guided by a new era

We're on the abortion unit of my philosophy class. And it is filled with fail, as expected.

The unit centers around a group of readings we have to do. None of the writers are 100% pro-choice; there are two pro-lifers and two pro-choice-buts. The first of the latter group is "pro-choice-unless-I-deem-your-reasons-stupid", and the second is all about time restrictions. Our assignment for tonight is to read the other pro-lifer's essay and critique her characteristics of what makes something a person. I'll have fun shredding her argument, but all the same (and I will sound sooo narrow-minded when I say this, but believe me, I've heard it all) I do not want to have to slog through pro-life drivel that is all about the fetus. It's bad enough that our class discussions only mention the woman as an after thought, as though she were barely relevant, and that the entire discussion is made in terms of the fetus. I would almost call it a pro-life slant, as not only are all of our readings pro-life in some way, shape or form, but pro-lifers also center the discussion around the fetus, while the pro-choice side tends to center it around the woman. I'm sure almost all you know my position on the issue, and though I've piped up a LOT during this whole debacle (the only person who has said more than me is the teacher himself), it isn't doing much good. There are still a bunch of stupid freshmen who continue to say things like, "since she made the decision to get pregnant" when we are not discussing a situation in which a woman has sex with a man in order to get pregnant, and they do not listen to me (or any of the other menstruating people in the class) when I tell them that conception is not voluntary, nor is ovulation. It doesn't matter that PIV sex can lead to pregnancy, becoming pregnant is NOT something you consciously do. It happens outside of your control if you have had PIV sex. FUCKING DUH, PLEASE GO BACK TO FIFTH GRADE SCIENCE. I've managed to kick their ass, though. It's very rewarding, once they shut up. But it's extremely frustrating.

Also, do you know what else is frustrating? Straight people who think they have a gaydar. Assfriend said today in forum that he thought Katy Perry's song "Ur So Gay" was funny, and I told him it wasn't funny, it was offensive. So then he starts on this whole spiel about gay men who are in the closet but you can tell they're gay because they exhibit something that he didn't say because I cut him off (knowing he would say "effeminate tendencies" or something to that effect, because that's what I was pointing out to him was wrong with the song) and told him that straight people do not have gaydars. No, sorry, they don't. When a straight person says they have a gaydar, it means they can see gay stereotypes. People who are actually queer are better at spotting people who are also actually queer because we are able to see behavior that we exhibited as well as closeted or out people. It's like a sixth sense. We have the experiences and we can see them in other people. Straight people do not have the experiences and therefore cannot see them in other people.

ETA: And, because most of my recent posts have been negative, I thought I should add that the weather today was spectacular. IT IS 67 DEGREES, AAAAAAAAAAH. Two months ago I had a "You know you live in Michigan when..." moment when I walked out into 20 degree weather and my first thought was, "It's so warm!" -___-

Wow, Newsweek. Way to be five months late, and then write a terrible article about it.

I'm getting really sick of people labeling the murder of Lawrence King as only an anti-gay hate crime. It wasn't just anti-gay, it was also anti-gender nonconformity. Lawrence King was murdered for his gender expression AND his sexual orientation. The Newsweek article frames it as if Lawrence King wearing heels, make-up and jewelry were a part of him being gay, instead of a part of his gender expression. Not only does it make the underlying issues of gender expression and identity completely invisible, it perpetuates that stereotype that men can't be effeminate without being gay, and that being effeminate is a characteristic of being gay. The article likes to talk about how Lawrence has become a gay rights icon, but fails to interview any gay rights organizations. Instead, it opted to interview a few people who would rather say that the school could have prevented Lawrence's murder, not by teaching the students to accept each other's differences and to resolve conflict in a non-violent way, but by preventing Lawrence from expressing himself and forcing him to stop dressing and acting in an effeminate manner. But they're not *blaming* Lawrence for his death, goodness no, they're just saying that this all could have been prevented if he hadn't been so controversial. The victim blaming is nauseating, as are the anti-gay language and assumptions present in the article. The author uses the phrase, "flaunting his sexuality" and explains the dilemma many middle schools are facing when dealing with gay students with this sentence: "How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior?" Because gay students being open about their sexual orientation is likely to lead to "inappropriate" behavior, apparently. The author did a good job implying that "inappropriate" and "sometimes harmful" behavior are a part of being gay, as well as making it out as if the only way to know that you're gay is if your attractions are sexual.

Of course, Newsweek has never exactly had a good track record with LGBT issues in my book. They almost never cover them, and when they do there's nothing about transgender people at all, and they never cover issues other than marriage (except for this article, which is such a failure on so many levels that I wouldn't count it). Still, I was expecting better than this. Good job, Newsweek. You've lost what little reverence I had left of you.

If you feel the need to use "I have gay friends" as evidence for your tolerance and greatness, you are actually proving that you are an asshole, and a bigot to boot. Obviously, it never occurred to you that gay people do not want to be waved around like fucking trophies for you to display in your Diversity™ Showroom to all your straight friends. We do not appreciate being talked about like exotic animals. "I have gay friends!" Whoa, no fucking way! The other day, I saw a gay friend climbing a tree! It was so rad!

Yeah, it's also not cookie-worthy for you to befriend people with a different sexual orientation than you. If it were, I would be swimming in cookies. GSA meetings would be nothing but shifting mounds of cookies so that we could breathe.

(The above rant also applies to those other assholes who like to say, "Some of my best friends are black! I can't be racist!" Simply replace "gay" with "black" and you've got the original version of the same disregard for common sense and general intelligence.)

