When life hands me oranges, I'll pelt you with them.

[zanzando]

Arguing about racism in meatspace has roughly ten times the potential to make me want to claw my face off with my bare hands than arguing about it online has.

Because when a person sits right next to you (or opposite to you) and tells you things like:

• "So you're saying that because I'm white I'm a racist?"
• "But there are so many more important and pertinent issues, such as poverty and hunger in Africa! (You're just sitting here eating that sandwich! Those farmers are just throwing away all that milk, and it could be used in Africa!)"
• "So racism is white folks' original sin?" [Which is actually something that I want to think through at least, even though my instinctive reaction is "Wtf no that's not what I'm talking about."]
• "It's just a TV show!"
• "This is a generational problem, and the parents' fault. If all parents taught their children not to be racist, it wouldn't exist." [Which, yeah, but also: not helpful, constructive or realistic at all.]
• "Race is a false classification and does not exist." [Seriously, you don't think I know that? That still doesn't make racism nonexistent, and is a silencing argument as far as I'm concerned.]
• "I don't understand your vocabulary. Why institutionalized? Give me examples!" [Me: *gives examples*] "Huh. I think we're talking at cross purposes."
• "You're offended a lot lately. *smirks*"
• "Aww, you're cute. So angry!" [Which might make my eyes cross with RAGE.]

..... it gets really hard to remain coherent and try to present an argument. The fact that 99.9% of the people you talk to will never get it doesn't help.
And when I'm like "Please don't try to derail my argument." or "That's a silencing tactic, please don't do that." and am met with "I'm just trying to have a discussion! You're not listening to what I have to say! [/indignant and/or defensive]"? To be perfectly honest, I tend to give up at that point. There are only so many spoons.

P.S.: In case you didn't know (and you probably didn't), oranges are my personal metaphor for masochism. I'm allergic to them (my eyes start stinging and watering just thinking about it), but I still think about them a lot and will occasionally have a sip of orange juice, even if I'm miserable afterwards. I refuse to give up on them. 
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