A tiny (I hope) note about how much work it is to be a member of a minority group. Especially if it’s a group that it is popular to bash somehow. Or whatever. If I have to explain what that means, then this whole note is going to be lost on you.
We have to do a lot of fucking work. Because yes, while I want to be empathetic and sympathetic to the feelings of the person who has just decided to slug their douche baggery at me, I’m also not a fucking genius. This means that I don’t have a properly prepared Canadian-polite statement for you that simultaneously tells you to check yourself but does in a way where you don’t feel stung by the fact that you FUCKED UP.
And everyone who expects us to be polite EVERY FUCKING TIME: GET A FUCKING GRIP. Let me see you react perfectly every time someone unexpectedly decides to trash the place where you grew up or the community you come from. Let me see you get bombarded on a regular basis with feedback from society, from the media, from your professors, from your colleagues, from your friends that something is wrong with some part of your identity, and then you can get back to me about how dealing with these things is not a big deal. And how we should all just stay calm and you know, say the right thing.
Maybe I’m not the one who should worry about saying the right thing in these situations. It’s the people around me that I have to react to. I’m tired of the table being turned, like these situations are our responsibility. It’s not my responsibility to help the racist feel better about being racist or to help my friends feel better about the classism and racism that they allow to go unchallenged.
On a vaguely related note: fuck nationalism. Nationalism causes wars.
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