Saturday, April 2, 2011

Respect, Offending, and Whining

I just wanna talk a little bit about respect, people who give it, people who don't, people who are offended by offensive things, and people who whine about people who give respect and say no offensive things and still get yelled at. You have met all of these people, and I want to talk about them for a bit.

As with all discussions, let's define my terms, so we are all on the same page.
Respect (v): to hold in esteem or honor, to show regard or consideration for, to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with.
Offend (v): to irritate, annoy, anger; cause resentful displeasure in, often in regard to something which is not politically correct; to violate or transgress
Whine (v): to snivel or complain in a peevish, self-pitying way
(Dictionary.com, my additions)

In my coming out as genderqueer and bisexual, I have discovered many people who respect that and me, and many who don't, just as I expected. That is not what I came here to talk about. That is about the belief held by certain individuals on whether you can, in fact, not belong to just one gender - it is a problem of metaphysics, and if yours don't match up with mine, then it is going to be tough to have a discussion in the area where they don't match up and I am OK with that (I don't like it, because it means you don't really understand who I am, but if you don't want to change, that's your choice). That isn't the point of this blog. This blog is about something much simpler and easier to wrap your mind around. This is about simple acts within daily life that are rude with regard to race, sexuality, and all of the other things that fall under the umbrella of political correctness.

Before I start in on that subject (and I'll even give it a name for you), I want to talk about an experience I had with a man who did not give respect. I was in my improvisation class the other day, and our assignment was to do a blind walk. We would close our eyes, and our partner would lead us around campus and do their best to give us an experience for 15 minutes. My partner was Allison, and we showed each other beautiful smells, sounds, and feelings. The whole experience is based on trust that they will not let us run into a wall or trip on some stairs. She did beautifully - I was completely trusting, even though I had never met her and it went beautifully. But as we all know, a well timed asshole can ruin everything. As Allison tells it, "a guy was riding by on a bike, and he slowed down, I guessed so he wouldn't freak us out or run into us, and I thought 'oh, how considerate,' but as he got right next to us, he reached out and grabbed Fenix' face!" As I tell it "I was walking along, and this douchecanoe slapped me in the front of my face!"
I was there, walking along, with my eyes closed and this girl was leading me along, he didn't know why we were doing this. I could have had something wrong with my eyes and needed help for all he knew, and he just rides up and grabs my face. WHO DOES THAT?!?!?!?
My response: I threw up the bird
What my class wanted me to do: open my eyes, chase him down and stick a foot in his spokes.
Conclusion: dancers take their classes very seriously, and "bros" do not.

Alright, that was just an annoyance I wanted to discuss. But, back to the main point.
About a month ago, I discovered a website dedicated to publishing "microaggressions." For those of you who don't know this word, let me define it for you, according to my own definition. A microaggression is any thing said or done within a day that by itself is not really terrible, but when you hear or see lots of them throughout the day (as, for example, many transfolk do when they, say, get on a bus and everyone starts muttering "is that a guy or a girl"), they start to wear on you. I have experienced them, and so have a lot of you who do not conform to mainstream societal rules.

Here are some good ones:
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IN 3RD GRADE, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said President. My teacher said “You’ll never be President, you’re a girl.” At the time I didn’t realize how offensive her comment was, but now all I want to do is prove her wrong.
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You’ll be fine! Just talk like a white person.
A white job-training counselor speaking to a young man of color about his upcoming job-interview.
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heeling down the road in my neat little sporty wheelchair, and a group of men sticking their heads out of the betting shop door to  CLAP AT ME and cheer me on. Made me feel patronised and mildly unsafe.

