I was weirdly excited to go to work today. DORK. IDK, I have lost my taste for sitting around doing nothing for more than a day or two at a time, and my anxiety's too high to look for another job, so even if I didn't like the job itself going back would've been kind of a relief.

EXCEPT. One of my favorite work people who is kind of a douchebag, in the typical-20-year-old-privileged-white-dude way, started in with some racist bullshit (the sort you hear from lots of people - "they can call me whitey I can't call them n*****, they can have BET I can't have WET, the playing field is totally equal so clearly this is all unfair"). A couple people caught how horrified I looked, tried to steer the subject elsewhere, he kept going. I specifically asked him to change the subject, because I have the privilege of just ignoring racist bullshit, he...did, sort of. Stopped for maybe a minute, then asked me to explain what was so offensive about what he'd said. I said I didn't want to talk about this anymore, he pushed. So against my better judgment I started to explain, and he...argued with everything I said until I just stopped.

AND THEN he spent the rest of the day asking if I hated him, if we were cool, etc. because OBVIOUSLY that is the main concern when you get called out on your racist bullshit, if the white woman still thinks you're a lovable douchebag instead of just a douchebag.

So THAT WAS FUN. Escapism! Meme:

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Mirror post: http://hector-rashbaum.dreamwidth.org/256452.html

work today got so bad I actually cried. AWESOME

initially I was just having one of those days - slept like shit, couldn't get moving this morning, didn't have anything I wanted for lunch, etc. We have to wear smocks at the warehouse, and they'd only sent over Large, and of course the best way to start any day is forcing yourself into clothes two sizes too small (bonus awesome, being the only one in the room having that problem).

At least I was doing a job that didn't require me to wear my smock; of course, that wasn't much of a refuge, 'cause there had been full-time people from the plant working in our warehouse over the weekend and they made a giant fuckup of things. So instead of doing my nice laid-back easy fun job that's my favorite, it took me an hour and a half to clean up their disaster.

And on top of that, Tracy (our line leader, sort of a...head temp, idk) showed me how to fill out the label sheets for the rework bags so she could clean up some of the other messes the weekend idiots had made. And I fucked up part of that, which was entirely my fault, I completely failed to think...but because the way I fucked it up was the same way the weekend people had fucked up a bunch of other bags, she just assumed my 3-bag fuckup was a 25-bag fuckup. I'm still not entirely sure she heard (or believed?) me when I told her I'd just screwed up the 3, I had no idea about the other 20-odd.

So I was already in an AWESOME mood at this point, and then when I was helping Tracy and Amy with a different job, one of the lift drivers came over and told us the people stacking cans weren't doing it right. I was one of the people who'd spent 45 minutes on Friday figuring out how to stack them after our boss decided how many cans needed to be put on per layer without bothering to figure out if that was even possible. And after we spent all that time figuring it out, we WROTE IT DOWN for the next people. So Tracy sent me over to show them how to do it...and they gave me shit for trying to show them what to do when apparently someone had told them they were doing it okay. And then one guy (who I HATE, SO MUCH) made fun of me for having trouble getting my smock back on, decided not to wait for me to get my smock back on, stacked half the pallet wrong despite knowing I was there to show him how to do it right, and then goofed off enough to drop a can on the floor (we get shit for that, 'cause cans that hit the floor are no good, have to go to animal-feed rework).

And halfway through that layer boss comes over and says he wants us to stack the pallets the way I suggested before all the shit on Friday, 6 layers of 80 instead of 4 of 96. FFFFFFFFFFFFF.

So by this point I'm so tense and angry I'm fucking vibrating, I go back to my rework job because I do that alone and I CANNOT DEAL WITH PEOPLE right then...and twenty minutes later Tracy pulls me aside, says she wishes she didn't have to bring this up but some people apparently have a problem with how sarcastic I am and have complained about it to boss, so I need to tone it down because if enough people bring it up, I could get fired.

