oh dear lord, please call your agent before you blog, woman!
Before I pipe up with my quarter on EBear's most recent commentary, I would like to ask for Gambit fic recs for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zillahseye and myself. I told her I would ask you people, and now I'm very curious what I will get brought. Back in the day, most of the Gambit fic was, er, hahahaha--if you know who Gambit is, you can imagine what kind of self-insertion fic used to appear on lists. I know a couple people wrote decent xover fic, links?
*
EBear pipes back up about literary criticism, engaging her critics, and how POC can be bullies, too. Oh dear, don't click if you have blood pressure issues.
My comments here are less about how she clearly is not comprehending why people are angry with her and more about my own personal philosophy regarding the feelings of others, particularly about their issues I might not understand and how EBear could use some advice from KSims.
My personal belief is that when someone expresses personal feelings about an issue, it's just best to withdraw and accept that. Am I always charitable in my head or in private to my friends (mostlysparkeymonster to whom I often expose my ugly opinions about the failings of others)? HELL NO. However, what I've learned in my long years on this earth is that just because *I* don't personally understand someone else's issues doesn't make those issues wrong, nonexistent, or stupid. I might think in my evil heart of utter darkness that X person is a whiney baby in need of Prozac and a spanking, but I've learned that choosing to be a bigger person and keep that in the back of my mouth is probably for the best.
When I started just tolerating other people's silly issues, mostly I was just doing that--tolerating the lame complaints of people I thought were, you know, LAME. Through time I began to actually consider what I sometimes saw as frivolous complaints and actually realized that my personal POV was not the end-all, be-all of existence. How strange, I know.
There is a reason that variations of the Golden Rule are the basis for a lot of religions. It's pretty amazing what happens when you begin to actually think of other people as just as important, vital, and unique as you are. I honestly believe that most people who are pigheaded or prejudiced are only able to be that way because they deny at some level the very humanity of the people they take issue with. That troubles me fundamentally so that the only people I feel justified in disliking now are bigoted evil-doers. Which makes me a hypocrite, and I'm fine with that.
I think that people like EBear have inclinations to right-thinking but they get bogged down by never being challenged. It's hard to be wrong--humiliating, scary, frustrating--and we've all been there. When you're a liberal, thoughtful, well-read person it's easy to fall into a pattern where you believe you've hit a sort of secular Enlightenment. While it's true that thinking you believe in universal equality is a good thing--being for segregation, against interracial marriage, and thinking other ethnicities/races are inferior is clearly stupid--belief in universal equality is just the baseline of rationality. There's a whole mountain to climb after that, and no one's perfect, everyone's going to make mistakes. One of the ledges on the huge mountain is realizing that one's own lived experience is not the same as someone else's lived experience, and when X person says "hey, your bullshit is harming my mental health" the correct reaction is NEVER to say "Well, grow thicker skin, I didn't mean what you think I did."
Swallowing your pride and being a bigger person is hard when your mom isn't standing over you with a wooden spoon, but part of the assumption of true adulthood is that you WILL make those choices not because you're going to be punished if you do otherwise, but because it's just The Right Thing To Do. Like giving someone's wallet to Lost and Found or donating to charity. It seems to me that EBear is suffering from shame and pride. That's too bad because she had a chance to basically say mea culpa and consider the feelings of others as being equal to her own, and she chose instead to crumble to anger and a sense of (entitled) persecution. Which is all very human. We've all done that. (My personal Greatest Failing is actually anger, and I know I've done some crazyass shit when I was mad. Oh boy.)
What I take actual issue with in EBear's most recent post is the concept that she's being brave to express the sentiment that white people can't win for trying while at the same time claiming to dislike that Us against Them mentality of her detractors. Sigh. Lady, really. Way to be part of the problem. I know you won't read this, Elizabeth, but I just want to tell you that what you're feeling is a sort of helplessness that you're being judged by something you did not choose and can do nothing about--your skin color. Welcome to the human race, now apply your feeling of helplessness to the experience of people not like yourself and you've begun to actually change rather than dig in. Changing your mind is ok, it's called personal growth. You're not a racist or a bad person because you haven't achieved perfection inside your mind or heart, but you could use some self-reflection on how your actions impact others. You want to do better, I can tell. Use your internet holiday to really think, like you said. When you come back, you'll be surprised how accepting the Internets Court is if you apologize and seem to really want to be part of the solution.
