Friday, June 6, 2014

Five things that need to stop happening before I go all Hulk on the world, and some things we can do about them


It seems like the current culture's jackassery is all out in the open right now--like, it got warm and everyone's worst opinions and behavior all oozed out from underground, meaner and stupider than ever. I don't like to focus on the negative things going on, and I surely don't like devoting even a small sliver of my own space to them, but this week has been wearing on my calm every time I look online (where I do most of my work, you know), and I feel like not saying something is allowing it.

So these are things that I think need to be wiped from the face of the earth:

  1. Justin Bieber saying stupid shit* - And worse, it getting more and more racist and all those people who hang out with him who are being directly insulted not saying anything or doing anything to stop him, that I've seen, or that the media has picked up on. 
    1. WHAT WE CAN DO: Stop allowing him to be a jackass because he's famous. Keep calling him out. Maybe a few of the people directly affected could publicly call him out, or the media could find and focus on the fact that they already have, and spread that around with the same ubiquity as the reports of his delinquency. Send him to school to get some perspective and education in his head.
  2. People not taking hurricanes seriously because they're sometimes named after girls - I mean, really? You change the name from Sue to Stu and all of a sudden you need to leave town more and batten down the hatches better? It's the same storm, assholes.
    1. WHAT WE CAN DO: I'm tempted to say, "name hurricanes androgynous names / after non-gender things", but that's not really addressing the problem, which is a basic discounting of anything that even sounds like a woman**. So, maybe, again, call them out is the best answer. Make it such a public scandal that it has to be dealt with. 
  3. Men's Rights - Because it's not like men have free reign of the whole world or anything. The whole argument feeds itself and starts sounding scary--women don't like me, so that must mean women are bitches; women are bitches, so that must mean they're oppressing me; women are oppressing me, so I hate them; gee, I wonder why women don't like me? Any idea that separates one group of people from another as a whole and blames them for all your troubles is a bad idea. Read some history. Ever heard of segregation? Colonialism? Nazis? Mass murderers with "reasons"?
    1. WHAT WE CAN DO: Don't excuse people for going off the deep end and doing crazy shit like shooting people. Don't let emotionally stunted assholes have the time of day to complain themselves into a righteous frenzy, even if it doesn't get that far. Don't allow the sort of arguments that divide. Raise your sons to understand that women do not belong to them, and a girl turning them down doesn't mean they're being targeted by some vast conspiracy. Raise them to know how to handle emotional issues without snapping and blaming everyone and being total asshats. Encourage maturity and emotional literacy in everyone.
  4. Government hating women - All day every day in more and more ways, what? 
    1. WHAT WE CAN DO: Stop allowing it. Stop voting for it. Read the fine print and refuse to allow the ones that mess up access to healthcare, rights, education, equal pay, whatever. Write letters. Challenge the young politicians and make their ideas on these topics public before they get entrenched. Spread truth whenever there's a new wave of propaganda making it sound like this is all cool when it's not.
  5. Using the "not all ___ are like that!" argument - because it's not a good argument. It's a stall-tactic. Instead of admitting that there ARE a sizable / vocal / violent / alarming / dangerous / ignorant / whatever portion of whatever group you're talking about who cause a lot of trouble for whatever other group you're talking about, you're putting yourself in the center of the argument and then universalizing your own point of view. You're denying that these problematic people matter in a way opposite to how they think they matter, and you're denying that the problems caused by them matter. It's poor rhetoric, it's illogical, and it's really just proving that you're incapable of looking at things from any other point of view outside your own.
    1. WHAT WE CAN DO: Learn to argue better. Get your facts straight. Learn to think of something other than yourself. Learn to understand that other people's experience is valid. Toughen up, emotionally, so you can weather the storm of people in your general class, race, gender, occupation, nationality, etc being called out, and if you really aren't like that, learn to stop your peers who are from making the mess to begin with. Value something outside yourself.
I'm sure this will cause trouble. I'm basically expecting terrible comments. But I'm not going to get into arguments there's no way to win; I have made my point, and I just needed to say my piece because the world is being really discouraging right now and I'm not going to just sit here and take it anymore. This is me calling it out. 

Now I'm getting back to trying to make my life better and to improve the world for everyone. I'm done with this negativity.




NOTES:
*These are totally biased google searches, for the most part, to make my point without having to link directly to sites that I personally have a problem with, therefore denying those sites hits and traffic from myself and my site. Click if you want; I'm not giving them the time of day anymore.
**Maybe that's a huge part of why climate change keeps getting ignored--outside of all the money tied up in causing it, it's all about Mother Nature, and if people (especially those in charge) are being subliminally sexist, that explains a lot.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...