That was the point at which, having run out of rework, I went to stack boxes because the stacks are high and I could hide behind them so when I failed at trying not to cry it was okay.

OH OH, and. I didn't bring lunch because we didn't have anything I liked, so I was just gonna stop at the gas station and get something? I drove all the way up there on lunch break...only to find I'd left my wallet at home.

Mirror post: http://hector-rashbaum.dreamwidth.org/252325.html

So I guess I am going on a date with redneck brother-of-coworker. Enough time had passed since the original discussion I just assumed he wasn't going to call but apparently coworker just hadn't gotten the chance to talk to him before this past weekend. I DIDN'T NEED TO REJOICE WORRY ABOUT THE NOT CALLING THING, he called THREE TIMES yesterday, even after coworker told him I'd gone home with a migraine and she doubted I'd answer. And twice today, before I decided one more ring would give me an epic anxiety attack and I was gonna have to suck it up and answer at some point.

I did not succeed at being so awkward on the phone he went all wtf and hung up and went to ask coworker why she said I was so fun. That would have been awesome, but clearly that plan was a no from the start because I could not have been any more awkward.

Also, today I was accused of trying to make a coworker quit based on a bunch of conspiracy-theory worthy bullshit. Her little bullshit outburst left me so wound up I was shaking and by the time I wound down I was just DRAINED. With that buildup/letdown and the big anxiety buildup/letdown of the Hetero Phone Conversation I can barely hold my head up right now.

SO YEAH, TODAY WAS FUN.

Mirror post: http://hector-rashbaum.dreamwidth.org/249129.html

I should've known better than to talk about liking my job, because when the universe knows I'm happy, the universe makes corrections (that's a GREAT ATTITUDE, no?)

Today the containers we needed didn't show up until 8; we worked until our break at 9 and then the manager came out and told us we were being sent over to the main plant (we work at a warehouse that's only open when they need it and mostly staffed by temps) for today, tomorrow, and all of next week. The two women who've worked at the main plant before groaned. THAT WAS A GOOD SIGN. Also a good sign: the manager said they'd told him we might need to stay until four today. The sort of people who randomly change your hours mid-workday are generally the sort of people who REALLY CARE about their employees!

Anyway we needed to be at the plant by 10, so we got there and got all sanitized and suited up (they are CRAZY about cleanliness, which makes sense because they make food, but OMG IT SUCKS. We have to wear long-sleeved long-pantsed JUMPSUITS, and GLOVES, and HAIRNETS. There is no AIR CONDITIONING. It is EXCESSIVELY HOT. [Especially since the ONLY PLACE THEY COULD POSSIBLY SET US UP was right next to the OVENS. Ovens which are ON. AND HOT.])...and then WAITED. For AN HOUR. Had they let us stay at the warehouse until they actually needed us, we could have gotten some work done, which would have been VASTLY PREFERABLE to sitting in the cafeteria in JUMPSUITS AND HAIRNETS, slowly roasting.

The plant is all fluorescent lighting, which is going to be a BIG ISSUE because that's the one trigger that gives me migraines that WILL NOT DIE - I've never had a fluorescent light migraine that I could get rid of without letting it take its course. We can turn the lights off in our little area, which is fine because we have big windows, but that didn't help much. I'm gonna have to see how it works out tomorrow, since today I already had a headache going in, but just from hour between coming back from lunch and turning the lights off I was almost unable to function.

ALSO 90% of my work wardrobe is skirts because they're so much cooler - I CANNOT WEAR SKIRTS with the stupid jumpsuits. If the lighting issue doesn't render me incapable of working next week I'm gonna be wearing the same, like, two pairs of capris alllll week. AWSUM.

When I bitched about all this to my dad, he was sympathetic. When I bitched to Mom, she just said "well, you should've looked for another job. You know you don't like factory work." DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE I'VE LOVED WORK FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS ugh pay attention.

Mirror post: http://hector-rashbaum.dreamwidth.org/247772.html

dgdibiue;igoeiruiofbn

Sister has been using brother's room for a living room, since he's got a couch & tv in there, and she's using the living room as a bedroom so why not use the bedroom as a living room.

