Its Just Not Right

Okay, I have calmed down for real this time.

Phineas, this semester one of my classmates, a person I like very much did her persuasive speech on why gays should not allowed to get married. She talked about how homosexuality was unnatural and people should do things the natural way. As she was speaking the whole class was nodding along and agreeing. I am not gay, but a lot of my friends are and I could not let her down from that podium without even trying to show her and the rest of the class where they were wrong. I explained that if we did everything the natural way we would all be butt naked in caves and eatting berries because the first moment someone fashioned a tool to go hunt with, we would be headed down the path of the unnatural.

So why was I fighting my friends' battles for them? Especially when they weren't even there. Why did I speak up in a class full of people against someone who had been really nice to me? I am sure some of my classmates thought I was gay after that. Why else would I argue for them?

I will tell you why. I fight my friend's battles cause they are my friends. I care about them and want them to be happy, and for them to be happy they need to live in an atmosphere of tolerance, so I do all I can to help promote that, and they do the same for me (my RL friends anyway). After my little counter argument, a lot of people saw my point and agreed with me. So maybe there a a few more people out there a little more open minded. A few more people who will not say hurtful things when they run into my friends because now they realize its not okay.

I would think you of all people would realize the dangers of remaining silent.

Friends are the people who stand behind you, and help you with your battles. One quality I generally look for in friends is loyalty. I'd like to think that if I was out somewhere and someone called me a faggot, that my friends would at least tell them to STFP and go away, if not to actually assist me in beating the living crap out of them.

Eloquently rebutted, Kas.

I'm sorry that my last post so upset you, Kas. That obviously wasn't my intent. Of course I knew you would disagree, but I attempted to couch what I was saying in enough qualifications that it would not be taken so personally.

Basically, one of the things I was trying to say was that the "national dialogue on race" has increasingly become a national monologue, where minorities are empowered to dictate what is and what is not offensive to them to white people. White people are not allowed to protest, to disagree, to ask questions, to participate; they are simply expected to accept that what *you* have to say about race is more important than what they might think.

This is more or less the attitude you've taken with me in your posts. "WTF is wrong with" me, indeed.

What is wrong with me? Well, it's that I won't simply sit here and let you tell me what's right or wrong, that I won't give you that moral authority over my life simply because you're one color and I'm another. I'm more than willing to listen to your gripe, and as it happens I'm more sympathetic to it than you seem to have gathered, but I don't accept that you have a monopoly on deciding what actions are appropriate and what actions are inappropriate.

You've decided that your friends' silence constitutes silent approval; you've decided that there is no explanation for their behavior besides heart-felt racism. You interpreted their attempts to save Death Grace's character as an attempt to excuse his overtly-displayed racism, and you find doing so unconscionable, as if being a racist makes a person less than human, unworthy of respect or dignity.

And you expect all of us -- all of us who don't otherwise have something "the f***" wrong with them, anyway -- to accept your assessment. We are not allowed to disagree without sullying our character in your view. This is why I call it moral "extortion."

You are certainly entitled to ask your friends to be more vocal in their support of you in instances such as the one you experienced, and you are likewise entitled to count only those who do among your friends. I'm just asking you to be more reasonable and rationally-minded when it comes to condemning their behavior.

As for your little display in your class in defense of same-sex marriage; well, quite honestly, I'd rather you didn't do stuff like that unless you were interested in getting married to someone of the same sex yourself. You know what I hear when I hear straight people trying to defend gay rights? A bunch of fools.

I mean, sure, you can hash and re-hash arguments that have been spouted by your gay teachers and friends and community leaders. But honestly? What do you have to gain? A straight person defending same-sex marriage isn't confronting an issue or a prejudice that really affects their life; it's more like this side-interest they like to dabble in, mostly because it makes them stick out, it makes them seem progressive and high-minded. "I have several gay friends..." Whoop-de-friggin'-do. Aren't you something? You must be VERY tolerant, let me give you a gay cookie.

