[Noisebridge-discuss] Be Excellent to one another

Gian Pablo Villamil gian.pablo at gmail.com
Thu Oct 29 17:09:35 UTC 2009


"consisting of an optically inactive, equimolecular mixture of the
dextrorotatory and levorotatory forms of certain substances"

cool!

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Meredith L. Patterson
<mlp at thesmartpolitenerd.com> wrote:
> Al Billings wrote:
>> On Oct 29, 2009, at 6:56 AM, Meredith L. Patterson wrote:
>>> Al, your privilege is showing, you might wanna go fix that.
>>
>> Oh, you can fix privilege?
>
> Nope, but you can fix whether it shows or not.
>
>>> To you, Miah's being thinskinned. To Miah, it hurts. Which one of you
>>> is right? Maybe both of you, but the fact of the matter is that
>>> someone still found it hurtful.
>>
>>  I could find that hot dogs exist to be hurtful and get worked up about
>> it. Is it then the problem of the hot dog factory owner? No, it's my
>> problem and my issue.
>
> I regard this situation more along the lines of someone offering Jake a
> fresh, tasty Ball Park frank, being told "no thanks, I'm vegan," and
> then giving him shit about his choice to be vegan. That would be
> decidedly non-excellent, and it is likewise non-excellent to give
> somebody shit about their preferred gender nomenclature once they have
> made it clear what theirs is.
>
> Perhaps Miah is generally upset about the lack of consideration afforded
> to transfolk by, as you put it, mainstream culture; that's as may be,
> but I don't think it's what's really being discussed here. She asked not
> to be called "bro" and was derided for it, and that derision is rude.
>
>> This got escalated way too quickly and for no good reason
>> because people seem more interested in playing victim than in actually
>> understanding what went through the heads of the *assumed* offenders
>> (while, at the same time, demanding others understand their own point of
>> view absolutely).
>
> I agree that Miah and Jesse both reacted harshly. I agree that the
> magnitude of their reactions escalated the situation. I even think that
> if I had been in their shoes, I wouldn't have reacted as strongly -- but
> despite my own non-standard gender identity[1], I'm not in either of
> their positions, and I've only rarely had to deal with the day-to-day
> frustrations of, as Jesse mentioned, being in a body that doesn't pass
> for the gender I identify as. I have to imagine that it's pretty
> frustrating, though, and if I made such a faux pas, I would apologise
> for it.
>
> And, as I write this, Miah has expanded in depth on her perspective, so
> I'll leave off this subthread, as I prefer not to speak about how others
> feel when they've already done so themselves.
>
>> I'm not going to apologize to someone because they cloak themselves in
>> the mantle of victimhood and say people hurt them with innocuous things.
>> That's on them, not on others.
>
> So, earlier when I said "your privilege is showing"? This is what I
> meant. The fact that you can dismiss another's pain as not "genuine
> enough" and expect to be agreed with is the textbook definition.
>
> C'mon, Al. I thought they taught you better than that in Buddhist
> school. Who designated you the arbiter of what someone else is feeling?
>
> Furthermore, if someone tells you, "What you said hurt me," what harm
> does it do you to tell them you're sorry and set a mental flag to not
> say that around them anymore? You're making it sound as if treating
> people the way they would like to be treated requires some kind of
> herculean effort on your part. It doesn't cost money, it doesn't cost
> appreciable time, it doesn't require physical effort, and the only thing
> it could possibly hurt is your ego.
>
>> It isn't compassionate to enable people in dysfunctional behavior. It's
>> just coddling. We're adults here, let's act like it and quit being so
>> reactive when someone does something with no intent of harm.
>
> So does that mean if I accidentally do something that really upsets the
> hell out of you, and you tell me that you're upset, and I tell you to
> grow up because you shouldn't have to be coddled, you seriously mean to
> tell you that my dismissive response wouldn't upset you more?
>
> --mlp
>
> [1] No, I'm not trans. I'm not cis either. I'm racemic. I also have an
> unusually deep voice for someone who is biologically female, and get
> called "sir" on the phone all the time. Pronoun-wise I prefer "she",
> will not get upset at "he", but really don't like "they".
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