Kinda down...

[zinnith]

I'm... I don't know.

Am I the only one who sometimes feels like I have to apologise for being white, living in a developed country and being relatively un-oppressed? That I'm supposed to feel like a bad person for not having the energy to fight everyone else's battles for them?

Hell, even that last sentence makes me feel like shit, because I'm one of those who preaches about how feminism is not just a women's issue. And that means I should expand my social conscience to not include just women's rights and GLBT rights and environmentalism, but take on racism and handicap rights and animal rights and every social stereotype under the sun, and no matter how many barricades I climb, there'll always be someone I'll fucking forget.

And then I'll stand there, being exactly the kind of person I detest. One of the people who lets their ignorance cloud their world-view, one of the people who feel proud of themselves because they buy ecological milk while driving home from the store in a gas-guzzling SUV.  

So. Let's just say I got an eye-opener today, and I didn't like what I saw. And worse than that, I can't even bring myself to care. I can't force myself to see the thing I initially thought was fun and cool as the ugly stereotype it so obviously was. I know it makes me a part of the problem, but I just... do I have to rage against everything?    

God, I get tired sometimes.    

Comments

[tarlanx]

WOW! What happened?

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

Oh. Well. I didn't mean to be so melodramatic. I encountered a very obvious and very ugly racial stereotype and, in my cultural colourblindness, completely failed to notice it. So now I feel bad because it completely spoiled my excitement over something I thought was good, and then I feel even worse because I shouldn't even have been excited in the first place.

Days like this just makes me want to hand in my decent person-badge and take a break from it all.

[tarlanx]

I hit the same problem sometimes as I don't always see something as a stereotype because there are so many different kinds of people surrounding me.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. It's the same thing for me. As a Swede, I just don't have the same cultural heritage when it comes to racism as the Americans I was discussing with. (Of course, I'm not saying we don't have racism in Sweden. There's a lot of it, and I hate it.) But we didn't have the slavery, we didn't have the abolition. Those references just go straight past me. I've never had to worry about things like the colour of a person's skin, so I don't pay attention, even when I should.

It's a bad excuse, but... well. I just feel like I have to pick my battles and, being selfish and single-minded, I pick the ones I have a personal interest in.

[erda-3.livejournal.com]

Let us retreat then, you and I, back to our homeworld, where things are as they ought to be. We can wander down over the dunes in the twilight and lie down with our people, stretched out in the sand. I'll loan you my jacket; you can bunch it up under your head and gaze up through the clear sky as the stars are revealed one by one behind the fading sun, and we'll listen to our sisters spin round robin tales of the bravery of our ancestors who brought our people here generations ago to build a world of our own.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely. Thank you.

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Midway?

If so, I didn't make the 'omg they're having the people of colour (or whatever you call them in politically correct English these days) fight against each other racism on tv wtf?!' either. And I still don't care because I don't believe that scene was intended in the way some people are interpreting it.

You can't fight on every front. You just cant', and everyone telling you otherwise is either deluded or very young or has led a rather sheltered life. Pick the fights you want to fight and stick to them. That's what I'm doing, and I'm not touching this one with a ten-foot pole.

*hugs*

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Yeah. On one side I'm thinking, 'It's just a TV-show, it's supposed to be fun, not social commentary'. But on the other hand, if they can't get it right on TV, how can people be expected to get it right in real life?

Now I kinda wish I'd never come across that discussion. I really liked Midway, and it completely destroyed the ep for me.

Ah, well. I still have sleeping!John. At least there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

if you get into these things too much it'll mess up your life. You shouldn't feel guilty unless you yourself have done something bad. There is nothing to feel bad about in being white and from a developed country.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. I think too much.

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, I'm not entirely convinced they didn't get it right. I mean, sure, I know where the discussion is coming from, but not everything is about race. If those two had been white guys, the scene probably would have been 'the coolest evah' or something like that. So I'll just take that entire discussion with a grain of salt (and mostly ignore it).

And sleeping!John was just about the cutest ever. :)

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

You're right. I need to stop thinking so much all the freaking time.

[the-cephalopod.livejournal.com]

Honey, that completely passed me by too. I never even considered it - was the furthest thing from my mind. And, you know what? I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. How can we ever move forward if we are always looking back? I'm not saying don't remember, just don't let what was very, very wrong in the past prevent us from moving on and changing now. Things such as race, orientation and gender do not matter - that's the point and surely it is right that we don't notice them. Does this make sense? cep xxx

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

It makes very much sense. It's the way I look at the world. I see people, not the way they look or which dangly bits they happen to have, or who they love. I know my cultural colourblindness isn't without problems, because it makes me miss things. But right now I'm mostly pissed at myself since I thought I had put the tendency to allow other people make me feel bad about myself way behind me. No more of that.

[the-cephalopod.livejournal.com]

No more of that indeed! You are awesome - promise! cep xxx

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

You're pretty awesome yourself.

Thanks.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

Hey, {{hugs}} You know that fight scene totally passed me by, for its supposed stereotyping.

I'm completely in agreement with lavvyan and the_cep on this. Pick your battles, don't feel guilty for being who you are. If you're trying that's the most important thing and you seem, to be doing that.

Also, yeah if it had been two white guys, there wouldn't be any bally-hoo about it *shrugs* and I'm mean those guys are, it seems to me to be highly valued, at least in part for being such fine warriors and as characters, they pride themselves on it, and as actors, boy, are they evah built, so I don't see what the problem is.

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're right. I have so many smart people on my f-list ;-)

Seems like no matter which way you turn, you'll always step on someone's toes. I try my very best to be a good person, but I just have to make it so damn hard for myself sometimes.

But I guess if it was easy, the world would look a lot different...