Some changes to this journal, comments, flist etc
This journal started out as a way to keep in touch with folks who had migrated to Livejournal from the Usenet community soc.singles.moderated (ssm)
Many things have changed since that time. So I am changing some things about my journal to reflect the changes and decrease the drama.
Lots of folks have failed to notice that the majority of what I've written here in the past couple of years has to do with racism, sexism, privilege and oppression. Lots of folks, especially (well to be honest exclusively) folks from what used to be ssm, feel entitled to continue to treat those questions with the same level of "yeah? prove it to me" belligerent ignorance and privilege-blindness as was the group norm for those questions in ssm.
I learned a lot during my time in ssm, and made connections that in some cases I honestly believed were or could become friendships. But I was never fully comfortable with the culture of that community and had many clashes with the !cabal. Over ethics, politics etc. And as often as not, over just plain old insider/outsider groupthink stuff. Mostly I disagreed with the core axioms of the group that: (a) polyamory was morally superior to monogamy; and (b) any other generalizations about human identity or behavior were unquestionably WRONG, a sign of stupidity or weakness or both.
Much like the individuality-ueber-alles rallying cry in the Libertarian blogosphere, axiom (b) above serves as a very effective protection of class and race privilege.
What that axiom fails to do is to distinguish between examined and unexamined generalizations, and fails to take any social and sociological realities into account. So that axiom treats the following two statements as equally problematic:
a young White man who says "I can't get a date because all women want rich jerks"
a young Latina woman who says "all White women want me to be their maid"
Both are speaking from a sense of violated entitlement. The difference is that the young Latina woman's entitlement is justified. She does have a right to live and move and breathe in a world where she is not constantly dealing with White racist expectations of her. And yet she can't do that, so when she expresses her frustration, she is not obligated to express it in such a way that leaves room for anyone listening to be The Exception, the special snowflake who is so blind to their own racism and privilege that they think that they NEVER do or say anything like that OMG! And no, I am not arrogating to myself the right to speak with the same kinds of generalizations because I don't speak from the same location (see the post just before this one, now moved over to debunkingwhite). But just because I am White and once upon a time I participated in a community that was as White and middle class and privilege blind as internet communities get ... doesn't mean that this is a place for you to bring that kind of noise about people of color.
Anyway.
I am finally catching this journal up with changes in me, in my self-care, in my writing, in my ethos.
Several former ssm folks have used those questions to settle old conflicts, to come and tell me or tell others what a nasty bitch they think I am. In an ever-so-reasonable way that never challenges their own death-grip on their picture of themselves as GoodPeople, of course. (side note: the parallel to NiceGuys[tm] is pretty amusing to me.)
So I've taken a bunch of folks off my f-list, and changed the comments policy so that any comments from non-friends are screened. If you're writing a comment here to beat up on me and/or defend one of the poor, misunderstood special snowflakes? Don't bother.
I wish, I really do, that some folks had taken note of and shown some respect for who I am and what I actually write about. But sometimes it really does take a sledgehammer.
Many things have changed since that time. So I am changing some things about my journal to reflect the changes and decrease the drama.
Lots of folks have failed to notice that the majority of what I've written here in the past couple of years has to do with racism, sexism, privilege and oppression. Lots of folks, especially (well to be honest exclusively) folks from what used to be ssm, feel entitled to continue to treat those questions with the same level of "yeah? prove it to me" belligerent ignorance and privilege-blindness as was the group norm for those questions in ssm.
I learned a lot during my time in ssm, and made connections that in some cases I honestly believed were or could become friendships. But I was never fully comfortable with the culture of that community and had many clashes with the !cabal. Over ethics, politics etc. And as often as not, over just plain old insider/outsider groupthink stuff. Mostly I disagreed with the core axioms of the group that: (a) polyamory was morally superior to monogamy; and (b) any other generalizations about human identity or behavior were unquestionably WRONG, a sign of stupidity or weakness or both.
Much like the individuality-ueber-alles rallying cry in the Libertarian blogosphere, axiom (b) above serves as a very effective protection of class and race privilege.
What that axiom fails to do is to distinguish between examined and unexamined generalizations, and fails to take any social and sociological realities into account. So that axiom treats the following two statements as equally problematic:
a young White man who says "I can't get a date because all women want rich jerks"
a young Latina woman who says "all White women want me to be their maid"
Both are speaking from a sense of violated entitlement. The difference is that the young Latina woman's entitlement is justified. She does have a right to live and move and breathe in a world where she is not constantly dealing with White racist expectations of her. And yet she can't do that, so when she expresses her frustration, she is not obligated to express it in such a way that leaves room for anyone listening to be The Exception, the special snowflake who is so blind to their own racism and privilege that they think that they NEVER do or say anything like that OMG! And no, I am not arrogating to myself the right to speak with the same kinds of generalizations because I don't speak from the same location (see the post just before this one, now moved over to debunkingwhite). But just because I am White and once upon a time I participated in a community that was as White and middle class and privilege blind as internet communities get ... doesn't mean that this is a place for you to bring that kind of noise about people of color.
Anyway.
I am finally catching this journal up with changes in me, in my self-care, in my writing, in my ethos.
Several former ssm folks have used those questions to settle old conflicts, to come and tell me or tell others what a nasty bitch they think I am. In an ever-so-reasonable way that never challenges their own death-grip on their picture of themselves as GoodPeople, of course. (side note: the parallel to NiceGuys[tm] is pretty amusing to me.)
So I've taken a bunch of folks off my f-list, and changed the comments policy so that any comments from non-friends are screened. If you're writing a comment here to beat up on me and/or defend one of the poor, misunderstood special snowflakes? Don't bother.
I wish, I really do, that some folks had taken note of and shown some respect for who I am and what I actually write about. But sometimes it really does take a sledgehammer.