This person is SO cool.
May. 29th, 2008 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gementRecommended reading (a short essay): On matters of passing, by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm. It's about what it means to pass, and what it means to stand up for one's identity politics (on any issue) when one has a choice of hiding them. I pass very easily. Reading this meant a lot to me.
This is the person I'm rooting for in the LJ election (which ends today). This kind of post is why.
On a related note, I stumbled across a thread in dot_poly_snark. Someone made an poorly thought-out statement about embarrassing people being the loudest spokespeople for alternative lifestyles. In it, she lumped fat people and freaky hairstyles in with body odor and poor social skills.
There was a gem of a response in the resulting comment blaze, which concluded with: "If they hadn't blazed the trail, if they weren't pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable by the mainstream, your 'normal'/HWP/whatever ass would still be so far back in the Poly closet you'd see Narnia."
As a 'normal'/HWP/whatever looking person, when I identify with a minority group, I always wonder if I'm doing it enough, somehow. If I'm minority enough to count. I mean, how can I when no one can see it, when I don't have to live with it painted across my face every day? How can I stand up? How much stranger is it for people when I do, and how much more heated the response? And why do I keep risking it?
rm. It's about what it means to pass, and what it means to stand up for one's identity politics (on any issue) when one has a choice of hiding them. I pass very easily. Reading this meant a lot to me.This is the person I'm rooting for in the LJ election (which ends today). This kind of post is why.
On a related note, I stumbled across a thread in dot_poly_snark. Someone made an poorly thought-out statement about embarrassing people being the loudest spokespeople for alternative lifestyles. In it, she lumped fat people and freaky hairstyles in with body odor and poor social skills.
There was a gem of a response in the resulting comment blaze, which concluded with: "If they hadn't blazed the trail, if they weren't pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable by the mainstream, your 'normal'/HWP/whatever ass would still be so far back in the Poly closet you'd see Narnia."
As a 'normal'/HWP/whatever looking person, when I identify with a minority group, I always wonder if I'm doing it enough, somehow. If I'm minority enough to count. I mean, how can I when no one can see it, when I don't have to live with it painted across my face every day? How can I stand up? How much stranger is it for people when I do, and how much more heated the response? And why do I keep risking it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 05:05 pm (UTC)Whether or not it happens (and it does occasionally happen), the fear is there every time.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-07 02:28 am (UTC)(I think my subconscious is arrogantly sure everyone I'd be liable to tell these things to will still find me charming and thus treat me as Peer, but it expects my efforts at honesty to be treated dismissively. So I am wearily unsurprised at 'yeah, yeah' but SHOCKED everytime someone is actually upset. Because I'm so fundamentally trusting in humanity that every time someone is less than reasonably openminded, let alone outright *bigoted*, I'm still shocked by it. And then my subconscious immediately forgets that people can be so ridiculous until the next time it happens. This may've been a defense mechanism from growing up in such a small and cheerfully bigoted place as I did. It was much more pleasant to go around oblivious than to go around constantly appalled.)