Racism still sucks
Yesterday as I was cycling around town looking delightfully weird I again noticed the looks I was getting. I haven't always paid attention and this time I was noticing the race of the looks. I'd discovered this summer that my hat elicited smiles from everyone except the WASP contingency, those most trained up on anti-witch propaganda. At first it just seemed to be the Indians and since it was from the west coast people I'd gotten my inspiration, this made sense. then I realized asians and africans and folks in between of all shades of brown were also being nice about it, smiling, complimenting the hat sometimes. So yesterday I paid more attention to race and realized for the first time that the ONLY races giving me the stink-eye as a weirdo were whites! Not all of them, just the "good citizen" types. A foreigner might class them as Christians but I know from inside the culture that most of them are probably athiest or agnostic at best.
Then I thought, if I were brown I'd get smiles instead of stony ignorance from all the brown faces that ordinarily don't smile at me. I know they smile at each other, but I can't get a nod or smile from many non-whites when I'm not in my "ultra weirdo" guise.
So I realized, as a brown person, the only people in the world who give them the stink eye for anything, be it acting strange or simply existing at the wrong moment, are the whites. Not only are they dealing out stink-eye all by themselves, but they do so as freely as they should offer smiles. Now that would certainly explain why brown folk get so damn touchy and continue to shriek injustice and racism even when it seems that proactive legislation and hippy politics have made a difference.
So if you are a white person who thinks that there is ever a reason to register your disapproval of a stranger, please smile kindly instead and show a little tenderness. The rest of you, return my smiles when I offer them, they cost me twice as much because I'm autistic.
Also on this same topic, since nobody but my husband and Tom can be told about it, I'll tell my blog too. I feel like I should get a little mileage out of making the right choice today. I was over at a friend's house running an errand and he had a visitor over. The visitor, who will be renamed to John for no good reason, and my friend were talking about language history so I took some time to hang and chat. Sadly the two veered off into la-la land with aliens, angels, demon battles, and apparently, the moon is a giant parked ship surveilling us day and night. So I let that stuff run down because there's just no way to discuss it politely except to jump in and agree! Then we got onto reincarnation, karma, enlightenment, (Tim assured me he is an Enlightened One) and then Tim dropped the bomb. He says "well, for instance [redacted]" referencing intellect and DNA by race. First I stopped and told him never to make such a statement in front of me. He thought the racial reference was the issue and changed to a politically correct lable. No, I said, still doesn't count and if you're referencing X continent, still no good because the people of that land are still incredibly diverse. You'd have to drill down to the tribe before you could even begin to discuss them as a phenotype and I wasn't going to enable, tolerate, or stand for such a conversation at all. A few "no but if you'd just listen to me, scientists have proven it" had me up and walking out the door without packing my stuff.
I will not listen to that. Nobody even has any business doing research like that. You don't even have any business classifying intellectual abilities as better or lesser than emotional, or creative, or physical virtues, and you most certainly may not investigate whether any given phenotype should be considered more or less proficient. Even if you did drill it down to tribal groups you'd still be following a line of investigation which can only lead to institutionalized oppression of some. But to suggest that all people with asian eyes share capacities alike for any given talent, or that all persons with curly black hair and dark skill share capacities alike, etc., is too stupid to believe! That sort of idea would lump japanese and tibetans together as being equally gifted "on average" (or ungifted if you're a racist white prick) when in fact the two peoples are less alike than laplanders and ecquadoreans.
So I'm proud that I walked out on that conversation, not even giving it the courtesy of an argument. He needs to realize that he doesn't even get to think about the subject because it's unworthy. Enlightened One indeed. Schizophrenia under reasonable control seems more likely. I think his upraising as a christian probably directed his crazy enough to keep him out of trouble.
My my my. I tried to explain that an enlightened being knows it's okay to let things be "wrong" or "broken" and that it's not necessary to fix anything. Such a person reaches out in compassion when able to ease suffering, but does not think that it must be fixed, or is broken at all. It's not. If you stood 2" tall and parked your butt by a drum head you might feel like everything was screwed up and you were in hell. You might try to stop the drummer. But the drummer is the guy keeping the whole symphony in time and you cannot stop him, nor should you. If you then were able to see through the conductor's eyes a moment before landing back on the drum kit, you'd realize the whole thing sounded beautiful from there, and that your spot on the drums, unpleasant as it is, is where you need to be because you perform a function there. You just might be the cowbell. Whack whack whack every few minutes and only the conductor hears where it fits in the music.
I hope it isn't too hard on him if he finds out, but then if he doesn't get off this racism crap, well it'll be deserved.
