What I Be

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

as a SWM, I am not my privilege?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Yon "terrorist" dude looks a lot more like a Sikh rather than a Muslim.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I think he knows that.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I'm so slow these days...be nice to an old man.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Woah woah woah!

Nuance!? Stop right there.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

SAdly, most of our population doesn't know the difference

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Hm.

First, I'll say that I think I understand the sentiment. All of these people (and those they represent) feel entitled to (and are entitled to) define their own identities in whatever ways they choose, whatever that means in our society. These people (apparently) choose not to make what makes them "other," so to speak, the core of their identities.

That's cool.

Still, I find myself wondering what they do aspire to. We don't exactly need more "plain vanilla" personalities, of average intelligence and unremarkable talents. Right - you're not your bulimia, you're not your molestation, you're not your gender. But then what are you? A finance major at a middling school? An IT specialist in a large company? An aspiring writer working three part-time jobs? Great, I guess.

I don't celebrate these people's suffering or marginalization. But I don't want to lose sight of their specialness, the unique perspective they bring to the world as a consequence of their suffering. The woman who's had an abortion is absolutely entitled to tell the rest of our sex-shaming, anti-woman society to fuck the hell off and to leave her alone. But good god, we need to be told that, by someone. That perspective of anger at and rejection of the status quo must not be lost or filtered out of the progressive conversation.

I mean - yeah, a Sikh has every right to expect to be able to live his life without being thought of as or accused of being a terrorist. He has no obligation to educate us, to show us the error of our ways, or whatever. But the ignoramus who misreads the Sikh's turban as "Muslim" and doubles down with the inference "terrorist" isn't just ignorant; he's the product of a whole douchebag regime whose hegemony must fall. This is an aggressive, self-perpetuating regime whose pervasive ubiquity lulls us into thinking that all we need to do is adjust a few knobs on the "cultural sensitivity" dial until the Sikh blends into the background static of our empty, useless lives. God - anything but that, really. Please.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

We don't exactly need more "plain vanilla" personalities, of average intelligence and unremarkable talents.

I actually disagree with this. If we had more plain vanilla, it'd be easier to get things done. Cogs and drones are good for a reason. I am generally in favor of standardization of the human race and ensuing conformity.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

And then comes along a virus and kills all of us cause there is no genetic variation.
Thanks for dooming the human race to extinction!

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you here. Diversity is a better idea than homogenisation. Unity embracing difference within necessary social boundaries.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

" But then what are you? A finance major at a middling school? An IT specialist in a large company? An aspiring writer working three part-time jobs? Great, I guess."

I'm a picker
I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
I'm a sinner
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker....

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Apologies for my tardy reply.