P.S.: To the dickwad who said, "I don't think homosexuality should be illegal, being gay isn't a sin, but homosexual *acts* [lol "homosexual act"?] are a sin": Take a dive off of your high horse, and please take your "sin" bullshit with you.

Source of my wrath? Gaia Anti-Twilight thread. FUCK YOU TOO.

Today I'm going to post about what I like to call political apathy. Mostly because it came up in Civics yesterday and today, and because it does apply, in part, to LGBT issues. And, I'm contemplating writing an OP/ED to send in to our school's newspaper.

First, I want to make clear what exactly I mean by "political apathy": Paying no attention whatsoever to, or not caring at all about, politics and current events. To me, political apathy is when someone does not care about politics at all and acts as if it has nothing to do with them. I'm going to be frank and say that I've never understood these types of people, because I've always been interested in politics and because I recognize that politics plays a huge part of our everyday lives, regardless of whether or not we're interested in it.

This came up first yesterday in Civics. It was a discussion question posed after we read some article about what it means to be a citizen. "Is apathy a problem in the United States?" My answer? The first two words should be switched, and there shouldn't be a question mark. There's no doubt that apathy is a huge problem in the US. For some reason, some people in our class were getting offended that someone would say that apathy is a problem. I'm sorry if the truth hurts them, but that's their problem, not mine. We got into a debate over what could be construed as whether or not we should hold uninformed (and therefore apathetic) people accountable for their ignorance. "We" (in quotation marks because I know it wasn't decided as a class, and it was actually mostly Jason) came to the conclusion that it's unfair to talk about apathy this way. Or something along those lines.

If you want my most blunt opinion on that, it is this: That's bullshit. If you are going to be politically apathetic, and not give a shit one way or the other what happens in this country, you're going to have to grow a spine and deal with people criticizing you for it. I got the feeling that a lot of people in the class were simply offended that the question was asked because they are apathetic, and know it, and don't care. I'm not sorry to say, they'll have to get over it.

The problem with political apathy is that, because politics plays such a large role in one's life, it's a huge thing to ignore or not care about. Our government is a big part of our lives--it is not some isolated, far off thing that makes you pay taxes and tells you not to kill other people. It regulates how we drive, our food, our pets, our homes. For everything you can think of, the government was probably involved, somehow.

And when you get lots of politically apathetic people, the country doesn't do too well. When the majority of people in your country don't know shit about what's going on, you tend to get very little response from the people as to what they want. Problems exist in this country, like it or not, and I'm betting they could be solved quicker if people would get off their asses and take a stand for something.

Of course, the last time this was suggested (in politer terms), people in our class went on about how they don't have the time to do all this political stuff. It is worth noting that when someone accuses you of politcal apathy, it is not a demand that you run into the streets waving signs and screaming for revolution. It is a request for you to pull your head out of your ass and pay attention to what's going on. You don't have to be interested in politics to keep up with current events or to vote. You don't have to devote half your life to political activism. Voting and spending all your free time at rallies are two very different things. No one expects everyone to do a lot of political activism. But a lot of us political nerds expect the general populace to not be so ignorant and inform themselves on what's going on in the world.

That's one of the things I want to make abundantly clear. We're not asking you to get as involved as we are. We're asking you to grow a brain and have some basic knowledge about reality outside of your own little world. Okay?

Today in Civics the Jena Six were brought up yet again (so that the dumb white kids in the class could sympathize with teh poor, opressed white people in Jena, I guess), this time in the form of Jena District Attorney Reed Walters writing a piece for the New York Times OP/ED section. How a racist, backwater sleazebag like him got into the New York Times is a mystery, but his denial and dodging is quite, quite obvious. And the worst part is, after Jason read the piece aloud to the class, nearly half of the white students said that they weren't feeling so hard against him. Which appalled me, because if anything all the bullshit flowing out of that OP/ED should have made them more angry, if they had the ability to not believe everything that comes flying out of the orifices of every white straight cisgendered Christian man.

Walters took his time painting Justin Barker, the white student who got beat up by the Jena Six, as the victim. And no, I don't think he "deserved" to get beat up. But I do think that, given what has already happened to them, the Jena Six should be pardoned of all charges. I don't know about you, but I think having your Big Ten college chances erased almost completely is a pretty crappy punishment. He also conveniently left out the parts where (1) a black student was attacked at a gas station by a white guy, who got a gun out of his car and had it wrestled from him by the black student. The black student got charged with theft of a firearm, and the white guy got off; (2) a few black students were attacked outside of a party by a bunch of white guys who weren't students. The white not-students got off on probation, and; (3) Mr. Walters first charged those kids with fucking second-degree murder when Justin Barker only spent two hours in the hospital and went to a ring ceremony later that night. That kid was nowhere near death, and the prosecution has yet to present evidence that those guys were trying to kill Barker or even came close to it. Mr. Walters also said that he couldn't find any law that would constitute hanging nooses from that tree as a crime, which I think anyone with common sense knows is bullshit.

Here, look at what the fricking FBI has to say:

"[a hate crime/bias crime is] a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin."

Yeah, asshole. Hanging nooses from a tree is a hate crime. Also, look at this:

Institutional vandalism

A. A person commits the crime of institutional vandalism by knowingly vandalizing, defacing, or otherwise damaging the following:

[...]

(3) Any school, educational facility, or community center.

Emphasis mine. That is a Louisiana law. And if you go to the ADL page on hate crimes and click the "State Hate Crime Laws" link on the left sidebar, you'll find that Louisiana has laws covering "Bias-Motivated Violence and Intimidation".

It's high time people realized that this guy is full of shit. He is not doing his job, he is not being fair, and he IS a racist. Yes, he is. Get over it.