This is exactly the sort of thing the NYTimes was trying to do by touting the "metrosexual" term. "Look at us, we're sooooo progressive." I personally know several so-called "fag hags" who seem to be more interested in the fact that their friends are gay than any other singular attribute to their character, and it makes me sick. I'm sick of being a fashion accessory, and of having self-appointed straight advocates telling other straight people what they think I think about same-sex marriage in their attempts to prove their moral superiority to everyone who disagrees with them.

You know what? Stop taking advantage of *my* community in your attempts to draw attention to yourself. You don't know what "we" want, you can't speak for "our" desires, you can't possibly know what it's like. Let us fight our own battles, because only we know what battles need to be fought. Your support is appreciated but your self-serving "activism" is not.

It is precisely my reaction to your own activism that makes me more cautious in my statements about race in my own personal situations, and it gives me some reason to give your friends the benefit of the doubt. If that makes me f***ed up, well, fine, I guess. I happen to think it makes me tolerant, but to each their own.

Not less than human, but close.


Your community? Who died and left you the tiara?

Please Mary, drama queen and victim in the same post? Nobody's giving out awards in this thread so save it for the stage sister.

There's like what? Billions and billions of heterosexuals breeding constantly and you want to snub your nose at them? You need to tone down a bit with the peroxide and get a grip on your outfit.

Neehai

I don't even know where to start with you. I guess first I should thank every diety in the book that none of my gay friends think like you because I wouldn't stay friends with separatist like that for very long. You or condemning me for doing something and are doing the exact same thing. I am saying my friends are wrong for not standing up for me, you are saying I am wrong for standing up for my friends. That makes you a total hypocrite. If I can't tell my friends they should have my back then you can't tell me that I shouldn't have my friend's back. And if you cannot see the HUGE logical flaws you keep spouting, you are an idiot too. You are completely contradicting yourself when you talk about gay issues verses black issues.

Your anti-straight rant totally pissed me. First off, you just decided I was straight because I said I wasn't gay. Secondly, I don't care if I was sexually attracted to puppies. My friends are my friends and their battles are mine and the only "value" that comes from is my idea of what friendship is. If friends are only your friends when its time to go to clubs and have drinks maybe that metrosexual stereotype is hitting a little to close to home.

Wow Phineas. Talk about the classic "with friends like you, who needs enemies" post. As I am not hurt by this issue, but still passionate about it on a variety of levels, I will respond to your post beyond "wtf is wrong with you?", though please know that is definitely implied.

As a straight, hispanic male I find your post offensive on a lot of levels, none of them having to do with race. I admittedly have been lucky in my life. I have experienced very little overt racism, most likely because my experience in the US has been around a hispanic majority in Miami. That said, I don't live in a bubble and am all too aware what has gone on for many of my friends who have not been so lucky.

What is so sad is you don't even appreciate any help from anyone who isn't like you. Your statement about Kasandra defending gay marriage in her class was just plain ludicrous, and so arrogant I am not even sure how to respond. Straight people are what are standing in your way on being able to marry, and they will certainly listen to another straight person long before they would listen to a gay person with an agenda. I am sorry that you feel that the only person who can defend another human being has to be one of the exact same type, race, background, gender and sexual orientation, otherwise they just don't "get it". The fact that you are lashing out at someone for being a decent human being is quite sad.

Having lived and worked in Miami Beach and the entertainment industry, I developed many friendships and business relationships with gay people. I am not a fag hag, I don't view them as a fashion accessory. I view them as my friends who are consistently wronged by ignorant heterosexual people, and I do stand up and defend them. How dare you criticize anyone for standing up and defending someone. It is a lot better than your moral apathy, which is pathetic. You call defending someone self serving activism? The only self serving person I see here was spelled out clearly in your post.

You keep right on defending the dignity of racists and crying out over the word metrosexual, which I might point out your community has done more to promote the stereotype than anyone else. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? That pushes the concept of fashion obsessed, shallow beauty oriented gay men more than any straight person could. Queer as Folk? Hmm again, fashion, sex, drug obsessed beautiful people. I am sorry you take offense to the word metrosexual. I find the word lame because of its overuse, but hardly offensive. As it is not being directed at you, you should have no say in it anyway, but it is fine for you to pick and choose what you can be offended by. Try dealing with the own images your community projects.

