Resurrection
I'm resurrecting this damn thing.
I dunno if people still read this. Are people even still on eljay? Prolly not. Whatever. My spleen is in serious, immediate need of venting. So I shall. Viewers beware.
Anyways. So I'm on Facebook (note to others: if you still read this, if you care, and if you have Facebook, feel free to add me over there), going over my live friends' list feed. And I see that one of my friends (well, more acquaintance from writing class, both last semester AND this one) joined a "Nobama" group. Whatever, right? Politics, religion and sexuality: the three third-rails of social networking. But as long as the arguments are rational and valid, I can agree to disagree, possibly civilly debate, and generally still get along with them.
So I take a peek. Photoshopped pictures of Obama's face on various former Communist leaders. Redneck remarks (not my bias calling some of these people rednecks... several of them proudly declare that they are, in fact, rednecks) insulting the President's ethnicity, religion (or possibly former religion), his recent GLBT activity... pretty much everything EXCEPT FOR what's actually going on in Obama's presidency.
So, frustrated (and a little disturbed that someone as intelligent as my class acquaintance would belong to such a disgusting group), I posted an update to that effect:
"It depresses me to see my friends list and live feed... and see people joining groups with open racism and ignorance all over their pages. I mean, politics and whatever, I don't really care, everyone has their own opinions... but hate is hate, I don't care who you are or who they are."
Two people responded; one said he figured they (I didn't reveal who, of course) likely just joined to troll, to which I admonished him (once again >.>;;) the futility of entering a battle of wits with the unarmed. The other proceeded to rail at me about how he's not racist and he hates Obama because of his policies... and no, he was not the person I meant. And when corrected that A) I didn't mean him and B) the group in question did have a lot of racially charged comments (among other things), he shot back that people "arent going to listen or change unless they want to" [sic].
My final response, to which I get no reply, was: But see, that's my point, *******.
If their opinion is that Obama is a bad president because (insert real, valid reason here), I have NO animosity towards that. Hel, I like debating intelligent people with real, valid points to make.
But when people make sweeping, prejudicial generalizations based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, whatever... that's when I have a problem. I don't care who you are, I don't care what your reason (or reasoning) is, if it's prejudicial, I want nothing to do with IT, and nothing to do with the person SPREADING it. And it hurts me when people I view as intelligent are, knowingly or unknowingly, supporting it.
It's not about changing people's opinions. Because the opinions of you, of me, of the guy down the street... they belong to the person whose they are, and no one has the right to change them. But if someone's intentionally supporting prejudice... I have the right to know so I can excise them from my life. And if it's unintentionally? They have the right to know, so they can look at what's really going on.
And what's beginning to really annoy and disturb me is that my opinions that people should be people first and *insert race, gender, sexuality (or lack thereof), religion, political affiliation* last is slowly but surely driving just about everyone I consider a friend away from me. Is it really so difficult for the average person to see the world without all those labels? Am I really such a bad person for wishing that people looked at me and saw me, not "(Apparently) anglo male, gay, Democrat, pagan"? Is it bad that I want my friends (among whom are many different ethnicities, multiple genders/gender identities, sexualities, religions) to get along with each other and to live in a world where EVERYONE can get along?
Sometimes, I just want to give the fuck up on this world. Because it's apparently not getting better... every time we take a step forward, Darwinism knocks us on our asses and pushes us three steps back.
I dunno if people still read this. Are people even still on eljay? Prolly not. Whatever. My spleen is in serious, immediate need of venting. So I shall. Viewers beware.
Anyways. So I'm on Facebook (note to others: if you still read this, if you care, and if you have Facebook, feel free to add me over there), going over my live friends' list feed. And I see that one of my friends (well, more acquaintance from writing class, both last semester AND this one) joined a "Nobama" group. Whatever, right? Politics, religion and sexuality: the three third-rails of social networking. But as long as the arguments are rational and valid, I can agree to disagree, possibly civilly debate, and generally still get along with them.
So I take a peek. Photoshopped pictures of Obama's face on various former Communist leaders. Redneck remarks (not my bias calling some of these people rednecks... several of them proudly declare that they are, in fact, rednecks) insulting the President's ethnicity, religion (or possibly former religion), his recent GLBT activity... pretty much everything EXCEPT FOR what's actually going on in Obama's presidency.
So, frustrated (and a little disturbed that someone as intelligent as my class acquaintance would belong to such a disgusting group), I posted an update to that effect:
"It depresses me to see my friends list and live feed... and see people joining groups with open racism and ignorance all over their pages. I mean, politics and whatever, I don't really care, everyone has their own opinions... but hate is hate, I don't care who you are or who they are."
Two people responded; one said he figured they (I didn't reveal who, of course) likely just joined to troll, to which I admonished him (once again >.>;;) the futility of entering a battle of wits with the unarmed. The other proceeded to rail at me about how he's not racist and he hates Obama because of his policies... and no, he was not the person I meant. And when corrected that A) I didn't mean him and B) the group in question did have a lot of racially charged comments (among other things), he shot back that people "arent going to listen or change unless they want to" [sic].
My final response, to which I get no reply, was: But see, that's my point, *******.
If their opinion is that Obama is a bad president because (insert real, valid reason here), I have NO animosity towards that. Hel, I like debating intelligent people with real, valid points to make.
But when people make sweeping, prejudicial generalizations based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, whatever... that's when I have a problem. I don't care who you are, I don't care what your reason (or reasoning) is, if it's prejudicial, I want nothing to do with IT, and nothing to do with the person SPREADING it. And it hurts me when people I view as intelligent are, knowingly or unknowingly, supporting it.
It's not about changing people's opinions. Because the opinions of you, of me, of the guy down the street... they belong to the person whose they are, and no one has the right to change them. But if someone's intentionally supporting prejudice... I have the right to know so I can excise them from my life. And if it's unintentionally? They have the right to know, so they can look at what's really going on.
And what's beginning to really annoy and disturb me is that my opinions that people should be people first and *insert race, gender, sexuality (or lack thereof), religion, political affiliation* last is slowly but surely driving just about everyone I consider a friend away from me. Is it really so difficult for the average person to see the world without all those labels? Am I really such a bad person for wishing that people looked at me and saw me, not "(Apparently) anglo male, gay, Democrat, pagan"? Is it bad that I want my friends (among whom are many different ethnicities, multiple genders/gender identities, sexualities, religions) to get along with each other and to live in a world where EVERYONE can get along?
Sometimes, I just want to give the fuck up on this world. Because it's apparently not getting better... every time we take a step forward, Darwinism knocks us on our asses and pushes us three steps back.