Writer's Block: Yes, offense taken

[eumelia]

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Okay, wow.
This is actually a good Writer's Block.

I've been staring at it for a good while now.

Because the answer is: sometimes.

I'm being honest here, sometimes, I'm just too tired to confront people and tell them they're "wrong", "off-base", "being disrespectful" etc. Why? Because it's all the freakin' time.
It's prevalent and invidious.
How do you tell someone that their assumptions are offensive?

Is that over-sensitivity? Perhaps, but I'm often been called over sensitive for calling on people who said something about Arabs being untrustworthy, or about Gays "flaunting" their (our) sexuality.
And I'm like: "Die, fucker, die!" in my mind, while trying to calmly say: "Excuse me, but do you have any idea how offensive what you said was?" and then discuss for half an hour how #1 I took it the wrong way #2 It's just an opinion and they're entitled to it and #3 going around in circles regarding the whole concept of treating other people as human.
It's not that hard, honestly.
A little dignity and respect that goes two ways.

But it's not that, of course.
It's much deeper than that, because dignity and respect are concepts to be put upon those you see as equals, right?
Racial inferiors and sexual deviants aren't worthy of the same dignity and respect, right?

Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human.
And that, plain as day and crystal clear, just doesn't effing fly.

And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

Good night, y'all.

Comments

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I'm a sometimes too, and I admit sometimes this is out of a sense of self-preservation and a knowledge that in some situations I'm really being tolerated. I used to work in the pub in the village here, which is a very, well, local environment, for want of a better word. Not very cosmopolitan. I drink with a bunch of guys there sometimes, who all know I'm queer, and to be fair are pretty awesome towards me in deeds, though not necessarily in words, if that makes sense. Whether or not I call it sometimes depends on whether or not there's a wider audience that I don't want to draw hostility from. Sometimes I might just say [Person's name] in a Tone, or "Thank you!" in a snarky way and leave it there.

I do try and call racism and that I can usually do that more easily is, now I think on it, a result of my privilege - I can call people on their racist remarks without having to be too concerned they might be hostile to me personally, even if they don't agree, because I'm white (white, and not a gypsy, since that's the ethnic group that generally draws the most heat where I live). I can't so much with the queer; I'm aware that objecting would be effectively outing myself in some circumstances and that's not always safe to do.

I'm not always as articulate as I should be either. The last incident I can recall, I said "Don't be a shit" to one guy I know, which is hardly a profound teaching moment, though he did in that instance take the point and we did have a bit of dialogue beyond that.

You're right, it is an interesting writer's block, for a change.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

When it comes to racism, yeah, I have words, but with homophobia... yes, agreed, outing oneself is not always the way to go.
When you're white and talking to other white people about race then they can say "oh don't be so PC etc." which is just as irritating, but racism really isn't considered to an okay thing to spout and people generally do it when they feel there will be no censoring , at least in my experience.

Homophobia... well, sex is a joke right and us sexual deviants are a joke as well... because the gender norm - which is the cis hetero norm - is broken and thus we're just not people sometimes.
*sigh*
So, yeah.