Allow my to introduce myself. My name is Kelly. It is true
that in the year of my birth, there were many births of people named Kelly. But I didn't really have anything in common
with those Kellys because I was this Kelly, the only one I know of who was born at
11:50 a.m. on August 7, 1962, at St. Mary's hospital in Livonia, Michigan.
I have a certain amount of melanin
in my skin. To be frank, I wouldn't be surprised if I had the least
possible melanin in my skin. I suck at being a purveyor of melanin.
Nonetheless, I can't imagine what in common I might have with someone
just as melanin-free. I don't think of myself as a "Sunburner's
Rights" advocate or think it would be anything but boring to hang around
other people with genes originating from a certain place on the earth, tallking
about how much better we are to be named Kelly and have no melanin and get
sunburns. And except this, the year in which we all feel like we're
living in a farce, I've never had people with my degree of melanin on my
Twitter Feed speaking out for Hitler. I definitely have nothing in common
with them, and wouldn't even if they were all named Kelly. If they are, they weren't
born on 11:50 am on August 7 in Livonia. So they have no truck with my tribe.
Forget about it.
I am proud of my tribe.
It contains 1 person. She can speak several languages--poorly, has written
hokey country songs, has an interesting job, and talked to Michael Palin on the
phone once. The tribe used to think it was a Marxist and handed out
Communist Literature somewhere at Michigan State University. (This lasted until it got its first post graduate paycheck.) ALL
members of my tribe have a bachelor of arts in German, a batchelor of science
in Psychology and an MSW. The whole gang prefers nighttime to daytime, chocolate to vanilla, and romance with people of the opposite sex instead of with someone of the same sex.
But it's not my IDENTITY. None of those aspects, taken from the others, is my identity.
I'm writing this post because it's one of the things that blows my mind when I am exposed to some of this white nationalist garbage. I also think of it when the Vanguard of the Social Justice Network whines and complains that those who happen to share the same color of me are exactly like me: we think the same, feel the same, and of course, all deeply in our hearts all hate anyone who doesn't look like us.
I get it, that going through a difficult history together--for example having everyone with black skin in a certain country be persecuted by everyone else, who shoved them together as one group (I doubt before that people from Ghana thought they were just like people from Ethiopia or the lands around the Congo), can make it good and even necessary that they get together. Alone, just one of them wouldn't be able to fight the lingering ignorance others have about what that experience was. But I haven't (knock plastic) been through that kind of horror. And no matter how tough my Scots Irish ancestors had it, other Americans never had governmental permission to kidnap them, abuse them, and pretend that they weren't people.
But I don't think it's an advantage, anyway, to cling to a group identity as "persecuted" or mistreated. Feminists older than 30 know this. Feminism's design isn't to sit around and complain about how victimized you are. Yes, you have to recognize where women are treated unfairly, but then you CHANGE IT. You become an engineer. You encourage your daughter to take higher level math classes even if "only the boys take those classes". You resist someone telling you you're too weak to do something, you don't let ANYONE, male, female, conservative, or liberal, say they will fight the fight on your behalf. That just gets us back to square one, where we're the idol on the pedestal who's revered but not allowed to do anything.
When people started fighting for gay rights, I thought they had the right idea. Parades in San Francisco with people flaunting their sexuality, drag queens, etc, and the annual "Tea Party" we had at my school decades before the name went to a political organization not usually affiliated with gay rights (but which did have a lot of gays in it, contrary to popular opinion). It was humorous, it was alarming, and it didn't leave any doubt that the people demanding equal rights were tough and smart and not at all victim-y.
