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blimixThis is another of those times that I notice all the stuff that I've typed up quickly for Facebook (as posts or comments), none of which individually fit the longer, more considered format that I prefer for Dreamwidth. Here's a compilation.
I have a particular message that I attempt to convey with my rainbow beaded safety pin. It goes with my regular safety pin, my red-black-green beaded safety pin, and my "#illgowithyou" pin. Each one means some version of "I will protect you". I am conscious that people can interpret (and have interpreted) the rainbow pin as proclaiming LGBTQ+ status, and I'm okay with that, even if it's incorrect. Showing the colors, unafraid, in normal, everyday contexts helps normalize it.
I have a take on cursing, which I've never seen elsewhere (though admittedly I haven't gone looking). When people express a problem with cursing, they are enforcing the social hierarchy. Cursing in front of someone is generally socially acceptable if and only if they are your peer. Therefore, choosing to curse in front of someone (not at them) marks them as your peer. This is insulting when done to someone of higher social status (your boss, your parent, etc.). Cursing with (not at) someone of lower social status will be taken by others as improperly granting that person more status than they should have. If you are young, your uncle privately cursing alongside you in a conspiratorially hushed voice is showing you that he respects you as a person, while not invoking the disapproval of others.
At work, I realized that certain discouraged behaviors of an autistic person we support were a form of stimming. So I sent a department-wide email basically saying, "Here's what stimming is, and why. Here's a link to read more. Discouraging natural autistic behavior leads to stress, which leads to autistic burnout, which is very bad. Here are some lower-social-cost options for stimming, which I've already discussed with the person, and they're willing to try." This went down *very* well. Not one bit of it would have been possible, because I would have been utterly clueless on the subject, without my friend Caitlin's advocacy efforts. Thank you so much. You're helping me help others.
[Cool new friend emails me about stressful family issues.]
Me: "Disclaimer: While I have studied bullies, and am very good at recognizing patterns with little information, I lack the native understanding of social dynamics that any particularly knowledgeable Slytherin would have." There follow 17 paragraphs of analysis and advice.
Friend: "As a Slytherin myself, ..."
Me: "Oh, good! They'll be able to handle this so much better than I thought!"
Me: "Oh shit, I was mansplaining."
A friend shared a poem: "Magma is red / Sapphires are blue / Don't take science for granite / That's a schist thing to do".
So I replied, "Of quartz you wouldn't flint from posting a gneiss pun that almost fluorite by me."
(I later came up with an amazing rock pun, but it works better verbally than in writing. Ask me about it in person if you dare.)
As part of my job, I sometimes attend a writing workshop.
(I'm now taking a moment to enjoy the awesomeness of that fact.)
One person commented on a proposed piece: "And 'Gypsy' is such an evocative word here! I love it."
*sigh* So then I explained to a room of twenty-four people that the G-word is a racial slur, used to justify oppression and reinforce harmful stereotypes: Basically the N-word for the Romani people. This prompted a discussion of racial slurs in writing, art, and media, spurred on mostly by the "I'm not a racist, but I don't believe in political correctness" guy. (Spoiler: He's a racist.)
After twenty minutes, I managed to get things back on track by saying, "I think we all understand that there are times to use and not to use racial slurs in art." (Unspoken: "And some of us are very wrong about those times.") "I just want to make sure that you know that 'Gypsy' is a racial slur, so that you can make an informed decision about whether to use it." (Unspoken: "i.e., about whether to be a douchebag.")
(I didn't want to say the G-word, but nobody in the room would have understood me if I hadn't. I also don't want to write it, but for an accurate record, I'm including it in quotes.)
Several people thanked me, most notably the person who had made the original comment. So I think I got through to a lot of them.
For more on the subject, see "The Problem with the word 'Gypsy'".
"Sinfest" has been veering into transphobia lately. It used to be good, but is now leaving my daily reading list.
In contrast: "Goblins" is a powerful, compelling, well written, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, and all around amazing D&D themed webcomic. The author had a bad breakdown five years ago. She has recently come out as a trans woman, which has fixed basically all of her issues (aside from money, apparently). Patreon has become a crappy organization, but using it is still a great way to communicate, "Go you!" and "I support you!" and "I love your work; please make more!" Convenient, that.
On being "racially colorblind": If you "don't see race," you tacitly enable and perpetuate systemic racism. To tell someone that you "don't see race" is an attempt to invalidate, silence, and ignore their observations and experiences of systemic racism. It is, in fact, a racist statement.
Extend as needed to all other forms of systemic oppression.
A friend of mine has been recording a great podcast, "Finishing School With Ms. Mhari". "This is an aggressively sex positive and gender neutral advice and information podcast. I’ll be focusing on sexual health, including sex toys, as well as topics tangential to sex like gender, gender identity and presentation, sexual orientation, kinks, relationship structures, and the occasional wander off into full on relationship advice. The intent is to answer whatever questions you, my listeners, have about sex or sex related topics that you just never got the answer to in school and are afraid to publicly ask now."
