PC Principal thread

[Psion]

You might want to try that again.

sure.

race has jack shit to do with your cultural background. what race others perceive you to be might, due to bigotry, but that's different. that's someone seeing a browned skinned person and freaking out about that damn mexican, when they may very well be from asia. that's someone seeing a dark skinned person and thinking they're yet another shady black person, when they're really a nuclear scientist born from cuban parents.

again, i don't have any issue with people asking me where i grew up. but why do you want to know my genetic background? you're not going to be my breeding partner. why ask about someone's race when it's a loaded question that provides useful information some of the time, when you can ask about where a person grew up? that's not a loaded question at all, and provides useful info about them all the time. (and ironically, you'll often find out about their race asking this as well, for...whatever reason you care to know.)

i don't go all feminazi on people who ask, but it does make me do a mental "wat" when they ask me my race, out of the blue, when we were talking about video games or good books to read or w/e.

[Krandor]

You could save yourself a lot of time typing if you just kept it at REEEEEE.

[dasva]

I just tell people I'm Japanese.... which I am 1/4 but no one believes me and swears I'm middle eastern despite the Japanese being the darkest ethnicity in me lol. Fucking cali tans man

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Ok, third time's the charm.

[Zetanio]

Ok, third time's the charm.

Nah, it ain't.

Anyway. I just tell people I'm American. Works for everyone outside the US.

[Niiro]

I'm reminded of that American Dad bit where Roger and Klaus are getting off a plane in Europe and Roger slaps a Canadian flag sticker on his bowl and he's like "yea probably a good idea."

[Zetanio]

I'm reminded of that American Dad bit where Roger and Klaus are getting off a plane in Europe and Roger slaps a Canadian flag sticker on his bowl and he's like "yea probably a good idea."

GF has Canadian citizenship. Best believe I'm gonna grab that if we get hitched.

[Psion]

Im just a swim away from canada. Too bad lake superior is like 100 miles across, and you can't even see canada from here. <_<; if the apocolypse hits america though, its nice to know that i can steal a boat and make a break for the border!

[thetruepandagod]

more relaxed? what does me being half mexican have to do with my cultural background? i was born and raised in southern california in an american household... race has jack shit to do with your cultural background.

An argument against the importance of race based diversity if I have ever seen one. For truly, the degree to which one race can be diverse from another while growing up in the same neighborhood as another must pale in comparison to the diversity of one from another country regardless of race. I doubt me and a white polish guy have any more in common than a black man in california does with a sudanese.

Spoiler: show

wut a tight assed racist

[Koul]

I guess we all have our triggers when meeting people for the first time and trying to make a situation more comfortable. Mines when they're overly needy with wait-staff or complain about minute details like a chicken caper dish having too many capers. Clearly the "what race are you" question is almost always loaded with judgement and shame. Clearly. I guess I'm just crazy for not seeing it before

[Greatguardian]

I'm a genetic clusterfuck and my siblings and I get that question all the time. I don't recall any of us being salty about it beyond age 16 or so, though. Gotta have a serious persecution complex to assume any attempt to get to know you better is secretly some dastardly attempt to throw you into a race box.

[Niiro]

I guess we all have our triggers when meeting people for the first time and trying to make a situation more comfortable. Mines when they're overly needy with wait-staff or complain about minute details like a chicken caper dish having too many capers. Clearly the "what race are you" question is almost always loaded with judgement and shame. Clearly. I guess I'm just crazy for not seeing it before

There are few things more awkward than a completely out of the blue "so are you Jewish?"

Try it some time.

[Salodin]

Only in America can someone get triggered by "Where are you from?"

And he's from Cali? Lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Nothing gets my dander up and fists clenching than from someone asking what race I am because I have blonde hair and a reddish-brown beard. I'm fucking white you goddamn racist.

