That is the most disingenuous bullshit I’ve ever heard out of anyone’s mouth. Anyone, literally anyone could tell you that if a tough, trusted, older macho guy tells a younger, smaller guy that he’s a wimp if he doesn’t do X, he’s MORE likely to do it, not less.

The smidgen of sympathy I felt for Darby before was totally gone once I heard him trip over himself to justify this bullying.

I totally agree that the more important issue isn’t the fact that Darby was a rat– it’s the toleration of this kind of behavior by people in the movement. And the blame here falls mostly on men: women and transgendered activists call this stuff out all the time. I’d be curious to hear Mr. Malik Rahim’s thoughts on this topic. I don’t mean to make Rahim into the villain– he’s a real hero to the movement on so many levels and I have tons of respect for his life and work– but I do think it would be worthwhile for him and others to take to heart the critique you’ve laid out, so that in the future this kind of bully, even a brave, charismatic, highly skilled one, can’t rise to that level of unaccountable leadership and power– whether he’s an informant or not.

@ Jess, part of why i wrote this in the first place was that i had a feeling his sexism, etc wasn’t going to be addressed. which then leads to a mistaken assumption that folks are pissed at Darby just b/c of his working with the fbi, when, for a lot of us, that was just one more thing to add to the list of problems we had with him.

Wow- interesting to read this. I heard most of the interview (missed the beginning) but had never heard of Darby beforehand. He sounded like a difficult person to work with in general, but I didn’t hear specifics (e.g. anything about sexism) in the interview. Thanks for writing this.

I think you are right on target with this.