Living with Black People

Here you can see your average white, liberal lady blogger:

Patient C in a dress her family called "retro hippie" with dog, Lucky.

Or you can see PatientC, me: white lady, disabled mom, loyal wife and girl friend, #Resist Bitch, Proud mom of Girls that with her belong to the #LGBT/#QUILTBAG community, poor Randian leech, sometimes obese but usually just a few pounds "overweight," Buddhist and ULC minister, neuroatypical rabble rouser and oversharing blogger. 

One thing (among many) that you cannot see is this: I live with black people. 

To my surprise, the data backed up my observation that not many people live with people that do not look like them. In the US, even outside of racist housing policies from corporate to governmental, people tend to self segregate not just along class but racial lines. There is so much material out there on redlining, racist home loans, government segregation, the Northern migration and then later, smaller repatriation. Go look, academics and commentators have formed whole careers saying things about this and you should know about this in the US if you live here, or see if it happened where you live if you live elsewhere.

What I want to focus on here is that my white family of weirdos is even more weird because we chose to live among different folks. 90% of our neighbors are African American. This makes a lot of the people in our lives black. It means that policy meant to affect black citizens probably changes our lives too - in a secondary if not a primary way. If there is a fire nearby, or a shooting, or a tree falls in our area, we stand outside and work with black people to see if help is needed or comment helplessly if that all we can do.

Within site of our house, we have one neighbor that is a white guy. He is a disabled vet with a Latina wife. Minion One sometimes house sits for them, which changed their life. They participate in the local feral cat program & never felt like they could vacation for more than a weekend and now, if they can scrape together the cash, they can go visit her relatives and not worry about home or the kitties. 

On the opposite corner to ours is a Vietnamese lady that was cool for a decade and a half but now has some beef about the breed of my dog. One of the same breed knocked her down once and once she realized I had the same breed of dog she stopped talking to me. But it is the kind of beef you get anywhere from anyone, nothing special about the fact that she comes from where she comes from and I am so white as to appear translucent. 

The neighbors just south of us are a black couple with a couple of grown children from previous marriages. In the summer of blood here, a few summers ago, they lost a grown son to a gas station shooting - he was just there, gassing up his car. We got to know each other after that - their opinion on white people (I later found out) was profoundly changed because I checked in on them each day for that terrible first week, and off and on thereafter. But I only found out because they had family/friends parked around the block, including around our corner yard. When I asked about it, I was devastated: he was another guy that thought it was funny that I played Halo. Another black guy, something incidental to our conversation, but race mattered in how the case was reported and treated. 

Now we lean on each other as needed. Hell, my dog Nissi came from a litter sired by their dog - the husband helped pick and nurture her specifically for me. He was under the opinion that I needed a dog for company as the Minions grow up and I am out in the yard alone with some frequency. So now I have a wonderful nanny dog that loves everyone but from her pit bull looks folks assume she only wants to eat their face and I am never hassled by strangers anymore. I take Nissi over to play with her dad and sister at least once a week, like neighbors might do.

Our mailman is Nigerian, he loves our dogs and chats. He is terrific at his job so we leave a card with a small token of appreciation in the mailbox at the end of the year. Not a big deal, really. 

I can keep going. I can re-agonize about the black kid under a white sheet that summer. He was only there because a cop thought he was suspicious or a suspect or something. He was unarmed, doing nothing illegal or unusual, just walking down the neighborhood street. When the Minions were younger he was one of the kids that got cold water bottles from me when they were running around playing like kids do. 

Some of those kids have grown, left, and now some are coming back. My guys get asked about that white lady with the cold water and if she is still here. It warms my heart to be remembered like that! I did not consider, however, that I was also the first white lady they ever talked to outside of school or other regimented experience. I was just looking after the kids like their moms.

Or I could rant about how we chose this for ourselves and the Minions. It was vitally important to me that the kids attend class with people that did not all look like them. Turned out, sometimes they were the only white faces in their class. I stand by that decision. Now the Minions are at a loss when they hear about how white and black people in the US sometimes see each other. They bristle when they hear about racism or racist practices. They are trained to get out in front when there is trouble because they are so much likely to fare better when interacting with authority. They have seen the school to prison pipeline. They have seen what I call the abstinence to poverty parenting pipeline.

We try to be good neighbors, like folks do. Every time a new family moves in, we introduce ourselves, if appropriate, as the crazy crackers on the corner. We affirm that we have lived in this place for over 15 years. Our neighbors ask about race and political issues more since the last election than ever before. I field these questions like when neighborhood girls used to ask me about white people hair - with patience and dignity. I tell the Minions to remember that even just to ask is to risk, so when they get asked race questions to do the same with the knowledge that the tenor of their response may determine if the folks asking ever try to do so again. 

What is the point here, then? To affirm that some of us do live what we believe, as much as we can, and raise our kids/Minions to do the same. To remind folks that our neighbors are not their neighbors, but at the same time are their neighbors. Once the racial tension settles, and folks know we are not, in fact, the villains in a Spike Lee joint, we were accepted as good neighbors. We had to get past our fictive kinship with other white people to show that we are decent folks. Although we did not deserve that distrust, we understood and accepted that we would have to be better folks to be thought of as good folks. We endeavor to do this every time we get new neighbors.

This is why I react with rage when black mothers grieve over the pointless loss of another black child. This is why when a mentally ill man was shot by a cop at a corner church here I was livid: the family had to raise money for a headstone while that cop was honored in event after event. Apparently shooting a crazy person is something that they honor. But to me these are people - kids and neighbors, not a dehumanized demographic.

This is part of why I get called a "race traitor" and shit when needless black death permeates the culture again for a few moments: I am not set to default white sympathy. My "we" is my family, friends, and neighbors... my "we" is not just white folks.

And yeah, I sometimes bristle when white do gooder liberals are accused of carelessness and callousness. I get it, and I never criticize the folks with that beef: I see it too, and the few holdouts like me and mine never outweigh legit beef over the movement as a whole. There is so much left to do, and current US culture is in full reverse mode regressing on everything from shrinking the franchise to struggling to re-stigmatize LGBT folks. 

Why post this? Not to excuse any past, present, or future race faux paux, hurt, or damage I may have caused nor to flaunt my meager efforts. I post this just as a way of pointing to a spot and saying "I am here." Maybe it will mean something to someone that needs to know that in this mess of a country and time there are still people out there doing what they can to do things differently. 

In Praise of the Meatsack

PatientC, holding a candle lit for mourning.