Anyway, problem with that arrangement is, the working tv in brother's room is mine. I let him use it when he was having trouble with his when he was home, because he watches more tv than I do and at the time I wasn't using my PS2 at all (so I also let him use that). Buuut since I need a tv to play my dancey game with, today after I'd cleaned/rearranged I went and got it back.

Sister wasn't home when I did that. When she eventually got home, she came in asking where "her" tv was; I told her I'd taken mine back and if that's the one she'd been watching then sure, I know right where it is, I am standing on a DDR mat looking at it.

She went whining to Mom and Dad about it. Because, y'know, in the midst of having these huge arguments trying to convince them that yes, you are old/mature enough to move out on your own (with no plans, no goals, never having held a single job...) the best thing to do to really hammer the I Am Mature point home is to go bawwwww to them about the world's pettiest (and most easily solvable) problem.

Soooo Dad comes upstairs, looks in our room, sees that the tv that is accurately described as my sister's is sitting unused in the corner, asks if it works, I say yep. At which point Sister goes completely flip-shit and starts bitching about how she can wait for TOMORROW and NEVER MIND. Dad tells her to chill, he'll bring the other tv in for her, and TOMORROW. NEVER MIND. *GIANT SIGH* *EYE ROLL* NEVER MIND.

WTF did she expect him to do, come in and take my tv that I bought with my own money away, leaving me with the $20 rummage sale tv that doesn't hook up to the PS2 (rendering it COMPLETELY USELESS for me) but is actually better for casual tv-watching 'cause its screen is about twice the size?

IDGI. And I know it's cruel but ohgod I can't WAIT for her to actually have to deal with reality. She's gotten all ~dramatic~ about how this town is KILLING HER DAMMIT, and I'm horrid but CAN'T STOP LOLING because it can't be all that bad if the amount of effort you're willing to put in (beyond coming up with completely unfeasible half-ass plan...things) is zero. HAVE FUN WITH THAT.

This entry was originally posted at http://hector-rashbaum.dreamwidth.org/229147.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Uuuuugh I'm in a shitty-ass mood today.

Yesterday sister and I went to a concert in Albany. It's a 3.5 hour drive one-way, and she doesn't drive so it was all me. We bought the tickets for White Tie Affair, but there were a bunch of other bands on the bill (none of whom I'd heard of at the time we decided to go, but once I'd actually listened to them all actually found a band I liked better than WTA, Cash Cash).

Anyway, long-ass drive, sister shitty company, blah blah...we got there and White Tie Affair weren't even playing. They were definitely on the bill, we'd seen five or six different lineups for this show from various MySpaces and the venue page, and they were on all of them, but they weren't there and no one mentioned them. Sooooo all that drive for pretty much nothing, because the show was good but we would never have gone that far for any of the other bands (except I totally would for Cash Cash. I'm in love. But I didn't know them at the time).

The venue was pretty nice, though. Huge, and there were actually decent places to sit with views of the stage, so I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time/money sitting through 4/5 acts. Hard as fuck to find, especially since the google maps directions were supremely unhelpful (once we got off the interstate, we were supposed to drive 2.5 miles, make a u-turn [wtf], go right, go right. No street names, nothing HELPFUL, just u, r, r.).

I did look pretty fabulous, btw. I bought these bright pink tights sometime last year to match a shirt I bought at the same time, but the shirt doesn't look good with any of my skirts so I never got to wear them. So I had a black vesty-halter thing, denim skirt, brighty pink tights and stompy boots. Hardcooore.

Got home at 2 am, kind of disappointed and completely wiped out, to find out our uncle's gonna be in Waterbury today (hour away) and he'd suggested driving up here to stay the night and hang out. Which was a bad idea for like 80 reasons. So Dad's first question when I crawled in after a 13-hour day, 7 of which were spent in the car, was "would you mind going to Waterbury tomorrow for dinner with Uncle Pete?"

