Random Thoughts

Wow, I didn't even realize this still existed. It has been.... some time since I last wrote here, but I hope to pick it up again with a daily schedule, so... looks like 4 years ago I was rambling on about elves, sci-fi cliches, and music. I don't really foresee the content being that much different now, but who knows.

I've been thinking about social issues a lot lately, specifically discrimination as it has been portrayed in a few high profile cases though the media for the last year, from Ferguson to the RFRA, this stuff seems to be getting talked about a lot more loudly than it once has. Many (On both sides) say that this is because things are going to hell rapidly, others blame the Millennials, others say it isn't an issue at all and the news media is making up conflict to drive viewership, or satisfy their Illuminati/Zionist/Lizardmen overlords.

There have been thousands of words written about the specific events and the culture around them, some of them by me on other people's Facebook walls because I love a good argument on the internet, which says nothing good about me I think. And the common theme I see in discussion about it is the refusal of people on all side of the argument to admit that they are prejudiced, that certain aspects of their upbringing, race, and gender influences their perception of other races, genders, etc. They refuse to admit that they might actually have a bigoted viewpoint, and react quite angrily when confronted with it.

This is not exactly surprising I suppose, the human capacity for self deception is pretty high, and no one wants to think of themselves as imperfect, but we really are, and accepting that can actually lead to a more productive discussion than otherwise. There is a psychological term for that I think, but despite having the limitless knowledge of the internet at my fingertips, I can't be bothered to look it up.

I am filled with prejudices, some I am aware of, some I don't know about, I know I don't understand anyone's viewpoint but my own, not really, but that doesn't stop me from holding forth about racism, sexism, and homophobia anyway. I am privileged to be a straight, white, male, I was born at the lowest difficulty setting and have managed to go through life with no more trouble socially than I made for myself. I make mistakes, I have unknowingly "mansplained" and will likely do so in the future, I have made snap judgements about people based on their race, judgements I didn't know I was making until after the fact, all these and more are little things that I do on occasion, and more I don't even notice I am sure.

But I don't get called out on it, basically ever. I am in a pretty perfect position to say what I want to say and no one calls me a dick, even when I might deserve it. I can't speak for those I might be offending, but if I had to guess I'd say that this is because my little offenses are small on the scale of what people might be experiencing every day, and it would be both exhausting and unproductive for (for example) a woman to call me on something like, explaining her profession to her, when she might experience that and worse several times a day.
It also helps that I don't go out much, but you get the point I hope.

I had a point with all this, right, unconscious prejudices influencing discussion, hmmm, ah, second paragraph, reasons why we are seeing this stuff in the national spotlight more often. Well, I think partly because more people are becoming aware and willing to talk about their prejudices, and their experience with it, this is a good thing! It mean as a society, we are becoming more accepting of this sort of discussion in a public forum. The marginalized groups are becoming more powerful and more willing to speak, and more people are starting to listen and (I think) start thinking about their own prejudices.

The events that we see publicized are not new, small and large town police forces have been racist forever and that is a goddamn travesty as we saw when Ferguson erupted, and as more documents have come out about the police force' choices there. The Indiana RFRA bill in its original form had the potential to clear the state of religious and sexual minorities, but it wasn't so long ago that no one considered laws about those minorities worth passing because everyone knew what would happen to "those people" if they actually made a public stink about discrimination. And it wasn't long after that that worse laws were passed, some of them still on the books, others struck down or changed, and others more or less ignored.

So now we are in a position where it is (usually) frowned upon to straight up murder someone in the street, unless you are a cop of course. And almost all workplaces frown on the worst slurs being spoken to someone's face. Some would say we have achieved equality because lynchings aren't looked at as the preferred method of dealing with someone who is different. Those people are fools, but many don't realize they are being fools, because of the prejudices I mentioned earlier, they think to themselves "I don't want to kill this person because he is black, I hire women, I allow homosexual people to exist around me" and they believe that makes them a good person. And they aren't precisely wrong, it doesn't make them a bad person, but it doesn't actually put them on the side of progress either, they don't consider that the society that supports and nurtures them has been constructed to do so for straight, white, men, and those who support them, and since they don't see that, they don't see how it hurts all who are not in the "acceptable" category.

It's a problem, and until it sees larger changes we will still have Fergusons, and Conservatives will still attempt to pass hateful legislation, and those things will be fought over, either by protest or by words, but these fights are not signs of the end times. They aren't the Millenials "fault" except insomuch as that generation seems to be more socially aware and connected than previous ones. We are in a time of social upheaval and it will be years until we realize how dramatic the changes that are being fought for now will be.

My money is on the Lizardmen overlords though.