In the end, expecting your friends to come to your defense is not moral extortion. It is part of being human, of loving one another, and supporting each other. It is quite sad that you seem to think everyone should just stand by and let us fight our own battles. The problem is you are fighting against the wrong people, Phineas.

Cristiano

Make up your mind, Phineas.


You're looking more than foolish.

Kasandra, I'm sorry you have to deal with these things in SL.

Wow, this seems like a more articulate version of Christopher Nomad.

Kasandra,

I'm really sorry to have upset you so much. I guess I'm just not being very clear in the points that I'm trying to make.



When did I say that straights and GLBT people should not mingle?

All I'm trying to say is that there is a difference between fighting someone's battle with them and fighting their battle for them. I don't myself presume to know the full extent of discrimination that a black person faces in modern society -- by virtue of the color of my skin, I can only speculate. I therefore depend on my friends of racial minorities in learning the boundaries of what's acceptable and what is not. In so doing, I cannot assume that I know they will find something unacceptable, I cannot step forward to defend them without knowing that is their desire.

In your specific instance, Kas, I think it would have been well-justified for your friends to have said exactly what you want them to have said, given what I've gathered of Death Grace's comments. They seem illogical, irrational, unjustified. All I'm trying to say is, their silence may have been a result of over-sensitivity, not insensitivity. And just because they refuse to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" by condemning Death Grace solely on the basis of his racist beliefs does not mean that they secretly agree with them. It may mean that they have an appreciation for the complexity of human character, an appreciation I daresay you seem to lack.




I don't know how it makes me a hypocrite for using the way I feel about you defending same-sex marriage as a basis for understanding why other people might pause when it comes to defending people against actions whose deleterious effects are subjective at best. It seems consistent to me. I guess that makes me an "idiot."

And I wish we could just stick to our terms for a little while. You've taken my criticism of your in-class defense of same-sex marriage to mean that I don't think you should "take your friend's back." Again, this is a matter of fighting someone's battle with them, not for them.

Let me go on another completely illogical tangent. During my undergraduate university years, I went to a midwestern university that was very, very white. As part of our degree programs, we had an ethnicity requirement, which could be fulfilled by going to a class studying, say, black literature, or politics and race, stuff like that.

But since these classes were at a very white university, these classes were often devoid of a single colored face, including the teacher. Over the course of the semester, we would sit around talking about race issues and invariably there would be one or two white students who, feeling themselves to be of superior moral fiber and racial sensibility to their classmates, would presume to speak for the black community.

Maybe they listen to rap or hip-hop. Maybe they've got a couple of black friends. In any case, these people would infer that they understand what it's like to grow up black and that, by extension, they further understand what must be done to compensate for the discrimination that blacks routinely face.

These are white people, Kasandra. What would they know about being part of a visible minority? What would I? We pass the class, we graduate the university, and then we're in the real world and shaping government policy, all the while presuming to know what's best for minorities in this country.

And I'm sorry, I don't think we do. I don't think we can. I think whites have a responsibility to make sure that minorities who want to be heard can be heard, that we have an obligation to listen respectfully and to attempt to understand their position. And in the battles they must fight, we should feel compelled to follow their lead. What we must not do is to assume we know the answers to their problems. This is why, generations ago, American Indians were forced onto reservations. We did not listen. This is why, after the end of slavery, we had sharecropping and segregated public venues. As long as whites have tried to figure out what's best for blacks, they have consistently gotten it wrong. It wasn't until minorities found ways to make themselves heard that things began to change for the better.

So I believe that those among the white citizens of this country who wish to further the progress of racial conciliation must do so with humility and with deference toward the leaders and members of those communities we wish to help. And I believe that this kind of humility and deference will sometimes mean keeping quiet until it's established what's expected of us.

I'm not condemning you for condemning your friends. I'm just saying that I believe that the reasons for their silence might be more complex and more sensitive than you apparently wish to believe.


You're right. That was my error, I jumped to that heterosexist conclusion. Maybe you are speaking for yourself in that instance and not just your friends. Maybe you do know something of being ostracized for your sexuality. If you're bisexual, you probably experience it from both sides, heterosexual and homosexual.

