April 2, 2012
Not To Make Too Fine A Point Of It

But the quote I reblogged this morning, the one that 33,000 other people apparently found totally awesome, is pretty disturbing. For reference:

“We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, “That’s disgusting.” We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him.The lightbulb went off. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.” The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.“But,” I continued. “As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.”The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked. “So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.”—

Homophobia: The fear that another man will treat you like you treat women.

Now, I’m not here to debate whether or not every woman should go out of the house in fear that all men are potential rapists, or that it’s simply luck of the draw that you manage to return home without getting sexually assaulted. I don’t think that way, I don’t imagine men think that way about getting physically assaulted by strangers (despite being at a much higher risk for physical violence, especially from strangers). If a woman wants to live her life feeling such a way, that is her choice. I’m not here to tell her she’s not allowed to feel that way.

But the idea that such fear would be used to justify a young man’s homophobia is nothing short of disgusting. The idea that gay men can’t control themselves and would be liable to jump all over any man — gay or straight — in a two-mile radius is a disgusting, bigoted one that has led to a lot of the institutionalized homophobia we’re just now dismantling. The idea that gay men shouldn’t serve in the military, be around young children, be involved with all-male activities, or be in prolonged, close proximity to other men, all stems from this faulty, insulting premise.

The idea that all gay men should be treated as potential predators is something that we are working actively to fight against, because its hateful and unrealistic foundations are the very essence of their treatment as dangerous and unfit for normal male socialization. The mere suggestion that a man flirting with another man in a taxi cab is somehow akin to dangerous, predatory, or even unlawful activity is incredibly offensive. If we lived in a world where to show even a trace of sexual or romantic interest in another person was somehow a reproachable or even criminal act, could you imagine the consequences? How could we fall in love, marry, reproduce? How would we break the barrier with someone we are interested in? We all start off as strangers, and to make someone’s innocent flirtation or starting of a conversation into a justification for homophobia is absolutely repugnant.

A man — gay or straight — respectfully hitting on another person is not a cause for bigotry, it’s not a cause to treat all men as potential predators, and it’s not a cause to reinforce hatred. This quote has successfully justified a young man in his homophobia, reinforced the idea that all men should be treated as potential predators until proven otherwise, and demonized the act of flirting with another person as something that should be feared and, ultimately, reviled.

This is one of the more offensive things I’ve seen crop up on my dash of late, and the fact that it is done under the name of any kind of “justice” — social or otherwise — is nothing short of repugnant. This is what homophobia looks like, and this is the kind of thinking that keeps it alive.

11:09am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxIy_t0B
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(Notes: 124)
  
Filed under: homophobia feminism men women flirting hate bigotry 
November 12, 2011
"srsly tho, shut entirely the fuck up, cherokee princess. even if you ain’t making that shit up like every other white kid that whips out some pretindian heritage the second they get called on their racism, just cuz you’re drinking the colorblind kool-aid doesn’t mean the rest of us are. sit your racism-apologist ass down and go shit out some of that ignorance of yours b/c it’s practically coming out of your ears."

—

Tumblr user lakalenyu responding to another poster.

I think this may just be one of those days where I read lots of “Social Justice” blogs and get simultaneously incredibly amused and deeply sad for my generation. This quote is just one of thousands upon thousands that demonstrates with such unintentional precision the level that the discourse amongst people claiming to be for “equal respect for all humans” has gotten to.

And, for the record, I don’t mind the language/bigotry on places like 4chan and TheForum, because they own their trolliness and don’t pretend to have some holier-than-thou stance on political/social/economical/gender/racial issues.

Three cheers for the internet.

4:17pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxBrD7j_
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(Notes: 10)
  
Filed under: sja racism offensive prejudice discrimination hate tumblr 
November 11, 2011
Family Matters

“Many white Americans have an obsession with knowing their exact European ancestry, and will gleefully tell you every country in their family history (many will go as far to insist that they’re not really white, they’re German/English/Scottish/etc).”

- A comment on a MicroAgressions post.

Possibly one of the most ignorant generalizations I’ve read in a long time. Yes, a lot of white people—a lot of people of all kinds—are proud of knowing their ancestry. For example, many families have only been in the country for a generation or two, and thus have living family members in these other countries, or whose first language isn’t English, etc. And even if we’ve been in America since the pilgrims, that shouldn’t stop anyone from wanting to learn their family history. There is nothing—NOTHING—wrong with wanting to learn about where you come from, and part of what makes your family who and what it is.

