Everyone is pointing at the late abortion article on Jezebel today (more specifically, the comments in said article), but I cannot really look at that. It is just too upsetting for me because sadly, I know how such people think and the kind of ideas they wish to impose on everyone. However, I HAD to check the clusterfuck under the title “In defense of the White Man” because really, this is the racial/ social justice equivalent of Edward Pasteck’s “Consent is an artificial construct we need to re-evaluate in my terms” nonsense.
First, “White Man” (the label he claims for himself throughout the article, lest anyone accuses me of “racial bias”) makes a snide remark about the “butch lesbian” (why the need to point that out? To single her out as “the other”? to police her appearance? to prove how gender normative he is?) and then, oh yes, and then:
- Mind your Tone! I would be willing to listen if you were just nice to me (“The aforementioned statement about white men undercuts the very point it is trying to make: In any community people should be proud of who they are”).
- Educate Me! (“But trans people are just that – people. It makes me uncomfortable to research them as I would a term paper or the purchase of a new oven when there are actual individuals, friends, that I can glean this knowledge from personally”)
- Accept me as an ally! (“I want to ask how I can help and how I can change without having to atone for crimes I did not commit. I might never be considered an ally again after writing this article”)
- White men have feelings too! (“Do I fight back, respond with bile that white men have feelings too and that we don’t like being denigrated in public?”)
- Can’t you see my level of oppression is exactly the same as yours because my pop culture icons are different from what I’ve been told is stereotypically gay? (“I realized pretty early on that I would probably never fit into the mainstream gay community for the mere fact that I prefer, say, Kate Bush over Madonna, David Byrne over Elton John”).
This is published by one of the most read websites for women in the entire internet. Uncritically. And I already know Jessica Coen’s bullshit excuses whenever she gives a space to this kind of reactionary ideology (Remember the Pasteck non apology?). Because if you are fighting for any issue of social justice and you are a minority that has been historically subjugated, the most important thing to do is to reassure white, cisgender guys like this author that they are welcome into your spaces. Oh, and please, if you are not going to be nice, at least have the decency to look in ways he approves of.
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