If I were being anti-straight, however, I would have used the term "breeder." And I'm not anti-straight, and I never use that term. I just get sick of people treating me like a victim they need to defend, particularly when they're straight and thus completely accepted in terms of their sexuality.


You know, hey. If your friends like the sort of activism you do, all the more power to you and your friends. There's nothing wrong with that. I explicitly stated that I was only speaking for myself when I said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Personally, I have several friends with values different than my own. One of my closest friends as an undergrad was a fundamentalist Christian who earnestly believed I was going to hell. (This was even before I came out.) In fact, several of my friends believe I'm headed for hell. My roommate is a conservative Republican, while I'm a left libertarian. Many of my friends disapprove of my sexuality, as well. A whole lot of my friends think I'm too outspoken. I don't think any of my friends like the way I dress.

My point is, we're different people, and we appreciate our differences. We don't need to have all the same values to respect one another and to appreciate one another's company. The truth is actually quite contrary to your insinuation -- rather than my relationships being superficial and transitory, my relationships are deeply-rooted and long-lasting.

Fallingwater,

The two quotations you've drawn are taken out of context; moreover, they don't contradict each other, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

The first was in response to the notion that white people are expected to accept that a black person has the right to dictate what constitutes an offense, what constitutes injustice, without any sort of discussion or criticism on the matter. I think it goes without saying that blacks experience racism on a daily basis; I simply ask that, in communicating their frustrations to us, that blacks do so in a non-extorting way, in a way that allows us to assess the situation independently and possibly to reach a different conclusion without having moral condemnation being the necessary result.

The second quotation was my own personal observation as part of a larger argument designed to explain why some whites might hesitate to defend blacks in certain kinds of situations where an offense may or may not merit such a defense. While many gay people seem quite foolish in their attempts to defend gay rights, straight people, by simple virtue of the issue being second-hand for them, seem doubly foolish. I figured, if a straight person defending gay rights so often seems to get it wrong, how must it seem when I, a white person, attempt to defend the black community against a certain epithet?

I did not go into the reasons I feel many pro-gay-rights people seem foolish because those specific reasons did not seem to be germane to the point I was then trying to make.

This is *not* to say I am anti-gay-rights. I am pro-gay-rights-but-for-the-right-reasons, and I will be happy to go into that in another thread should the subject ever come up (or should I ever be willing to defend myself against the repeated character snipings that would be sure to follow, as I often do when I try to disagree with people in the forums).

Phineas,

Real quick response. It's not an issue of whites defnding blacks, straights defending gays, but people defending human dignity. Period.

I don't need special credentials to stand up for fairness and tolerance.

I'm sorry. How dare I fail to acknowledge the benevolence of my benefactors!

I'm not rejecting the help of people different from myself. When it comes to gay-rights, I simply ask that they don't mess it up more than it already is. I never said, "Don't help us!"


Oh? So straight people will listen to straight people with a pro-gay agenda, but they won't listen to gay people with a pro-gay agenda?

Are gays somehow unable to reason? To communicate? Are straights necessarily corrupted by the sexuality of those who speak to them when the sexuality is other than their own?

I'm sorry, was Dr. King white? Didn't white people listen to him anyway? And wasn't the result a massive step forward in the realization of the fundamental ideals of the United States? Why do you presume that the gay community's best advocates are necessarily straight? And why do you presume that we won't be able to appeal to that which is common much as Dr. King did in fighting for our own equal rights?


Again, excuse me for not accepting the benevolence of my benefactors. I would more than welcome anyone standing up for equal human dignity and respect for all people. What I resent is people using their sensitivity to words like "fag" and "sissy" and to issues such as same-sex marriage as a way to demonstrate their open-mindedness and moral superiority to the unenlightened masses the deign to educate.

They're not fighting our fight; they're not fighting any fight. They're primping their credentials and boosting their social status. Not in my name.


Yes, because I've been devoting pages and hours to say, basically,

"I don't care and neither should you!"

