In a bad mood? come here and rant till you feel better

[Brass Bell Doll]

I feel people in any group, be it Power Exchange and BDSM, a racial or religious affiliation- you name it, can be degraded by the stereotypes that are associated with their affiliation and that is what leads others to degrade them regardless of personal merits.  

[ShadowCatSoul]

Brass Bell Doll

I feel people in any group, be it Power Exchange and BDSM, a racial or religious affiliation- you name it, can be degraded by the stereotypes that are associated with their affiliation and that is what leads others to degrade them regardless of personal merits.

Yeah, I know, and it's damn awful. Why do people have to be so ignorant and closed minded? It doesn't make sense to me?  

[Brass Bell Doll]

ShadowCatSoul

Yeah, I know, and it's damn awful. Why do people have to be so ignorant and closed minded? It doesn't make sense to me?

I think at first it started as a survival mechanism. It helps to know what is friendly to you and what is going to kill you. These initial snap judgments were hardwired into our brain. As we evolved, we needed them less and less because our brains developed capacity beyond instinct- but instinct didn't go away. It's now applied in ways it wasn't intended to be.

People become ignorant and closed minded through socialization and personal experiences. I feel an example of this is the aversion to therapy we discussed earlier. If someone said a nice person was going to teach my partner and I how to have a healthy happy relationship by talking with us and then giving us advice, my Love would be very happy to go. If we use the T-word, because of the stigma associated with it and their previous experiences, there is a mental shutdown.

The same goes for words other than therapy- gay, Christian, Bi, Poly, Pagan, Muslim, Black, Japanese- all of these likely have emotional associations which predispose us to certain things.

Beyond predisposition we have choice. That's the hard part. To choose to not be ruled by that emotional instinct. It's a choice that some never make. It's a choice many of us do make and have to continually fight to keep ourselves emotionally and rationally informed about our decisions.  

[Arden Deschain]

Happy: I have a roof over my head, food, clean water, and clothing. basically the bottom of maslow's hierarchy of needs=check.


Crappy: Losing the battle and thus the war


Indifferent: this candle looks/smells like a blueberry muffin and I want to eat it.  

[ShadowCatSoul]

Brass Bell Doll

ShadowCatSoul

Yeah, I know, and it's damn awful. Why do people have to be so ignorant and closed minded? It doesn't make sense to me?

I think at first it started as a survival mechanism. It helps to know what is friendly to you and what is going to kill you. These initial snap judgments were hardwired into our brain. As we evolved, we needed them less and less because our brains developed capacity beyond instinct- but instinct didn't go away. It's now applied in ways it wasn't intended to be.

People become ignorant and closed minded through socialization and personal experiences. I feel an example of this is the aversion to therapy we discussed earlier. If someone said a nice person was going to teach my partner and I how to have a healthy happy relationship by talking with us and then giving us advice, my Love would be very happy to go. If we use the T-word, because of the stigma associated with it and their previous experiences, there is a mental shutdown.

The same goes for words other than therapy- gay, Christian, Bi, Poly, Pagan, Muslim, Black, Japanese- all of these likely have emotional associations which predispose us to certain things.

Beyond predisposition we have choice. That's the hard part. To choose to not be ruled by that emotional instinct. It's a choice that some never make. It's a choice many of us do make and have to continually fight to keep ourselves emotionally and rationally informed about our decisions.

My mate and I have both had our own, repeated, bad experiences in the past in regards to therapy. We have a bit of a right to have that attitude towards it and just want advice on how to work things out on our own. There are people who automatically hear or see something they know absolutely nothing about or have no experience with whatsoever and they jump down that person's throat or claim they're bad/weird/wrong/etc for that thing. For example, there's a person who's into AB getting attacked in the lifestyles forum because of what she likes and it pisses me off because half the people in that thread don't know anything about it. They say things like it's disgusting, it's *****, she should never be able to have or adopt kids, and all sorts of awful things like that. I'm one of the only ones who even knows what she's talking about because I've actually done research.  

[Brass Bell Doll]

ShadowCatSoul

My mate and I have both had our own, repeated, bad experiences in the past in regards to therapy. We have a bit of a right to have that attitude towards it and just want advice on how to work things out on our own.

You always have the right to your feelings. Having said that, sometimes feelings when left unchecked present problems.

Unfortunately, if you had the tools to resolve these issues on your own, you would not be in a position to be asking people online for this kind of help, because you would have already resolved it.

ShadowCatSoul

There are people who automatically hear or see something they know absolutely nothing about or have no experience with whatsoever and they jump down that person's throat or claim they're bad/weird/wrong/etc for that thing.

I feel that the level of exposure does not make for justification on any end of the spectrum. Instead I feel that reasoned positions with good support are better. It helps to remove personal bias that allows people to fuel emotional reactions. While emotions are important, allowing them to be the only source for informing an opinion is at best difficult as it makes someone unable to understand the other people they are speaking with- at worse it can be dangerous when taken to extremes.  

