Why Straight/White/Men don’t get a month

Aug 8, 2013 //
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If you are born straight, if you are born white, and if you are born male, this is basically who you get to be:

Paris Hilton

You’ve basically won the lottery of life without ever having to put in any effort. Life is obviously not all sunshine and rainbows, just as Paris HIlton has her own issues that she has to deal with, but being born into that holy trinity of privilege is basically being born into wealth compared to being born into poverty. We lucked out. Being straight means we never have to worry about having the living shit curb-stomped out of us simply because of our sexual orientation; being white means we’ll never be passed over for a job simply for having a racial sounding name (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-575685.html); and having the ol’ cock’n’balls dangling between our legs means we’re unlikely to be treated any differently in the work place.

We’re not under any kind of threat. There’s a reason that white people don’t get upset when they’re called a Honky, and it’s because white people already have this continent by the balls. There is nothing in our culture that threatens white people, so if a threat is issued it is taken light-heartedly, almost tongue-in-cheek. Same with heterosexuals; same with being a dude. If we are any one of those things, it’s just one less issue we have to worry about. It’s gotten to the point where our trinity is not even talked about as a thing that exists. For example, when you hear the term “gender studies”, you probably think of women’s issues, despite men having a gender as well.

So now hopefully I’ve convinced you why being a straight, white male is awesome (not that we’re inherently awesome, but just that life is nicer to us for no god damn reason at all. Louis CK puts it pretty nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY ) So now why should gays/blacks/women get time put aside in order to celebrate them? Because a lot of the time, they are just crapped on every single day of the year. And somebody that is told over and over again that they are garbage, will eventually begin to actually believe that they are garbage.

We don’t need a week for us straight/white/men because we already won. It’d be like giving Donald Trump a celebratory hooker simply for existing. Trump doesn’t need to be given hookers; he already has enough hookers as it is.

Because we are not an equal society, we need to raise up those who weren’t born into privilege so that we can at least make an attempt at creating an equal society.  So yes, we try to put aside some time to tell gay people that they’re awesome. To tell racial minorities that they’re awesome. To tell women that they are awesome. So be proud.

 

I’m going to throw in a little post-script here to address specifically one of the main reasons I hear people complaining about these pride weeks, and all the other celebrations of minorities “I had it rough growing up too, even though I’m one or all of those descriptors. So where’s my week??” Maybe it was because of poverty (I would actually love a Poverty Awareness month), or obesity, or a severe lack of personal hygiene, or any other number of factors that make life tough. And yes, those things can be extremely difficult to overcome . But although you may have had problems, however genuine they might have been, you never faced a problem because of your race, gender, or sexual orientation.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality, Politics

Why offensive jokes are stupid, and you’re stupid for making them

Aug 5, 2013 //
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One thing I’ve noticed, being a straight, white, cisgendered, heteronormative, able-bodied male, is that people feel comfortable enough around me to crack jokes at the expense of entire groups of individuals. Gays, Jews, people of colour, women, etc. all typically suffer through sometimes awful, and even sometimes clever jokes at their expense, usually behind the safety of closed doors.

For the most part, these are, in fact, jokes. *Usually* these people are in favour of equal rights, equal opportunity, anti-bullying, etc. and don’t intend to cause harm with their words, and are often in full belief that no damage is done in telling them.

So if you’re one of these people, I am here to tell you that you’re wrong, and you’re stupid. 

What you might have failed to notice is that we live in a culture where homophobia, sexism, racism, and other bad things are still kind of rampant. We live in a shit culture. Bullying continues to exist; people are continually being denied rights; there is an abundance of prejudice, bigotry, and all those things that you claim not to participate in. And maybe you don’t.

But when you make an offensive joke, it perpetuates that culture. It desensitizes the listener, and the teller as well, to the plight that is suffered by those who are affected by those lists of words I keep using but really don’t feel like typing out again.

Offensive jokes normalize oppression. What you may not realize is that when you’re telling that joke, whether you intend it or not, it makes the assumption that that kind of behaviour is the norm. People will hear that joke, and then when they witness or even commit negative actions like harassment or intolerance, they may not even recognize it as such but just think that it’s “funny”, and that anyone that disagrees is just simply suffering from “butt hurt-ism”. Meanwhile the person who actually feels the full force of the brutality is left with the shit end of the stick while you’re trying to justify why what you do is actually okay.

The other thing is the listener. While you might be a hell of a nice person, those laughing may be laughing for the “it’s funny cuz it’s true!” reasons, and you’re making this person feel as though their intolerant thoughts are acceptable.

An easy way to tell: ask what the person at the brunt of the joke would think, and then ask what the person committing an atrocity against that person would think. For example, how would a rape victim feel about your rape joke? How would a rapist? If you feel as though a rapist might relate to you, then maybe you’ve got a problem with your sense of humour.

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Categories Politics

We’re all boned either way

Aug 2, 2013 //
0

One problem people seem to have with the lack of belief in God is that it renders what we do meaningless. What purpose can our actions possibly have if they’re not part of something bigger than us? Bigger than reality? Part of a cosmic plan?

Sure there’s the whole idea that, “oooh, well it just means that what we have *now* is more important…” hedonistic approach that claims that only the present has value, (which, however valid, I will be ignoring for the purpose of this post), but I’m talking grand scheme of things, millions of years from now grand, when all traces of our actions are gone. The sun has burnt out.  Eternity.

Just work with me here, and let’s think under the concept that if there is no God, what we do is null.

Let’s give our actions some weight, then. Add God. Now we’ve got an omnipotent Judge that gets to decide what our actions are worth. Unfortunately for us, God likes to send those of us He doesn’t like down into the fiery depths of hell. It’s kind of a bummer. For those claiming that an empty universe is unjust, I’d argue that being infinitely punished for sins committed in a finite world far more unjust. Who is to say that if some horse thief from the Wild West lived a thousand more years, he might have cured all the STDs, finally allowing the world as much unprotected sex as it desired. A virtue well worth entry into heaven. But unfortunately our horse thief is mortal, and he died terribly of syphilis well before they started inventing cures for things that didn’t involve leeches. Given an eternity, who is to say what kind of people we would be? But we only have a short time, and punishing us over the course of eternity for *any*thing committed in that short amount of time is unbelievably cruel.

The other option is that everyone gets the happy ending. Everyone gets into heaven, everyone achieves nirvana, everyone gets that sweet slice of eternal bliss, no matter what. That final phrase there is what I’m driving at. The “no matter what” stipulation of a heaven entry suggests that again, what we do is meaningless. If we accept that inevitable oblivion makes what we do invalid, then we have to accept that inevitable salvation leads to the same conclusion. If the ending is always the same, no matter the path chosen, then it doesn’t matter which path we choose.

The only option I can think of where our choices have eternal weight is the concept of reincarnation without the option of nirvana. We would just be stuck in samsara (the life cycle) forever, with no hope of escape. Our actions would dictate our upcoming lives, forever and ever.  No end.

So everyone is either going to have to find some way to accept that our actions are inherently meaningless, or convert to a confused version of Buddhism.

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Categories Religion
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