A Story and a Rant from my Sister
So, my little sister sent this over to me, and thought it would be appropriate to post it on Tumblr. She’s a Biology major and an honors student at a University in New England. It’s a bit rambl-y and rant-y and covers a lot of ground, but please read it. You’ll be glad you did.
This is an account of a Saturday morning conversation I was tangentially involved in at the dining hall of my university. I was halfway through my breakfast of bacon and French toast, which I had smothered with syrup and butter, and was listening to a conversation between a female acquaintance and her male colleague. The flow of the conversation had swept the two of them to the topic of bullying, something I have never experienced myself, and thus had no stories to share. I quietly consumed my meal listening intently to their experiences.
The male started, explaining that he had autism and was picked on because of his disability in middle school. His bully would verbally abuse him and isolated him from the rest of his classmates. This bully had a weakness, a peanut allergy, so one day he slipped peanut butter into his sandwich. The girl burst out “You could have killed him!” and he paused briefly. I have an allergy so I contributed a nod in agreement to her statement. He resumed the story concluding that the bully just ended up in the hospital and is still alive today. She further inquired “What was your punishment?” to which he stated “I never told anyone, why would I?” The conversation continued to the categorization of what his actions entailed, attempted murder, and floated to the next topic.
The female branched off from the idea of middle school. For a bit of background she is an American with one of those super mixed heritages and is an ‘asexual’. She described her experience with the afternoon bus at her middle school. The buses would come in, a student was assigned to hold the sign with the bus number, and the vice-principal or some administrator would call the number of the bus that just stopped and gesture to the group to go to the bus to board. She tended to be assigned the duty of sign carrier, so the administrator was the main focal point of her story. The women administrator could be likened to a drill sergeant; she would scream the number and swear at the middle schoolers until they boarded the bus. What the girl remembered clearly was how she would “not even start by yelling the number to grab their attention, instead she would start off angry at the first call.” The boy interrupted “She did that to elementary students!” She responded that it was middle school so they were used to swear words at that point; it was just the unwarranted anger that bothered her.
At this point I was done with the food on my plate and was finishing the water in the plastic made in Mexico cup provided by the dining hall. Luckily, I did not bring it to my lips the moment the male acquaintance asked with a straight face “Was she black?” I placed the cup down astonished at the words that just transpired from his lips. The words caressed my female acquaintance’s ear, she slowly answered, cautiously: “Yes.” His response was “then is it okay if I call her a gorilla, cause she defiantly is one.” I begin to sip my water: I recently read the manga Tanaka-kun is Always Listless, so I innocently recalled the scene where Tanaka and Saya are ranking Ohta based on a scale of one to five gorillas. It then dawned on me that it was a racist comment and I finished the remaining drops of water, waiting for the female to respond. Her response was swift: she stated she had some African American blood in her and found the statement offensive. His response was truly remarkable: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, I just assumed you were all white since your skin is pale.”
In that moment I finally had obtained the anecdote I needed. The social justice warrior movement worried me not because of their goal (I support equality a hundred and ten percent); no, it is the way they move about the issue that concerns me. One of the things they constantly discuss is how judging people based on ethnicity is terrible (no objections); however, they are obsessed with the concept of race and gender. It is always privilege of the majority and the dreaded gender binary. They say equality is not based on race or ethnicity yet they try to devalue the views and opinions of the so called privileged. The fascination with race is what leads to the ability to be versed in racist vocabulary, knowing terms that are either uncommon or (maybe) no longer directly associated with racism. Take the term “gorilla.” By itself, without race being involved, it simply relates to an animal: not offensive at all. Even if used to describe a random person with no race or gender information it could mean a strong person or big person: just an observational metaphor.
The point that really struck me is the idea that, as long as those around you are not offended or do not have their feelings hurt it is then socially acceptable to call people racist remarks and stereotype. The idea racism/sexism is systemic should not be used as a means to bad mouth the system and whine about how some people don’t have to deal with racism/sexism. The whining is just a means to avoid fixing the systemic problem, which they want you to think is impossible to solve, because they themselves are a part of the system. They want to pay lip service to equality while constantly emphasizing divides between people, ensuring no collective unity occurs.
It is about personal gain; by leading a movement that is morally sound, while stalling actions to help others unite, they create issues from nonissues. Remember the gender neutral bathrooms? No one cared if transgendered people used the bathroom they associate with; the most you talk to a stranger about in the bathroom is if the soap runs out, if there is no toilet paper, or other short little conversations: no one knows what your gender is or even your sexual preference.
The concept that everyone is a special little snowflake, with a specific label just for them, avoids the big picture: WE ARE ALL Homo sapiens sapiens. There is one biological category we fall in, one. No matter how special you are, you are one of 7.4 billion others just like you, with just slightly modified genes. Problems like racism and sexism are not inherent in human nature, it does nothing to help the major goals of any organism, survive and reproduce, and in fact I would argue it is a hindrance to that process. Sexism and racism restrict an individual’s pool of mates while increasing interspecies competition, expending energy fighting that could be used for mating. We have laws to support people in cases of racism and sexism: use them! If there are problems in the system fight tooth and nail for more laws to protect fundamental rights. Point out the wrongs and help everyone get involved! Do not focus on segregating certain issues to certain communities. To combat Global Climate Change we will need to as a global community push ALL nations into stopping pollution and CO2 emissions, no exceptions, and we have not nearly worked on space programs enough to even consider it a possible means of escape. We made our bed, but it is us as a collective population of 7.4 billion to decide if we will simply lie in it and twiddle our thumbs before our mass extinction.
ellievsbear
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
vaporwave
titsay
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