What REALLY burns me about the identity politics is when its "leaders" start demanding that people like them are treated with kid gloves. A rape victim studying law shouldn't have to be there the day they talk about rape. If a trigger warning isn't given in a class where Shakespeare is being discussed, the professor might find him or herself charged with hate speech toward Italians, Danes, Jews, people from Morocco, a woman named Kate, or maybe even one named Beth (she didn't hear the "Mac"); or for "triggering" peope who'd been the victims of, or seen, or ever thought about, a sword fight, suicide by stabbing, poisoning, having to wear a Renaissance get-up, studying Wicca, or being royalty. You can use these weird, over-academic arguments for anything. (Right now my 2 cockatiels are fighting each other for the best place on their favorite perch. I really don't like it when I fight. But should I object when a biology professor talks about heirarchy in groups of animals, particularly height of perch in birds?) It's like colleges don't want to graduate adults anymore; we want to graduate people who are scared of their shadow.
Regardless, eugenics and pre-eugenics categorizations of people, not to mention social ones, are dangerous for many reasons. Individual identity, to the contrary, has many advantages--each of us can claim our triumphs and take responsibilities for our mistakes. It's the only decent way to live. You may need to get with others who share one of your characteristics in order to protest a law or educate the public who need to be less ignorant about transgenderism, Christianity, a threat to stop the annual zoo trip for the grade schoolers, brain injuries, cancer, etc. But go home and put your sign down afterward. Remember the other extraordinary characteristics you DON'T share with anybody else. And above all, don't spend a lot of time thinking of yourself as a victim. You may very well be one. After all, it's an awful world and there are awful people in it who want to hurt other people. But letting their hate define you will keep you from living, and will hurt you more than any persecution you have faced.
But I don't think it's an advantage, anyway, to cling to a group identity as "persecuted" or mistreated. Feminists older than 30 know this. Feminism's design isn't to sit around and complain about how victimized you are. Yes, you have to recognize where women are treated unfairly, but then you CHANGE IT. You become an engineer. You encourage your daughter to take higher level math classes even if "only the boys take those classes". You resist someone telling you you're too weak to do something, you don't let ANYONE, male, female, conservative, or liberal, say they will fight the fight on your behalf. That just gets us back to square one, where we're the idol on the pedestal who's revered but not allowed to do anything.
When people started fighting for gay rights, I thought they had the right idea. Parades in San Francisco with people flaunting their sexuality, drag queens, etc, and the annual "Tea Party" we had at my school decades before the name went to a political organization not usually affiliated with gay rights (but which did have a lot of gays in it, contrary to popular opinion). It was humorous, it was alarming, and it didn't leave any doubt that the people demanding equal rights were tough and smart and not at all victim-y.
What REALLY burns me about the identity politics is when its "leaders" start demanding that people like them are treated with kid gloves. A rape victim studying law shouldn't have to be there the day they talk about rape. If a trigger warning isn't given in a class where Shakespeare is being discussed, the professor might find him or herself charged with hate speech toward Italians, Danes, Jews, people from Morocco, a woman named Kate, or maybe even one named Beth (she didn't hear the "Mac"); or for "triggering" peope who'd been the victims of, or seen, or ever thought about, a sword fight, suicide by stabbing, poisoning, having to wear a Renaissance get-up, studying Wicca, or being royalty. You can use these weird, over-academic arguments for anything. (Right now my 2 cockatiels are fighting each other for the best place on their favorite perch. I really don't like it when I fight. But should I object when a biology professor talks about heirarchy in groups of animals, particularly height of perch in birds?) It's like colleges don't want to graduate adults anymore; we want to graduate people who are scared of their shadow.
Regardless, eugenics and pre-eugenics categorizations of people, not to mention social ones, are dangerous for many reasons. Individual identity, to the contrary, has many advantages--each of us can claim our triumphs and take responsibilities for our mistakes. It's the only decent way to live. You may need to get with others who share one of your characteristics in order to protest a law or educate the public who need to be less ignorant about transgenderism, Christianity, a threat to stop the annual zoo trip for the grade schoolers, brain injuries, cancer, etc. But go home and put your sign down afterward. Remember the other extraordinary characteristics you DON'T share with anybody else. And above all, don't spend a lot of time thinking of yourself as a victim. You may very well be one. After all, it's an awful world and there are awful people in it who want to hurt other people. But letting their hate define you will keep you from living, and will hurt you more than any persecution you have faced.
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