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You must be new, they keep getting such cute nurses! I heard a medical student was coming in to discuss my medications with me, where is he?
Said to me when (I, a female medical student) entered the exam room of this elderly man to discuss his diabetes.
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(for more, go to Microaggressions)
So yeah, those are microaggressions, and if anyone ever says anything like this around you, it is your duty as an informed person to educate them. It is important to note that most of these people are not sexist or racist people, but they were just speaking and in doing so reflected the unfortunate stereotypes that society has programmed into us. I don't want to say "it isn't their fault" because I hold everyone responsible for the words of their voice, but I am unwilling to pass judgement on a person for that.
However, there are some things listed on this site that just upset me, not because they are horribly offensive, but rather because they are not. For example, the one posted just this morning.
Stranger: Where are you from?
Friend (joking): Tanzania.
Stranger: Woah! Exotic!
Me: ... It's really, really offensive to call a person "exotic."
Stranger: Offensive? I didn't mean to be offensive! It's a compliment!
Exotic (adj): of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad
This falls under the category of someone looking for reasons to be offended. When I looked up the definition for exotic, I was actually surprised. If I had tried to define it on my own, I would have included some aspect of rarity. For example, there are a lot of eastern asian college students who are studying abroad, but I would not refer to them as exotic, because it is not an uncommon thing to meet someone from Hong Kong at all on my campus. However, if I were to meet someone, ask where they were from (say, if I couldn't place their accent, which I do to everyone whose accent I don't recognize), and they responded with Lithuania, I would consider that exotic. I've never met anyone from Lithuania (excuse me for a moment while I look up exactly where Lithuania is - alright - southeast side of the baltic sea) so that to me, would be exotic. Will someone explain to me how remarking on the rarity, and non-nativity of someone in Eugene, OR from Lithuania is offensive?
Whoever this person is was whining. They took offense at something that has no business being offensive. Now, the word exotic can be offensive if used in the following context.
Guy goes on a date with a girl, she is of mixed-race, and when he asks about it, she says she is thai-african, and he responds with "oh, wow! that's so exotic. I've always heard that exotic girls are really freaks in bed" that would be offensive on the sexism count as well as the racist count. So don't misunderstand me - it all depends on context, and you have to pay attention to the context of a conversation (no! you have to pay attention? say it ain't so!) before passing judgement.
As someone who take a lot of dirty looks and has faced my fair share of microaggressions, I understand the standpoint of assuming the world is out to get you, and that is where stuff like this comes from. You assume that when anyone remarks on what makes you different, they are being offensive. But most of the time, when someone looks at me funny, and I look at them back, the first words out of their mouth are not "what the hell are you doing?" but rather "that is a great skirt, where did you get it?"
People are not necessarily out to get you, and if you do not give them the benefit of the doubt, you are hurting us all, and more importantly, you are closing yourself off from the world. As someone who is unique in gender or race or ability or whathaveyou, you need to join with the world, become stronger with it and develop a support system. You need to tear down those walls.
On that note: stop whining about things so much. Again, don't misunderstand me, I want you to challenge people when they are being moronic about something. But use discretion, pick your battles. When you want to complain about something, think first if they were actually being offensive, or if you were just looking for them to be offensive so that you could take the moral high ground that as a member of alternative society you are so frequently denied. Believe me, I understand the trouble - you get put down so often, it is so beautiful when you can look a bully right in the face and tell them, completely justifiably "you are wrong." But this is not always the case - if you do that to someone who was not actually being mean to you in any way, you are becoming the bully. You are becoming the feminist that everyone hates talking to because anytime they mention anything to do with men, women, or a job, you bite their heads off. You are becoming the ethnic person who everyone avoids because you always find a way to relate everything to how whitey is putting you down, even if they were talking about something unrelated. You are becoming that queer kid who has no friends not because he is no fun to talk to, but because he bites your head off every time you forget the correct pronouns or the correct name. Don't be that guy or girl- if you want acceptance from society, you have to accept society. You want to educate them to understand you better, let them educate you and show you how their minds work too. You want respect from society, give it first. If you are worthy of respect, so is everyone else you meet. If you do not give respect to those around you, you do not deserve it and I have no sympathy for you.
And, in the meantime, STOP WHINING! IT IS INSUFFERABLE WHEN YOU WHINE AT EVERY TURN ABOUT THE INJUSTICES THIS WORLD HAS DEALT YOU. You spend all your time whining and never bring anything remotely positive to the table. You are doing nobody (including yourself) any good by carrying on like this.
Grow up, figure out what really annoys you, try to fix it or get our of your own and everyone else's way so we can go ahead and improve society without having to play cover up every time you call someone racist for remarking that they havn't ever met anyone from Tanzania.