Boundaries

[Elizabeth Bear]

As a Californian, I've gotta say the whole debate seems like a ridiculous thing to get all upset about. All you easterners take yourselves too seriously.

California: now officially less weird than Florida, and "medical" marijuana is still legal.

I don't think you get to judge my self-identification.

[MadGastronomer]

99% of which happened before the people arguing about it were born. Now it's just tribalism, and I say this as a person who has had heated arguments about whether or not "hella" is a word, and whether or not it is proper to use the definite article when referencing a freeway.

Jokes about inbreeding, banjos, lynching, and the stupidity of Southerners are, I assure you, still a regular occurrence, in person to my face and in the popular media, and still something that hurts me personally. You don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Hmmm, yeah, sorry. We need a better word for people of normal intelligence acting like idiots, as distinguished from people who have a disability and from whom we should not expect adult mentation.

Point of fact: "Idiot" has also been used for the same medical conditions, and there are still living people who had the diagnosis of "idiot" during their lifetimes. It's also a poor choice of words.

[tylik]

I don't think you get to judge my self-identification.

Not in the least because getting involved with that kind of identity politics is pretty much always a bad idea.

Seriously, after various bouts in the queer in pagan communities? If someone tells me they identify as a tube of toothpaste I might politely ask them about what that means to them, but I would never think to try to tell them otherwise.

[miminnehaha]

It can be quite difficult for those of us who lack a distinct cultural affinity to appreciate the pain experienced by those who do and who identify with the slights and stereotypes associated with those cultures.  In the interest of everyone "just getting along," I'd like to illustrate the point: having never felt nor witnessed a single act of racial prejudice (it would have been very "un-cool" in my high school to show anything of the sort), I expressed the belief in college that a future without racism in the traditional sense is possible.  People who had lived with racial prejudice every damn day of their lives found me extremely naive and unsympathetic, which I hope I'm not.  But I would never, never say that anyone was being too sensitive.*  We just have to remember how we all perceive the world through unique filters and learn from one another.  Isn't that why we are all fiction-philes?


Edited for clarity

  _{*Except, possibly, my 11-yr-old, but that's a different issue.}

[DavidG]

I haven't heard 'retarded/retard' used like that since maybe junior high.

I've had to pull two people up over the R-word in the past week, both of whom should have known better. Sadly it seems to be gaining traction here in the UK, even though we don't use it in the non-pejorative disability sense. The BBC did a survery on disablist abuse a couple of years ago and it was rated the single most offensive term, which is going some as we have some home-grown ones with considerable history behind them. Unfortunately I think it's due to US import TV and film. Even Buffy had negative jokes about 'taking the short bus', though I think Whedon stayed clear of using the R-word directly.

[DavidG]

having never felt nor witnessed a single act of racial prejudice (it would have been very "un-cool" in my high school to show anything of the sort), I expressed the belief in college that a future without racism in the traditional sense is possible.  People who had lived with racial prejudice every damn day of their lives found me extremely naive and unsympathetic, which I hope I'm not.

It can be very difficult to realise the sheer depth, and breadth, of prejudice out there. Going from straight, middle-class, white male to disabled, straight, middle-class, white male was a very sobering experience as I realised not just how much prejudice disabled people faced, but that I'd been unknowingly guilty of it myself, even if in thought rather than deed, with no excuse other than my own ignorance. What I experienced personally brought home to me the discrimination faced by both other disabled people and every member of every other minority group out there in a way that nothing else ever had.

Apropos of which, my 15 seconds of fame in this weekend's Observer as one of the chosen examples in a disability charity's campaign to show how government spin is making the situation much worse for disabled people in the UK. That only mentions the latest incident of harassment, but I'm into double figures, including one physical assault for daring to be seen walking while disabled. And that's just the overt incidents, who knows how many hundreds of times I've been dismissed or pitied or patronised for being disabled over the years

[Emma Bull]

Some of what's been discussed here has been enlightening and useful. Some of it has been, well, unwisely phrased.

When people respond to a thread here on the SU board in a way that suggests they're offended, pressing forward and continuing to pursue the topic in the same style isn't a good idea. You may believe that people need to get over the way they feel...but expecting them to do it because you believe they should is not sensible.

Feelings are being hurt here to no purpose. Nobody is going to win this, and no one needs to. I'd like to see you guys walk away from this topic, cold turkey. Please? I'd hate to have to freeze the thread.

[eschatonic]

Some of what's been discussed here has been enlightening and useful. Some of it has been, well, unwisely phrased.

When people respond to a thread here on the SU board in a way that suggests they're offended, pressing forward and continuing to pursue the topic in the same style isn't a good idea. You may believe that people need to get over the way they feel...but expecting them to do it because you believe they should is not sensible.

Feelings are being hurt here to no purpose. Nobody is going to win this, and no one needs to. I'd like to see you guys walk away from this topic, cold turkey. Please? I'd hate to have to freeze the thread.

Yeah, I'm sorry. What I said was unhelpful.

Probably because it was based entirely on my own experience of being ridiculed and ostracized through all of elementary school and junior high and most of high school, not because of where I'm from but just due to my personal weirdness. I stopped getting offended about nearly everything anybody said to me, so it doesn't always occur to me that others don't use my coping strategy, which is primarily to assume that people insulting me are inferior beings. Which is probably also not helpful, but it keeps me calm and out of trouble.

So anyway, sorry MG. I hope you get sneered at less in Washington.

[MadGastronomer]

S'ok, eschatonic. Want some pie?

[DavidG]

Everything's better with pie.

[Korvar]

Everything's better with pie.

Even pie is better with pie.

[MadGastronomer]

*breaks out the key lime*

[tylik]

Everything's better with pie.

Even pie is better with pie.

This has been tested and found correct. (Back when I hosted giant Thanksgivings, pie was a favored thing to bring - one year we had seventeen pies.)

[eschatonic]

S'ok, eschatonic. Want some pie?

Oh god yes I want pie. There is no pie in Beijing. The expat boards here are full of plaintive queries about "where can I get pie? any kind of pie?" *sigh*

[jimsmyth]

How does one mail a pies?  What pies are best for mailing?

Perhaps we could mail the ingredients, for later assembly?  I doubt we could otherwise get it there warm-from-the-oven.

I can promise a pie plate, and a recipe for Sour Cream Apple Pie, with annotations form the lab.