I've had a chance to update the record of my writings from the class I attend with the folks on Fridays.
Gratuitous links:
What you can do to prevent Alzheimer's. (Thanks, Andrea!)
';--have i been pwned? checks to see if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach. (i.e., does your email address show up in leaked account information?)
The easy way to thread a needle. (Thanks, Jess!)
Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash. One of many examples of predictive text guided by human choices, to create a story that had me rolling with laughter.
This viral airport 'mansplaining' story shows what male allyship can look like. (Thanks, Amanda!)
The magical thinking of guys who love logic: Why so many men online love to use "logic" to win an argument, and then disappear before they can find out they're wrong. (Thanks, Conni!)
Born between 1957-1989? You may not be protected from measles outbreak. (Thanks, Shelley!) I was born during that time, and my vaccination records indicated only one shot. Rather than get my current immunity tested, I went ahead and got a new MMR vaccine, courtesy of my county's Department of Health. The person with whom I made my appointment asked whether the vaccination was required for work, and sounded thrilled when I said that I just wanted to be part of the herd immunity.
What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right (Thanks, Amalia!) My comments (spoiler warning!): The initial incident with the school is one that few people would understand, especially while it's happening to them. The authoritarian victimizing committed by the administrators was a right-wing action, performed in service of left-wing ideals: Not because the administrators were remotely left-wing, but because they had been instilled with a fear of people who could make life hard for them (right-wing motivation). This is easily mistakable for being victimized by feminism. The happy ending was intriguing; it made the story palatable enough that it is more likely to be widely shared than is a story composed only of tragic loss. I expect that many more of the latter stories exist.
Elizabeth C. McLaughlin explains the progressing situation of Trump's concentration camps.
How Jewish Women Are Being Harassed Online for Fighting Anti-Semitism (Thanks, Amalia!) My comments: "Liberals" who attack vulnerable minorities, such as Jewish women and women of color, are not progressive. They are bullies who would have been more at home among fascists, if they hadn't been raised among liberals. They defend their racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and harassment by claiming that calling out the bad behavior of liberals only helps the fascists. They miss the fact that calling out the bad behavior of a *good person* gives that person a chance to be better. We can all stand to be better: *Progress* is the primary goal of progressives. To those lefty bullies who don't get the point of being on the left: Thanks for your vote, but please remove yourself from decent society until you choose to grow up.
I've No More F***s To Give! A light-hearted song on which to finish.
I have a particular message that I attempt to convey with my rainbow beaded safety pin. It goes with my regular safety pin, my red-black-green beaded safety pin, and my "#illgowithyou" pin. Each one means some version of "I will protect you". I am conscious that people can interpret (and have interpreted) the rainbow pin as proclaiming LGBTQ+ status, and I'm okay with that, even if it's incorrect. Showing the colors, unafraid, in normal, everyday contexts helps normalize it.
I have a take on cursing, which I've never seen elsewhere (though admittedly I haven't gone looking). When people express a problem with cursing, they are enforcing the social hierarchy. Cursing in front of someone is generally socially acceptable if and only if they are your peer. Therefore, choosing to curse in front of someone (not at them) marks them as your peer. This is insulting when done to someone of higher social status (your boss, your parent, etc.). Cursing with (not at) someone of lower social status will be taken by others as improperly granting that person more status than they should have. If you are young, your uncle privately cursing alongside you in a conspiratorially hushed voice is showing you that he respects you as a person, while not invoking the disapproval of others.
At work, I realized that certain discouraged behaviors of an autistic person we support were a form of stimming. So I sent a department-wide email basically saying, "Here's what stimming is, and why. Here's a link to read more. Discouraging natural autistic behavior leads to stress, which leads to autistic burnout, which is very bad. Here are some lower-social-cost options for stimming, which I've already discussed with the person, and they're willing to try." This went down *very* well. Not one bit of it would have been possible, because I would have been utterly clueless on the subject, without my friend Caitlin's advocacy efforts. Thank you so much. You're helping me help others.
[Cool new friend emails me about stressful family issues.]
Me: "Disclaimer: While I have studied bullies, and am very good at recognizing patterns with little information, I lack the native understanding of social dynamics that any particularly knowledgeable Slytherin would have." There follow 17 paragraphs of analysis and advice.
Friend: "As a Slytherin myself, ..."
Me: "Oh, good! They'll be able to handle this so much better than I thought!"
Me: "Oh shit, I was mansplaining."
A friend shared a poem: "Magma is red / Sapphires are blue / Don't take science for granite / That's a schist thing to do".
So I replied, "Of quartz you wouldn't flint from posting a gneiss pun that almost fluorite by me."
(I later came up with an amazing rock pun, but it works better verbally than in writing. Ask me about it in person if you dare.)
