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[chat]man John (Ski Ba Bop Bup Dop Bop)
Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact I don't let nothin' hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it so can you.
Everybody's sayin' that the Scatman stutters
But doesn't ever stutter when he sings.
But what you don't know I'm gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing.
Yo I'm the Scatman.
Where's the Scatman?
I'm the Scatman.
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
It's not justified. At all. I can explain to you why and in detail, but only if you are interested in hearing it.
natch
aight so
it goes like this
Your concern, which is not totally invalid, is that when people go "But what about white people?" or "But what about men?" or whatever, it's going to end up dominating the subject and hedge out the issues affecting minorities which are far more prevalent (but NOT more severe, I will get to that in a moment).
What makes you flinch, what makes you outraged, is that every breath spent on conversing about the difficulties that the "empowered groups" (whites, males, Christians, straights, pick whatever) face is a breath that could have been spent illustrating the difficulties faced by groups that are much more pervasively fucked over by the empowered.
So it bothers you, because whenever someone says "But white people experience racism too!", you feel that is less important to talk about than the circumstances afflicting other groups. You basically feel they are wasting time and stealing attention away from causes and groups that need it more.
This brings me to an important issue, that I have to address before I go further: The difference between severity and prevalence.
To use an example, the racism experienced by some white people is just as severe as the racism experienced by many black people. There are white people who have been killed, raped, denied jobs, had their land stolen, all because of their race.
The capacities of racism are equal in severity. I don't think there's any ethnic group of people who, at no point in history or even in the modern age, haven't been subjected to abominable conditions and treatment because of their race.
However, white people do not have the same prevalence of racial suffering as many other races, especially in Europe and North America. Severity isn't prevalence, so even though white people who suffer because of their ethnicity do exist, they are not nearly as common or prevalent as black people who suffer the same level of severity.
Lots of people have experienced some degree of severe discrimination for some aspect of who they are as a person. I'm a white male, so you would think I ain't had it hard because of who I am, right? Wrong. I'm also a Jew, and I've been the victim of anti-semitic violence. I'm also a queer, and I've been the victim of violence, slurs, and discrimination for that (including, shockingly enough, from the gay community). I'm also poor, and of a low social class, so I've experienced class-based discrimination. So, I've known severe discrimination, regardless of my race or gender. I have never personally experienced equal severity in racial discrimination for being white as some of my black or south-east asian friends, but I have in other aspects of my life. And there certainly are white people and men who have experienced equal severity in discrimination for their race or gender. They exist. You don't like to talk about them because their prevalence is so low.
I understand how this frustrates you. I understand how diminishing and dismissive it feels when someone tries to take away from the prevalence of racism or sexism or whatever by saying "Hey, but we get that too sometimes!"
I understand the struggle it is to even have open dialogue about the problems affecting women and ethnic minorities and sexual minorities and what-have-you. To even get the attention those problems deserve, to even get people talking about it and admitting it exists and is a problem, is so enormously difficult already that it feels like a direct attack on the cause whenever someone "wastes their breath" trying to equate their suffering with the suffering of the disempowered.
But you know where it's not justified, where it is a problem, and why you should stop acting so fucking righteous and snapping off like that in response?
I'm going to use myself an example, and I'm going to spoiler it because it's some harsh fucking bullshit that some people might not want to read.
I was violently raped years ago, and it messed me up pretty fucking bad. I have PTSD and I need therapy to deal with it, even years later.
I have to deal with hypervigilant episodes, or what feminists love to call "triggering". I have to deal with being immediately paranoid and un-necessarily terrified of every man who resembles my attacker. There is just so much in terms of intimacy and sexual issues I have now as a result of what happened, as well as hate and anger-filled feelings towards people who have only the barest of things in common with the person who assaulted me.
I say this not to make you feel bad, or as if this is some kind of "trump card" that makes my opinion more valid than yours.
I say this because, as a man, I get told often by women (especially feminists) that men cannot be raped. That men can't understand sexual assault like a woman can, that a man doesn't know what it's like to be afraid of sexual assault, that a man cannot truly empathize with or understand a woman who has been sexually assaulted.
