you can only measure emotional selfishness in bad times / racism is a system, bigotry is an attitude

[belenen]

icon: "voltaic (photo of me with rainbow reflections on my face, leaning my head at a sharp angle and staring intently at the camera)"I can't bear selfishness, especially when it kills empathy. If you can't care about someone else's feelings when you are angry at them or hurt by them, what good is your love? NONE. it is USELESS. And I know that

Comments

[topaznebula]

Yes to all of this. Yes yes yes.

[belenen]

<3

[belenen]

Yes, it's absolutely rare. We're taught lies about love from the very beginning, and we're not taught the actual skills of managing our emotions (rather than spewing or smothering them). And then, we constantly have our feelings invalidated, so we feel like in order for them to be treated as valid, we have to have only one at a time. So people throw out compassion because they're afraid that if they don't, people will say their hurt isn't real and ignore it. It's only through example that I feel we can learn this. I only learned when Hannah criticized my squelched anger for not being managed and expressed kindly, while containing love. Before, I didn't know that was humanly possible. I'd never seen it done. Before something can be created it must be imagined...

[ssjspider]

Sometimes white people suffer under bigotry, but white people never have to deal with racism, at least not in the US.

I just had a "conversation" with someone about this on tumblr (they were "anonymous" so it wasn't a real conversation, I just responded to whiney post they made) I wish I'd have seen this earlier, it's a great way of explaining this

[raidingparty]

I don't think identifying people as racist is as useful as identifying racist actions or constructs.
Billions of people (myself included) participate in racism. Assuming the best of people, I expect that most do it unconsciously.

That being said, I do like the distinction made between racism and bigotry, definitely important for white people who think they've been the victim of racism.

[belenen]

I think it is vital that people realize that racism lives inside them. it's not just in institutions and conscious actions, it is in ALL KINDS of little assumptions and habits. I agree that the vast majority is unconscious. But if we don't recognize that it is inside us, we cannot get it out. People think that they're not racist because they don't have bigotry, and then they go around accidentally hurting people CONSTANTLY with their "innocent" racist assumptions. This happens with other marginalized groups as well, of course. It's not transphobic bigots that hurt me -- they don't really have my attention. It's the people who want to be allies and yet refer to a group that includes me as "ladies." It's that kind of thing that screams at you "you don't belong, we don't know you or want to." Even when you KNOW it is not how the person consciously feels, those microaggressions can eat your soul. Especially when they happen every fucking day everywhere you go.

[call_me_katya]

I had a situation recently. I felt hurt by a friend's actions [not SF]. I cried a little and decided that just being normal with them would be spineless of me. I wanted them to feel as hurt as I did. I wanted to wound, assuming that was the only way I could make my presence felt. I was going to an event that they would be attending and worried all day how I would make them understand how badly they had made me feel

[belenen]

Thank you for helping me to realise I wasn't being weak and 'too kind'.

*love*