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	sandglass 2011-02-02 08:51 am UTC (link)
	This is, btw, why I increasingly believe liberals are useless. I have no idea what labels mean what anymore (I think the people I like are progressives?) but I so fucking agree. They're basically saying the equivalent of, "Calling me a racist is a worse insult than actually being racist!" except replace the C with a P. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

eleutheria
2011-02-02 09:41 am UTC (link)

Yup, that's basically where I was going with that, contrasting liberals with progressives. I'm just so frustrated and fed up with people thinking being nice and doing the bare minimum to not be an asshole entitles them to freedom from criticism. That it's so haaaard to not be racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic that if anyone says one thing about their behavior (or anyone else's), you get back "because of those obnoxious, oversensitive (fill in the marginalized group here), I no longer care so much about (marginalized group's RL issues). Don't you people know you're attacking people on YOUR SIDE? Why not save it for the real enemies (i.e. people who are overtly *ist)".

I'm so fucking tired of that attitude I can't see straight. I'd almost rather someone who comes right out with it than someone who claims to be on my side and claims to be sensitive and then pulls shit like this. No, your belief that you're not sexist/not a rape apologist isn't more important than your fans' right to disagree with your creation without having your fans try to dredge up police reports of the rape they survived and your attendees' right to feel like they're not going to be attacked at the con they've just put down hard money to attend. No, your belief that racism and sexism are a thing of the past and there's real equality in the US (and therefore anyone who objects is just being "oversensitive") doesn't trump the evidence that's being shoved in your face (or the evidence of your own shitty behavior).

Fucking tl;dr but I'm over this shit right now.

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	eleutheria 2011-02-02 09:45 am UTC (link)
	(Also, I really should have ended my comment with "in before 'trends don't matter, my friend/family/sister's roommate's parakeet proves we're not ALL like THAT'".) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ekaterinv
2011-02-02 10:04 am UTC (link)

But every liberal I personally know is not like that, and I know a lot of them. Do I ignore every single one of them and decide some overprivileged douches living in echo chambers are more representative of the group, when that goes directly contrary to my own experience? That is not likely. (I don't actually know if the PA guys identify as liberal.)

There is no question that there is a horrible and disgusting trend of liberals being assholes, and lately of liberal men (and Naomi Wolf) rape apologizing up a storm. But considering someone who is very much not a liberal wants to pass a bill making women have to prove they were forcibly raped (rather than any other kind of raped) before the government will pay for their abortions, it's not liberalism I'm ascribing this to.

It's rape culture. Liberals live in the same world as everyone else. They absorb the tenets of rape culture as readily as anyone else. We're just more shocked when people we expect not to be raging assholes turn out to be raging assholes. Also, we tend to try harder to talk to them, because we believe they will listen, because they have listened in the past. Unlike people who deny women's basic bodily autonomy, who use the word "feminazi" in seriousness, and who actually believe that there was racial equality in the U.S. as soon as it was founded.

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eleutheria
2011-02-02 10:29 am UTC (link)

And yet, IME, they're the ones who break your heart the hardest because you do expect them to listen when you talk to them, and so freaking often they won't. Look, I'm happy your family and friends aren't like that. But your experiences are everyone's, right? I see a trend-- when I look online, when I look in politics, when I try to have discussions online and IRL about this kind of thing. Compromise, doing the minimum, being deeply invested in colorblindness and equality and "look how far we've come". And the dismay at Keith Olbermann going off the air because he's the champion of the left! (Point out his bigotry and rape apologism, and you're "shrill" and, again, "oversensitive".) At the end of the day, liberal politicians will largely cave to the people you're talking about in an effort to look neutral and centrist and nice as the goalposts get shifted further and further to the right.

It's just that attitude that they run a charity and made their con a bit more inclusive than the rest, so why isn't that good enough? that gets me. I'm sure they think they're the good guys, and their fans think they're good guys (or Nice Guys) because they think rape is wrong. I'm just overall tired of banging my head against shallow and insincere "allies". (And hell, you're doing it too, that "but they're not as bad as these (really loudly and overtly bigoted) people over here!" thing.)

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ekaterinv
2011-02-02 09:27 pm UTC (link)

I basically agree with you. It's nearly always the people who are loudest/richest/most famous who are the biggest jerks, though. And no group of people, ever, has willingly given up privilege without being basically forced to do so.

I didn't mean to do the "they're not as bad" thing. Rather to say, it's not that they're liberals (if they are, I still have no idea what the PA guys would call themselves), it's rape culture. So some of us are learning now that we have a fuckload more work to do than we thought, considering even these people act like this. And in a way I like to think it's a good sign -- not so long ago our concerns would have been brushed off entirely. Now we're enough of a "threat" that they think they have to answer us. And they're pretty obviously terrified.

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