"Do I have to drive?"

"Well it would just be you and Andrea."

I think the fact that I didn't just let loose a gigantic FUCK YOU THE FUCK TO FUCKING HELL FOR SUGGESTING THAT, YOU FUCK shows remarkable restraint. But we compromised, he made some time so he's gonna drive. But he told me this morning that he might have insisted. FUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.

Anyway I'm headachey and tired and am going to sleep in the car. Wheeee.

Very little drives me as insane as the fact that every single time someone says "um hey maybe think about your privilege" the whole thing has to turn into SHUT UP MY LIFE IS HARD STOP INVALIDATING MY EXPERIENCES YOU ARE SO DIVISIVE CRY CRY BITCH BITCH MOAN.

(inspired specifically by this post in fatshionista wherein someone brings up the very valid point that occasionally those on the smaller end of "fat" get to take advantage of size privilege not granted to those on the larger end, and perhaps it would be a good idea to be more aware of that privilege, and the comments turn into BUT SOMETIMES I TRY ON CLOTHES AND THEY DON'T FIT ME MY LIFE IS HARD I'M FAT TOO WHY YOU GOTTA SAY I'M NOT FAT ENOUGH

my favorite is near the end of the second page, where someone likens the post to ciswomen trying to keep transwomen out of some women-only spaces. Because in the great societal privilege spectrum, the size 14s face way way more problems than the size 30s and those mean old big people are trying to exclude the people who might only have three brands of jeans to choose from)

Fuck you, Governor Douglas.

I was trying not to get my hopes up too much. But we were so close. And in VT a bill can become law without the governor's signature - he could disapprove without actively veto-ing.

So FUCK YOU. Argh.

Although the initial post frustrated the fuck out of me and hit several knee-jerk buttons at once, I was actually enjoying the comments in gerriwritinglog's Racism, RaceFail '09, and the Meme post. There were lots of excellent informative comments there, a few comments from the OP that made me less ragey, and some useful conversations were happening.

Obviously, that could not be allowed to continue.

I want to respond to the shutdown comment, but first there are a few threads I want to call attention to:

* leana106 on the difference between "black and proud" and "white pride"

* sinsense, who consistently brings the awesome in that post, about the importance of deferring to someone whose knowledge of the subject is greater than your own

* sleepingfear, also ridiculously awesome, posts an excellent video clip and a good explanation of the problem with "color-blind" in this thread.

There's plenty more good stuff, but those are the specifics that stood out to me as I was reading/participating.

And just for context, my response to/conversation with the OP.

ETA: gerriwritinglog disabled comments, effectively deleting everything (and rendering my links pointless). But the Firefox cache is a beautiful thing, I've got a screenshot here, all comments unfolded. I'm keeping the links on the off chance she de-disables.

Son of ETA: She's de-disabled; I'm keeping the screenshot linked anyway.

As far as shutting down goes...well.

"Now, thanks to a couple much appreciated commenters, I have something to continue my growth with."

...

"I have a couple characters who are just as self-righteous as I came off in my OP. The reactions that you, the commenters, gave me help ENORMOUSLY in clarifying how these characters will act and react, as well as the people who will work to change them."

Okay, folks, you have served your purpose, now kindly run along. I've learned all I've decided I need to, please get the fuck out.

That may only bother me because of the reason I like debating/discussing/etc. on LJ - because the conversations aren't only about the people having them, they're about all the unseen readers who might come along tomorrow, a month from now, a year from now, and see something that makes them go "...ohhhhhh, that's it; I get it now".

When you post something publicly, especially when it ends up somewhere like metafandom where it will attract a buttload of people who don't know you and don't care - they're drawn by the topic, not the poster - it's really not entirely about you. It becomes about the commenters and the readers as well; to shut it down because you, specifically, don't feel you have anything more to gain, you're taking something that developed beyond you and closing it back in again; you're depriving the people who do have more to gain from the conversations that were benefiting them.

