(no subject)
Okay so I would genuinely like thoughts/tips/tricks/etc. on this. I am not trying to be self-aggrandizing, I need help.
O Friendslist! We all try to be decent people, and we all know that part of being decent people is speaking up when other people are saying or doing hurtful things. Silence is complicity and all that. The difficulty I'm encountering is that when I see other people saying or doing hurtful things, it's almost always white cismen, and I am scared to confront them. My friends, sure, I can just say "that was kind of a fucked up thing to say" or "fyi that's a racial slur" and I know that they'll apologize and not do it again. I can't trust men (especially white cismen) to do that. I'm scared of what will happen.
So how do you overcome that fear? Some of it is quite legitimate, I'm sure. I'm a queer, mentally ill woman, and though I'm glow-in-the-dark white and thus don't need to fear racial violence, there's a whole bunch of other excuses someone could use for turning violent on me. But some of it is just my crazy (see: mentally ill, part of that is GAD) and some of it is my fear of confrontation (working on it in therapy!) and some of it is just plain nebulous fear that people won't like me.
Tips and tricks, seriously, I need them. I know there are people on my flist who have anxiety AND YET are still incredibly brave and consistently standing up against oppressive mores. Please help a wannabe scaredycat out?
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/249145.html. Please comment over there if possible.
O Friendslist! We all try to be decent people, and we all know that part of being decent people is speaking up when other people are saying or doing hurtful things. Silence is complicity and all that. The difficulty I'm encountering is that when I see other people saying or doing hurtful things, it's almost always white cismen, and I am scared to confront them. My friends, sure, I can just say "that was kind of a fucked up thing to say" or "fyi that's a racial slur" and I know that they'll apologize and not do it again. I can't trust men (especially white cismen) to do that. I'm scared of what will happen.
So how do you overcome that fear? Some of it is quite legitimate, I'm sure. I'm a queer, mentally ill woman, and though I'm glow-in-the-dark white and thus don't need to fear racial violence, there's a whole bunch of other excuses someone could use for turning violent on me. But some of it is just my crazy (see: mentally ill, part of that is GAD) and some of it is my fear of confrontation (working on it in therapy!) and some of it is just plain nebulous fear that people won't like me.
Tips and tricks, seriously, I need them. I know there are people on my flist who have anxiety AND YET are still incredibly brave and consistently standing up against oppressive mores. Please help a wannabe scaredycat out?
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/249145.html. Please comment over there if possible.