Oh monstro - I am not butthurt! I am trying to understand your position better, that’s all. I thought I WAS asking for clarification (as well as explaining how the thoughts expressed in your post could make a well-intentioned person such as me feel).
Anyway, thanks for answering. Whatever else you think of my post, please be assured, I didn’t mean to imply you are a “big meano.”
As to the safety pins, I am reminded of Arlo Guthrie’s “If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.” It’s my personal interpretation that he was both serious AND ironic when he said it. As in, singing loud by itself is indeed a futile gesture that won’t stop any wars. But … we have to start somewhere. At least it’s an expression of solidarity. If war is such a terrible thing, what does NOT being willing to sing a protest song say about a person?
I haven’t got a strong opinion on the safety pins, but maybe they are like singing loud to stop war and stuff.
I’m all for protesting and engaging others in conversation and doing stuff that may get you painted as obnoxious and shrill. I’m not so much into symbols, though. It’s really easy to put on a safety pin (figuratively and literally) and then take it off when it’s not so fun anymore.
I have this image in my head: Some shit is going down and I look around and see a bunch of safety-pin wearers laughing at it or just walking right past it. That’s not harmless. Something like that hurts. Just as when my coworker–the one I thought was my friend–started talking to me like I was an idiot, my feelings were hurt.
If that annoying coworker walked into my office wearing a safety pin, I’d yank it off of him, just so that other black people wouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security when around him.
:smack: As if racist people who would be targeting you on the basis of your race would first take the time to carefully evaluate you on your education and intellect rather than just looking at your skin color. Those careful, restrained, hesitant, caution-first racists. :smack:
People like this who try to “reassure” by falsely claiming a situation is better or nicer than it really is, do a great deal of harm, blithely and unwittingly so. I’d rather deal with a blatant racist than some well-meaning person who refuses to believe that things are as bad as they are.
As if any number greater than zero before “… percent of the country has essentially declared war on minorities.” isn’t reason enough to speak up. But sure, I stand corrected. 48%, or so, of those who voted essentially declared war on minorities. Better?
It isn’t Trump himself, or even Trump’s voters who alone pose the danger that this created though. Someone who didn’t vote at all can still feel much more comfortable discriminating against an immigrant, or groping his secretary now that those who did vote have set the tone for the country with their selection of the next administration.
That tone will permeate through all levels of society in all kinds of little ways if people don’t take extraordinary efforts to denounce it.
That’s not to say that wearing a safety pin changes much of anything. But it’s a lot better if people who disagree with this direction do anything to express themselves than nothing at all.
I personally wouldn’t, but I agree with the overall gist of your post. I don’t necessarily want someone to validate all my fears and worries. But it is nice for someone to not completely belittle those fears and worries by implying I’m seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. There’s a huge difference between “Yeah, I can understand why you’re worried. I am too” and “There’s nothing to worry about. I promise, you’re safe!”
If someone decides to wear a safety pin, they need to decide what kind of “first responder” they’re going to be. Are they going to automatically believe what their black/Muslim/gay friends tell them? Or are they going to reflexively play the dispassionate Devil’s Advocate or whiteplainer? Are they going to validate their friend’s outrage? Or is the first thing out of their mouth going to be, “Calm down, bro!”
If a person doesn’t know how they’re going to react to some mess going down, then (IMHO) they have no right declaring him/herself a “safe place”. A person may want to be that safe place for someone, but if they’ve never been put to the test, how can they declare themselves one? That’s arrogant.
I don’t think I am “safe place” because I fundamentally don’t like rocking the boat. I’d like to think that if I noticed my coworker being mistreated by our employer, I would say or do something. I’d like to think that I’d give shelter to deportees if someone asked me to. But I don’t know if I actually would.
Besides, everyone’s got their own idea of what a “safe place” means. It can be everything from “I’ll listen to you rant about injustice” all the way to “I’ll break you out of the concentration camp.” To be fair, I think we need a lot more listeners. But just listening doesn’t do anything. And I’m doubtful folks will be wearing safety pins when wearing one means putting your livelihood or life at risk. That’s why the thing doesn’t really mean all that much to me, even if I recognize the intentions behind it are good.