All of which, I suppose, any given individual has the right to do when he or she controls the space. Perhaps I'm just bothered by how blatant the "whatever else you think you have to teach me doesn't matter, because I've learned it all now" attitude is.

And that's not even what really bothered me.

I would ask that if you take away one thing from this thread, it's that it's not enough to say "You don't understand." Follow up with "Let me tell you about what happened to me." Racism, to white people, is very often dealt with in the abstract. Making the problem concrete with a real example makes a difference to those struggling to understand.

This, immediately after this:

It's no one's duty to bare their souls to you for your own education, which is what you're asking when you expect someone to follow up "you don't understand the specific issues I face as a POC" with "and here's what they all are". You're saying "I want you to take something that has caused you pain, or shame, or harm, and I want you to write about it, relive it, and I want you to put it out there for public consumption where people will question it, pull it apart, demand to know more, and I want you to do all this so I can learn".

There are explanations out there, there are people who have chosen to educate, to turn elements of their life into a learning experience for white people. Every time, or nearly every time, there's a blowout over racism in fandom, it's because someone has chosen to speak up about the specific way in which she, as a POC, has been made to feel uncomfortable, out of place, like a lesser person because of the multitude of problems with race so prevalent in fandom. When those so often end so badly, I'm certainly not going to be the one to blame POC for not wanting to put their hardships out there for white people to pull apart.

deepad's I Didn't Dream of Dragons post at the genesis of this latest conversation is one of those - look at how big this has gotten, how many people have gotten hurt, all the consequences, and understand that when you say "explain this to me" you're asking someone to risk all that for your benefit.

Any faith I had that the OP truly learned from the experience, that she took all those attempts to educate her to heart, flew right out the window when all she had to say to "it's nobody's job to educate you" was "thanks for the education, and remember, it's everyone's job to teach me shit".

Maybe she locked down too early.

Jesus Christ, I expected Queer as Folk to be like L Word and consist entirely of stereotypical characters, and plots that reinforce the worst assumption about the zomg gay lifestyle, but fuck was I not prepared for the level heterosexist gender essentialist bullshit it keeps slapping me with.

But I suppose it's just escapism. And escaping to the things I want to be escaping from makes perfect sense.

Wait.

There was a post at Feministing, titled Marge's Lesbian Fantasies, about Sunday night's episode of The Simpsons.

Or, rather, about a screenshot from the episode, because if the poster had actually seen it, she would've known that it wasn't Marge's lesbian fantasy, it was Homer's.

*sigh*

One more instance of a straight man fetishizing lesbian sex is totally something a feminst blog should be celebrating. I wish I could be so cheerful in the face of yet another reminder my sexuality is only okay when it benefits anyone but me.

Dear family,

The minute any one of you would like to take on my anxiety and related problems, I will gladly hand them over.

Sorry, what? You didn't want the bad shit, you just wanted the "free ride" I'm getting? Sorry, can't have one without the other, unless you wanna commit a felony.

Love,
Heidi

P.S. and parents, if what you meant when you said "come home so you don't have to worry about money/a job while you deal with your anxiety" was "come home but if you don't get better on our timeline we'll make this an even higher-pressure situation than the one you're in now", I wish you'd said something before I made the wrong choice. Rest assured, you soul-sucking pieces of shit, I'm doing everything in my power to get the fuck out of here.

In eighteen years, I have never felt tempted to walk out of a church service, nor have I ever felt like whether to go or not next week was an internal debate centered on anything more serious than "sleeping in is nice".

I knew it was going to be bad when the pastor started in with what a horrible disgrace it was Ben Stein had been disinvited from UVM's commencement. Then he ranted about how narrowminded academia is (because mouthbreathing anti-intellectuals are historically so likely to be the most accepting of differences), and then to top it off he pulled out the line about "the only socially acceptable prejudice left" which is, of course, not any actual prejudices but discrimination against Christian beliefs.