I am not supposed to love this meatsack. It has been fat. It is now merely slightly overweight. It has born children, it has run races, it has made music, it has been set on fire for the voyeuristic pleasure of the crowd. It has run miles, biked, skated, and driven even though now it is disabled. It has survived use, misuse, the neglect and punishment of loved ones. It has reveled in the love and affection and romantic attention of other loved ones that actually loved me back. Some days it fails the simple task of truly getting out of bed, except to change the clothes on it, make the bed and them snuggle back into nap blankets for the day.

Yep, I refer to human bodies as meatsacks (or meat bags, much love to HK47 & SWTORII).  Few things eat us, but that does not make us any less meat on the hoof. Meat at the top of the food chain is still meat even if it is rarely tasted. It is okay, though, this is not a bad thing. It serves as a reminder that there is little physical difference between our fleshy engines and that hamburger package that expired today but is probably still okay to eat... I believe it is a fairly adequate description. 

Frequently I find that folks, especially disabled folks like me, can end up looking down on these meatsacks, but I happen to be fond of mine. We are not supposed to love our meatsacks. We are not supposed to think about the fact that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Hell, that next breath is not assured, but we like to think that it is. But we are supposed to feel that our meat is bad: too big, too small, too little, too tall, too voluptuous, too slight, too pale, too dark... we are never just right as taught by the world, our schools, our families, our faith, our neighbors. 

Although meatsacks are unreliable they are the way we interact with the universe. Consciousness is not separate from flesh but laced through it, inseparable from it. Meat is our interface with each other, our easiest and most complicated tool, our first tool and our last tool. Yet we disparage, disregard, and degrade it at every turn. 

I do not believe that we are trapped in this meat, but installed in it, built by it, nourished with millions of sensations every day from it. But USisans, Westerners, we are taught to hate it. We use our meat to share our love, our fear, our joy and our pain - we have no idea what we truly are without out meat but I know this: it would not be the same, it would be less.

Common Christian thought teaches that we should hate our bodies. Our reproduction & our mortality are products of Original Sin - only possible by the act of misbehaving in this meat. So we hate and mortify the body to become closer to the Passion experienced by Christ in order to know and love Him in order to enter Paradise and know God. 

Buddhism treats the mind, body, and soul as one item, inseparable. (As I understand it, from my baby beginner Buddhist tuffit.) This item is inseparable from the world it inhabits. This makes much more sense to me. 

All that to tell you, dear Reader, that no matter what the world tells me, I love this meat bag and all it's faults. I try to see it for what it really is, moment to moment, but I cannot imagine trading it or the adventures it has given me for any other meatsack, ever. 

On Language

A few years ago, my family had a falling out with what we thought were good, solid family friends. Family conversation often turns to subjects of social justice in our home, and most guests are not only used to it but appreciate the ad hoc safe space we host. But these friends were sulking at every visit. Turns out, they hated us because we reminded them that oppression still existed, were propagating issues by addressing them, or some such bullshit and grew more resentful and angry at every visit. 

I wrote a lot during it and about it, and a lot of the discussion about language is extremely applicable here. The names, etc, have been obscured to protect those that have yet to actually develop the personal evolution they think they have achieved. Editing for clarity of thought has also been attempted, Dear Reader.

See below for description and request.

Description: this is a pink US flag design saying the following: In Our America all people are equal, black lives matter, immigrants and refugees are welcome, disabilities are respected, women are in charge of their own bodies, people and planet are valued over profit. Diversity is celebrated.

"Of Dogs and Lizards" was frequently cited during the original conversation, I want to credit it here. If you know the credit for the graphic above, I would be thankful for letting me know so I can give due credit.
______

It took a while to put together what happened, in a bigger picture sort of way. The story: I posted a link that stated using the word "lame" was not only inconsiderate or mean, but discriminatory and prejudiced. For having the audacity to reinforce the idea that people with handicaps are indeed humans worthy of decent treatment, I was isolated and shamed. I was the card while others scored about seven Bingos (disability and some sexist and racist bingo, too).

What this lead to, the point I am getting to is incredibly hard to think, let alone put to words on a screen or say out loud: I was discriminated against. I was treated with prejudice... by people I love. These people had standing invitations to our home. They supped with us. They were around our children. NOTE: Dear Reader, this list could be much longer but then starts to get both tedious and very specific, which is not intended. The intent is to share the thoughts I generated during this mess.

This was a little thing. Such a little thing generated such intense shame and anger and embarrassment and humiliation from me, such rage, hate, and discontent at me. I am not looking away. I will not forget. I will not withdraw. I will use this experience to kick myself back to the things I want to do - to actively fight exactly this sort of thing. I will be more empathic when someone else talks about facing bigotry. I will insist to myself and others that I am not less human than they.

There is a simple reason to talk about "politically correct" language. Every time there is a language & hate issue in US culture, we talk about it for maybe a few days and think we are done, that we did our collective penance. USians are usually free to say what we like. Other people are also free to think what they like and say what they like about what we say. Advising someone not to use offensive language serves a purpose: to separate the assholes from the ignorant or unwitting. Flailing about your right to express yourself while trying to take that right away from someone else is Palin-esque at best.

If you know that the use of some language hurts someone else and you still use it - you are an asshole. You are, of course, free to be an asshole. But if you actually care about how other people think and feel, you will stop. This lets the rest of us know whether you were simply uninformed, or a jerk-ass.

When told that you are using language considered racist, sexist, cis-ist, heteronormative or homophobic, able-ist, class-ist, or otherwise offensive to someone, please take a moment to think. If you are not sexist, racist, or otherwise deliberately offending, then just stop it. Sit down so we can see who the real assholes are, please. Or keep standing, if appropriate, it is appreciated. The same benefit is not denied to you, but rather explicitly given.

I simply do not see trying to be human to my fellow humans as the burden that some do. Yes, it is hard to keep track of all the things that folks say to one another to hurt, demean, humiliate, taunt, disgrace... So when you do hurt someone by accident or ignorance, apologize with some grace, make a note of it and move the fuck on without complaint. If you want to be seen as that sort of person instead.

I do not suggest that I or anyone else tell anyone what to think or say, so I do not know where the jack-booted Thought Police accusation originates although it comes up time and time again by those wishing to do and say what they wish without allowing others to do the same. Why is one cherished freedom and the other so damn oppressive?!? They are the same right, just in different hands.

"All language is oppressive to someone" is both a fallacy and a cop out. As long as one subscribes to that, then one never has to care or try. I am better than that. Dear Reader, I am already sure you are better than that. But if the idea that one may say "that thing you said or did hurt me in real ways" drives you to monk-ish silence or a career as a mime, you do you!