"I'm enlightened. Did you know [stupid racial designation] are stupider than others?" Uh huh. Goddess said so, huh?
Whew. Gonna be awhile before I can let go of my shock at actually meeting someone like that.
Apparently he's got a Phd in ecology and runs computer sims of ecology systems for big bucks. If you thought there was some kind of a justice function outside human courts in this world, well that just proves there isn't.
Then I thought, if I were brown I'd get smiles instead of stony ignorance from all the brown faces that ordinarily don't smile at me. I know they smile at each other, but I can't get a nod or smile from many non-whites when I'm not in my "ultra weirdo" guise.
So I realized, as a brown person, the only people in the world who give them the stink eye for anything, be it acting strange or simply existing at the wrong moment, are the whites. Not only are they dealing out stink-eye all by themselves, but they do so as freely as they should offer smiles. Now that would certainly explain why brown folk get so damn touchy and continue to shriek injustice and racism even when it seems that proactive legislation and hippy politics have made a difference.
So if you are a white person who thinks that there is ever a reason to register your disapproval of a stranger, please smile kindly instead and show a little tenderness. The rest of you, return my smiles when I offer them, they cost me twice as much because I'm autistic.
Also on this same topic, since nobody but my husband and Tom can be told about it, I'll tell my blog too. I feel like I should get a little mileage out of making the right choice today. I was over at a friend's house running an errand and he had a visitor over. The visitor, who will be renamed to John for no good reason, and my friend were talking about language history so I took some time to hang and chat. Sadly the two veered off into la-la land with aliens, angels, demon battles, and apparently, the moon is a giant parked ship surveilling us day and night. So I let that stuff run down because there's just no way to discuss it politely except to jump in and agree! Then we got onto reincarnation, karma, enlightenment, (Tim assured me he is an Enlightened One) and then Tim dropped the bomb. He says "well, for instance [redacted]" referencing intellect and DNA by race. First I stopped and told him never to make such a statement in front of me. He thought the racial reference was the issue and changed to a politically correct lable. No, I said, still doesn't count and if you're referencing X continent, still no good because the people of that land are still incredibly diverse. You'd have to drill down to the tribe before you could even begin to discuss them as a phenotype and I wasn't going to enable, tolerate, or stand for such a conversation at all. A few "no but if you'd just listen to me, scientists have proven it" had me up and walking out the door without packing my stuff.
I will not listen to that. Nobody even has any business doing research like that. You don't even have any business classifying intellectual abilities as better or lesser than emotional, or creative, or physical virtues, and you most certainly may not investigate whether any given phenotype should be considered more or less proficient. Even if you did drill it down to tribal groups you'd still be following a line of investigation which can only lead to institutionalized oppression of some. But to suggest that all people with asian eyes share capacities alike for any given talent, or that all persons with curly black hair and dark skill share capacities alike, etc., is too stupid to believe! That sort of idea would lump japanese and tibetans together as being equally gifted "on average" (or ungifted if you're a racist white prick) when in fact the two peoples are less alike than laplanders and ecquadoreans.
So I'm proud that I walked out on that conversation, not even giving it the courtesy of an argument. He needs to realize that he doesn't even get to think about the subject because it's unworthy. Enlightened One indeed. Schizophrenia under reasonable control seems more likely. I think his upraising as a christian probably directed his crazy enough to keep him out of trouble.
My my my. I tried to explain that an enlightened being knows it's okay to let things be "wrong" or "broken" and that it's not necessary to fix anything. Such a person reaches out in compassion when able to ease suffering, but does not think that it must be fixed, or is broken at all. It's not. If you stood 2" tall and parked your butt by a drum head you might feel like everything was screwed up and you were in hell. You might try to stop the drummer. But the drummer is the guy keeping the whole symphony in time and you cannot stop him, nor should you. If you then were able to see through the conductor's eyes a moment before landing back on the drum kit, you'd realize the whole thing sounded beautiful from there, and that your spot on the drums, unpleasant as it is, is where you need to be because you perform a function there. You just might be the cowbell. Whack whack whack every few minutes and only the conductor hears where it fits in the music.
I hope it isn't too hard on him if he finds out, but then if he doesn't get off this racism crap, well it'll be deserved.
"I'm enlightened. Did you know [stupid racial designation] are stupider than others?" Uh huh. Goddess said so, huh?
Whew. Gonna be awhile before I can let go of my shock at actually meeting someone like that.
Apparently he's got a Phd in ecology and runs computer sims of ecology systems for big bucks. If you thought there was some kind of a justice function outside human courts in this world, well that just proves there isn't.