The charge that I am somehow being morally apathetic is what is truly ludicrous here. It makes no sense. Have you not gathered from my posts that

1) I believe that Death Grace's actions were wrong.
2) Were I present, I would have been sure to speak out.
3) I feel strongly that it's unfair to brush all those who were silent or conciliatory afterwards as secret racists.
4) I care deeply about gay rights but resent their superficial misappropriation by people whose only desire is to make themselves fashionable.

And you know, I know I'm in the minority when I say this, but I refuse to view those who seek to limit my rights as a gay man or my rights as an atheist as "ignorant" or "uneducated" or "evil" or "less than human" or whatever. This is just more spiritual violence going the other way, and it won't solve anything; it will only cause the two sides to entrench further and to volley increasingly vitriolic language at the other side. Unlike many in the gay community or in the US as a whole, I struggle to find that which is fundamentally human and respectable in these people. These people are not evil, they are not even necessarily ignorant. They disagree, and with rationality and, most importantly, with respect, I might seek to bring them to agreement with myself and my goals.

And I know you are probably scoffing at the notion that I treat anyone with respect. But I defy you to find a single place in my posts -- with one exception, where I was doing it to make a point -- where I've been disrespectful of any of those who've disagreed with me. And then I ask you to look over the responses to my own posts and to count the number of insinuations that have been made about my character and my intelligence.


I'm sorry? Because, as of course you must know, the gay community has completely inundated the highest ranks of television producers and executives and writers and actively seeks to push forward a single, monolithic view of what gay people in the US are like.

You know, you might as well make the same argument about minstrel shows and radio shows like Amos 'n' Andy. Black people must really act like that, because that's how they're portrayed! That's what sells! I mean... Part of the reason these shows with stereotypical views of homosexuals are made is because producers, directors, executives, and writers believe they will sell. Moreover, if they weren't stereotypical portrayals, they wouldn't make it the focus of the show. So any instance of gay people in the media acting counter-stereotype is by its nature out of consideration according to your filter.

And while gays might be fans of the show QAF (I am not, as you might have guessed), this doesn't mean that they act like those characters on QAF, nor does it mean that QAF represents anything truthful about what it's like to be gay, nor does it mean that the gays who watch the show are necessarily the ones who are perpetuating the stereotype. The British version of QAF, if I recall correctly, even had some straight actors playing gay parts, as does Will and Grace. And yet you infer we somehow deserve the stereotype?

Is television the definitive way in which you interact with the world?


Your statements have become, over the course of this post, increasingly "homophobic," for lack of a better term. You somehow have concluded that it's the gay community's fault that it is perceived to be superficial, materialistic, hedonistic, etc. You might as well have said that blacks should stop committing crimes if they don't want to be stereotyped as gangsters. I mean, crap.

And I stand by my reasoning behind finding the word "metrosexual" offensive. It is clearly derived from the term "homosexual" and the stereotypes associated with it. Moreover, the need to make the distinction between a "masculine" heterosexual male and a "metrosexual" heterosexual male perpetuates stereotypes about gender roles; in other words, it's as though it's impossible for men to be interested in fashion while maintaining their masculinity, and that it's important that men who are interested in fashion distinguish themselves from homosexuals because -- gasp! -- we wouldn't want that, now, would we?


I did not mean to say that expecting the support of your friends was the same as moral extortion. I meant to say that expecting people to internalize your values without any say in the matter with the threat of moral condemnation is extortion.


I might say the same thing about you. But I don't think I'm fighting against anyone at all.

Phin, you know what? Right now you are not offending me as a black, or a bisexual, somewhat as human, but what you are really offending is the philosopher in me. Because if you are gonna insult me on all the other fronts you better have a bloody consistent argument. So I am gonna break it down you like you are a two year old in hopes that I can get back to being offended in the other ways and not by your bad logic.





Um...okay, lets assume that white people in no way understand that I don't like when someone says to me, "That is why there aren't any niggers in Austrailia because we killed them all." So I will now inform my white friends when their other white friends say something like this they should go, "Dude, that was not funny. You can't talk to her like that." Instead of, "haha". And then getting mad at me for reporting that friend. Yeah, thats what I want. You have now heard it from the mouth of a black person. Go, impliment. *removes tongue from cheek*




BUT YOU JUST SAID THEY DON'T "UNDERSTAND"! *takes back her cookie* You just told me they can't interfere until I tell them they can. I just told them. Now I am imposing my values on them? So you are saying white people are both incapable of knowing when something is socially unacceptable without a black person telling them AND they are gonna think I am an arrogant b*tch when I do point it out? Lets talk about double edge swords here.