An "ally" that constantly steps on your foot and blames you for hurting, or for having the audacity to say "OUCH!" is no ally. They just want the warm fuzzy of thinking they are an ally with none of the effort.

No one blames anyone for having privilege. None of us get to choose the circumstances of our birth, our families, or pick the culture we were born into. Sometimes it really is just that simple. Political correctness holds us responsible for what we say and do, and is avoided by those that cannot stomach being responsible in that way.

No one is immune from accountability. There is nothing about talking and learning and advocating for racial justice that makes us exempt from saying something racially hurtful. Hell, there is nothing about my currently disabled status that means I am exempt from saying some shit that someone with another disability may find offensive. (It happens.) That was part of the point - we are all going to occasionally fuck up. We all have some privilege, and we are all personally responsible for doing our best not to oppress our fellow human beings. There is nothing about being a woman that makes me immune to internalizing hateful messages and using them to hurt someone. There is nothing, but my knowledge that we are all in the same soup and need to stay vigilant about the ideas we allow to roost in the rafters of our world view.

Doing the Disability Drag (Get Your Cripface on!)

Oh, yeah, this is an official BAD CRIPPLE blog entry. Bad Cripple says, "Only you can stop kicking wheelchair wheels during movie viewing. They did not let me in for free because I brought my own chair, asshole!"

A blond, blazer-ed PatientC trying to look casual for a wheelchair picture.
NOT PICTURED: CRIP DRAG.

Recently, after I mentioned a crip face issue on Facebook, a friend asked me to point her towards resources on the topic. I am usually happy to do that for anyone interested in a social justice topic, especially folks I know (given the usual: spoons available, respectful request, all that sort of thing). I was only able to point her towards an article on the fantastic but defunct FWD. Most of the resources I had compiled way back when are all gone. So come with me and we will make a new one here.

Disability drag/crip face/cripface/crip drag all describe the same thing: the act of behaving as if one has a disability that one, in fact, does not have. Usually this is done by TAB (temporarily able bodied) person, but it can be done by anyone. A person with a disability cannot cripface their own disability, but can cripface one that is not theirs. It is not usually considered cripface to temporarily take on the qualities of a disability that one has had in the past, as they are pulling from their own lived experiences and not demeaning someone else's life experience.

Crip drag is always a display of privilege and is always ableist/disableist. 

ProTip: if you are not yourself disabled, you should stay away from using the word cripple (and that word family). Stick with disability.

Cripface is part of a long tradition of people with institutional & social power, with privilege, appropriating the experiences and lives of those without it. It is on the same field as yellow face, black face, poverty drag and other tasteless and hurtful impersonations of the very social structures that cause these inequities. I make no moral equivalencies here, I leave the Oppression Olympics to other folks! I am only pointing out a general category of people pretending to experience the problems and therefore somehow the lives of other people. 

This has come up recently in discussions about The Fault in Our Stars, a really good movie and an even better book. I think that both are worth the time. And I can enjoy an entertainment product while also understanding that it has a cripface issue. Hell, House, MD helped me through a rough patch in my life when I was newly dealing with using a cane as part of a bigger package of suck that came from a misdiagnosed infarction. Except it was my life and House was crip drag. Frequently patient characters were, too. Yet I was a big fan for years. The new Ironsides was totally cripface no matter how awesome Blair Underwood is in everything he does. I estimate that about 90% of disability I see on major media is fake. Oh, shout outs to Game of Thrones and CSI - you know why you rock.

Yes, it is disability drag when committed by a major motion picture the same as it is one of those empathy stunts. You know the empathy stunt (my phrase, but I would love it to be common use): where someone wears a blindfold for a week or uses a wheelchair for a month and learns valuable lessons. Usually done in service of a good cause, but almost always a bad idea.

Because crip face is still so commonly practiced and accepted, we are mostly just forced to deal with it or never dig anything. I have a lot more to say about the politics and power around cripface, about how you respond to the subject says more about you than about the problem, all kinds of things. There is so little out there, and I want to help fix that. Discussing this is part of the solution to it. Looking at these systems that benefit from disability drag should be something we all do together. Dismantling this problem should not be the sole responsibility of the people victimized by it. 

Avoiding using accurate terminology because you like something or give the creators a pass for being good people is part of the problem. Bad Cripple says, "Stop it. Stop it right now." 

I am in the middle of a medium evil classic lupus flare with some bonus avoidance activation, but I decided to write anyway. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I hope you are free from suffering and the root of all suffering.

Our Poly Family

One of the things I want to do with PatientC that is not medical or disability related is to get more material out here that is about real life poly families by talking about mine. I was asked some questions to help with a friend's paper, and that got me thinking. You know what happens when I get thinking, I post it here for your potential cerebral pleasure!

Answers to questions asked for a friends’ paper on poly families:

• Okay, that is some list! But it does look like a very good place to get started, good job there. =) I may use what I write here as the skeleton for a blog post unless that would weird you out. I think my responses are in order, but I may have missed some {questions} - if anything does not seem to synch up, feel free to ask for clarification.
• Yes, as far as the Minions go, we have always been this way. The only change was when we all moved in together.
• They have always known {we were a poly family. Well, at least since they could understand words like that}. Now, if you are asking when did they figure out when we were "romantic" by a more complete definition of that word than you have when you are three, probably a year or {few} after we started living together, so 8 years ago, maybe? They would have been 9 and 7, I think.
• I raised them with the idea that although most adults are taught they can only romantically love one other person at a time, I practiced a romantic love that was like my family love. They both knew that I love them completely but differently, and that was how I felt about their Dad and the Boyfriend. Now, when that idea was challenged at school One came home saying "Mary's mom says you cannot have a husband and a boyfriend at the same time." I said, "Well, tell Mary to tell her mom that indeed I do and she is a close minded bitch!" Then we all laughed and I delved more into definitional polyamory to help them explain to what friends they decided were able to handle it.
• They {my girls, otherwise known as The Minions} seem mostly nonplussed. They do use it as a litmus test to see if a friend is going to hang around after they find out, I suspect. One has stated that she will probably not be poly, that love seems complicated enough to her right now. Not that she was judging us, she wanted us to understand. =) Two is a little more militant.
• Yep, we are who we are wherever we go and whoever we meet (representatives of the state being the exception {and we tone it down a bit at school functions}). We will usually wait to see if a neighbor is staying or if we like a new group well enough to hang around and need to explain if it is not plain at the start.
• For the most part, they {our neighbors} do not seem to care. If they disapprove, they keep it to themselves. Some of our neighbors thought it odd at first, but they are mostly older black matriarchs that care more about our kids and our yard being well tended than what we do in bed. We joke that we are those "crazy crackers on the corner" and get along pretty well, now that I think about it.
• No, they {the Minions} seem to have a fairly easy time of that. They have been teased and rejected for not being Christian. Hey, that may explain it: the people that would judge their poly family are already blown off on the religious question and never get as far as their poly family. And family structures were already becoming more fluid before the economic downturn, now everyone has extended family living with them or broken up partners still living together... I am not saying that the nuclear family is dead, but it has been coughing up blood as far as I can personally tell.
• We are all supportive of the Minions. G and I, other than a six month break at one point (long story), have been together for over twenty years and he has always been an accessible Dad. {The Boyfriend} and I started our odd journey right before I was pregnant with {the eldest}, so he has always been around for them. One of the perks of ploy is that the girls always have a grownup around. And one of us almost always finds a way to relate to whatever they may be going through at any given time. While not being able to sign things for them or stuff like that, {the Boyfriend} has always been "an adult that should be respected and listened to like Mom and Dad." 
• No, {on me being open and poly} I have not seen anyone {else} seriously for years. Being sick complicated that issue so I do not know if I would have otherwise. But they would have needed to be cool with my home life and my home life would have needed to be cool with them if it was serious. I have had sex with a friend or two, but with no eye to changing standing relationships.
• Umm, hopefully that is a good start. Whatever strikes your fancy to ask about or discuss is okay so far, so feel free! {Same goes for you, Dear Reader, feel free to chat below!}

