Aroused my Ire
Nov. 17th, 2017 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
releeAlright so as I said on the general channel, some people have said some things over the last few days on the identity channels that aroused my ire, and that ire hasn't gone down over those last few days, in part 'cause new things keep bugging me. I'll try to keep the issues seperate.
The first thing that aroused my ire was someone commenting on "Old White Men" as the source of various problems. This is a classic fallacy. It's Ageist, Racist and Sexist. The problems in the world were and always have been caused by people with money and power, and those people aren't universally old white men. It's a negative stereotype that villifies all people with pale skin, not just men and not just the elderly. Old White Men aren't responsible for the problems in India or Southeast Asia and they're not even uniquely responsible for the problems in the west. So hearing somebody say the problems for gender or race are the fault of "Old White Men" raises my ire. My Dad is an old white man, and yeah he's a little sexist and a little racist but the idea that he's responsible for perpetuating systemic racist and sexist negative pressure on oppressed people is wrong-headed and cruel.
The second thing that aroused my ire was the celebration of cisphobia. Someone commented on how they were proud of it, and a bunch of people chimed in to agree and they all came to the conclusion that cis people shouldn't have any influence on trans issues. I didn't see any dissenting voices. Here's my dissenting voice. This is wrong. People should not be excluded from determining what happens to people. If you want cis people to accept what decisions trans people make regarding their future, they're going to need to be included in the process. Segregation is one of the things that bothers me the most and I don't like seeing trans and generqueer people happily throwing the cis/het people under the bus, just because of their own bad experiences. That's no better than racism! Gender issues affect everyone; some people even argue that EVERYONE is a little genderqueer, a little bi, even if they don't identify as such. It seems to me you want to exclude people because they don't agree with you on issues, not because the issues don't affect them.
I've decided to post this on my blog along with the Discord that inspired this commentary, so I'm going to cover a third issue that hasn't been happening in that group, but that I've been seeing a lot on Twitter, is the term POC, or People of Colour. I really hate segregation, both gender segregation and racial segregation are hot button topics for me, and the term PoC is almost worse than the collective term "White". Who is a Person of Colour? Sometimes it's obvious, you have dark skin so you're a person of colour, right? But people use it as a collective term for those oppressed by systemic racism. Are Jewish people "People of Colour"? Are Asians? Indians? Irish? When the term White came around, Irish weren't included, and if you've ever seen someone who is ethnically Irish they're typically white as Casper's Ghost. "White" was a collective term for the 'in crowd' in a very dark period of world history that I'd like to think is over now, but the term has stuck. I'm Canadian, ethnically half dutch, quarter english, quarter scottish. So, I'm categorized as white. There's a lot of racism built into that, and while some folks will tell you it's all privledge I can assure you it's not. Dark skinned people may be treated like thugs, and that's a shame, but white people are treated like supervillans; cunning and conniving, committing premdeditated acts of hate with smiles on our faces. I'd like to see both the terms Person of Colour and White go into history where they belong. Both are meaningless in their unagreed upon collectivity.
One thing I did see on that Discord group I mentioned, where I'm also posting this, was a commentary on cultural appropriation. That's another one of my issues. The very idea that a culture can own an idea offends me deeply. I don't even like the idea of a person or company owning an idea, but to suggest that something as muddied as a race or culture could own the concept of a particular garment, food, or musical style or whatever is just painful to me. And it seems like it's always pale folks taking the blame. Nobody complained when the Hawaiians put pineapple on their pizzas but if a pale person puts on a feather headress, a headscarf, or a kimono they're suddenly commiting a race crime? It's unfair, it's nonsensical, and it's painful. Furthermore, anyone on that Discord group who thinks taking ideas from other cultures is a bad idea should look at the Spirituality room and see who they're messing with. Might even be themselves.
I think that's everything on my mind, and everything currently raising my ire. Hopefully I'll be able to calm down now that I've gotten this off my chest, and the rest of you will have something to think about, something to agree or disagree with.
Relee the Squirrel
The first thing that aroused my ire was someone commenting on "Old White Men" as the source of various problems. This is a classic fallacy. It's Ageist, Racist and Sexist. The problems in the world were and always have been caused by people with money and power, and those people aren't universally old white men. It's a negative stereotype that villifies all people with pale skin, not just men and not just the elderly. Old White Men aren't responsible for the problems in India or Southeast Asia and they're not even uniquely responsible for the problems in the west. So hearing somebody say the problems for gender or race are the fault of "Old White Men" raises my ire. My Dad is an old white man, and yeah he's a little sexist and a little racist but the idea that he's responsible for perpetuating systemic racist and sexist negative pressure on oppressed people is wrong-headed and cruel.
The second thing that aroused my ire was the celebration of cisphobia. Someone commented on how they were proud of it, and a bunch of people chimed in to agree and they all came to the conclusion that cis people shouldn't have any influence on trans issues. I didn't see any dissenting voices. Here's my dissenting voice. This is wrong. People should not be excluded from determining what happens to people. If you want cis people to accept what decisions trans people make regarding their future, they're going to need to be included in the process. Segregation is one of the things that bothers me the most and I don't like seeing trans and generqueer people happily throwing the cis/het people under the bus, just because of their own bad experiences. That's no better than racism! Gender issues affect everyone; some people even argue that EVERYONE is a little genderqueer, a little bi, even if they don't identify as such. It seems to me you want to exclude people because they don't agree with you on issues, not because the issues don't affect them.
I've decided to post this on my blog along with the Discord that inspired this commentary, so I'm going to cover a third issue that hasn't been happening in that group, but that I've been seeing a lot on Twitter, is the term POC, or People of Colour. I really hate segregation, both gender segregation and racial segregation are hot button topics for me, and the term PoC is almost worse than the collective term "White". Who is a Person of Colour? Sometimes it's obvious, you have dark skin so you're a person of colour, right? But people use it as a collective term for those oppressed by systemic racism. Are Jewish people "People of Colour"? Are Asians? Indians? Irish? When the term White came around, Irish weren't included, and if you've ever seen someone who is ethnically Irish they're typically white as Casper's Ghost. "White" was a collective term for the 'in crowd' in a very dark period of world history that I'd like to think is over now, but the term has stuck. I'm Canadian, ethnically half dutch, quarter english, quarter scottish. So, I'm categorized as white. There's a lot of racism built into that, and while some folks will tell you it's all privledge I can assure you it's not. Dark skinned people may be treated like thugs, and that's a shame, but white people are treated like supervillans; cunning and conniving, committing premdeditated acts of hate with smiles on our faces. I'd like to see both the terms Person of Colour and White go into history where they belong. Both are meaningless in their unagreed upon collectivity.
One thing I did see on that Discord group I mentioned, where I'm also posting this, was a commentary on cultural appropriation. That's another one of my issues. The very idea that a culture can own an idea offends me deeply. I don't even like the idea of a person or company owning an idea, but to suggest that something as muddied as a race or culture could own the concept of a particular garment, food, or musical style or whatever is just painful to me. And it seems like it's always pale folks taking the blame. Nobody complained when the Hawaiians put pineapple on their pizzas but if a pale person puts on a feather headress, a headscarf, or a kimono they're suddenly commiting a race crime? It's unfair, it's nonsensical, and it's painful. Furthermore, anyone on that Discord group who thinks taking ideas from other cultures is a bad idea should look at the Spirituality room and see who they're messing with. Might even be themselves.
I think that's everything on my mind, and everything currently raising my ire. Hopefully I'll be able to calm down now that I've gotten this off my chest, and the rest of you will have something to think about, something to agree or disagree with.
Relee the Squirrel
