An Apology for my last post over at Noscans_daily.
I wrote these words to apologize for the joke I wrote at the end of my post a few weeks ago and for offending so many people with it. I wrote this apology weeks ago too and sent it to stubbleupdate asking her if she could post it. I do not know if she ever read it or simply decided not to do it. It’s not that simply letting the whole business die and not mention it again lacks merits, but I do believe I owe people an apology and an explanation, so I will do it in my own LJ. I don't know what good this will do since nobody involved follows this LJ, but it's something.
I have to say I did not understand why it bothered so many people. As far as I knew it was just a joke and I couldn’t see why anyone would take it the wrong way. That’s the way it was until keeni84 explained why she was angry in another comment.
"that tactic has been used (in particular against POC) to invalidate (our) thoughts and opinions."
After reading that I thought Oh crap… that does make sense.
I want to assure everybody that I never wrote that to invalidate anyone's opinion. I never meant to imply that anyone who disagreed with me would do it because they think I'm a crazy racist. I did it because in any discussion about race, from any point of view, someone is bound to call you a crazy racist no matter what you do. If you defend Affirmative Action, you are a reverse racist, if you are against it you are a racist. So I decided to joke and call myself a racist in a ridiculous way before anyone had the chance to do it. It just didn't occur to me that it could be very easily mistaken for a dirty tactic to invalidate disagreeing opinions. For that I apologize, it wasn't my intention to invalidate anyone's comments.
And last, I want to assure you all I am not apologizing as a lame attempt to get my ban lifted. I already asked the mods to never lift it. Or at least I asked stubbleupdate who is no longer a mod in a private message she probably never read. But it is the thought that counts. I apologize because once it became clear to me why things went wrong, I have to agree that I should have thought that last part better. I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive before hand.
Still, the post was not a complete disaster. I noticed some people agreed with what I said, and plenty of them were not Americans. So, perhaps other people can carry on and complain that not all Japanese heroes have to be giant robots or magical schoolgirls, just like most heroes and villains from Haiti don't have to use Vodoun magic. Hopefully they will do this with better judgment than me.
Once again, I'm sorry if the joke offended you.
I have to say I did not understand why it bothered so many people. As far as I knew it was just a joke and I couldn’t see why anyone would take it the wrong way. That’s the way it was until keeni84 explained why she was angry in another comment.
"that tactic has been used (in particular against POC) to invalidate (our) thoughts and opinions."
After reading that I thought Oh crap… that does make sense.
I want to assure everybody that I never wrote that to invalidate anyone's opinion. I never meant to imply that anyone who disagreed with me would do it because they think I'm a crazy racist. I did it because in any discussion about race, from any point of view, someone is bound to call you a crazy racist no matter what you do. If you defend Affirmative Action, you are a reverse racist, if you are against it you are a racist. So I decided to joke and call myself a racist in a ridiculous way before anyone had the chance to do it. It just didn't occur to me that it could be very easily mistaken for a dirty tactic to invalidate disagreeing opinions. For that I apologize, it wasn't my intention to invalidate anyone's comments.
And last, I want to assure you all I am not apologizing as a lame attempt to get my ban lifted. I already asked the mods to never lift it. Or at least I asked stubbleupdate who is no longer a mod in a private message she probably never read. But it is the thought that counts. I apologize because once it became clear to me why things went wrong, I have to agree that I should have thought that last part better. I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive before hand.
Still, the post was not a complete disaster. I noticed some people agreed with what I said, and plenty of them were not Americans. So, perhaps other people can carry on and complain that not all Japanese heroes have to be giant robots or magical schoolgirls, just like most heroes and villains from Haiti don't have to use Vodoun magic. Hopefully they will do this with better judgment than me.
Once again, I'm sorry if the joke offended you.