SNAFU, an acronym of many meanings
Oct. 3rd, 2010 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaFor the first time since Thursday I'm finally feeling normal. The 'rental units are still insisting I take some fever reducing meds, which yes, I know makes me sound 15 rather than 25, but you know what, they thought I was dying so I don't mind.
But yay! I'm finally compos mentis enough to write about things.
I was debating whether to write about the crap political situation. After all, what else is new?
So, sorry folks, for my opinion on the Piss Talks and what happened on the Jewish Flotilla... bad timing, will probably not happen. As well as an update on the alleged "rape by coercion" which is alleged, simply because apparently it was an actual rape of a previously victimised woman and what it says about the justice system, the media and the ability of victims to tell their story. I might update on that later on.
Speaking of victims.
I'm finding the sudden focus on queer teen suicide in the News to be odd and unsettling, beyond the teen suicide issue, which has always been unsettling, but the stark focus we're suddenly seeing coming out of the USA is particularly disturbing. What I'm trying to understand is, why? I mean, for those of us who look out for these stories, these incidences of bullying, cyber-bullying, violence and assault upon queer youth isn't rare... it's fucking ubiquities.
As someone else on my f-list mentioned, the media is framing this as another kind of "Shark Attack", that is, making the rare seem far more common than it actually is.
Teen suicide is ubiquitous. A higher than the over all median percentage of teen suicides can be found within the queer slice, the majority of them are boys (because boys have a better "success" rate than girls) and trans kids all over the spectrum.
Along with Dan Savage's (who I find personally unpalatable) It Gets Better project and the other campaigns popping up like We Got your Back (created because of Savage's, um, unpalatable history and character), older projects like The Trevor Project and locally speaking There is Some to Talk To (Hebrew page), which is a hot-line and not a suicide prevention project or even a general stay positive and alive project like the other ones are.
So yes, there are projects aimed at keeping queers alive.
Is this sudden interest by the US mainstream media into the tragic ends of gay kids a turn for the better, a reaction to the social changes that are being pushed by mainstream QUILTBAG activism - the fight for marriage and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?
Meh. I say.
As I said, the US mainstream media covering these suicides are treating this as though there is this sudden surge or epidemic in queer teen suicides. Well, it's lovely how the media constructs message and narrative, isn't it.
Firstly, from what I've read, there doesn't seem to be any specific blame placed upon the fact that society, as a whole, treats gay people as pariahs. Formal rights or not, the heterosexual default and social imperative reign supreme, if we're not actively discriminated against, we're tolerated as perverts who should be happy with what we've got.
Secondly, the surprise and shock that we're supposed to feel at this horrible turn of events. Queer rights have come a long way in the past twenty years. Of this there is no doubt. But seriously, seriously not enough and things are less than stellar, especially considering what I've mentioned in my "Firstly". So, dead queers. What else is new? Oh, it's children, teens, won't someone think of them and save them? Well, seeing as their (usually) heterosexual peers are the ones bullying them to death, due to the fact that they haven't grasped the notion of tolerance (acceptance? Pfft!) and that bullying does not happen in a vacuum. Even if the specific bullying is a one time occurrence, the underlying cause of targeting a specific person because they are queer is a continuous and often tautological problem: social norms mark queers as targets for abuse who are abused because of social norms.
As for these suicide prevention, positive thinking, personal stories in order to encourage solidarity, those are good and have their place and I have a real admiration to you who are pushing them - despite my aversion from things Dan Savage - there's one thing I'm not seeing on the same level.
Outrage. Anger. Being fucking Pissed Off.
Yes, gay youth suicide is much more abstract than DADT and Marriage and AIDS and actual discrimination under the law. And I'm not sure there can be this kind of front of solidarity in the face of suicide - much like other Radical Queer struggles which seek to upturn the intersected hierarchies of oppression; the gender binary, the privilege of the couple, the marginalisation of BDSM - these struggles somehow appear much more abstract, because they've not been taken in mainstream activism.
