I am the oppressor man.
Yesterday I got called racist on social media. My crime? Non agreeing that calling a white man a yuppie is the same as calling a black man a thug.
The best part is that the friend who made this argument thought his shit was so tight and clever that the only reason I would disagree was because I enjoyed trying to make him look bad online. He was so pissed that he texted me offline and ripped into me, and despite all my efforts to end the conversation by placating him in any way I could think of, he just wouldn't let it go. And I knew he was marching down the road to "The White Man is the real opressed minority in this country", and I really wanted to end the conversation before he got there. I genuinely like the guy, and we have a lot of mutual friends, and his wife and kids are lovely people. So I was trying real hard to keep him from forcing me to lose all respect for him.
He kind of went there but swerved at the last second. Still said a bunch of dumb shit, but whatever.
The point of it that weirded me out wasn't the racial stuff. I just forget sometimes how hostile some people are if they think I'm "trying to be smarter than them". He really hit me with "I'm not trying to have a conversation with footnotes and historical references and stuff. This is just regular people talk".
It really stood out to me because two nights earlier I had the pleasure of hanging out with one of my truly brilliant friends. She's one of the few people I know who for sure is smarter than me by more than just a little bit. And I love it because I actually have to work to keep up with her, and that's not something I get much of anymore.
Which hopefully doesn't come across as snobbish. I truly believe that thare's all different types of intelligence, and for all the areas that I'm strong in, there's others where I fall short. And life requires all sorts of skills to get through it. I've been handed my ass enough to hopefully remain somewhat humble about the limitations of whatever gifts I may have.
But then there's times like yesterday, where it feels shitty to have to hold back. The dude I was arguing with accused me of going out of my way to find a hole in his argument to magnify and make him look bad. And I wanted so bad to tell him that I wasn't really burning a lot of calories on the conversation, and was doing two other things at the time, and I could crank out a pretty cohesive 5 page essay (Maybe not an essay. My writing is rusty as fuck these days, but definitely a very solid outline, with some harsh bullet points) debunking his argument without really thinking about it very much.
But I didn't. Just to end the conversation, I apologized, and promised to be more considerate of his point of view in the future. And he last-worded me anyway about how he was right all along.
The best part is that the friend who made this argument thought his shit was so tight and clever that the only reason I would disagree was because I enjoyed trying to make him look bad online. He was so pissed that he texted me offline and ripped into me, and despite all my efforts to end the conversation by placating him in any way I could think of, he just wouldn't let it go. And I knew he was marching down the road to "The White Man is the real opressed minority in this country", and I really wanted to end the conversation before he got there. I genuinely like the guy, and we have a lot of mutual friends, and his wife and kids are lovely people. So I was trying real hard to keep him from forcing me to lose all respect for him.
He kind of went there but swerved at the last second. Still said a bunch of dumb shit, but whatever.
The point of it that weirded me out wasn't the racial stuff. I just forget sometimes how hostile some people are if they think I'm "trying to be smarter than them". He really hit me with "I'm not trying to have a conversation with footnotes and historical references and stuff. This is just regular people talk".
It really stood out to me because two nights earlier I had the pleasure of hanging out with one of my truly brilliant friends. She's one of the few people I know who for sure is smarter than me by more than just a little bit. And I love it because I actually have to work to keep up with her, and that's not something I get much of anymore.
Which hopefully doesn't come across as snobbish. I truly believe that thare's all different types of intelligence, and for all the areas that I'm strong in, there's others where I fall short. And life requires all sorts of skills to get through it. I've been handed my ass enough to hopefully remain somewhat humble about the limitations of whatever gifts I may have.
But then there's times like yesterday, where it feels shitty to have to hold back. The dude I was arguing with accused me of going out of my way to find a hole in his argument to magnify and make him look bad. And I wanted so bad to tell him that I wasn't really burning a lot of calories on the conversation, and was doing two other things at the time, and I could crank out a pretty cohesive 5 page essay (Maybe not an essay. My writing is rusty as fuck these days, but definitely a very solid outline, with some harsh bullet points) debunking his argument without really thinking about it very much.
But I didn't. Just to end the conversation, I apologized, and promised to be more considerate of his point of view in the future. And he last-worded me anyway about how he was right all along.