[Bastemhet]

I'm having the racism 101 talk with a white friend yet again. I've come to dread these conversations because in prior instances I'm always met with denial, derailing, or even flat out social Darwinism and moral bankruptcy. I hope I don't lose another friend over this.  

[Brass Bell Doll]

Bastemhet

I'm having the racism 101 talk with a white friend yet again. I've come to dread these conversations because in prior instances I'm always met with denial, derailing, or even flat out social Darwinism and moral bankruptcy. I hope I don't lose another friend over this.

I wish you good luck.

I'm going through some stuff right now where I am cutting loose a lot of relationships that are no longer mutually beneficial.  

[Collowrath]

Bastemhet

I'm having the racism 101 talk with a white friend yet again. I've come to dread these conversations because in prior instances I'm always met with denial, derailing, or even flat out social Darwinism and moral bankruptcy. I hope I don't lose another friend over this.

Good luck. You saw me have a similar discussion on Facebook a few weeks ago, and that relationship has since been ended. I hope your conversation doesn't go the same direction and you guys can work it out.  

[maenad nuri]

Sometimes, I feel like if I ended all my relationships with people that don't get privilege 101, all I'd have is you folks ...including my own husband.

I'll drop some relationships, but I try to be the example the rest of the time.  

[Brass Bell Doll]

maenad nuri

Sometimes, I feel like if I ended all my relationships with people that don't get privilege 101, all I'd have is you folks ...including my own husband.

I'll drop some relationships, but I try to be the example the rest of the time.

Why do you feel that so many here have an understanding of privilege, while so many elsewhere do not?  

[Collowrath]

maenad nuri

Sometimes, I feel like if I ended all my relationships with people that don't get privilege 101, all I'd have is you folks ...including my own husband.

smile I've only ended a couple of relationships over it - both of the other people involved had on numerous occasions made it very clear that they thought less of me because of my ethnicity and the ethnicities of some of my friends, and I simply wasn't willing to endure further insults.

Brass Bell Doll

Why do you feel that so many here have an understanding of privilege, while so many elsewhere do not?

This guild has discussed privilege on numerous occasions, a few times on purpose and a few times having stumbled into it for a variety of reasons.  

[maenad nuri]

Brass Bell Doll

maenad nuri

Sometimes, I feel like if I ended all my relationships with people that don't get privilege 101, all I'd have is you folks ...including my own husband.

I'll drop some relationships, but I try to be the example the rest of the time.

Why do you feel that so many here have an understanding of privilege, while so many elsewhere do not?

Probably partially confirmation bias, but mostly because I've endeavored for this to be a place that privilege is examined as part of being a well-educated pagan.  

[Bastemhet]

Doll: Thanks. I've been through that too, and it's especially painful for me because I don't have a lot of friends in the first place.

Collowrath: Yeah...I messaged her and told her I value our friendship a lot and could agree to disagree, but she sounds like she's willing to maintain peaceful dialogue, which really takes a lot of stress off of me. I'm glad I found such an awesome person. whee

Also, wtf about people thinking less of you for your ethnicity! I love your posts about ethnic foods and musics (though I can 't claim to understand all of them, hee)! Everything you make sounds so yummy. I liked the egg you decorated too! razz I have no idea what it stands for though, so what does it stand for? sweatdrop

nuri:Ouch. I'm very thankful that my man is such a hippie in these regards. He is very patient with me when I get all riled up about such things. But yeah, I usually try to avoid the conversation until I hear people start complaining about reverse racism, in which I have to say it's not possible for minorities to exercise institutional/systemic privileges or withhold them if they don't have access to them in the first place.

As for the thing about people here being more understanding of privilege 101...I wonder why a meeting of the minds here has happened and works. I don't think it has anything to do with paganism because in my opinion (and my caveat is I don't have a lot of exposure to the pagan scene so it probably varies by area) it feels like a lot of pagan stuff is white oriented, or that there is not a lot of representation of people of color. A recent convention I went to was simply filled with white people, and I saw maybe 5 people of color over the three days I was there. It was really unsettling. And this was in a pretty racially diverse city in CA. I wonder why that is...?  

[maenad nuri]

Oh, husband is all about reverse racism (I think he gets the institutional idea, but he's more about the day to day) and also the "fake rape charges and certain idiotic statutory rapes charges hurt men!". Thankfully, his actions are far better than his words. I love the man, but he is very good at derailing. He's a long haul. Same goes for one of my best friends, who has become more than a bit jaded and classist since working in ER's.

I have, however, introduced them to the concept of kyriarchy, which they like a lot. They get intersecting privileges and power dynamics, rather than singling out one single "-ism".