- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
- Messages
- 8,087
I had a long post written up about the anti-choice picture thread from last year, and decided not to go there: there's nothing to make a thread LESS controversial and painful than abortion, right?
Suffice it to say I took it as insensitive, as a pro-choice lady who'd had a late miscarriage ... who was also relieved to discover the pic wasn't the nightmare I'd thought (baby photoshopped to fetus size, not actual fetus ... as approximately 2% of abortions take place past 20 weeks, images like *those* are misleading and gratuitously triggering to ladies with late-term miscarriages, still births, and merciful abortions in the case of genetic conditions incompatible with life). Metaphorical images, somehow, are much less bad, to me. Probably still more than I should say, but I was so messed up by my experience that I find it impossible to "pass" on when they're mentioned. I also later met the vendor, and found him to be kind and sensitive. I can only assume that his perspective on these issues, as a man, as a conservative, and (this is not knowledge, but supposition) hopefully as somebody who hasn't suffered that particular pain, is somewhat different.
Anyway, back to the point of THIS thread: I sort of feel like one of the problems in these sorts of discussions is how we use the word "racist." I don't tend to think of people as "racists." That implies it's an immutable state. I think our SOCIETY is racist, and that, as a result, we all have that propensity within us. I am sure as heck not excluding myself from this.
But I do think that for a lot of people, hearing that they've done a racist thing sounds a lot like being told they're a racist ... which shuts down discussion, because it's a lot like hearing "you are a fundamentally bad person." That NEVER encourages any kind of progress. I really wish that distinction could be made clearer, across the board.
I think the vendor who posted the photo(s) under discussion is a nice person, who would be *even nicer* if he thought about how, say, black people might read that visual. I just also know that's not our cultural default. Which is why I teach classes on this shiznit, and post long-winded screeds on message boards, and have unnecessarily earnest conversations with friends at night after a carafe or two of wine too many. We have nowhere to go but up, right?
Suffice it to say I took it as insensitive, as a pro-choice lady who'd had a late miscarriage ... who was also relieved to discover the pic wasn't the nightmare I'd thought (baby photoshopped to fetus size, not actual fetus ... as approximately 2% of abortions take place past 20 weeks, images like *those* are misleading and gratuitously triggering to ladies with late-term miscarriages, still births, and merciful abortions in the case of genetic conditions incompatible with life). Metaphorical images, somehow, are much less bad, to me. Probably still more than I should say, but I was so messed up by my experience that I find it impossible to "pass" on when they're mentioned. I also later met the vendor, and found him to be kind and sensitive. I can only assume that his perspective on these issues, as a man, as a conservative, and (this is not knowledge, but supposition) hopefully as somebody who hasn't suffered that particular pain, is somewhat different.
Anyway, back to the point of THIS thread: I sort of feel like one of the problems in these sorts of discussions is how we use the word "racist." I don't tend to think of people as "racists." That implies it's an immutable state. I think our SOCIETY is racist, and that, as a result, we all have that propensity within us. I am sure as heck not excluding myself from this.
But I do think that for a lot of people, hearing that they've done a racist thing sounds a lot like being told they're a racist ... which shuts down discussion, because it's a lot like hearing "you are a fundamentally bad person." That NEVER encourages any kind of progress. I really wish that distinction could be made clearer, across the board.
I think the vendor who posted the photo(s) under discussion is a nice person, who would be *even nicer* if he thought about how, say, black people might read that visual. I just also know that's not our cultural default. Which is why I teach classes on this shiznit, and post long-winded screeds on message boards, and have unnecessarily earnest conversations with friends at night after a carafe or two of wine too many. We have nowhere to go but up, right?