One True Cause

I find little credibility in the One True Cause argument. Someone else has probably come up with a better name for it, but a quick tour through Derailing for Dummies has left me unsatisfied. Make no mistake, I find D4D otherwise very useful and like it quite a lot! Give me a minute, and I think you will find that "One True Cause" is used frequently as a derailing and discrediting tactic.

To clear this up, I do not mean "cause" as in cause and effect, although that is also a logical fallacy. I am using "cause" in One True Cause or 1TC or OTC to mean a situation, bigotry, societal failure, civil rights issue... the sort of causes we gather around to solve, resolve, improve, remove, make better. The intent is to make your cause less worthy of time, attention, and effort than their cause.

The One True Cause is this: why are you talking about/working on/devoting time and energy to X cause when Y cause is more important, more universal, more pressing and/or more personal? The OTC shares mental real estate with the Oppression Olympics, although the person committing the logical fallacy need not believe or be touched by either cause, they just want to be done with yours.

A recent example I have seen is this paraphrase of mine: how can you talk about Glenn Greenwalt's pal getting detained and the chilling effect it may have on free speech when Greenwalt is a lying jerk and other people have been treated worse? Here, I respectfully posit that one can care about the assault on free speech via detention of loved ones no matter how much one may dislike the people in this particular story and even still care about the dishonesty and ethical questions raised by the same persons. I can think that GG looks like a lying jerk and still beat the drum of free speech.

A common OTC argument is often brought up regarding US drone bombing. We mustn't concern ourselves with the innocents murdered in the never ending search for "top Al Qaeda" operatives because that would diminish our ability to kill the "right" people in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan... over there. Except that innocents murdered in a bloody attempt to exact justice is how this all started, whether you think it started with 9/11 or the use of Afghani people as chess pieces to fight a Cold War with the USSR, or, or, or...

Admittedly, it may be hard to drag our focus from getting through our own days, fighting the oppressions heaped upon us, scraping to put what we can on the table at dinner time for our loved ones to give a damn about people exploded out of existence while doing the same damn thing over there... someplace far away, some place filled with brown people struggling the same struggles and (just like us) never earned the need to fear random death from above. 

As a disabled person raising a ruckus, I see the One True Cause fallacy all the time. How can I complain about the lack of accessibility at the local Pride Fest when that just give critics more fuel to try to shut it down? Well, I can tell you that as bisexual woman with disabilities I could not cross streets because beer booths had deliberately blocked curb cuts. How can I, a poor white lady, spend time on race issues when I should be focused on poverty? Well, my daughters go to the same schools that are neglected because there are not enough white faces in those schools for the people in power to care about them. Even if they went to lily white schools, better education for "inner city" or "deprived" schools means more skilled workers and smarter citizens which increases economic opportunity for everyone. 

Often One True Cause is used with some legitimate feeling, worry that this other cause will suffer if people are not singularly devoted to it. People and their issues can be complex, and OTC often ignores the intersections that exist in social justice, in caring about freedom and real opportunities for all peoples. But just as we can love our parents, our significant others/spouses, our children, and our friends and extended family - I believe that we can care about more than one cause with legitimate depth of feeling and commitment. Some of us must do so, whether we ever wanted to or not. Just inside our walls here at home we are directly concerned with disability, neuro-atypicality of various types, feminism, poverty, school quality/funding, the Affordable Care Act/healthcare accessibility in general, religious freedom, racism (our neighbors and our children's peers are more melanin gifted than our family), QUILTBAG rights and issues... 

OTC is just one more minor oppression. OTC is other people telling you what causes they think you should support. OTC is just one more way to exert control, but worse since is is usually done by social justice folks to other social justice folks. So it is likely to be listened to, likely to bypass the filters we put in place when we are dealing with folks that could not care less about making the US a more just place. This often comes from people we respect, trust - folks we value in some way.

So you see, we had to learn to juggle many interests and that is just a brief overview. OTC has no place in our social justice cosmology. OTC is different than picking the battles that mean something to you: I get that.  One True Cause desires to denigrate other causes (others' causes?), and that is not cricket. On a good body day, I can actually chew gum, pat my head and rub my tummy all at the same time. But do not hold your breath waiting for a good day, I have less than a handful of those a month right now. The ones I get - I know how to spend them!

Self Liking Media

Or: Like Me! Like Me! Like Me! I have opinions. Let me show you this on on Self Liking Media. Enjoy, Gentle Reader. 

I take in a lot of content on the internet. I watch YouTube videos. I have a lot of podcasts I listen to on iTunes. I use (or have used) Spotify, TuneIn, Pandora, Netflix, Vimo, Hulu, Last.fm, Bandcamp, Mixcrate, Stitcher, Blog Talk Radio, and Ustream just to name a handful. I use web site media players, game site videos, social justice media wherever I can find it.