Moreover, I get told regularly when the topic of sexual assault comes up that men do not count. That sexual assault against men is so massively lower than women in prevalence that the severity being equal doesn't matter. That bringing up sexual assault against men "dilutes" the topic, and "derails" the issue, and that by bringing it up I am contributing to an atmosphere where women feel they cannot discuss being assaulted.
This isn't some abstract "person I heard about" I am talking about when I join the conversation. It's me. It's me trying to join in a conversation with other sexual assault survivors from the perspective of a fellow survivor who understands what it's like. But I get rebuked, I get told it's not the same and that it's not as bad because it's not as prevalent and because the so-called "rape culture" isn't the same for men as it is for women. That without being a woman, it's impossible for me to understand what sexual assault is really like.
I get told that I should like... go somewhere else. Right now, we're talking about women. Maybe you should talk about men somewhere else, because it's hard to talk about this for women and we don't need a man trying to shut us down. Men can talk anytime they want, so why don't you just... go away.
Some people lose sight of the separation of prevalence and severity so thoroughly that eventually they get to the point of simply saying that it's impossible for the empowered to have any kind of experience similar in severity to "us". They feel that examples of equal severity are some kind of illegitimate attempt by the empowered to steal from the disenfranchised, no matter how personal and close they might be to you.
They get to the point of saying, and even angrily believing things like "It's not racist when it's against white people".
I understand why you're angry, but you've lost perspective when you do that, and when you start doing that you run into the eventuality that you're going to meet someone who has experienced an equality of severity, and you are going to become the oppressive, silencing, heartless asshole who tells them they don't matter.
You lose empathy for other human beings because of their race or gender or whatever. You see them as the enemy and you shit all over their problems, and any time you might run into the (statistically unlikely) person who has problems equal in severity, you dismiss them because they aren't equal in prevalence.
Sometimes, right to their fucking face.
Think about that a little the next time you say something like that.
I basically can't use the feminist blogs I read as a sounding board about any of my depression or PTSD or anything
They've basically gone so far in the other direction of "You should be ashamed of your mental illness and hide it away and get over it etc." that they've come out just as crazy.
Like basically if I talk about my disability as a negative thing that I want so badly to be rid of
That's ablist
SO DUMB
Dread Pirate Arbuthnot on
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
I basically can't use the feminist blogs I read as a sounding board about any of my depression or PTSD or anything
They've basically gone so far in the other direction of "You should be ashamed of your mental illness and hide it away and get over it etc." that they've come out just as crazy.
Like basically if I talk about my disability as a negative thing that I want so badly to be rid of
That's ablist
SO DUMB
Well, friend, I for one have always known that women are crazy.
This truly isn't new. They were a much happier creature when they were confined to their kitchens and laundry-rooms.
Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
I think I've figured out what it's like to be a stutterer. Talk into a microphone and have it come back to you over noise isolating headphones cranked up to a reasonable volume. Now throw in a halfsecond to one second delay. Holy fuck. It becomes impossible not to keep repeating the same sounds over and over. It locks your brain into an evil loop.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
0
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited January 2011
Stone cold OP
I am feeling the tears coming.
Honk on
PSN: Honkalot
0
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
I basically can't use the feminist blogs I read as a sounding board about any of my depression or PTSD or anything
They've basically gone so far in the other direction of "You should be ashamed of your mental illness and hide it away and get over it etc." that they've come out just as crazy.
Like basically if I talk about my disability as a negative thing that I want so badly to be rid of
That's ablist
SO DUMB
There are lots of dumb people. I hate them.
I guess I see them most in the feminist community because I hang around trans communities a lot, and they have a lot of... bad blood between them.
I basically can't use the feminist blogs I read as a sounding board about any of my depression or PTSD or anything
They've basically gone so far in the other direction of "You should be ashamed of your mental illness and hide it away and get over it etc." that they've come out just as crazy.
Like basically if I talk about my disability as a negative thing that I want so badly to be rid of
That's ablist
SO DUMB
I'm trying wrap my mind around the idea of just accepting PTSD and living with it when there is an option to deal with it. I mean do these people have it? Because if you told me right now that I could stop obsessively checking doors and windows with a snap of their fingers, then you know I'd do what ever I need to make them snap their fingers.
