saliantsunbreeze:

ameliebedrawing:

have you ever stopped to think WHY people hate the movement so much? heyyy maybe its because youre being an asshole white cis straight men literally have the most power in the whole world. this is not okay, but to change it, youll have to convince them. no important dude is gonna listen to a bunch of raging teenagers who spout out bullshit like “kill all white people” or “kill all men”. its like youre trying to become the teachers pet by not doing your homework ITS NOT GONNA WORK so yes please stop being raging 2-year-olds and start being intelligent angry adults

This is long. If you don’t want to read a rant, then scroll past. I try to be generally agreeable, so I doubt you’ll be offended, but if you just don’t want to read it, carry on.

Generally I never really post about anything like this and I wholly apologize for even bringing this up, but this was too good to pass up and I wanted to re-iterate.

There is nothing wrong with being a feminist. There are a lot of problems facing women in the world today that need to be addressed.

Hell, if you want to go full on tumblr for a minute, there are lots of problems facing persons of color, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, people of non-straight orientations, and people of non-cisgendered alignments. These problems are different in many cases, but they all need to be addressed.

However, in order to properly address them, there are a few things that some of you people are going to have to learn.

Namely…

Learn some courtesy.

Learn some tact.

And most of all, learn not to be an asshole.

Remember, if you’re going to get a point across to someone, insulting them is the very LAST thing you’re going to want to do. A lot of the people on tumblr aren’t your 50-something senators who are stuck in their ways and aren’t going to listen to a damn word you say. They’re young people, malleable and willing to listen if you’re willing to be level-headed about things.

One, you shouldn’t hate anyone based upon their phenotype. (That’s their physical appearance, or a less correct term would be “race”.) Nor should you hate anyone based on where they come from.

It isn’t cute to piss on white people or Americans any more than it’s cute to piss on black people, or middle-easterners, or Chinese people, or Eskimos, or anyone physically and ethnically unique.

I can’t tell you how many otherwise decent arguments I’ve seen have been sullied or rendered useless by someone throwing in the “stupid American” or “fucking white people” card. As a white American-born person, guess what? You have just completely nullified your entire argument to me because obviously you don’t give a shit about me in your world view. If you don’t care about me, or you’re anti-me, then why should I care about what you think?

I like to learn about other cultures. About other ethnicity and clothing and celebrations and holidays and the like. I enjoy it. I try to respect people regardless of what color they may be, because people are people. If you can’t do that? Then why the hell would anyone respect you?

Next… Man, woman, person. Wherever you feel the need to put yourself in there, we are ALL people. At the root, at the base. Treat everyone with courtesy and respect, as human beings.

If you treat men like unintelligent, self-controless animals…

If you treat women like pieces of meat to be oogled, or not ones to be taken serious…

If you treat trans-persons like they don’t belong in your world view and they they can’t be who they want to be…

Then you have a fucking problem. You are the one who lacks respect. And if you can’t give it, then you aren’t going to get it. Respect women, respect men, and respect people, regardless of their shape.



As far as orientation goes… you are what you are. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out, sometimes you go through a bunch of different places before you find where you fit in, and sometimes you can move around to where you feel comfortable at the moment. But the bottom line is that it’s not something you can control. So why would you berate straight people over their sexuality? Why would you berate homosexuals? Or bisexuals, or asexuals and pansexuals? I’m sure there are bunch of other orientations I don’t even know of. I’m not that well educated on the matter, and believe me, I try. But a lot of people don’t try, and what’s worse is that a lot of people don’t like to educate. They like to berate you for not magically knowing about every detail.

And don’t tell me it’s “not your job to educate people” because if you don’t then who will? Answer me that.

If someone doesn’t want to listen, it’s their stupidity and their fault. But if someone is ignorant, then they just don’t know and you can’t fault them for that.

And what about cis- vs. trans-. I mean… where does that get you exactly?

Cis-person, how exactly do trans-people hurt anyone? Is your discomfort with them really that important? Are they disgusting just because they ended up in the wrong body? Hey, they’re people, just like you.

And what about cis-people, trans-person? They don’t have that struggle that you do, does that make them any less human? Is someone who’s comfortable with themselves disgusting? Are you jealous that they have that going for them? Is that wrong? They’re people, just like you.

I see people talk about “cis-feelings” being held over “trans-lives” as if you could somehow compare the two in our culture. If you’re a cis-person, you should care about trans-people because they’re people. And if you’re a trans-person you should care about cis-people’s feelings because they’re people.

All of this is a social contract and unless everyone at least cares a little about others’ feelings and lives, then you’re not really going to get anywhere. You’re just going to be miserable and alone, or you’re going to be a menace and either die or go to jail. That’s what happens when you don’t truly give a fuck about others. Not this “oh, I don’t give a fuck” stuff. No, I mean, when you really don’t care about others.

