Derailing For Dummies April 5, 2009

Just updated the “Commenting Policy” page to include this new link: “Derailing For Dummies” (via).

From the website:

You know how it is.  You’re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you’re in class or just casually surfing the internet, indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against – or so they claim.
The thing is, you’re having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues. This knowledge is incontrovertible – it’s been backed up in media representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also your own unassailable sense of being right.

Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about that.  They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they’re a woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex worker. The point is they’re trying to tell you they know better than you about their issues and you know that’s just plain wrong. How could you be wrong?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray… December 31, 2008

You know what would be great? I keep thinking of various topics that were big in the feminist blogosphere (and LGBT rights blogosphere, and anti-racism blogosphere, and liberal politics blogosphere, among others – they’re interconnected) and looking for good posts that I know were written. But sometimes I can’t remember on which blog I read something (as of press time, my Google Reader has 186 subscriptions) and so I need to go search on different blogs to find the appropriate story.