All queer people suffer under *phobia, one way or another, not everyone commits suicide... that doesn't mean, the pain is less sharp or demeaning.
But yay! I'm finally compos mentis enough to write about things.
I was debating whether to write about the crap political situation. After all, what else is new?
So, sorry folks, for my opinion on the Piss Talks and what happened on the Jewish Flotilla... bad timing, will probably not happen. As well as an update on the alleged "rape by coercion" which is alleged, simply because apparently it was an actual rape of a previously victimised woman and what it says about the justice system, the media and the ability of victims to tell their story. I might update on that later on.
Speaking of victims.
I'm finding the sudden focus on queer teen suicide in the News to be odd and unsettling, beyond the teen suicide issue, which has always been unsettling, but the stark focus we're suddenly seeing coming out of the USA is particularly disturbing. What I'm trying to understand is, why? I mean, for those of us who look out for these stories, these incidences of bullying, cyber-bullying, violence and assault upon queer youth isn't rare... it's fucking ubiquities.
As someone else on my f-list mentioned, the media is framing this as another kind of "Shark Attack", that is, making the rare seem far more common than it actually is.
Teen suicide is ubiquitous. A higher than the over all median percentage of teen suicides can be found within the queer slice, the majority of them are boys (because boys have a better "success" rate than girls) and trans kids all over the spectrum.
Along with Dan Savage's (who I find personally unpalatable) It Gets Better project and the other campaigns popping up like We Got your Back (created because of Savage's, um, unpalatable history and character), older projects like The Trevor Project and locally speaking There is Some to Talk To (Hebrew page), which is a hot-line and not a suicide prevention project or even a general stay positive and alive project like the other ones are.
So yes, there are projects aimed at keeping queers alive.
Is this sudden interest by the US mainstream media into the tragic ends of gay kids a turn for the better, a reaction to the social changes that are being pushed by mainstream QUILTBAG activism - the fight for marriage and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?
Meh. I say.
As I said, the US mainstream media covering these suicides are treating this as though there is this sudden surge or epidemic in queer teen suicides. Well, it's lovely how the media constructs message and narrative, isn't it.
Firstly, from what I've read, there doesn't seem to be any specific blame placed upon the fact that society, as a whole, treats gay people as pariahs. Formal rights or not, the heterosexual default and social imperative reign supreme, if we're not actively discriminated against, we're tolerated as perverts who should be happy with what we've got.
Secondly, the surprise and shock that we're supposed to feel at this horrible turn of events. Queer rights have come a long way in the past twenty years. Of this there is no doubt. But seriously, seriously not enough and things are less than stellar, especially considering what I've mentioned in my "Firstly". So, dead queers. What else is new? Oh, it's children, teens, won't someone think of them and save them? Well, seeing as their (usually) heterosexual peers are the ones bullying them to death, due to the fact that they haven't grasped the notion of tolerance (acceptance? Pfft!) and that bullying does not happen in a vacuum. Even if the specific bullying is a one time occurrence, the underlying cause of targeting a specific person because they are queer is a continuous and often tautological problem: social norms mark queers as targets for abuse who are abused because of social norms.
As for these suicide prevention, positive thinking, personal stories in order to encourage solidarity, those are good and have their place and I have a real admiration to you who are pushing them - despite my aversion from things Dan Savage - there's one thing I'm not seeing on the same level.
Outrage. Anger. Being fucking Pissed Off.
Yes, gay youth suicide is much more abstract than DADT and Marriage and AIDS and actual discrimination under the law. And I'm not sure there can be this kind of front of solidarity in the face of suicide - much like other Radical Queer struggles which seek to upturn the intersected hierarchies of oppression; the gender binary, the privilege of the couple, the marginalisation of BDSM - these struggles somehow appear much more abstract, because they've not been taken in mainstream activism.
All queer people suffer under *phobia, one way or another, not everyone commits suicide... that doesn't mean, the pain is less sharp or demeaning.