Well, that is very enlightened of you. To realize and admit that you can never fully know what it is like to be black without being black. You get a cookie.



Oh look, I guess you knew enough about the black experience to rank it against the Native American and Hispanic experience. I guess you know enough about being black, Native American and Hispanic to rank who has it better. I will tell the blacks that make up 73% of the prison populations and 88% of death row. Hey, could be worst. Could have been hispanic or native american. Are you starting to see why I think you are stupid?

Not to mention. "You think you got it bad, well so and so..." is a logical fallacy so huge it makes my head hurt. Using that no one can have a problem with anything. Social security...you think you have it bad having money deducted from your check, there are people in Israel living in a war zone. People in Israel, you think you have it bad...there is this kid in Ethopia too weak from hunger to swat the fly off his eye. I'm sorry Phin we just can't deal with your metrosexual issue until we get that kid a sandwhich.



YOUR COMMUNITY? You own the gay community? Did you buy it? How much did it cost? Lets stop with the bull. Minority "communities" are as wide and diverse as the human race. There is not huge gay meeting where you all sit down and decide whats best for the group. Same thing with blacks, somewhere in this world there is at least one black person that completely agrees with Death Grace. And as stupid as this person is, he is as much a part of the "black community" as I am. We aren't the borg. We have no hive mind. I will have to make a leap of faith and assume the same thing is true for gays. Can never really know for sure about that hive mind thing.




Death Grace is no baby and his unprovoked hatred of me is not bathwater. But since you like analogies. Pedophiles tend to be kind and compassionate people, that is how they get your kids in the car. We shouldn't judge them based on one little flaw that they don't even have control over. At least Death Grace decided to be racist. No one decides to be a pedophile. There are some qualities that are just unaccpetable, no matter how nice the person is. For me, hating me for irrational reasons is one of them. Maybe you have no problem walking arm in arm with people who think you are gonna burn in hell. Good you you. Want another cookie?



There sure is. And if I spent every Thursday in my Queer meetings alone, then yeah time to hang up my rainbow flag and call it a day. But as long as there is a need for a campus group that promotes tolerance I will speak up anytime I want to further that cause. I was hesitant to tell you my sexuality because it shouldn't matter. We have straight people in the organization who work just as hard and care just as much. They have no trouble "getting it".

There is no such thing as a gay right, or a black right. They are all human rights. Equal protection under the law is not a gay right, its a human right. And as long as I am a human I will defend those rights whenever I see fit.

He doesn't speak for me either. Maybe that's because I don't read the Times! By toning it down a bit, homosexuals can pass any day of the week or move to San Francisco or Santa Fe, but those who are discriminated against because of the way that they look, they don't have that option. I have had hateful, hurtful things said and done to myself and friends, but I don't know what being out there on the front line 24 hours a day is like.
I don't think that Kassandra has to qualify her anger, but I honestly believe that we have a good community in SL; more progressive than a similarly sized group picked at random, and the few like Death Grace and his apologists are the exceptions, rather than the norm. Let them all live in Jessie together and enjoy the blandness.

Um. Likewise?

You are consistently misinterpreting my statements; you seem to think I mean something more than what I'm saying.


Well, this colors in your situation somewhat. It's now more clear why you were upset by your "friends" -- they were not merely silent.

If you'll recall, my statement in their defense was that their silence did not necessarily equate with their approval of Death Grace's actions. But what you've said here seems to indicate they were actively participating in hurtful remarks being made by him. And, for what it's worth, I think you're right to be upset by that.

And when they further got upset at you for reporting Death Grace for a clear ToS violation, they were further unjustified. I think you were right to report him. It's beginning to be clear to me that these people you considered friends were not as enlightened as you had thought they would be.

