Re: Nice Planet: Screw It, I'm Outta Here
Please explain why anyone would be "proud" of his/her sexual preference, whatever it may be...?
I'm going to assume you aren't intentionally being mentally and morally opaque and give you a straight answer.
The persecuted have always needed to rally around solidarity. That is a basic human need.
I really thought you were being an intentional d-ck when you posted things like this or that you were a moron, but given your persistence and your stressing that we need to respect one another I am now genuinely convinced that you don't know that your posts are coming of as mean spirited. But I'm giving you some friendly advice, sincerely: they are. You are coming off as borderline troll. As the kind of libertarian who says "the contract between an employer and an employee is perfectly balanced since either is free to terminate it." It comes off as being sheltered and presumptuous.
How do I know this? Because if I had been on the internet 30 years ago that would be
exactly how I would have sounded. I was firmly convinced then that because bigotry drove so many problems the most fair solution would be to be completely blind to difference and never acknowledge any characteristic which was incidental to value.
But the problem with this is that's the equivalent of saying the race is fair now because we've taken your chains off but I still start 50 yards ahead of you. Systemic/legal barriers are the chains, and we have taken many of them off (although not all -- witness the legal persecution of gays and trans people in the red states) in the last 100 years. But the head start is the social barriers and those still exist. Whites still bias against POC. Men (and a lot of women!) still bias against women. Straights still bias against non-straights. And don't get me started on Christians.
So the people on the pointy end of these distinctions
do need to join together and celebrate who they are. And they need to do it in public to claim their rights in public space and not just huddled in the dark. Have you ever been to a gay march or a women's march? The feeling during them isn't triumph, it's relief. You can see these people go through their lives poised to absorb the next slight (or assault) and for one f-cking day at least they can relax and be
themselves without any fear.
Think of how you feel when after a day of work you come home and are safe and secure. POC and women and gays are
never 100% secure. As a fellow white straight male I ask you: can you conceive of how hard it must be to live like that? You and I will never, never, never know how tired, how weary that must make a human being.
So, please, understand that a pride parade isn't something contrary to your desire for a blind society. It's essential to it because it is evening the playing field. There are no brown-eyed people's pride marches because they aren't necessary. The fact that there
are gay and black and women's pride parades should tell us they
are necessary, and why a straight or white or men's pride parade is something very different, mocking, nasty, and even threatening.
It's all about respect and these people still don't get it too often. You and I will never worry about that. And you
know how much that stings because you have complained that you are being ignored or put down because you're a straight, white, male. OK... now imagine that amplified by a
trillion, every day, and with a history of being written into the very law!
That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
To all the gay, POC, and women posters here: I am very sorry if this comes across as me straight white male 'splaining or being White Savior. I am just trying to give my view because I have
been Fishman '81 and know that it is possible to say the things he is saying and not be a jerk. He's simply ignorant of what he has not seen and felt, and I have had that
very thing in common with him so I might reach him.
Dude: you're not a d-ck but you're acting like one. Please take the stuff above to heart. It was my journey and maybe it will help you on yours. Go to these marches and be with these people and you'll understand. The love you experience being with people who have been hurt and disrespected, but who are still open and kind, will make you feel
great, even if you're a cynical, arrogant old fool like me.