[Cliron]

Queer /speaker/performer/whatever the fuck you'd call what she does Penny Arcade speaks wonderfully about this and refers to it as the 'Tyranny of Fragility' ("You cannot speak about this because I'm fragile about it". )

You see it in all areas of life, but I see it frequently in mental health: discussion of perceived external stigma as sole barrier of recovery, rather than internal individual other things that can be tackled by the person. For example, recovery workshop I had to go to once where service user kept hijacking it to talk about how we need more funding to reduce stigma in the community as it was affecting his employment abilities. Rather than seeing that his behaviour might be off-putting to people (treatment resistant schizophrenia with high levels of negative symptoms present), and tackling his individual experience(+his self stigma) within his community he gave up his personal responsibility as a fault of the collective.

Of course there is a dynamic there where the individual meets the collective, but there is something uneasy about an individual telling the collective (and vice versa) that they 'have to do this thing' because 'I feel fragile'. Acceptance needs to come from the self first, and instead of acting like a fascist you gotta build up your resilience. If you're an adult and base significant amount of your personal energy seeking validation from the majority, I've got bad news for you because the majority is as likely to fuck you over at the drop of a hat, and there is likely a cost to their acceptance.

I get angry at the young queers who forget that the gay pride movement came from this philosophy: "hey assholes, we don't need your acceptance. We will walk this street and be us, even if you don't like us. We will not conform'.

[Cliron]

Here is her very short essay on the matter: The Tyranny of Fragility

Slowly I learned that it is impossible to avoid pain but that suffering is a choice and that happiness is an innate quality I possess, that happiness does not reside outside of me and I don’t need someone else to give it to me. I know that joy is our natural inheritance as human beings and resides plentifully within each of us.

My world is built on the friendship and camaraderie of likeminded souls. We are overjoyed to find one another and we don’t feel we have to alter or control each other’s individuality. We don’t compare and weigh our suffering against each other but we know in our hearts what the others have survived by the kind of jokes they make and the timbre and color of their wit. Surrender , retreat and giving up are not in our vocabularies. We are not hurt by the opinions of people we do not respect. We don’t need approval, approval and growth don’t really mix. Anyway we couldn’t afford the price of approval when we were young and approval has no value when you are old. I learned that there is a world outside myself, a world I am part of , a world that needs me to my contribution and that in order to contribute to this world I have to know where I begin and where the world begins and in order to know that I had to learn to understand myself and my feelings and to take responsibility for them because without that responsibility and ownership of what hurts me and what makes me happy I would have no power

True power comes from knowing the absolute truth about ourselves and that takes ruthless honesty. We have no power without love , without love and empathy for both ourselves and others ,we cannot complete our character, which is given to us like seeds are given to farmers, to grow and to harvest from, to create abundance that nurtures us and allows us to share its bounty. We are never a done deal till we leave this planet. Don’t sell yourself short.

[Fiye]

That advice is literally 'I don't care what has happened to you get over it' because guess what. Some LGBT want some form of acceptance because being denied social interaction because your being yourself sucks. And some people have killed themselves because their family wouldn't acknowledged them after they came out of the closet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Leelah_Alcorn

Not conforming isn't gonna help when you've been sent to conversion therapy.

[Vandalhart]

That's not how I took that excerpt at all. I'm having trouble getting how I interpreted it down in words though.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

I'll take complete dominion over true power any day. Writer is on the right track but lacking in both grip and mineral content.

Some LGBT want some form of acceptance because being denied social interaction because your being yourself sucks.

Bettering yourself and not having the personality of mildew does wonders in the stroke economy.

[Zetanio]

That's not how I took that excerpt at all. I'm having trouble getting how I interpreted it down in words though.

I like the way Cliron summed it up to be honest.

Of course there is a dynamic there where the individual meets the collective, but there is something uneasy about an individual telling the collective (and vice versa) that they 'have to do this thing' because 'I feel fragile'. Acceptance needs to come from the self first, and instead of acting like a fascist you gotta build up your resilience. If you're an adult and base significant amount of your personal energy seeking validation from the majority, I've got bad news for you because the majority is as likely to fuck you over at the drop of a hat, and there is likely a cost to their acceptance.

Lotta truth in there.