody, really too soon.

Maybe, just maybe, we need to stop, when we hear something awful about someone we approve of. Someone we respect; admire; venerate…

Stop. Listen to the person coming forward. Don’t dismiss them because your hero might have done something wrong. Don’t tear that person down just to save your hero.

Stop. LISTEN.

Bill Ernoehazy is an emergency medicine physician in Jacksonville Florida and environs. He was the editor of an anthology of transhumanist science fiction short stories, Against A Diamond Sky. Other fannish pursuits include speaking at SF conventions on medicine in and of space (he was once a NASA/Univ of Florida Physician Affiliate), martial arts as they’re portrayed in genre fiction (he is a researcher in medieval German combat styles), and punditry on futuristic developments. Following Steven Brust, he hopes to get some sleep Any Day Now.

OK, so maybe not the lawyers or the guns, unless the lawyer happens to be this guy:

But money? As the Beatles say, that’s what we want. Due to an attack of Professional Real Life (which also requires money, as such things oft go when one is self-employed), funds for Backup Ribbon Project have gotten severely depleted, to the point where there hasn’t even been any available for postage to mail out ribbons or buttons. 

But we here at Backup Ribbon Project are a resourceful sneaky bunch and remembered “Hey, wait a minute! Don’t we have some sort of fundraiser somesuch doohicky thingamobobby or another going on?” (yes, those are technical SEO terms, so y’all in the peanut gallery can just shut yer pieholes)

A frantic (and somewhat horrifying) search back through our browser history ensued. Followed shortly thereafter by deleting that website about miniature goats wearing Cuban-heeled boots that we have NO IDEA  how it ended up in our browser history… 

Ahem…where were we? Oh, right, low on money. Postage. Fundraiser. This is not the web browser you are looking for. Move along, now. 

After going through our browser history full of wholesome, family-friendly 60’s folk songs, we finally found the link to that fundraiser. And so, without further ado, or discussion about our completely G-rated browser history, here’s the link to our fundraiser:

If you click on the g, a new tab will open that should take you straight to our Generosity fundraiser page. Hopefully. Please let us know if it instead takes you to a page about…wholesome 60’s folk music. Just remember, the g stands for Generosity, which is what we appreciate in all of you. 

In case you are wondering what you get for your donation (aside from our thanks), all money goes directly to paying for Backup ribbons; Geeks Got Your Back buttons, stickers, and cards; envelopes; and postage. It does not go for any sort of footwear, specifically boots. Nope, not for boots. Or small farm animals. At all. 

So to thank you for helping us out, I’d like to share one of my favorite pictures that I got from one of my searches through my browser history…of wholesome 60’s folk music. Thank you and please enjoy!

(no goats or wholesome 60’s folk singers were harmed in the making of this post)

Yeah, yeah, y’all knew this was coming…that whole safety pin thing. Really, it was inevitable. But it isn’t because I’ve been slacking (despite what I tell myself). It’s because I’ve had to sit down with  myself and have a really long hard think about not just how I feel about the safety pin issue, but how best to frame it around Backup Ribbon Project. I know there’s a great deal of controversy over what precisely the pin is meant to symbolize, and what should (or shouldn’t) be expected of anybody wearing (or not) wearing it. All I can say is that these are *my* thoughts and how I view it.

First, a bit of history: The safety pin concept actually first came about in response to the Brexit vote, in which the UK voted on whether or not to remain as part of the European Union. Ultimately, it voted to leave, albeit amidst a great deal of controversy and (sad to say) a rather sharp spike in hate crimes targeted against immigrants in the UK. I am half-British, born in London, and went back every summer while I was growing up. I first pinned a safety pin to my backpack as a show of solidarity to my British heritage and those who had wanted to remain within the EU.

Of course, it was quickly adopted here in the US immediately after our contentious presidential election, in response to our own sharp rise in violent hate crime. But this is where my attitude toward the meaning behind the pin had to take an immediate change. As a simple show of solidarity toward my British heritage, not much was required of me in order to have that pin be visible. In fact, most Americans likely would not know what it meant. But that’s all changed now.

I still have the pin on my backpack, but I am acutely aware that my attitude toward its meaning has dramatically shifted. Ultimately, it lives in the same space for me as the Backup Ribbons, but in a larger universe than just the geek community. It’s an active decision on my part to step in to back up anybody who is being either threatened with violence or actually being assaulted. And yeah, that’s a scary thing for me to contemplate. It’s one thing to say this for a geek event, but another entirely for me to say it for *any time I am out in public.* That’s an order of magnitude larger in my mind.

But at the end of the day, I find that I can’t NOT do it. I was raised to believe that actions mean more than intentions every single time.  We can say that we are willing to help, but until we actually put action behind that intention, we have not truly made a difference.

So I guess that’s what I would ask people to consider. Are you willing to actively do something to help? Obviously, it doesn’t have to be direct confrontation, but making an proactive step to reach out to those in need, rather than waiting for them to find you can make such a difference. Your actions toward somebody mean so much more than your intentions.

Solidarity is great. It felt good for me to do that in response to Brexit. Now that these same terrible things are happening right here in my very city? Solidarity is not enough. The safety pin is a great symbol to show that you will not stand for hate crime, but that symbol must also have action to back it up (see what I did there).

And yes, Geeks Got Your Back pins are in the works!

I have been spending the better part of this past week attempting to understand exactly what I need in order to satisfy the IRS requirements to file Backup Ribbon Project as a nonprofit. As I even type out that sentence, I remain stunned that what began just over eight years ago now has me trying to decide what National Taxonomy of Exempt Entity Code best describes this crazy endeavor.

All of it began with four words: “Hey, are you OK?” In that moment, my life changed, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. All I cared about was helping somebody in danger. Not being the person who walked by as if nothing was wrong.

And here I sit, eight years and many words later, staring at forms that make no sense whatsoever to me (and hey, if you know about this whole NTEE code thing, drop me an e-mail). Part of me thinks that this whole registering as a nonprofit rigamarole was absolutely not what I signed up for when I started this. I just wanted to give back to the geek community. I wanted to just do a small grassroots thing. It was never going to really go much of anywhere, right?

Except those grassroots caught fire, and now I no longer feel like I am the one person who refused to walk by as if nothing is wrong. I no longer have to start any conversation from “No, really, this happens in the geek community, and it’s a problem.”

I no longer am the only one willing to say those four words.

Maybe that’s why I am scratching my head at these IRS forms. Because enough of you have said those words that the time has come for me to level up. I’ve often joked that I was an army of one. I guess now the joke is truly on me, since I wouldn’t be at this point without every single one of you who took ribbons, wore them, passed them out, and talked about them. Believe me when I say that I am laughing in amazement and gratitude at this particular joke.

Eight years ago, it all started with four words.  I am looking forward to the next eight years!

PS: Just a quick reminder about our fundraiser! Part of our funding goal will be put toward the IRS application fee.