You know, because someone who writes a book about how awful and hypocritical and OMGMEEN academia is raising the ire of an academic institution is totally worse than all the "terrorist fist bump" ignorance still in play regarding people of color, or the NECESSITY of things like affirmative action and the Lilly Ledbetter bill, or "I should be able to use horrifically racist/sexist/homophobic language because DON'T CENSOR ME ARGH", or, y'know, the denial of marriage and in some cases adoption rights to people who love each other because HOLY FUCK THEIR GENITALS MATCH. Totally.

Oh, and he topped it off by declaring how ignorant 20-something college students are because once he sat in on a class and no one mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr.'s faith when discussing "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". Because co-opting MLK for the cause of the OMG OPPRESSED CHRISTIANS right after the most egregious display of white privilege I've ever witnessed in person is totally awesome.

(Because declaring me ignorant by virtue of my age and higher education, then claiming I couldn't possibly face discrimination for anything but my Christianity wasn't enough, he used the phrase "politically correct", which gets me ragey even in otherwise innocuous circumstances, more than once)

I've always been proud to come from a church that doesn't spout that bullshit, always considered that the reason I've never really struggled with being gay and Christian. Everything else removed, this just feels like betrayal.

Every fandom needs a Rockfic because OMG I hate trying to get into new fandoms. Everybody centralize yourselves, plz, because hunting down communities and then trying to figure out where to post and how much crossposting is too much (not to mention having to friend 8 bajillion comms if I want to actually read fic, and my intense grammar snobbery getting in the way because omg no quality controoool) is kind of a pain in the ass.

After not being able to sleep for A BILLION HOURS (and that's just last night, my sleep in general has SUCKED ASS this week) the alarm went off the exact second I hit the omgbestpart of sleep. AND THEN it took half an hour to brush my frigging car, because what looked like snow was actually snow-ice-snow. BUT IT'S OKAY, I PLANNED FOR THAT - what I hadn't planned for was last-second getting stuck in the driveway. Which is frustrating enough, but on top of that - I HAD STARTED TO SHOVEL, but the first few shovelfuls were so light I didn't think I had to.

So I am currently not at counseling, meaning my alarm ruined my eventual good sleep for no reason, and I'm cranky as fuck and eating ice cream for breakfast BECAUSE I CAN. And then I am going back to bed, and the alarm when it's time to go get my sister will probably wreck my mood again.

BUT FIRST: Bikers rescuing kittens omg. So not EVERYTHING is the worst thing ever today.

I rarely comment on the feminist blogs I read; it's some side effect of the social anxiety thing, that when I'm in an arena where I worry other people know more than me and will thus be able to see ignorance I didn't know existed in my words, I get antsy and just shut up. Although, honestly, if more people did that on their initial forays into activist theory, the world would be a lot awesomer.

Aaaaand I'm rambling already. Anyway I was reading Feministe earlier, and the story that's been circulating for a few days about a teacher who bound two black female students to teach her class about slavery finally showed up there. Reading the comments, I came across one that touched on an issue that's been on my mind lately. Thus:

I am not insensitive to the girl’s feelings, but as a parent of a young girl, I hope I am teaching her to be emotionally strong and to learn to deal with the situations she may one day face, including potentially traumatizing ones.

I was just talking with a friend about how troubling it is that the norm seems to be one should feel bad merely for being offended, that simply for being wronged, you are in fact wrong. Being hurt by something hurtful is not a sign of weakness, nor is it a character flaw, and I only hope I can teach the children I have any influence over that there is nothing wrong with speaking up when you are harmed - in any way.

As a society, we’d probably move a lot farther a lot faster if it wasn’t considered desirable to ignore wrongdoing in the name of “strength”.

I struggle - and it is a struggle, for me, because a large part of my anxiety stems from not wanting to be seen as an inconvenience - daily with this concept, that when someone wrongs me if I speak up I am doing something wrong. Somehow, the people whose biggest problem in the privilege system is being criticized for stomping on anything that will prevent them benefiting at other people's expense have convinced everyone else that criticizing is a more heinous offense than the stomping. You don't have to look any farther than the contempt surrounding "PC" - all political correctness is, really, is not using phraseology you know to be offensive.

