Bonus Battles/HIHIH

There are certain issues that reveal themselves when we fight heightism that have nothing to do with heightism, yet, they still end-up being obstacles in us discussing the issue in a productive manner. I refer to these issues as "Bonus Battles." In essence, a Bonus Battle is anytime we're trying to discuss heightism, and end-up facing opposition that is so far divorced from anything relating to heightism, that we're actually fighting a separate battle altogether. That's the essence of what a Bonus Battle is, but now, I'll give a more in-depth explanation.

I'll start with one of the most common Bonus Battles I find myself fighting during heightism discussions.

In the current social narrative, there are a lot of status-quo groups being challenged, some for the very first time. Confederate flags are coming down, LBGT issues are being addressed openly and with a lot of momentum, police brutality against minorities is being discussed, feminist discussion is around every corner, fat-shaming is being addressed, Hollywood portrayals are being examined(not for short people of course) and on-and-on.

DISCLAIMER: THE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD, IS NOT TO DISCUSS EITHER SUPPORT OR OPPOSITION TO ANY OF THOSE NON-HEIGHTISM ISSUES I JUST MENTIONED; I MENTIONED THOSE THINGS AS THE SETUP FOR THE DISCUSSION ON BONUS BATTLES, SO LET'S KEEP THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE BONUS BATTLES, AND NOT HIJACK THE DISCUSSION WITH ANY SIDE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT CONFEDERATE FLAGS, LBGT ISSUES, FEMINISM, ETC.

Anyway though, with all of the status-quo groups that are now being questioned, many people feel uncomfortable because they don't like the changing of the guard, and some are flat-out throwing tantrums, which is a sign that they aren't taking too kindly to the notion of their group losing its stronghold.

So, basically, there is this collective knee-jerk reaction where members of status-quo groups are digging their heels in so as to not allow any more social justice movements to occur. This presents another challenge for us because before we even open our mouths, people are on edge about seeing any more traditions(whether hateful or innocent) eradicated. They're clinging to their roots, no matter what kind of tree they are connected to. So, granted that even though we have all of the empirical evidence in the world, we still face across-the-board issues where people don't take heightism seriously on its own merits. In addition to that, we're also currently facing a front that is becoming more centralized where people shut us down on the mere notion that they're sick to their stomachs with all of the changes happening, and they use different slurs to categorize any and all social justice groups. One of the main slurs they use is "victim groups."

The question, is how do we circumvent this? Of course, in the realm of sounding like a broken record, due to what Joe M calls "The Silence of the Short," we don't currently have enough allies to plow through this particular Bonus Battle where any new social justice group is going to be shut down wholesale. Even though that's the case though, I'm still not willing to sit around and do nothing just because we are currently burdened with unwinnable Bonus Battles, on top of the actual battles that we need to be fighting.

In regard to us not becoming "just another victim group," I don't currently envision the "March on Washington," "Sit-in" template for anti-heightism, which is the blueprint that other movements established. We got left behind when those other movements got started, thus, we have the perpetual Bonus Battle to fight where society has sealed the portal that those groups opened, so I'm not really seeing those tactics as currently beneficial to us in regard to fighting Bonus Battles or garden variety battles relating to heightism, especially when people are using us as a target to hit with "The Buck Stops Here" mentality that is more closely tied to wholesale rejections of social justice than it is to rejecting heightism in earnest.

I think what I'm getting at here, is that I would like to start a dialogue on how we can reframe anti-heightism in a way where it does not come off like the other movements. I think this might lessen the burden by quelling some of the Bonus Battles. Maybe this reframing wouldn't have to be permanent, but until we get the numbers we need, we might as well experiment with numerous tactics. I think if we can present our arguments differently than the other groups, we may be able to disable some of the concerns that people who hit us with the Bonus Battles have . No, I'm not naive enough to think that they'll suddenly become our allies, but tackling heightism doesn't happen wholesale; We actually have to peel back one layer of the onion at a time, and I think the first layer is framing our narrative in a way where it doesn't look like "just another victim group movement." The aim, is not to win heightists over, it's to present our arguments in a way where the person who is lurking in the background listening to a heightism debate, who might be more sensible than the person we're debating, will be able to hear our arguments crystal clear without us triggering any of their indoctrinated defense mechanisms that activate anytime other forms of discrimination are mentioned. Basically, we don't want to muddy the water any further than it already is.

