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]

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.