What I am saying is that I have a lot of time where it is difficult to do anything, so I consume the content of others. I have even made a tiny little bit, so I have an idea how hard it is. As I have talked about here before: I have no problem letting folks know I dig their stuff with a plus or a like or five stars or email or whatever. I think it is (the definition of) the least we can do for those folks trying to inform, entertain, and/or educate us. 

The best creators never tell you how to feel about their creations. You should be allowed to experience it on your own and form an un-beleaguered opinion. Like something or not, you should have the ability to form that opinion based on the media itself. You should not be inundated through the piece to form an opinion you do not have yet, or badgered to change a non-glowing opinion at the end. 

Mea culpa: I have been guilty of the "like me!" mess, but I will not anymore. You get to decide what you like.

But if you put your stuff out there on a system that has an opinion system, then you have voluntarily agreed to letting people voice their own opinion on that system. I respectfully address that you get over it, or get off of those systems. YouTubers and Facebookers and iTuners and whatever: quit telling me to give you a good rating and spend that energy into your project and make it even better.

Now, contrary to what you might think, I am not dogging everyone that made something on the Internet ever and then asked you to dig it. There is a one word cure to this: if. Well, you know, and variations of it:

• If you liked this video, please remember to hit the like button. 
• Hit the subscribe button if you like it so much you want more.
• Did you dig this G+ post? Let me know with that +1 button, okay?
• We work a lot on this podcast. Want us to keep it up? Five stars will let us know! If you hear an issue, please give us a heads up!
• We are able to get help with equipment and stuff based on our like counts. So please help us out with a good review - you listened to the whole thing, so you like us, right? 
• Enjoy our skits? Let us know! There is a donate button, too!
• Please use our comment section to give us accolades, guidance  opinion, whatever comes to your head for us. Well, almost whatever - behave! Check out our posting rules for questions.

For all that is good in this world, quit telling us to like your stuff and make it likable instead, okay? Okay. Thanks. Look, the creators I am addressing are giving out mostly free content: we are predisposed to like you. "Yea, free stuff!" said the Internet. Then we spend time on you, further prepping us to like you. People do not like to be wrong, so we are going to want to like you the longer we spend time on your content. 

I know, there are trolls, but they are actually a tiny fraction of people on the Internet. They are just the loudest because it is easier to shit on something than to hold it up. Sadistic lulz are no longer witty retorts, now they are usually just the flatulence of the bored. 

On perks: if you give a perk to the best opinions, good for you. But I think it does a disservice to you and your fans. How can you know what they really think if you have some raffle prize for shining reviews. A lot of the folks that hound consumers about it never give a breath to telling them what you actually think, they just want the like/plus/stars. So if your content has a problem like a faulty/misplaced light or bad levels or misinformation, who is going to tell you? It should be your fans, but you have them giving prize-eligible reviews instead. I think that can cause content creators more harm than good. You know your content's needs better than I, so take that as you will.

Down with the phenomena of Self Liking Media! Remember, you can show me some love below if you like what I do:

So Much Depends on a Little Red Plus Sign

Most social networks have a method by which you can show your approval of a post. Whether it is "plussing" on G+, "liking" on Facebook, "favoriting" a post on Twitter, pushing/trusting/liking on Sulia, and pinning and/or heart'ing on Pinterest you have a way of saying "I approve of this." The problem is, there is no way of adding why you approve of a post, and I want to break down why I give things this silent mark of approval:

• I may like your post because I believe the same thing, word for word. This is the damn for me, although it seems it is the one that folks always assume is meant when you plus.
• I may favorite your tweet because I am glad you said a thing, whether I agree or not. I may just believe that your thought needs to be out there in the ether. I believe in fostering intelligent dialog when possible.
• You and I may be friends, so I plus your stuff that makes sense in order to encourage you to express yourself. 
• I may appreciate the opportunity to see a product or idea. Maybe I did not even know it existed until you posted it.
• I may pin something just because it is pretty or suits my aesthetics.
• Maybe you posted something that took skill or bravery to post and I noticed.
• Sometimes I may actively disagree with a post, but appreciate the way something was said. Maybe it was an innovate way of looking at the issue, or had a personal touch that made the post evocative. Maybe it was just damn good writing. This goes back to fostering intelligent dialog when possible.
• Maybe you were just damn funny and I lol'ed.
• Every once in a while, I will fat-finger a post and plus/like/pin something I did not mean to. You know what I mean, you are looking at one thing and press the button you think will favorite your target but instead you ended up "liking" something horrible. Sometimes, it takes someone pointing it out to find out that it even happened. This is the most rare of cases, and I will immediately correct, if possible, when asked about it. Because I am a grown-up and can admit I screwed up.
• Liking/+1'ing are good ways to keep track of a post as it develops. I may just want to see what happens next...

I bet you experience this problem: someone sees that you put your stamp of approval on one thing a person wrote and now you are responsible for everything that person ever wrote, ever. There are a lot of reasons to stamp someone's post, but people will usually assume that you did it for whatever reason makes them the most angry. I ask first before I assume, and it is my opinion that other folks should ask first too. We should not let assumptive, aggressive anger overrule common sense. 

On most services such as G+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Sulia you can undo your stamp of approval. Usually you can just click the same button again, the label on the button usually changes to reflect this functionality, but not in every case. If you no longer wish to have approved a post, a group, or a person - you can change your approval status to reflect that, to a degree. I rather like Buzzfeed's method of giving the user several adjectives to choose from to voice an opinion on a piece.

Microsoft's Rape Joke at E3

Women and girls should not need to play games to play games. But we do. The following post is about sexism in gaming. You do not need to have a press pass to E3 or be into MLG to understand what happened or anything, just know that it is a gaming industry conference and that this industry is particularly hot spot for sexism and gender essentialism (along with dis/ableism, racism, and most social ills that come to the mind of rage quitting troglodytes).

Earlier this week, a cheap ass rape joke was made at a Microsoft press event. 
Feminist Frequency, no stranger to sexism and frequent target of the fetid MRA crowd, was given a reminder of their tantrum tactics when she mentioned Microsoft/Xbox's lack of female protagonists. The next day FF posted some offerings that do appear to offer women out in front. I like to think that she posted it just because it was news and an interesting juxtaposition. However, the bellowing boys of the web demand (you can see it for yourself in some of the offerings in the first FF link) that should any right, proper, human behavior happen anywhere near a sexist foul up, that it be reported on as well or nay, you are only telling an unfair part of a story to forward your misandrist agenda!

Microsoft issues an apology - so those would-be non-apologists attempting to downplay this or act like it was not wrong, can have a goddamn seat.