I didn't mean to defend those actions as you've just now described them, Kasandra. I'm sorry if I missed something. I don't think that what your friends did was right. I honestly thought they were just silent. My argument from there in their defense can be thus effectively dismissed.

I'm guessing this is part of why you've been upset with me. We've been talking about different things.


I wasn't trying to come up with a step-by-step procedure by which whites can figure out when it's appropriate to speak up and when it's not. Believe it or not, in specific instances I trust common sense to make that distinction.

All I was trying to do was offer a possible reason why they might have been silent. I wasn't trying to say that they should have been silent, and I myself said I wouldn't have been. But seeing as how the weren't silent, my entire argument to that effect was misplaced.

And no, we whites don't understand what it's like to be black, and we can't know what it's like without you telling us, but at the same time we can't be expected to just accept everything you tell us uncrtically. All I'm saying is there needs to be a dialogue when communicating these sorts of things. Only through dialogue can this stuff actually be learned and not just repeated verbatim. It's the dialogue that lets us consider your views against our own, to try to understand.



*shrugs* A lot of white people don't. It bothers me that they think that they do, because it often means they don't fully comprehend the complexity of race, class, gender, etc. relations. They work with caricatures and without doubt or skepticism.



You think I'm stupid because it helps you to feel better about yourself. The same is true of all of us. It's human.

Anyway, to respond to your actual, "philosophical" gripe here, I never was trying to belittle or file away your incident with Death Grace by citing these other instances.

I was just trying to be optimistic, as crazy as that sounds. I feel that, as bad as things still are in this country, that they're better than they were and that they're better than they are elsewhere in the world. Not that they're good. Not that you should be content to be called inferior by jerks. Just that things are changing, we're doing something right.

That's all.

Looking back, I can see how it must have sounded. I didn't mean for it to be a substantial part of any part of my argument, and I don't think it actually functioned in that way. It was never my intent to belittle your offense, to say that you had no right to be hurt. I was merely trying to defend the (what I now recognize to be) indefensible actions of your so-called "friends."

And yes, I think there are objective ways to measure the plight of American Indians against that of blacks and hispanics in this country. You're right, I think, in pointing out the composition of our prisons as a continuing blight in the US treatment of black people. I don't know. I wasn't trying to make a substantive point with those examples, because ultimately any attempt to list them from "bad" to "worse" to "worst" treatment would never end... I was just pointing to these things as context. You know?


Of course I recognize it's a logical fallacy, and as I've said here, it wasn't my intent to use those instances I cited as substantive argument. I was just trying to say, "Hey, we can fix this. We have the power. It's not as difficult a problem to solve as it sometimes can seem." I cited the seemingly intractable problems around the world because it puts it into perspective. This doesn't mean that we can't view the smaller problem as one that needs fixing, and I never meant to say that it did.


I am completely in agreement here. Thank you for pouncing on the one instance of the one word I used because it's part of a rhetorical device. I guess that's why you're a "philosopher." Because you can see the bigger picture.

Of course the gay community is not "mine."


Again, I completely agree. I know that there are superficial, flakey gay people who fit the stereotype perfectly. As I've stated, I can't presume to speak for them. I can only speak for myself.

This is another one of those things I said which really didn't have a part in my argument. I was only saying that watching people defend the right of marriage for me when they didn't have anything to gain from it bothered me, so I'm more hesitant to assume that something will upset, say, my Korean friend I've mentioned before, and more willing to wait for her cue. I don't want to seem as ridiculous to her as straights defending same-sex marriage often seem to me.

Whether the "gay community" is mine or a true "community" at all is beside the point. Especially when I don't myself even consider it that in the first place. It's just shorthand.


That's not what I said and you know it.

I did not say that Death Grace should not be judged for his actions, I did not say that his actions should not be judged. I just said, hey, you know, Death Grace is a person too, his unpalatable ideas notwithstanding. You certainly have every right to point out his faults and to avoid his company. But it's immature to pretend that he has no good qualities; that somehow this one point makes him irredeemable.


Fine. It's unacceptable for you. Why should it be for everyone else?