I hate the fact that being on the rag affects my mood at all
It's like I'm playing into a really offensive and rude stereotype
BUT IT FUCKING HURTS AND ALLA Y'ALL ARE BITCHES
Can I use more or less constant stomach pain from IBS as an excuse to be a jerk?
I don't know are you bleeding out your dick on your nice new pants in the middle of lecture?
I did that once.
I was, in point of fact, a complete jerk about it.
FroThulhu on
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
Hey, got a question for you guys. I've got my PC hooked up to my TV so I can use it while sitting on my couch - but the comfort level needs a bit of work. I have the mouse beside me and the keyboard on my lap. The keyboard position is actually fine, but the mouse is slightly uncomfortable. I need it to be raised up. Anyone have any experience with this? Any recommendations for easy and cheap solutions?
Nova_C on
0
ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
Posts
lol
<--! Help me I'm stuck in a maze of nested <div>s!-->
aight so
it goes like this
Your concern, which is not totally invalid, is that when people go "But what about white people?" or "But what about men?" or whatever, it's going to end up dominating the subject and hedge out the issues affecting minorities which are far more prevalent (but NOT more severe, I will get to that in a moment).
What makes you flinch, what makes you outraged, is that every breath spent on conversing about the difficulties that the "empowered groups" (whites, males, Christians, straights, pick whatever) face is a breath that could have been spent illustrating the difficulties faced by groups that are much more pervasively fucked over by the empowered.
So it bothers you, because whenever someone says "But white people experience racism too!", you feel that is less important to talk about than the circumstances afflicting other groups. You basically feel they are wasting time and stealing attention away from causes and groups that need it more.
This brings me to an important issue, that I have to address before I go further: The difference between severity and prevalence.
To use an example, the racism experienced by some white people is just as severe as the racism experienced by many black people. There are white people who have been killed, raped, denied jobs, had their land stolen, all because of their race.
The capacities of racism are equal in severity. I don't think there's any ethnic group of people who, at no point in history or even in the modern age, haven't been subjected to abominable conditions and treatment because of their race.
However, white people do not have the same prevalence of racial suffering as many other races, especially in Europe and North America. Severity isn't prevalence, so even though white people who suffer because of their ethnicity do exist, they are not nearly as common or prevalent as black people who suffer the same level of severity.
Lots of people have experienced some degree of severe discrimination for some aspect of who they are as a person. I'm a white male, so you would think I ain't had it hard because of who I am, right? Wrong. I'm also a Jew, and I've been the victim of anti-semitic violence. I'm also a queer, and I've been the victim of violence, slurs, and discrimination for that (including, shockingly enough, from the gay community). I'm also poor, and of a low social class, so I've experienced class-based discrimination. So, I've known severe discrimination, regardless of my race or gender. I have never personally experienced equal severity in racial discrimination for being white as some of my black or south-east asian friends, but I have in other aspects of my life. And there certainly are white people and men who have experienced equal severity in discrimination for their race or gender. They exist. You don't like to talk about them because their prevalence is so low.
I understand how this frustrates you. I understand how diminishing and dismissive it feels when someone tries to take away from the prevalence of racism or sexism or whatever by saying "Hey, but we get that too sometimes!"
I understand the struggle it is to even have open dialogue about the problems affecting women and ethnic minorities and sexual minorities and what-have-you. To even get the attention those problems deserve, to even get people talking about it and admitting it exists and is a problem, is so enormously difficult already that it feels like a direct attack on the cause whenever someone "wastes their breath" trying to equate their suffering with the suffering of the disempowered.
But you know where it's not justified, where it is a problem, and why you should stop acting so fucking righteous and snapping off like that in response?
I'm going to use myself an example, and I'm going to spoiler it because it's some harsh fucking bullshit that some people might not want to read.
I have to deal with hypervigilant episodes, or what feminists love to call "triggering". I have to deal with being immediately paranoid and un-necessarily terrified of every man who resembles my attacker. There is just so much in terms of intimacy and sexual issues I have now as a result of what happened, as well as hate and anger-filled feelings towards people who have only the barest of things in common with the person who assaulted me.
