This is Real Shit.

First I need you to go read this as posted by my friend Peech over on tumblr

Got that?
You don't have to read the responses but let me put it this way.
When one is marginalized especially in very visible ways, (being of color, being fat, being visibly queer or non binary in terms of gender or presentation etc etc...intersectionality holy shit) it's not an exercise in intellectual masturbation to think about the things Peech was talking about.
This is our entire lives.
Our whole lives.
One of the things I mentioned there was this:

This is (Peech tell me to shut the fuck up if I'm wrong here) a really prime example of how privilege functions like a battering ram. White people can giggle/not give two shits about this stuff, and for people of color it's our whole fucking lives.
Let's stop there for a moment.
This is where we remember that marginalization is intersectional and this can apply across a lot of things.
When marginalized people talk about our lives and things like how frustrating or stressful dealing with the every day microagressions we face.
When we are talking about these things or ask about what would you do White/thin/etc people in our place, that is the time to not use your privilege as a baseball bat.
This is not the time for us to hear about or center discussions on your feelings.
If you are not part of the marginalized group, don't make it about you.
The fact is not being a racist or sizeist or whatever ist is hard fucking work. Part of that hard work is in fact learning that your icky feelings about a thing aren't always the most important feelings.
For instance.
When fat people are talking about say, bad treatment by medical professionals because they refuse to be weighed, refuse to deal with WLS pushers or are otherwise branded "bad" fatties, that is not the time for thin people to come in all ass and elbows screaming, BUT WHAT ABOUT ME.
That experience is not about your individual experience. This type of conversation is about a systemic oppression that causes everything from a few minutes of shame and public crying to death.
Now let's go back to Peech's post and I want you to look at some of the responses.
White people got angry and offended and did not take her question at all seriously. Too many people showed no empathy, no reasoning. That is called using your privilege like a bat and that is why the idea of putting the onus of starting and moderating discussions about oppression by the oppressed fails.
From both within marginalized communities and without there is a constant idea that if only the oppressed were nicer, more polite, more tolerant, more open, etc (this is called respectability politics) than the oppressors would suddenly see the error of their ways.
When many of us marginalized people try to do that a lot of bad shit happens.
First of all it is exhausting. Trying to be the rational explainer of ALL THE THINGS is emotionally and physically taxing. It's highly stressful and more so when the people one is trying to talk to so nicely, respond with bullshit.
Second of all, even when we marginalized people are the nicest, most respectable wonderful patient people, often our efforts result in nothing. No furthering of the discourse, we are tolerated to a point but are the first to be pushed out of conversation if our tones get to be too much, or if we stand up for ourselves,
When the responsibility of being the most humane in a discussion that is rife with inhumanity is focused on the victim end of things, nothing goes well. Nothing.
Not only do we rarely get even a small amount of respect but after we've done so much hard, taxing work, it gets stolen.
People "borrow". People are "inspired". People steal our words and we are never backed up. It has happened to me personally, it has happened to other bloggers I like etc etc.
At the end of it, marginalized people wind up angry. We tend to want to deal with no further bullshit from self proclaimed allies who don't want to be allies unless they are getting a handjob while they do it. We don't want to hold your hand and feed you cookies for being decent or treating us like human beings.
You don't get extra favors for basic decent behavior even when it involves marginalized people.
These are the stressors that cause so many of us to say, you know what fuck you. Fuck your allyship we don't want it.
It's why so many of us stop blogging, stop even trying to do educate me on this issue 101 because 90% of the time it's not appreciated and ignored anyway.
This is real shit.
This isn't a hypothetical.
This isn't a moment to say but but I'm not like that.
This is the moment where I can comfortably say from the bottom of the hearts of marginalized people,
fuck your feelings.
Homo Out.



If you are seeing this post anywhere other than http://blog.nudemuse.org or via a feed reader it has been stolen.