1) It's one of the few nonplotty prompts I got this time.
2) I wanted to poke some bigots in the eye because this topic is rarely talked about as discrimination. <<
1) We're glad we could provide a handy nonplotty prompt~
2) THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Seriously, that is... really validating and helpful for us to hear recognised aloud by someone other than each other and a few of our life-partners. You're right, it is pretty rare for most people to talk about the discrimination aspect of this, and it can leave people like us feeling hopeless and alone and second-guessing ourselves.
It feels like almost no-one considers this topic to be a 'real' oppression, and everyone seems perfectly happy to go on using the words that mean things we are as ways to say someone's evil and abusive and dangerous and terrible. We're always terrified to bring it up and never usually challenge anyone for saying things that mean that we are worthless and evil monsters. Because if practically everyone we ever meet is of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with saying that sort of thing, then surely it's us who are wrong? Because even when we know that's a lie and that's how oppression works, if practically everyone we ever meet is of the opinion there's nothing wrong with saying that sort of thing, then it's dangerous and feels utterly hopeless for us to try and speak up.
We only ever see people treating it like the discriminatory lies and stereotypes are true and the slur-usage of words for things we are to mean 'bad' is accurate. We almost never see anyone acknowledging that there's discrimination involved at all.
We feel like we're in the position where the oppressed individual is getting the burden of stopping their oppressors from opressing them placed upon them. Why is it our job to tell the people with big scary sticks to stop hitting us? We don't even have a splinter to our name, let alone a shield or a stick of our own to parry with.
>> That sucks. It's okay to be anonymous when people are out to get you. :( <<
Thankyou. Friend in question says thankyou too (and extends it to the whole poem and the other things we've been talking about and saying here). <3
>> I am reminded of the way that religious people look down on nonreligious people and say that they're immoral just because they make their own morals instead of getting them from a disembodied spirit (or as the atheists sometimes put it, from an imaginary friend or a fantasy book). <<
Yeah, it's very similar, in fact i'd say it's basically the same thing from a different angle.
Relatedly, a friend of mine was talking about the problems with charities using guilt tactics in their ads a month or two ago, and just now gave me permission to quote them here. They said: "if someone does the right thing just because it's the right thing, then that's genuine morality and you can rely on that person to keep doing the right thing to the best of their ability in future situations, even if they're different situations."
Out of context, that quote strikes me as working here too, in the sense of an inclusive explanation of morality - that no matter where your morals come from, if you're doing something because it's the right thing, that's real morality.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2017-06-07 02:55 am (UTC)1) It's one of the few nonplotty prompts I got this time.
2) I wanted to poke some bigots in the eye because this topic is rarely talked about as discrimination. <<
1) We're glad we could provide a handy nonplotty prompt~
2) THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Seriously, that is... really validating and helpful for us to hear recognised aloud by someone other than each other and a few of our life-partners. You're right, it is pretty rare for most people to talk about the discrimination aspect of this, and it can leave people like us feeling hopeless and alone and second-guessing ourselves.
It feels like almost no-one considers this topic to be a 'real' oppression, and everyone seems perfectly happy to go on using the words that mean things we are as ways to say someone's evil and abusive and dangerous and terrible. We're always terrified to bring it up and never usually challenge anyone for saying things that mean that we are worthless and evil monsters. Because if practically everyone we ever meet is of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with saying that sort of thing, then surely it's us who are wrong? Because even when we know that's a lie and that's how oppression works, if practically everyone we ever meet is of the opinion there's nothing wrong with saying that sort of thing, then it's dangerous and feels utterly hopeless for us to try and speak up.
We only ever see people treating it like the discriminatory lies and stereotypes are true and the slur-usage of words for things we are to mean 'bad' is accurate. We almost never see anyone acknowledging that there's discrimination involved at all.
We feel like we're in the position where the oppressed individual is getting the burden of stopping their oppressors from opressing them placed upon them. Why is it our job to tell the people with big scary sticks to stop hitting us? We don't even have a splinter to our name, let alone a shield or a stick of our own to parry with.
>> That sucks. It's okay to be anonymous when people are out to get you. :( <<
Thankyou. Friend in question says thankyou too (and extends it to the whole poem and the other things we've been talking about and saying here). <3
>> I am reminded of the way that religious people look down on nonreligious people and say that they're immoral just because they make their own morals instead of getting them from a disembodied spirit (or as the atheists sometimes put it, from an imaginary friend or a fantasy book). <<
Yeah, it's very similar, in fact i'd say it's basically the same thing from a different angle.
Relatedly, a friend of mine was talking about the problems with charities using guilt tactics in their ads a month or two ago, and just now gave me permission to quote them here. They said: "if someone does the right thing just because it's the right thing, then that's genuine morality and you can rely on that person to keep doing the right thing to the best of their ability in future situations, even if they're different situations."
Out of context, that quote strikes me as working here too, in the sense of an inclusive explanation of morality - that no matter where your morals come from, if you're doing something because it's the right thing, that's real morality.
~ Ray and the rest of the beasts