Walking home after nine tonight, I found myself in front of two disgruntled guys. They were talking about a woman for whom they evidently didn't care. To describe how offensively radical this ridiculous woman is, they included in their description of her that she was probably a feminist in the 70s, kept her maiden name rather than taking her husband's name, and that she majored in women's studies.
I wasn't going to, but I said something. I said, "Sorry for listening, but what you're saying is actually offensive..."
They got defensive. They insisted that "We're all for equal rights!"
They said, "Great, now we just look like a**holes."
They figured I just didn't understand what or who they were talking about.
Which is true. But also beside the point.
Because they didn't understand what I was talking about.
Because even if that woman is deserving of their tirade, it isn't for those reasons.
Next time maybe I'll try to interject, "Wait, can I tell you why what you were saying is offensive?"
Remember that embarrassing interview I had for the SVU Communication's Department?
Did I mention that I got the internship?
Because I got the internship.
And I published my first blog post over there!
Unfortunately, half of a grapefruit. My yogurt was MIA.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
#Embarrassing
In kindergarten I wrote that, one day, "I really hope to make the cut as a secretary." (I don't think that's how I spelled "secretary," though)
80's music--cool or not?
Uh oh. I knew I'd run into trouble with this one.
"Um. I'm actually not really sure what 80's music is?"
"The Smiths, David Bowie?"
"Umm..."
"Well, it's not a big deal; we just listen to a lot of music while we work. It can be a source of contention and I'm a 80's/90's guy."
"Oh, 90's? (feeling a combination of relief and trepidation) I know Backstreet Boys and N'Sync!"
"...Not that kind of 90's music..."
Pretty cringe-worthy, right? But I keep going...
"Well, if it's the kind of music that my mom listens to, I like it!"
World, you should know that this guy is in his late 20s/ early 30s. He is **not** in the same demographic as my mother.
But we THANKFULLY moved on from there to discuss the pros/cons of Chipotle and Cafe Rio.
(The pork salad and tomatillo sauce put me solidly in league with Cafe Rio, but I do prefer the rice and tortillas at Chipotle. In case you were curious.)
I'm currently enrolled in a class called "Gender in Modern Europe." I expect I'll learn a lot.
On the first day we defined "Sex," "Gender," and "Sexuality," and wrote down one thing that would be better and one that would be worse if we woke up as the opposite sex the next day.
I wrote:
Worse:
1. Being bad at sports would be really embarrassing
2. The pressure to currently have plans for a lucrative career
Better:
1. Knowing what to wear to a job interview
2. People taking me more seriously
There are a million other things I can think of, retrospectively. If I woke up as a guy, maybe I wouldn't have paranoia about the intentions of the man strolling down his driveway as I walk past his house after dark. And I wouldn't menstruate. That would be cool.
But it's the next exercise we did that I actually wanted to write about.
We wrote "I am...." and then listed ten things about ourselves. The first few were easy.
Daughter
Fiancee
Student
Friend
It got harder
Faithful
22
Millennial
The word "white" came to mind, and I mulled it over, discarding it. Because, I've been taught, we don't define ourselves or one another by the color of our skin. If you're not colorblind, you're racist. Or something like that. As this person explained,"'After many years of being told we should all be colorblind, as if that was possible, a lot of people don’t know how to enter' a conversation about race."
I kept brainstorming and writing:
Returned Missionary
Aunt
Sister
We talked about what we'd written, and the different things a person could be defined by. No one in the class had written their race. One had written her ethnicity.
And I left regretting that I hadn't.
Because I am white. And that matters. It matters not because it makes me more important, but because if I recognize that I'm white, I can recognize that I have been sorted into a privileged social caste. In today's society, I am often, even if subconsciously, devalued because I am a woman. But I am given an advantage in being white. I have to recognize that if I'm going to fight against a prejudiced system. Refusing to recognize that being white makes a difference is refusing to acknowledge the unique hardships faced by so many because their skin is black. If you think something is being treated equally in the status quo, you're not going to try to iron out the inequalities-- because in your mind, they don't exist.
I'm still learning and figuring these real social issues out, but here's a video that explains it all better than I have:
