Liberal Hatred for Susan Sarandon is a Symptom of People Who Refuse to Acknowledge Their Own Failure

[rainbows_]

Oscar-winning actor and progressive activist Susan Sarandon sparked a good deal of controversy during the primary stage of the presidential election when she expressed doubt to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about whether she could bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton in a “lesser-of-two-evils” situation. It was a common question at that time among

Comments

[amw]

The problem is you (general) are in the minority, tho. Even amongst the left - and definitely in the Democratic party - socialists are a minority. Hillary and the DNC don't need to acknowledge that they "alienated" a couple million people when they did exactly what 65 million other people wanted. Welcome to democracy. If you aren't throwing in with a major party or candidate, you don't really matter. Lashing out against the mainstream Democratic party because they aren't acknowledging a fringe group is not a way to win supporters.

I am not an American, so I can't really speak for all you guys (plus I am very drunk right now), but I do think the more progressive left in America would have a lot more luck pulling the centrists over to their cause if they quit complaining about how the DNC machine is against them and started making a solid case why their minority group matters. It worked for immigrants and gays and trannies and plenty of other minority groups. It's not enough to say "we're not a minority group because tens of millions of Americans support us but didn't vote". Tens of millions of Americans never voted, period. They won't suddenly start because socialism. If the socialist wing want recognition in the Democratic mainstream they are going to have to do it like everyone else did. Yeah, it may take decades.

Or, you know, fuck the whole thing. But then there is a whole nother wealth of media who don't have some kind of partisan chip on their shoulder. Check out CrimethInc, IGD, UnicornRiot etc.

[shanrina]

I didn't say socialists. I said progressives.

[amw]

You say tomato...

[ericadawn16]

I totally agreed with you. The way the election was handled was awful. Instead of letting democracy prevail, the DNC picked their candidates and sabotaged others especially if they had aligned themselves with Bernie.

How can they say we need to work together when we're not sure we can trust them again?

[spyral_out]

Excuse me, but please don't say "trannies." That's an unbelievably offensive thing to have said and I don't care how drunk you were.

[amw]

Speaking as someone who is a post-op transsexual of over 15 years with plenty of friends who identify as trans, genderqueer and non-binary, I do not find the term "trannie" the slightest bit offensive. I have owned it proudly for a long time. Perhaps it is offensive where you are from, but it most assuredly is not to a great many members of the LGBTQ community.

[spyral_out]

I'm not sure why you think you speak for all of us, but "Please don't casually use slurs for oppressed minorities" is not a big ask and as a trans person I'd like you to not do that. And "where I come from"? It's considered offensive and dehumanizing almost everywhere. So please stop.

[amw]

I understand that to some people the word "trannie" is considered offensive, but please be mindful not to retroactively assign a blanket status of "slur" to a term that has been used for years - probably decades - as a term of endearment, solidarity and identity amongst transsexuals, transvestites, drag performers and transgendered people. There are lots of users of the English language outside of the largely America-centric internet activist community, and it can come across as cultural imperialism when words are unilaterally deemed slurs (or not) just because in certain parts of the world they tend to be used that way. A good counter-example is "queer", which continues to be used a slur in some parts of the world, but nevertheless got elevated to top-level representation in "LGBTQ" and is considered okay to use in polite language online.

My personal experience of oppression and "dehumanizing" language as a transsexual in Australia, Canada and continental Europe has never involved the term "trannie". I have been called "man", "he... she... it", "thing", "faggot", "man-woman" and a whole bevy of other inaccurate terms that were far more offensive to me than the actual term I and many people in my circle have used for years to describe ourselves.

In the interests of being sensitive to your experience, i will try to remember to use your preferred term (is it "transperson"?) on this community in the future. Some feedback for you, though - i would suggest that if you do not want to scare people away from contributing to this community, you should not attack them for the language they are using to express themselves in not-bigoted-at-all and unrelated political discussion.