This evening had better get better really fucking fast, or else I might either break down and cry or hit something, both of which would be bad.
The day itself was pretty good, actually! The Republicans are using the tea partiers to raise more money, the tea partiers are simultaneously repenting and repeating their slurs and bigotry, and I went to pick up my prescription at the pharmacy in celebration of omg health care (well, and because I needed my prescription, but).
One friend of a friend's ridiculous sexist slur on HBIC Nancy Pelosi couldn't ruin my day, oh no, wasn't going to let it.
Well, until while with my housemate's and their houseguest I brought up that ridiculous 'racism is dead!' article. Because, haha, wtf, no racism
isn't dead, unfortunately. It would be equally ridiculous to say we've made no progress towards stopping racism and its effects, but yes, it's still here, and it's still prevalent in this society, as the multiple, recurring 'isolated incidents' have highlighted in stark detail.
Keep in mind, this is Eugene, Oregon, and while we don't have a high African-American population, we do have high populations of people of various hispanic, asian, middle eastern and native American heritage here. Whiteville, USA this is not. We're also, despite the odd racial mix, a bastion of liberalism, as is most of the valley.
...The houseguest and the other boy that practically lives here, Nick, (both white, heterosexual, cis-gendered males) agreed with the article. Nick says "racism will be over when I no longer have to check 'Caucasian' on forms and such", which. What you identify as racial and being discriminated against on the basis of that race are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. This should have been a warning sign.
I pressed on, bringing up affirmative action. Neither of them knows what that is (I explain to them it's when, in certain areas like hiring or schools, if there's only one slot and two equally qualified applicants, the minority applicant should get the spot), and when they find out,
they immediately decry it as reverse racism. I point out the reality of institutionalized racism.
They don't know what that is, so I explain it as being when racism is ingrained in the society's institutions. Houseguest's response? "Well if it's so deeply ingrained in society, why should we bother trying to change it?"
Cue Anne!rage. He didn't even realize that women are still paid less to the dollar than men for the same job--and that's even ignoring (number-wise) those women who choose to stay at home and raise a family instead of furthering their career. (Which, sexism got brought up as an example of something that has also improved but not gone away in society--and which changes would not have come about if we simply decided 'oh, that's jsut the way society is, too bad'.)
And when I said 'so you know what, fuck you and your white male privilege!' at the end of my rant, his response, laughingly, was "And that's not racist at all!"
I had to walk out of there before I stabbed him with the cooking chopsticks I was holding. No, you douchehat, asking you to examine your position in society and the inherent privileges it affords you is not, in fact, racist, sexist, or anything else. It's asking you to pull your head out of your ass for five goddamned minutes and take a fucking look around.
I fled.
It got worse. I tweet-ranted about this douchebag, a series of three tweets which, since constrained by the character limit, were very angry, and only mentioned the housemate in the last tweet, where I stated that I needed a drink if no one was going to die tonight.
A friend of mine, a woman who I respect very highly, is my mother's age, very kind, known her for years, she @ replies me. Her tweeted response? 'PMS much?'
...
And so I sent back a
five-tweet response, explaining that I was angry at the ignorance, racism and unexamined privilege he displayed because the things we were talking about
affect me and my life and that of my friends, family and loved ones, and she just trivialized my outrage over this and demeaned it simply on the basis of the organs I have down below.
What. the. Fuck.
She sort-of apologized, claimed some of my tweets hadn't made it through, and that she just wanted to know the context of the angry ranting. That was
not the way to go about asking. Sorry, but no. I forgive her for saying it, I think, yes, but it's really damaging to hear something like that at the end of a conversation with a guy like that.
If I get through this night without kicking Mr. Privilege in the face, it will be a fucking miracle.
tl;dr: RACISM: still here, still not cool at any speed. SEXISM: Still here, still not cool at any speed. In short, fuck this, I need a drink before I need a lawyer for a restraining order.
Also gonna write some smut, that might make me feel better. Or read more about Nancy Pelosi, my favorite HBIC atm.
chipper
hopeful
disappointed
pissed off
elated
sleepy
need moar coffee
productive
drained
tired