The trouble is not just the rape joke itself. The trouble is not just that it was issued by a superiorly experienced and equipped male player to a less experienced and equipped female player. The trouble is not just that it was made in a professional environment. The trouble is not just that it was made in a public environment.  The trouble is not that behavior like this but far more terrible is ubiquitous in not just gaming but in a lot of places in US culture - so much so that complaining about this one incident is seen as hair-splitting, nit-picking, and mountain-of-molehill making. The trouble is not just the message this sends to young gamers of all/any genders.

The trouble is all of the above. 

If Self Improvement is Masterbation...

I have not written much about me personally lately. I shy away from that sort of thing when I am stressed. So here is what is going on with me and mine for the folks that are interested. All of this is happening with tons of help from the family, particularly the Menfolk. I would still be splashing in a miasma of good intent, stalled efforts, and drama without their support.

Umbra does not care if this post gets finished.

So if I get through today the same, this will be my first week at under 12 cloves a day. Or 12 cigarettes or under, but I hope for the former. While the eCigs are a wonder and I am using them frequently, I do think I am cutting down on my overall nicotine intake. I do not know if I will keep moving on nicotine reduction once I have the cigs kicked. Nicotine itself is not a health concern for me right now, and I am not sure that it should be one. 

"Once I have the cigs kicked" - I was not sure I would ever seriously use those words, but I just did. Woot!

My avoidance is not so bad when I stay in contact with people that reciprocate my caring and love for them. So I am using my emergency med less. But I prefer to take it when people stress is building and neither practical methods (STFU, GTFO, etc...) nor internal coping mechanisms are cutting it. If you are familiar with autoimmune illnesses like lupus/SLE, you know that other people's bullshit can literally make us lupies physically ill by stressing us into Flare's Ville. I do not talk about that much because people can be awful, but fuck it: that is the state of things. 

For about a year, with lupus in full effect but we were still unaware that it was there: I was stressing myself into the ER or a hospital room about once a month with a combination of physical and emotional stress. I just cannot let people do that to me anymore - what if the next flare convinces my immune system that my kidneys have become enemies and should be destroyed? I had to kick the part of myself that comes from abuse and neglect and remind her that she and I do not take shit anymore.

I have cut back on my caffeine, especially Red Bull. Now, I still drink a lot of it, there was just plenty of room for improvement. That and more generally weight reduction will not be a focus until the smoking thing is done, before the end of the year I hope. 

We are starting the Medical Mystery business that is my life back up again. Hopefully we can get some answers on the stuff that is not under the umbrella of lupus/SLE or fibro.

We are going to do more meditation at home and plan on going to more open sittings and the stuff we can afford to do with the local Buddhist group we met this spring.

I am working on writing more and actually putting it out there. I am getting better at actually posting what I write when I write it. I am also making time to write whenever I have the bug instead of letting it wait 'til I get back to my desk.

So, what sort of self improvement are you engaged in now? Is it working? Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it!

The Intersection of All and Nothing

When you do not fight for justice for everyone, you stand for justice for no one.

We cannot stand for racial justice without standing for gender justice because people of different races are also gendered. 

You cannot fight for gender justice without standing for QUILTBAG justice, because women are also sometimes lesbian or bi or queer. 

People cannot stand for QUILTBAG justice without standing for economic justice because sometimes trans* and queer folk are poor, often more poor.

They cannot stand for economic justice without standing for disability justice because sometimes the poor have disabilities. 

I cannot work for disability justice without supporting racial justice, because sometimes the disabled are black and brown.

Do you want justice? Then want justice for everyone. The fight is not either/or it is all or nothing. Equality is a state of being, not a race to be won.

Justice is not a prize to be hoarded if it is to mean anything at all.

Quit telling people to sit down and be quiet in favor of your cause. Their cause is your cause.

Fuck Fair: Favoring the Injured (On Safe Space)

There are a lot of places that need your time today, thank you for spending a moment or two here. Please see the Red Cross if you want to help out Moore, Oklahoma. They will need your help for a long time coming. So if you could not donate the first time around, like me, keep them in mind for when you can spare something to help, please.


A “safe space” is a convention where a chat room, a comment thread, a blog, or what have you is considered more safe than the average Internet site for expressing thoughts, experiences and conversations regarding societal oppression, patriarchy, or other designated topic, grouping of people, or sharing of an idea.

Safe space is not about not getting hurt. No one can police for everything. It is knowing that you are in a space where it is safe to get hurt.


There's no OED for social justice, so we all need to spell out what we mean when we say things like "safe space." I have to be honest about conversations here: I cannot promise folks will not get hurt. Somebody is not going to know "g*psy" is an insult or that a band name is triggering or whatever. I do understand that sometimes genuine mistakes get made - and I will judge those as they occur. We are people, mistakes get made and when your wounds are out they sometimes get opened.

I say this again: fuck fair, favor the injured. In the rest of the world, people with privilege are actually fucking privileged and can have their say as they will. A safe space puts the dis-empowered on the at least the same level, with the same expectation of opportunity to speak, to be, to live.

You give people space, let them know you are there, you listen when they are aggrieved. You care. You do not just let them know that you care, you fucking do it. Give other people reason (since the injured party should never need to) and opportunity to apologize and maybe even go learn more and be a better person. I give the injuring the opportunity to grow in a way that is not hurtful to the injured... And if they do not take it, fuck ‘em.

Bigots and cads and shit stirrers get tossed. Here, that is by my discretion alone at this point. Mistakes among the rest of folks means giving genuine opportunity for real recovery, and for folks learning - really learning, real space to do that too. Probably not together, though. But they voices dimmed out there are favored here, and that is that.


Finally, if need be, I am comfortable asserting that I Am The Bitch Boss Here if needed. A lot of this is hard to put down in solid rules or guidelines. If you are here, then you have decided to trust me as the arbiter of that. I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that you can go almost anywhere else and say what you want. More power to you, as if you need it. I stand (sit) behind what I have written here and elsewhere on the subject.

SSI: Not Enough for Rent

I already had an article ready for today, and then this showed up in my Inbox:

Study Finds Average Rent Cost Higher Than Entire Monthly SSI Payment of Many with Disabilities via Disability.Gov.

So guess what I want to talk about! You got it...
Please feel free to take a moment to recover from the shock that SSI payments are just not enough to live on. Are you okay? Want a drink? A towel? A fainting couch?

There was recently a cost of living increase, by the way. Heh.

Besides finding some clever ways to say “fucking duh,” I really do not have anything to add to the facts of the matter. Well, I will say that it does parallel my lived experience.