All I was trying to demonstrate was that it's not impossible to befriend people who do not share the same exact beliefs as yourself. Granted, none of my friends actually think I'm "inferior" based upon my race; I would think the possibility of friendship in such a case would be precluded.

I was just responding to something you had earlier said, about how being friends means sharing your values. You've taken that quote out of context so that it seems ridiculous, which, I might add, is a logical fallacy of its own.


There's a big difference between straight people working through part of an organization to further a cause and straight people who simply espouse GLBT causes to make themselves seem cool and progressive. You may pretend such people don't exist but they are the bane of my existence.

And yes, gay rights is black rights is human rights, I agree, but this fact is so often lost in the rhetoric. When they passed a constitutional amendment in my state banning same-sex unions of any kind, the argument was not based upon human rights but upon equal recognition of gay rights, which is why, I believe, we failed to stop that amendment.

I dunno. I know that I've upset you, Kasandra, but I really must repeat that I'd not intended to attack you personally for your experience with Death Grace.

Quite frankly, all this heated rhetoric makes me ill. I wish those who replied to my posts didn't feel the need to call me "sad" or "stupid" or an "idiot" or any of those unproductive words. I guess it must seem to you that I'm insulting you, Kas, but I'm really not trying to.

I just want to wave a white flag at this point. We are, in truth, much more in agreement than it seems I'm able to communicate. I guess I'm just horrible at making my point. You have my respect, Kasandra, even if that means little to you or if your only response to that will be to "f*** off" or to "have another cookie."

These forums suck sometimes, and I hate to feel like I'm part of the reason why, but I guess I must be.

I could go through, quote everything you said that I disagreed with, but I have a 500 prim secret headquarters to build and debating with you will take too much time. So okay, truce, peace, flags and bubble gum. I will happily stop fighting.

Just to let you know. You misunderstood me. The instance I mentioned about the niggers in Australia thing was not Death Grace. He has never called me the N word. But like I said I have a stack full of SL instances to draw from on this topic and well, I shouldn't.

This is the only thing I am going to choose to respond to, as calling me homophobic is quite amusing. The examples of QAF, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and the one you added of Will & Grace are all gay written and produced vehicles. These are not straight people putting a certain image of gay people out there. Both the American and British QAF have straight actors in gay roles (as does W&G) - that has nothing to do with the roles themselves, which have been created by gay men and portray gay people in a certain way. All I am saying about it is when this is what is put out as representative of the gay community by gay people themselves, you can't then cry foul that people think gay people are the very images being put out there. If every black produced/written show only showed black people as gangsters, or hispanics showed themselves only as drug dealers, then there is no one to blame. Gay people have never been more prominent in television and movies, so it is not like there are not diverse voices out there.

There is nothing at all homophobic in my statements, and certainly not in me.

Cristiano

QAF is like a gay Melrose Place. I hardly think it is material to be used to stereotype a community.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go help Amanda with an emergency at the firm.

*sighs*

Fine. I guess I was wrong about that, too. There's a lot of things I've said over the course of these posts that I'd like to take back upon further reflection, but I've wasted enough space by now. I'm also not convinced any retractions would be well-received.

*shrugs*

Sorry for the mess. I'll try to remind myself not to open my trap so much in the future. I'll spend a bit of time away from the forums and give you a break.

maybe it's because chris nomad isn't meterosexual.

Wasn't Melrose Place like a gay Melrose Place?

Cristiano

Ha! The one homosexual on Melrose was celibate. I think in the entire run of the show we got one gay kiss shadowed behind the blinds.

That's okay though. We all had hard-ons for Heather Locklear anyway.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."
att: Edmund Burke 1729-1797.

In my opinion, that is as true today as it has always been. I believe in our collective responsibility to tell someone expressing a racist or otherwise intolerant view that it is simply not acceptable.

To me, qualifications are irrelevent: whether you or I are black, white, green or watch Melrose Place doesnt matter; I am against bigotry and I believe it is my responsibility - and yours - to say so.

I see your quote and raise you another.

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Well said, Neehai and Viola.

You stick up for your friends, simple as that. If youre worried about ostracising yourself from another group of friends, just be diplomatic.

Sorry, but there's no shades of grey for me on this topic.