I say this not to make you feel bad, or as if this is some kind of "trump card" that makes my opinion more valid than yours.
I say this because, as a man, I get told often by women (especially feminists) that men cannot be raped. That men can't understand sexual assault like a woman can, that a man doesn't know what it's like to be afraid of sexual assault, that a man cannot truly empathize with or understand a woman who has been sexually assaulted.
Moreover, I get told regularly when the topic of sexual assault comes up that men do not count. That sexual assault against men is so massively lower than women in prevalence that the severity being equal doesn't matter. That bringing up sexual assault against men "dilutes" the topic, and "derails" the issue, and that by bringing it up I am contributing to an atmosphere where women feel they cannot discuss being assaulted.
This isn't some abstract "person I heard about" I am talking about when I join the conversation. It's me. It's me trying to join in a conversation with other sexual assault survivors from the perspective of a fellow survivor who understands what it's like. But I get rebuked, I get told it's not the same and that it's not as bad because it's not as prevalent and because the so-called "rape culture" isn't the same for men as it is for women. That without being a woman, it's impossible for me to understand what sexual assault is really like.
I get told that I should like... go somewhere else. Right now, we're talking about women. Maybe you should talk about men somewhere else, because it's hard to talk about this for women and we don't need a man trying to shut us down. Men can talk anytime they want, so why don't you just... go away.
They get to the point of saying, and even angrily believing things like "It's not racist when it's against white people".
I understand why you're angry, but you've lost perspective when you do that, and when you start doing that you run into the eventuality that you're going to meet someone who has experienced an equality of severity, and you are going to become the oppressive, silencing, heartless asshole who tells them they don't matter.
You lose empathy for other human beings because of their race or gender or whatever. You see them as the enemy and you shit all over their problems, and any time you might run into the (statistically unlikely) person who has problems equal in severity, you dismiss them because they aren't equal in prevalence.
Sometimes, right to their fucking face.
Think about that a little the next time you say something like that.
This post was, in fact, completely out of hand.
Maybe he found the source code...
pleasepaypreacher.net
Some developers nest their divs too deeply and too greedily.
I hate the fact that being on the rag affects my mood at all
It's like I'm playing into a really offensive and rude stereotype
BUT IT FUCKING HURTS AND ALLA Y'ALL ARE BITCHES
Well played.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I basically can't use the feminist blogs I read as a sounding board about any of my depression or PTSD or anything
They've basically gone so far in the other direction of "You should be ashamed of your mental illness and hide it away and get over it etc." that they've come out just as crazy.
Like basically if I talk about my disability as a negative thing that I want so badly to be rid of
That's ablist
SO DUMB
Well, friend, I for one have always known that women are crazy.
This truly isn't new. They were a much happier creature when they were confined to their kitchens and laundry-rooms.
This narrative arc was amazing, I laughed, I cried, I peed a little.
pleasepaypreacher.net
booyah!
I am feeling the tears coming.
Yes, your pole dancing skills were highly appreciated by tonight's patients.
Can I use more or less constant stomach pain from IBS as an excuse to be a jerk?
I don't know are you bleeding out your dick on your nice new pants in the middle of lecture?
wait is that sexist
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
There are lots of dumb people. I hate them.
I guess I see them most in the feminist community because I hang around trans communities a lot, and they have a lot of... bad blood between them.
you've never seen Love Actually?!!1!!!
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
yes
get out of my house
get out of my life
but it felt good to write, anyway, because I don't get a lot of opportunities to really yell at someone for that kind of bullshit.
Doesn't matter. You're a white man, thus inherently evil.
I do throw up occasionally due to the pain.
Can I be a jerk?
I'm trying wrap my mind around the idea of just accepting PTSD and living with it when there is an option to deal with it. I mean do these people have it? Because if you told me right now that I could stop obsessively checking doors and windows with a snap of their fingers, then you know I'd do what ever I need to make them snap their fingers.
watch A Single Man
fantastic film
I did that once.
I was, in point of fact, a complete jerk about it.
I did.
It's a really powerful post.
thanks!
sometimes i get all fired up and write in full paragraphs with punctuation and capitals and everything!