It is difficult to complain when I feel damn lucky just to have the system to work at all for me.

Politics matter: you need to remember this when you hear that the Administration has put SSI back on the table as a gambling chip. You need to remember this instead of calling the people against it “emo progs.” You need to remember this when you visit your relatives trying to live a life on money that is not even rent. You need to remember this when the language of “makers and takers” gets louder again (and it will).

You need to remember that we are part of the 47%. We did not want to be here. We did not get here on our own. We did not decide to injure or sicken ourselves so much so that we could get a check that would not even cover basics.

This leaves us no room to do or be anything other than disabled.

Remember us.

Sharing

I love to write. I love to read. 

These have been true for all of my life that I can recall. When that was taking away from me for a while because of The Incident, I was inconsolable. I was inconsolable about a lot of my losses, but the names of my loved ones and reading and writing were the top of that list. Buttons, shmuttons. I have clawed a lot of that back, and I am both proud and grateful for all the help that my loved ones offered (and offer, they rock).

I really dig blogging. Hell, I have left a LJ path behind me that has at times been huge. I dig reading blogs, looking into you as you do into me.

Every time I pick up blogging again, it is for a reason. And I find as that reason passes or I have done what I can with or about it - I start to write really personal things about living my life.

Those get left in the draft folder and or deleted - although every once in awhile I will share one. And you respond by reading it a lot. Which is great.

It also happens to scare me to death. 

That article on wheelchair etiquette is born of a thousand indignities suffered by me and other people. I try to imagine the folks that visit it, and I think it appeals more to folks in chairs that need a release than maybe it does to the able-bodied. The sharing of those indignities, in my particular way, seems to have helped some some bodies out there. I think I want to do more of that.

I have been hesitant  though, most of the time, to really peal the skin off and show you, J.D. Ballard style, the workings and brokenness underneath.

I think this has to change. I have decided to write. To be. To share. To be more vulnerable. Maybe to YouTube. 

To dare to do enough to risk being wrong. In front of you.

I am not so much inspired as I am tired of the shell I have insisted on living in for my own protection. I am a big girl and I can handle getting hurt. Hell, pain has never really been the deterrent for me that it is for most folks. I am not coming out all Bob Flanagan, but something closer to that than where I am now.

Stealing Memories

In the middle of a bunch of personal drama, a package arrived for me. The package had a t-shirt for a web site and YouTube series I was supporting until the middle of said personal drama. So I was in a quandary about what to do with said t-shirt. Do I throw it away? Keep it? Give it to one of the kids and get reminded of the drama every time they wear it, but give the money I spend some use? 

Mentioning my quandary created what I should have known, given hindsight, yet more drama. I ended up refusing the offer to refund my money. Here is why: not only did I pay for the shirt, I _earned_ it. I earned it for watching every episode. I earned it promoting episodes. I earned it talking up the show. Least of all, I earned it by buying the damn thing. I was not going to let a damn social mess tell me any different, even as this guy tried to steal my memories.

Before you start to think that "stealing memories" is a bit dramatic itself, let me explain. People have tried to steal my memories before. It has happened to you. A person makes an exit from your life, and in the process tries to invalidate every good memory you have of them on the way out the door. Maybe they claim they were only friends with you to make a social situation easier  Maybe they say that they were only there because you give a fine blow job. They do their damnedest to sully or erase the good times, whatever fellowship you may have shared, the contagious smiles, the talking too long, the shared heartache - all of it they take a hearty piss on before they are gone. Now you know what I am talking about, I think.

I decided a couple years back that I would no longer let people steal my memories. If my brain held onto something pleasant, it was going to stay. This was when a couple we had considered great friends and part of our family was making their exit. On the way out, they were stealing what memories they could, and I just decided to not let them. Sure, they were gone shortly after, but I protected my good memories of them and kept them separate from the bullshit that was happening right then. I would remember the bullshit too, but separately. They could retcon their own lives, but not mine.

Do not let assholes make you forget why you thought of them as decent folk. Do not let people erase your good times. Do not let them take away the rough times you shared.

Do not let people steal your memories.

Oh, and the t-shirt? It is going straight into a keepsakes box, unwashed and unworn.

What Do I Do? What Do I Want?

Recently I have been thinking about my blog here. What do I really want out of my blog, what do I want to put into it, and what on earth do I think I will get out of it? Please note: this is not some sort of blogging goodbye, I am analyzing what I am doing on a number of fronts.

One of the first side effects I noticed when I became (or finally realized I was) disabled was a serious disconnect from the world around me. I had not opted out of participating in the world, but very few things were aimed at including or even caring about me and this new-to-me group I found myself in! Unless I wanted a Jazzy or a Rascal I was pretty much left out. I already experienced this as a woman, as a poor person, as a poly person, and a bisexual (unless you are a bi woman having sex with other "bi" women for the purpose of turning on straight men, being bisexual is often considered indecision or greed rather than an actual sexual orientation). In most of life's genres I am relegated to a background player, or just ignored. I do have relative privilege and I try to live my life with that understanding.

My response to being discarded and feeling disconnected was to become hyper-connected. I went from not caring about most television programming to having the news on almost all the time. I started spending more of my time on line following news, pop culture, and finally connecting my interest in politics and social justice to the modern Internet. I found that if I saw a news story a couple of times I had a much better chance of retaining it and being able to discuss it with someone else.

As the scope of the issues and problems regarding USian society and culture about disability became clearer to me and I started to understand that it was right up there with other great societal poisons, I began to understand that I wanted to be part of the solution. I wanted (and still want) to take some of the things that happened to me along the way and use them to help other people. I want to take the horrible things that happened and give them to you so you can either avoid them yourself or better understand someone else in your life that has experienced similar things. So here I am.

Two Words

The following is a flare rant I wrote about a month ago, and then promptly forgot about because I was flaring. So here you go, and at the bottom I ask you for your flare advice.

Fucking. Flare.
Seriously. Thursday I missed my physical therapy, and that makes me feel about two inches tall. This is because it is low/no income and that means that someone else in my position or worse could have used that slot if I had been able to cancel earlier. This is a traveling teaching group, so when you miss an appointment not only could someone else have used the slot, but there are P/T students there that need to learn that are also going without what they need.
On the up side, they used the hour to learn more about lupus, fibro, and my upcoming wrist surgery and how all those things can impact physical therapy, not just for me but in general. Which is awesome! I have actually apologized to the students for being so complicated, but the lead P/T said to never do that, that patients in real life are always complicated.