And though I have never heard someone say that they are not white, but rather German, I will give the poster the benefit of the doubt that it happened at some point. If that’s the case, then the person clearly prefers to be identified by their ethnicity rather than their race—a perfectly acceptable, reasonable request. I don’t care if people call me white, nor do I insist on being identified by my ethnic backgrounds, but if that’s your thing—go for it. Learn your history. Learn the traditions, the culture, the language, embrace it. And don’t ever let someone on a Tumblr like MicroAggressions tell you it’s wrong to learn where you come from.

How in the world is being divisive, hypocritical, and separatist like this helping ANY racism or discrimination? How is making fun of people, based on their skin color, because they are proud of their family history helping anything?

Seriously, people, get a hold of yourselves.

9:33am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxBnTsBT
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(Notes: 18)
  
Filed under: racism white ethnicity ancestry microaggressions hate 
October 30, 2011
Got This Question Today, Thought It Deserved A Real Entry

“why do you hate women so much? it’s ugly.”

I hate women because they are all terrible, disgusting, malicious, childish semi-humans who embarrass me. Every time I look down at my vagina, I fill with this strange, implacable rage that makes me want to tear angrily at my own skin until I am no longer a discernible gender and can no longer be associated with this group of people I so deeply despise.

There. Are you tards happy now? Hope so.

Okay, seriously, I feel like I am going to deal with this slack-jawed drool puddle of a question until the end of time—it is my stone to forever push up the hill. So, for your over-simplified pleasure, here’s my answer:

As simply as I can put it, I don’t hate women. I love my mom, my sister, my best friends, and the billions of other women who are totally cool and seem fine by me. Men, women, hermaphrodites, Avatars, vampires, zombies—they’re all cool in my book until proven otherwise.

That said, women—like every other group in the world—can do some funny, silly shit sometimes and I don’t hesitate to make fun of it. Just as I will write articles that poke fun at men, I will take great pleasure in pointing out that it’s the ladies who “writeee likeee thissss” on their status updates. And thousands of people who shared that article (and others like it) are capable of agreeing, and not taking shit too seriously.

I know that for some of you, women should be a sacred topic to never get made fun of, but that is ridiculous and never going to happen. So if that offends you, you are going to be permanently offended by me.

And yep, I think a lot of modern manifestations of “feminism” are counterintuitive, serve to alienate women, too aggressive, almost self-parody, and absolutely incapable of picking a battle if their lives depended on it. I’m not ashamed to say it. When I watch a bunch of feminists arguing back and forth on blogs and Tumblrs about correct word usage and how the movie Sucker Punch is a piece of mysoginist evil (instead of just being a shitty movie), all I can think of is female genital mutilation and the atrocities against women in the Congo, and how discussing our underrepresentation on Two and a Half Men is somehow a more important point in the global women’s movement to be addressing. (Sure, let’s eliminate the word “mademoiselle” from the lexicon—as though that were even possible—and completely ignore the staggering amount of countries where women don’t even have the vote and are getting stoned to death, that’s how we should be using our faculties!)

So yeah, I don’t get down with a lot of modern feminism, and I’m not afraid of making fun of women or pointing out when shit they do in general is funny. I don’t think women are special safe zones in humor or criticism, and I’m not going to censor myself to pretend like I don’t notice that women do funny shit in bathrooms at clubs. And though I know that the easy way out would be to pander and write a bunch of meaningless “YOU GO GIRL” stuff and talk about how oppressed I am (and don’t think that the few very “women-positive” posts I have aren’t getting hella notes—see my post on abortion) I’m not going to feed into the other stuff I don’t believe in just to get Tumblr approval (the lowest form of currency, besides possibly the Soviet Ruble).

And when idiots pull the gender card and wantonly accusing me of just hating women, it only serves to show that for some women, there is a special treatment expected. We are not to be criticised, we are not to be judged, we are not going to be made fun of. And if you transgress this, we will just slap a “Woman-Hater” label on you and call it a day.

Well fuck you, fuck your lazy argument, and fuck your overwhelming inability to laugh at yourself. It’s ugly.

