[Torgo]

Someone should send her a link to Derailing for Dummies. Questioning his account of the events is dangerously close to blaming the victim, derailing the argument from the cause discussing anti-Semitism, and forms a pattern of discouragement against people who come forward as the victims of trolling. This is NOT ok.

[othermaciej]

And that is why the concept of "derailing" is BS. The position of the speaker as member of an oppressed class means that you must accept their claims on faith. To question them in any way is "NOT ok". Adopting this policy means that no rational person should believe anything that comes from a group with such ground rules.

[wonderzombie]

You've missed the point entirely.

If I told you I had a sandwich the other day, your skepticism meter wouldn't suddenly kick in. You wouldn't ask me how much I paid or intimate that I don't know what a sandwich is. If I told you a crazy guy yelled at me on the bus in the city, you wouldn't ask me whether maybe I misunderstood, or start going through my social network postings to confirm/deny that I took the bus to work the other day.

Yet suddenly you're skeptical when someone claims to have experienced discrimination or bigotry, you're full speed ahead on skepticism? Take nothing as given? Come on.

This might not apply to you personally, but that dynamic is why the term was invented. Esp. with white male nerds, they find their skepticism often, it seems, when minorities, et al, talk about experiences outside the typical white male's.