I am going to talk to my physical therapist and find out more about how one can access low/no income therapy like this, because I think it is very important.
Hate. Flares. My physical ability goes out the window. I have a wicked Flowers for Algernon thing going on while I flare. It touches everything I touch, and I resent the hell out of it. Lately, though, I am trying to lean into experiences and really be there and understand, but flares just suck so god damn hard.
This seems to be a mini flare, which hopefully means it will only last about a week or so. So, umm, hurrah?

When a flare happens, I try to cut down on anything that the flare could ruin. Say, if I have an appointment or need to make an important phone call I will do what I can to put it off until the flare is gone because my cognitive ability goes right out the window. Delicate repairs or mending are definitely off my To Do lists. Sex can be a downright mess if it is the fibro that is acting up. I try to keep my focus narrow and easy to cut down on both outward mistakes and inward strife.
What do you do when you flare? What do you put off, what do you muddle through?

Gimpy Gamer: The First Three

So I nearly jumped for joy when I read this: Halo 4 Creators Introduce Lifetime Ban for Sexism. Wow, that is a hell of a step in the right direction! As a lady gamer raising girl gamers, this is such welcome news that I cannot even tell you. Here is the Gamespot article.

One of the problems with bans like this is that in order to make it work, often other paying gamers have to remove themselves from the game in order to file a report/complaint about a gamer ruining everyone's good time with sexism, racism, homophobia, or their social ill of choice. 

It is an unfair expectation of someone paying to use a service to have to take some of that paid time to essentially work for the service instead. But this is the world we live in now. Since it is silly to expect any service like Playstation or XBox Live to be able to monitor every gamer in every game at every moment of every day, we have to do our part.

I want to see a movement where those of us paying to use a service like XBox Live vow to do our part. I want us to promise that we will take the first fifteen minutes of online game time to report it when trolls are being trolls. Or, say, your first three Matchmaking games of a night - promise that you will do your part and allow your games to be interrupted while you report someone making sexist rape "jokes" in your Matchmaking. Or promise to report the first three trolls of your night.

Once your three games, three trolls, or first fifteen minutes are done, then you can sit back and enjoy your flow, unless someone is so bad, so inhuman to their fellow players that you simply have to report them no matter how good your gaming flow has been up to that point.

Gaming flow is important to gamers: once you settle in, set the real world behind you and get your head in the space of your game of choice, you want to stay there if you can. That is reasonable. I argue that if you have some homophobic bigot ranting and raving through your Big Team Battle, then your flow has already been interrupted, and taking a moment to report the troll can help keep that particular troll from messing with not only your flow, but the flow of everyone else that plays too!

So please stand with me in taking The First Three pledge. Let us make multiplayer a better place for everyone, and show that we actually care about the community we play and live in! I know that after the election is over, I will be as immersed as I can be in Halo 4, both campaign and then maybe even matchmaking with strangers (usually I only play with folks I know). I will take the First Three pledge!

In SmartAss News: Homophobia Is Bigotry

So it is time to address some of the fallout and questions I have seen about the President's recent evolution. Let us start with a working definition of homophobia:

"In a 1998 address, author, activist, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King stated that "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

The President's announcement is pretty historic (although certainly not a complete pass to equality) because when a sitting President comes out for the civil rights of a group, the country always, always follows. This is what has a lot of bigots tied up in knots. The arc of the universe bends towards justice, not their own preference, and they know it.

The trouble with homophobia is that it is still so accepted and standard in many circles that it can get hard to pin down. I am very comfortable with the above definition. 

If someone is devaluing the citizenship or humanity of someone because of orientation, or race, or ethnicity - I have no trouble calling that bigotry. I refuse to succumb to the idea that it is worse to be called on bigotry than it is to be a bigot. Now, bigotry can be motivated by ignorance or intolerance, and people's willingness to deal with or help that person may change based on that source. 

I do not remember where I learned this, but I have found it to be of infinite value. If you wonder whether or not a statement is bigoted, replace the discriminated group with any other minority group. This only works for a semantic comparison, not an experiential one, mind you.

"Lesbians should not be allowed to marry."

"Black people should not be allowed to marry."

"Jews should not be allowed to marry."

"Mentally disabled people should not be allowed to marry."

Which one made you ask if it was really bigotry? None? Good, because they all are bigotry. Some are just still somewhat socially acceptable. Now, each group's historical experience with this struggle is different, and unique maybe even inside of that group, let alone in comparison to other groups.

Is it bigotry to say "Well, civilly I am for Marriage Equality, but on a personal/religious/cultural level I am against it?" Yes, yes, yes - that is a bigoted thing to say. Fortunately that statement at least acknowledges that their bigotry should not be law.

By avoiding those gut-reaction words like bigotry, we let people get away with things they should not. I would rather call a bigot a bigot then let one be legitimized by my lack of response or an inadequate response. (Not to offer a false choice there, but to state my perspective in total.) It should not be used lightly or in jest, and only when called for: gays should not be able to marry, women should be in the kitchen, disabled people should stay at home, affirmative action is reverse racism - that kind of stuff. You know: bigotry.

And seriously? If someone is a bigot, then my last worry is worry about offending them. My life has rough spots, but one of the benefits of being out of most loops is I rarely actually have to take crap from another human being. I can chose to do so, but rarely is it mandatory. So in most cases, I can flat out call bigotry, bigotry.

As a last note, let me say this: I am really tired of people acting like this struggle for civil rights should not be compared to their struggle for civil rights, as if one would sully the other. I have two words for you, but I am going to hold onto them. "Oh, but those people and what they want are different!" Some will not stand a comparison between suffrage/feminism and the Freedom Marches, Rides, and summers. Others will have no comparison between the black civil rights movement and marriage equality. No civil rights movement is the same as another in character, influences, changes made. No civil rights movement can stand isolated from what went before and what came after or what else was happening then. 


So why the protestation at all? I want you to think long and hard about why letting mine touch yours would be bad. Maybe you are not as enlightened or progressive as you think... But you could be.


Hey, if you are ready to really get down into it and work on it, I am right there with you. We should all be trying to be better every day. I know I am trying. Sometimes a bigoted thing with come to tongue, but I try to grab it and figure it out it's where and why before it hits someone else. If it does spill out, I own it and apologize for it (and be mortified by it) and make it a lesson to keep trying to do better. See how that works? I could never count, nor thank enough, the people that have helped me along the way. I will lend a hand when I can to attempt to meet that beautiful responsibility.

The lesson of the day: let us call a bigot a bigot, and have no shame in the naming of it.