1:45pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxBIa4nO
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Filed under: gender women misogyny feminism men female hate 
October 26, 2011
To The Overgrown Pubic Hair That Has Spent The Last Week-Ish Peppering My Ask Box With Repeated Demands To Delete My Tumblr And “My Thought Catalog”:

Two things,

  1. I normally would not deign to respond to such an anonymous coward, as anyone who makes a living writing on the internet spends a huge amount of time reading people who vehemently, violently, and—of course—anonymously, disagree with them. I get that. You’re entitled to your opinion, as everyone is. However, when I see the little red notice on my messages I get all :D!!! and then when I see it’s just you spamming me again, I get all :( and it makes me feel like I’ve just been robbed. I like my questions, my compliments, and I even like the criticisms that pop up in my Ask Box. I’m interested in what everyone has to say. But you’re just wasting my time and my clicks. I’m not deleting my stuff, by the way—if anything, your anonymous fuckery has given me further impetus to continue writing until the end of time, even I’m just reduced to pressing my hands on the keyboard and mashing them around until I’ve reached a decent word count. For you, I will always be here.
  2. I can’t delete “My Thought Catalog.” I don’t know if you’re willfully obtuse or just irretrievably stupid, but I don’t own a special little section of Thought Catalog that I can delete at my discretion. Unfortunately, it’s an entire website with many writers and we make a pretentious little spider web of thoughts and feelings. So, so many feelings. I can’t just up and shut down every part of the website I’ve touched.

So, in conclusion, you’re a tool. If you take issue with something I say or do, please feel free to say so. Please feel free to say something remotely constructive, or something that takes an ounce of courage or contemplation. And, if not, stop filling my ask box with your angsty complaining.

I’m not saying you’re a bad person, I’m just saying that if you got chlamydia from a person you really, really liked who ended up never calling you back, I would be completely indifferent.

8:17am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxB86x-q
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(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: anon hate 
October 6, 2011
A Small Lesson In Acceptable Racism

So, the other day, my article on TC was about the adorable ridiculousness of street fashion blogs. And though it got a nearly universally good response, there were two little comments that stuck out to me. You can see them here:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/street-fashion-photography-is-fcking-with-me/#comment-326567749

As you can see, everyone seems to be on my side with this, but it got me thinking nonetheless. Why is it necessary to mention the man’s race in this sentence:

“I’m sorry, but a 50-year-old Asian man wearing a Paul Smith suit, a denim jacket, a mink stole, a Louis Vuitton backpack, Air Force Ones, and shutter shades — WHERE IS HE GOING?”

I thought long and hard about it, because when I wrote this, making him Asian just came naturally to me. Partly because I think Asian (Japanese in particular) men make up a very healthy percentage of the “crazily dressed older man” demographic on a lot of fashion blogs, but that is not an actual statistic, of course. But when I thought about it more, I realized that I often do include things like ethnicity, size, hair-color, or other physical attributes that are largely “unnecessary” when writing about people—especially in this way. When going for comic effect, I usually include a brief physical description.

And why? Not because I think Asian people are particularly funny (although the Japanese are going to have to tone down those game shows if they want to keep such a sage reputation) but I do think that writing a person’s ethnicity often helps make a more vivid visual description in your mind. I think it paints the picture more fully for you and, though benign, allows you to see things more clearly. I also think adding some visual marker helps with the flow and cadence of the sentence, more than “A fifty-year-old man wearing…”

In any case, I cannot see how including a man’s ethnicity in this satirical little description of someone featured on fashion blogs is in any way racist or negative. And this is where I often feel like people could be picking their battles better when it comes to getting offended by/taking issue with certain kinds of speech/ideas. In fact, I think it’s essential that we all be equally included in this kind of benign humor. I am just as quick to talk about it being a white guy, or a black guy, or a turquoise guy (in the case of Skeeter)—whatever word flows best in the context of my sentence. Because the truth is, we know what races look like, and we can paint a better visual picture as we read if we have an ethnicity to go off of. It’s a quick way to give a vague visual outline. And I think, if we are all equal targets in this kind of humor, it can only do good for the overall picture.

It’s essential, in my opinion, that we learn not to be too politically correct—that we don’t walk around in a permanent state of fear, trying not to offend each other. I think we should strive to have a little good-natured ribbing between us, and accept that we are only human and will see each other’s differences. Why not play to the good, or the humorous, in those differences—take away the divisive focus caused by overzealous political correctness. When we’re afraid to acknowledge each other’s very obvious physical differences, it becomes the elephant in the room, and festers the kind of ashamed curiosity that leads to forming prejudice. I think we could all afford to be a little more open, but in a kind and fun way, and little things like this are a good place to start.

3:29am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrGUwxALIfbx
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(Notes: 13)
  
Filed under: racism asian humor thought catalog street style discrimination hate 
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