And yet the mainstream response to "x term is offensive" is more likely to be "OH GOD HERE COME THE PC POLICE" than "gee, sorry I offended you."

There is nothing bad, or wrong, or shameful, or weak, about taking offense, and yet it's become codified in our culture that being offended is a crime in and of itself. And I, for one, am going to struggle, and examine, and push like Hell against my internalization of that idea until the day comes I don't feel like standing up and saying "your sexist bullshit is offensive" is likely to have more repercussions than the sexist bullshit.

You?

Yesterday, I got up bright and early to vote because the sister wanted to go before school. I voted Obama, watched the counter tick from 138 to 139, and last night went off to Burlington for awesome free voter goodies. And I stayed up through a pounding migraine to watch the landslide happen, stayed up long enough to watch McCain's very gracious concession, and went off to bed happy, not to mention damn proud.

Today I just feel tired and defeated. Every single anti-LGBT ballot initiative - 3 anti-gay-marriage and one anti-gay-adoption - passed, some rather overwhelmingly. Well, Proposition 8 hasn't been called yet, but it's ahead with 95% of precincts reporting. I don't even understand how someone can walk into a booth and think "alright, time to take away some rights", but 52% of people did just that. And celebrated.

Last night, the nation told POC that yes, the ceiling really is glass, that it can be shattered and yes, you can do anything you want. And that's fabulous, and any other day I'd be gushing with everyone else.

But last night the nation told me I'm too much of a deviant to deserve the same rights everyone else has. So I haven't quite been able to get into the celebratory mindset I'd like to.

So I'd say I'm making this short and simple so it's easy to understand but I've seen people misunderstand it even in these simplest of terms so really I'm keeping it short because I don't have the energy.

Gay people are treated differently from straight people at this point in time, in this culture. To ignore that is to invalidate the experience of many, probably most, gays and lesbians. 99.99% of the time, "it's the same thing" when referring to an action, word, thought, whatever applied to a gay person in one instance and a straight person in another is an incorrect statement. And 100% of the time, accusing the gay person, or socially aware ally, who pointed that out to you of applying double standards makes you look like a douche.

And I can say this as someone who has used the "um, it's the same thing, and by saying otherwise you're the homophobe" argument". It's really not that hard to admit you're wrong.

So I had been thinking about contributing to the OTW wiki.

Had.

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Bandom

Ugh.

I'd feel a little better about it if they had left any room for doubt that THIS IS THE CORRECT DEFINITION, so fuck you all. That they included space for the terminology debate would make me happy - if they had even implied the resolution was anything other than HA HA YOU FUCKERS ARE WRONG. Especially since I'd been going along under the impression the resolution was "hey, everyone use it how you want and let's all stop being assholes".

(And yes, wiki, anyone can edit, blah blah blah. There are still issues of feeling welcome and as if your viewpoint has a place)

ETA: Oh God, I don't get to write bandfic either: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Bandfic

...so what the fuck is it I write?

So...I was cleaning out my Documents folder this morning, and I found the beginnings of this long-winded blather about privilege and intersectionality...and I was gonna finish it up, but I realized it boiled down to just a couple sentences.

There is no finite number of privilege/oppression systems that can exist at any one tume; therefore, the existence of one oppression/privilege system doesn't negate the existence of others. Lack of one set of privileges doesn't mean you can't benefit from another (I see this a lot in discussions of white privilege: "I can't have white privilege, I'm poor!" No, what you don't have is class privilege - you still have white privilege [and depending on the person: straight, male, etc. privileges]). The fact that one oppression/privilege system may be more extreme/harsh/whatever than another doesn't mean the latter doesn't exist.

Any questions?

And from now on, rather than dignifying any "you can't have problems because other people do" comments with original responses, I'm just gonna link to this post. Because I do not have the energy.