I definitely know that the internet will be an important part of any success we ever have because the internet is Ground Zero for heightism discussion. It's where heightism dialogue generated by short people started almost a few decades ago, and it remains almost exclusively online, other than the occasional academic paper and fly-by-night article or interview. It may be time for us refocus our online efforts though because having r/short as our headquarters has gone horribly awry, and is leaving us chasing our tails, although, I'm glad that there are at least a few people there who are concerned about heightism, and a number of them do pretty good work under some extremely hostile conditions. An issue with the online part of the movement, is those of us who do care enough about heightism to discuss it, don't work together. We're an extremely fragmented group for various reasons(AND LET'S NOT DISCUSS THOSE REASONS HERE) but we're acting like a loose gaggle of independent contractors instead of a cohesive unit, thus, we're fighting yet another Bonus Battle amongst ourselves. This is one of the things I hope to remedy with this forum. If we can get a nucleus of 7-10 hard-charging people who stay for the long haul, we will start to have some semblance of a collective voice.

In the realm of reframing the anti-heightism narrative so as to distinguish us as something different than other movements, one thing that I adopt is the
"Heightism Is Heightism Is Heightism"(HIHIH) Strategy. Basically, it helps us to avoid fighting Bonus Battles by not losing control of the narrative. The way we achieve this, is by not bringing in topics that lead to easy distractions. One way to use HIHIH, is not to directly compare us to other movements. I can assure you that this doesn't work. We don't make any progress by quoting MLK, we should sparingly use feminist terms such as "body shaming," and we should try not to bring up other movements any more than necessary because doing so is a one-way-street to having the conversation derailed. Yeah, it's ok to bring up the hypocrisy when people advocate for one movement, yet, are hardcore heightists, but I can't ever recall seeing a conversation sway in our favor when one of our allies was flinging gratuitous usage of terms, examples, or heroic figures from other movements. Remember, one of the main issues we face, is that people don't think heightism is a real form of discrimination like others, so when we compare heightism to what people believe are "real forms of discrimination," we end-up fighting yet another bonus battle where they deflect the conversation as to how ridiculous we are for comparing our discrimination to other issues. This will cause them to predictably launch into a dissertation about slavery, and...VOILA...we've lost the narrative, even though we weren't comparing historical significance or severity of slavery to heightism. As a matter of fact, I wrote a blog entry about this very issue so that I could link back to it because I run into this particular Bonus Battle on an endless loop.

heightismreport.tumblr.com/day/2013/11/05

Is it unfair that we get our narrative hijacked, even when we're just comparing the mechanics of heightism to sexism, racism, etc? It's absolutely unfair, but it's a reality we have to face, and I feel as though we have a better chance of controlling our narrative, if we only use these comparisons sparingly. On this forum though, we can of course make these comparisons because we all think about heightism objectively enough to understand why the comparisons are being made, but when we use these comparisons "out in the wild," almost 100% of the time, people will go to the well of using an all-too-common strawman argument stating that we think "being called shorty is just as bad as slavery," or something else ridiculous. I have had much better success in using the HIHIH Strategy than I ever did drawing comparisons to other forms of discrimination, so keep that in mind. People tend to go to the well of thinking we're trying to poach the spoils of war earned by other movements, even when we're merely making analogies about similarities in the nuts and bolts of two forms of discrimination, therefore, let's make sure to use such analogies only on an "as needed basis."

Realistically, I'm not saying that HIHIH is going to solve all of the ills that ail us, but what I am saying, is that if we stick to the facts of heightism, we will disarm many of their favorite strawman arguments. Let's be crystal clear though, even if we do disarm their strawmen about other forms of discrimination, they'll still win-out because they are the status-quo, which gives them an indefensible weapon where their logic does not have to make sense, but considering that fully, it still serves us better to keep the discussion about heightism, and heightism only, for as long as possible. We hold the truth, and when we take away some of their ability to throw up smokescreens that they most certainly will utilize when we compare ourselves to racism, sexism, etc., the truth will get more discussion time, which is about the best we can hope for in current society. Our focal point isn't winning heightists over, or even winning this war in the interim, our goal is to keep a lingering undercurrent of truth out there, without distractions, until other short people, and society as a whole, finally decide to grab onto the olive branch of enlightenment that we have been offering all of this time. At the time when we achieve those things, we will have the allies and the momentum to create a culture of shame around being heightist, and will then have the group agency to worry more deeply about changing minds. First things first though.

I know I condensed a few topics into one here, so let me know if any of it is confusing, needs clarification, or anything else. I'm looking forward to everyone's input.