That applies to everyone, really. Personally, I think it's just better to swallow your pride when someone else's feelings are on the line. This goes doubly if my opinions or actions are going to impact someone's basic humanity. When you balance someone's self-worth as a person against my feelings on literary criticism, I think the correct scale to be weighed heaviest is self-evident.
eta: sorry about all the homophone errors, er, I can barely see?
zillahseye and myself. I told her I would ask you people, and now I'm very curious what I will get brought. Back in the day, most of the Gambit fic was, er, hahahaha--if you know who Gambit is, you can imagine what kind of self-insertion fic used to appear on lists. I know a couple people wrote decent xover fic, links?*
EBear pipes back up about literary criticism, engaging her critics, and how POC can be bullies, too. Oh dear, don't click if you have blood pressure issues.
My comments here are less about how she clearly is not comprehending why people are angry with her and more about my own personal philosophy regarding the feelings of others, particularly about their issues I might not understand and how EBear could use some advice from KSims.
My personal belief is that when someone expresses personal feelings about an issue, it's just best to withdraw and accept that. Am I always charitable in my head or in private to my friends (mostly
sparkeymonster to whom I often expose my ugly opinions about the failings of others)? HELL NO. However, what I've learned in my long years on this earth is that just because *I* don't personally understand someone else's issues doesn't make those issues wrong, nonexistent, or stupid. I might think in my evil heart of utter darkness that X person is a whiney baby in need of Prozac and a spanking, but I've learned that choosing to be a bigger person and keep that in the back of my mouth is probably for the best. When I started just tolerating other people's silly issues, mostly I was just doing that--tolerating the lame complaints of people I thought were, you know, LAME. Through time I began to actually consider what I sometimes saw as frivolous complaints and actually realized that my personal POV was not the end-all, be-all of existence. How strange, I know.
There is a reason that variations of the Golden Rule are the basis for a lot of religions. It's pretty amazing what happens when you begin to actually think of other people as just as important, vital, and unique as you are. I honestly believe that most people who are pigheaded or prejudiced are only able to be that way because they deny at some level the very humanity of the people they take issue with. That troubles me fundamentally so that the only people I feel justified in disliking now are bigoted evil-doers. Which makes me a hypocrite, and I'm fine with that.
I think that people like EBear have inclinations to right-thinking but they get bogged down by never being challenged. It's hard to be wrong--humiliating, scary, frustrating--and we've all been there. When you're a liberal, thoughtful, well-read person it's easy to fall into a pattern where you believe you've hit a sort of secular Enlightenment. While it's true that thinking you believe in universal equality is a good thing--being for segregation, against interracial marriage, and thinking other ethnicities/races are inferior is clearly stupid--belief in universal equality is just the baseline of rationality. There's a whole mountain to climb after that, and no one's perfect, everyone's going to make mistakes. One of the ledges on the huge mountain is realizing that one's own lived experience is not the same as someone else's lived experience, and when X person says "hey, your bullshit is harming my mental health" the correct reaction is NEVER to say "Well, grow thicker skin, I didn't mean what you think I did."
Swallowing your pride and being a bigger person is hard when your mom isn't standing over you with a wooden spoon, but part of the assumption of true adulthood is that you WILL make those choices not because you're going to be punished if you do otherwise, but because it's just The Right Thing To Do. Like giving someone's wallet to Lost and Found or donating to charity. It seems to me that EBear is suffering from shame and pride. That's too bad because she had a chance to basically say mea culpa and consider the feelings of others as being equal to her own, and she chose instead to crumble to anger and a sense of (entitled) persecution. Which is all very human. We've all done that. (My personal Greatest Failing is actually anger, and I know I've done some crazyass shit when I was mad. Oh boy.)
What I take actual issue with in EBear's most recent post is the concept that she's being brave to express the sentiment that white people can't win for trying while at the same time claiming to dislike that Us against Them mentality of her detractors. Sigh. Lady, really. Way to be part of the problem. I know you won't read this, Elizabeth, but I just want to tell you that what you're feeling is a sort of helplessness that you're being judged by something you did not choose and can do nothing about--your skin color. Welcome to the human race, now apply your feeling of helplessness to the experience of people not like yourself and you've begun to actually change rather than dig in. Changing your mind is ok, it's called personal growth. You're not a racist or a bad person because you haven't achieved perfection inside your mind or heart, but you could use some self-reflection on how your actions impact others. You want to do better, I can tell. Use your internet holiday to really think, like you said. When you come back, you'll be surprised how accepting the Internets Court is if you apologize and seem to really want to be part of the solution.
That applies to everyone, really. Personally, I think it's just better to swallow your pride when someone else's feelings are on the line. This goes doubly if my opinions or actions are going to impact someone's basic humanity. When you balance someone's self-worth as a person against my feelings on literary criticism, I think the correct scale to be weighed heaviest is self-evident.
eta: sorry about all the homophone errors, er, I can barely see?