As part of my job, I sometimes attend a writing workshop.
(I'm now taking a moment to enjoy the awesomeness of that fact.)
One person commented on a proposed piece: "And 'Gypsy' is such an evocative word here! I love it."
*sigh* So then I explained to a room of twenty-four people that the G-word is a racial slur, used to justify oppression and reinforce harmful stereotypes: Basically the N-word for the Romani people. This prompted a discussion of racial slurs in writing, art, and media, spurred on mostly by the "I'm not a racist, but I don't believe in political correctness" guy. (Spoiler: He's a racist.)
After twenty minutes, I managed to get things back on track by saying, "I think we all understand that there are times to use and not to use racial slurs in art." (Unspoken: "And some of us are very wrong about those times.") "I just want to make sure that you know that 'Gypsy' is a racial slur, so that you can make an informed decision about whether to use it." (Unspoken: "i.e., about whether to be a douchebag.")
(I didn't want to say the G-word, but nobody in the room would have understood me if I hadn't. I also don't want to write it, but for an accurate record, I'm including it in quotes.)
Several people thanked me, most notably the person who had made the original comment. So I think I got through to a lot of them.
For more on the subject, see "The Problem with the word 'Gypsy'".
"Sinfest" has been veering into transphobia lately. It used to be good, but is now leaving my daily reading list.
In contrast: "Goblins" is a powerful, compelling, well written, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, and all around amazing D&D themed webcomic. The author had a bad breakdown five years ago. She has recently come out as a trans woman, which has fixed basically all of her issues (aside from money, apparently). Patreon has become a crappy organization, but using it is still a great way to communicate, "Go you!" and "I support you!" and "I love your work; please make more!" Convenient, that.
On being "racially colorblind": If you "don't see race," you tacitly enable and perpetuate systemic racism. To tell someone that you "don't see race" is an attempt to invalidate, silence, and ignore their observations and experiences of systemic racism. It is, in fact, a racist statement.
Extend as needed to all other forms of systemic oppression.
A friend of mine has been recording a great podcast, "Finishing School With Ms. Mhari". "This is an aggressively sex positive and gender neutral advice and information podcast. I’ll be focusing on sexual health, including sex toys, as well as topics tangential to sex like gender, gender identity and presentation, sexual orientation, kinks, relationship structures, and the occasional wander off into full on relationship advice. The intent is to answer whatever questions you, my listeners, have about sex or sex related topics that you just never got the answer to in school and are afraid to publicly ask now."
I've had a chance to update the record of my writings from the class I attend with the folks on Fridays.
Gratuitous links:
What you can do to prevent Alzheimer's. (Thanks, Andrea!)
';--have i been pwned? checks to see if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breach. (i.e., does your email address show up in leaked account information?)
The easy way to thread a needle. (Thanks, Jess!)
Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash. One of many examples of predictive text guided by human choices, to create a story that had me rolling with laughter.
This viral airport 'mansplaining' story shows what male allyship can look like. (Thanks, Amanda!)
The magical thinking of guys who love logic: Why so many men online love to use "logic" to win an argument, and then disappear before they can find out they're wrong. (Thanks, Conni!)
Born between 1957-1989? You may not be protected from measles outbreak. (Thanks, Shelley!) I was born during that time, and my vaccination records indicated only one shot. Rather than get my current immunity tested, I went ahead and got a new MMR vaccine, courtesy of my county's Department of Health. The person with whom I made my appointment asked whether the vaccination was required for work, and sounded thrilled when I said that I just wanted to be part of the herd immunity.
What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right (Thanks, Amalia!) My comments (spoiler warning!): The initial incident with the school is one that few people would understand, especially while it's happening to them. The authoritarian victimizing committed by the administrators was a right-wing action, performed in service of left-wing ideals: Not because the administrators were remotely left-wing, but because they had been instilled with a fear of people who could make life hard for them (right-wing motivation). This is easily mistakable for being victimized by feminism. The happy ending was intriguing; it made the story palatable enough that it is more likely to be widely shared than is a story composed only of tragic loss. I expect that many more of the latter stories exist.
Elizabeth C. McLaughlin explains the progressing situation of Trump's concentration camps.
How Jewish Women Are Being Harassed Online for Fighting Anti-Semitism (Thanks, Amalia!) My comments: "Liberals" who attack vulnerable minorities, such as Jewish women and women of color, are not progressive. They are bullies who would have been more at home among fascists, if they hadn't been raised among liberals. They defend their racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and harassment by claiming that calling out the bad behavior of liberals only helps the fascists. They miss the fact that calling out the bad behavior of a *good person* gives that person a chance to be better. We can all stand to be better: *Progress* is the primary goal of progressives. To those lefty bullies who don't get the point of being on the left: Thanks for your vote, but please remove yourself from decent society until you choose to grow up.
I've No More F***s To Give! A light-hearted song on which to finish.
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