"Charming"
(TRIGGER WARNING: intense othering and hostility towards people-of-color/women/queer-people, and lots of slurs)
By chance, I recently found the horrors of I’m not racist, but… and its spinoff site, I’m not sexist, but… and my goodness, what has been seen cannot be unseen. It got me thinking though. All of the images on those two tumblrs are taken from openbook, so I could just head over and see whether there’s a horrendous tide of racism and sexism and other terrible things or if there’s a lot of awfulness woven into the general stupidity of the internet.
And I found the horrors - the unthinkable, the unacceptable, and the downright disgusting thoughts about those people over there who are supposedly just so weird, just so inhuman, just so undeserving of dignity. This isn’t news, I know, for a lot of people. The people who’ve been called sluts, the people who’ve been told their skin color revokes their status as human, the people who’ve been gay bashed, the people that are told they have only themselves to blame for their poverty - I know you know this all too well. To those of you who don’t know those feelings from inside of your own skin, who haven’t lived it, but who still care - we can never forget that this stuff is out there, and if we have any compassion we need to confront it.
We have to remember that there are people out there who say these things, and we’re privileged to have the power to plug our ears and avoid having to hear comments like these.
There are still people who can’t avoid comparing gay men unfavorably with pedophiles and dictators.
…or compare people to queer folks as a means of communicating dislike, hostility, or annoyance.
…or feel compelled to tell queer folks that they should expect violence from them, because of who they are.
…or can never quite explain why they’re so disgusted with queer folks, but make it pretty clear that they never want to be near us.
…or want to avoid women that don’t look how they want them to at any cost.
…or interpret any women that they disagree with as (naturally) failing their standards for sexual purity.
…or dismiss a woman’s worth because of how she looks.
…or think that poverty is a moral failing.
…or think all ethnicities other than their own are interchangeable.
…or think that ethnic stereotypes are innate biological facts.
…or think you have to prove your worth in spite of your status as non-straight.
…or think that nothing of worth has ever come from certain ethnic groups.
…or treat any cultural influence from other ethnic groups as contamination.
…or think they come across better when complaining about service if they point out that their server wasn’t White.
Some people have to live with this, all the time. And we should help them, not just by being a port in the storm of the internet, but also by having their back out in the rough waters. Or something like that.
By chance, I recently found the horrors of I’m not racist, but… and its spinoff site, I’m not sexist, but… and my goodness, what has been seen cannot be unseen. It got me thinking though. All of the images on those two tumblrs are taken from openbook, so I could just head over and see whether there’s a horrendous tide of racism and sexism and other terrible things or if there’s a lot of awfulness woven into the general stupidity of the internet.
And I found the horrors - the unthinkable, the unacceptable, and the downright disgusting thoughts about those people over there who are supposedly just so weird, just so inhuman, just so undeserving of dignity. This isn’t news, I know, for a lot of people. The people who’ve been called sluts, the people who’ve been told their skin color revokes their status as human, the people who’ve been gay bashed, the people that are told they have only themselves to blame for their poverty - I know you know this all too well. To those of you who don’t know those feelings from inside of your own skin, who haven’t lived it, but who still care - we can never forget that this stuff is out there, and if we have any compassion we need to confront it.
We have to remember that there are people out there who say these things, and we’re privileged to have the power to plug our ears and avoid having to hear comments like these.
There are still people who can’t avoid comparing gay men unfavorably with pedophiles and dictators.
…or compare people to queer folks as a means of communicating dislike, hostility, or annoyance.
…or feel compelled to tell queer folks that they should expect violence from them, because of who they are.
…or can never quite explain why they’re so disgusted with queer folks, but make it pretty clear that they never want to be near us.
…or want to avoid women that don’t look how they want them to at any cost.
…or interpret any women that they disagree with as (naturally) failing their standards for sexual purity.
…or dismiss a woman’s worth because of how she looks.
…or think that poverty is a moral failing.
…or think all ethnicities other than their own are interchangeable.
…or think that ethnic stereotypes are innate biological facts.
…or think you have to prove your worth in spite of your status as non-straight.
…or think that nothing of worth has ever come from certain ethnic groups.
…or treat any cultural influence from other ethnic groups as contamination.
…or think they come across better when complaining about service if they point out that their server wasn’t White.
Some people have to live with this, all the time. And we should help them, not just by being a port in the storm of the internet, but also by having their back out in the rough waters. Or something like that.