If you can really hate someone for something they can’t control. Their color, where they were born, what gender they are, what sex they are, what their orientation is… Then you’re a fucking asshole.

It doesn’t matter if they’re black, white, brown, male, female, neither, both, transitioning, gay, straight, bi, queer, asex, whatever!

And it doesn’t matter what THEY are, either! Are you really going to justify that you hate someone because you’re black and they’re white? Because you’re gay and they’re straight? Because you’re American and they’re Iranian? Because they have to work to feel natural in their bodies, and you didn’t?

What the hell? Don’t you people know how to get along? Don’t you know how to act?

I guarantee you wouldn’t say this shit to each other in person. Because you can’t. Because, you have social contracts.

But if that’s what you really want to say, then is that a good thing? I mean… If that’s what you say when no one’s watching, then obviously something’s wrong.

So we need to care about each other’s feelings. And we need to get the people… the majority, whatever they are wherever they you are, to raise the standard of their social contracts. And you do that by talking like a civilized human being to people your age.

Talk to them about racism, but don’t make them feel bad about their race. Don’t tell them what you hate about yours. Tell them what you love about yours. Tell them what you love about them. Exchange jokes. Talk about holidays, and clothing, and what you do where you come from when everyone’s bored and nothing’s on the television. Tell them about what you did when you didn’t even have a television.

Talk to them about sexuality and sexism. Tell them what it’s like to be a woman. What it’s like to be a man. Don’t tell them what it’s supposed to be like. Tell them what it’s really like. Tell them about the pressures you have to go to work, get married young, be expendable, to please everyone, and go go go. Listen to them about how hard it is to look good, how you have to get married or it’s the end of the world, how people don’t take you seriously and you have to work twice as hard as the next guy to get noticed. Tell them how scared you are to walk home at night because you’re afraid of the guys on the corner that hang out there every night and watch you pass. Listen about how they’re pressured because they’re small and they’ve never been big or muscular and they’re expected to do something about their drunken neighbor every goddamn Friday night. Talk to them about make-up, and high heels, and cologne, and football. And how you wanted to catch bugs when you were a kid, or how you liked playing with dolls, or how everything was blue and pink and all they wanted to do was wear yellow.

Tell them about not being able to date that girl that you wanted to date because it was an all-girl school. Listen to them about watching the other boys change in the locker room. About people talking after you broke up with your girlfriend and got a boyfriend. About not caring one way or another, and having to tell your family that you’re fine, you’re just not interested.

Talk to them about body comfort. Talk to them about the way you look and the way you feel, and how they don’t jive. Talk to them about how they do jive! Tell them how you’re proud of yourself! Tell them how you’re so proud of how you look now compared to how you looked before. Listen to them about how they want to look. About the kind of clothes they wear. The fashions they like. About how hard it is to find plus-sized clothing. About how being skinny makes them look sick, but they can’t help it. Talk to them about wanting to have nice hips, and breasts, having to shave every other day and how annoying it is.

Talk about their wheel-chair. Talk about your bad-teeth, and how you’re tired all the time. Talk about your having a respirator and not being able to make it up a flight of stairs without it. Talk about how it’s hard for them to concentrate, and how they see things out of the corner of their eyes, but the doctor says it’s not really a monster… just a chemical imbalance. Talk about health, mental and physical. Talk about being disabled, and about not. Talk about helping your crippled father. Talk about their son with special needs.

Talk.

Stop yelling.

Listen to each other.

Please.

You people are the lawmakers and voters and business owners and educators of tomorrow! Those of you who haven’t already gotten on your way will someday and you need to learn to listen to each other. Because those people in the seats don’t give a goddamn anymore. But you do, and if you’re in those seats some day, we need you to give a damn.

I’ll let you all know, I’m a white, straight, (mostly)cis-gendered American man. If that makes my words any less to you, then you really need to think long and hard about why that is. I’m sorry if it does, but that’s not my problem. Those are all things that I didn’t ask for and that I can’t change. Some of them I’d change in a heartbeat, but I am not going to feel bad about any of that.

I don’t expect you to feel bad for what you are. Any of you. I’m not asking for that. That doesn’t diminish your words to me. Because you didn’t ask for it. It doesn’t make you bad or less or wrong in any way. Just different. We’re all just… different. So be civil, and talk to each other. Because those comic people up there, they aren’t talking to each other. They’re talking at each other. And it’s a wonder there’s no communication. The person’s blue shirt could say anything, and it would be the same.

Every white-supremacist, every fem-nazi, every homophobe, every heterophobe, every cis-hater and transphobe… they’re all fucking assholes, that are too concerned with voicing their opinion and not actually doing anything for it. And they make everyone else that shares anything with them look bad.

Don’t be that person. Be civil. Grow up. Think before you speak and act like a reasonable human being. That’s what you are, right?

I’m done, but if you got this far, thanks for listening.