Exactly. I'd give a lot to have more Gear-driven Empresses and fewer repetitions for the wilfully ignorant.

It seems from the final comments (in the subthread titled "enough") that clue was had.

So this may be one of the very few that ends well & I shall keep hoping. But the comment is general enough to stand, cause it's the built-up frustration of multiple threads that went in almost identical ways. (1) Have you considered... (2) you just have filters. (3) I am hurt that you took my words wrong.

But hey! This time we didn't get to (4) Well you're the bigot! and (5) pseudolegal threats :)

I certainly could not manage it without support, both from other POC and from allies. I just hid from it all of yesterday & other people did the heavy lifting.

It does seem from the final comments that clue was had (search on "enough", which is what I titled the comment that starts the relevant subthread).

But that's only in this case. This is neither the first such case, by a long shot, nor will it be the last. It may be one of the very few that ends well. I shall keep hoping.

Very few have ended with anything other than a flounce and an "I liked you better before". I keep wondering if there's some way I can say it better, but that's just the way it goes, I guess.

And I very much appreciate your willingness to hear it.

*goes back to read that comment thread*

What is wrong with people? Criminy.

This one's one of the best possible outcomes, really, where said person does start to reconsider. But wow, it wrings one out!

I can only imagine. Even in the best of circumstances, you end up being someone else's Very Important Lesson, and I don't expect that that is any good experience at all.

I'm sorry I missed that post when it came out, but I'm glad to see there wasn't anything of substance I could have added that wasn't already (better) said.

Thank you for the support :)

Even in the best of circumstances, you end up being someone else's Very Important Lesson, and I don't expect that that is any good experience at all.

Yeah; and given my health & energy (er... lack thereof) it ate most of the last two days :/ and that's with all this support. I'm incredbly lucky to be coming to my own understanding of all this at a time when intersectional feminism/social justice is both pretty clear to activists and becoming more generally understood; it must have been so much harder for everyone who's had more of a clue than me for longer.

Might it help to put this (or similar) as a sticky post? If it saves you even one wasted spoon...

I suspect that people who don't bother to read Shweta's other entries wouldn't bother to read the sticky either... *sigh*

*bows to your impeccable Earth logic*

Though, if I had a sticky I could point at it.
Though, I would have to make one.
*defers till later just like everything else*

I was thinking more like make *this* one a sticky, as is.

Oh er that's possible?

I think you'd have to c&p into a new entry so the postdating would work, but yeah. Recycling is our friend!

I imagine both in time spent in endless 101 lesson teaching and in terms of the struggles behind...

Be well.

Very well put.

It's sad that this has to be said over and over and over.

Thank you.

It's the first time I've managed to actually gt it into words instead of ARGH NO BAD FLAIL :)

Well, congratulations are in order, then! ^_^

The utterly ignorant opinions of the privileged are not in fact worth more than the not utterly ignorant opinions of people in oppressed groups.

I feel like I'm either having, or prompted to have, this conversation every day, often with well-meaning folks who just don't realize what they are doing and how much of a hurtful and destructive impact it has or can have (were people of that group to hear it). (I should keep a checklist... I think it does come up close to every day.)

One aspect of privilege is to hear others doing it and sit back because one would rather "not make waves".

User fantasyecho referenced to your post from Sunday Linkfest! saying: [...] Reminder from Shweta Narayan [...]

Your brown head is and always shall be the loveliest of all brown heads.

Hey you! *hugs*

Hate to start re-acquaintance this way but... I know you mean this well, and am not upset with you; however, this comment is really faily and you need to know that. If I didn't know you to start off with, I *would* be very upset at this. Here's why:

My "brown head" comment was a reference to ongoing racism/exoticization; referring to me using it isn't cool. The people who do think of me as primarily a Brown Body really exist, and really are Othering and dehumanizing me every day, so referring to me this way reinforces that -- regardless of your intent -- and it frames me as something other than just-human. This is not pleasant.

Saying it's lovely actually adds to the problem, because it's adding the gendered issues of talking about someone's "pretty head". My beauty or lack thereof is really irrelevant to the topic, but that's not the problem; the problem is that men consistently bring up women's looks to dismiss their thoughts. If women are pretty we don't need to understand things or make sense. If women are ugly we are just jealous bitter hags. There's no win talking about looks, and there's basically no good way to bring in looks into this sort of conversation.

In general, if you wouldn't say the analogue to someone in a relevant privilege group, it's probably not a good thing to say to someone in a relevant oppressed or minority group. Because it's being said against a background of constant microaggressions you're probably not aware of.