Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Bullets

  • I'm over economically privileged college kids declaring how "unsafe" they are on campus. Actually, college campuses are pretty "safe spaces." As someone who grew up in neighborhoods that were truly unsafe, I find it pretty insulting.
  • Also over: middle-class white people pondering why poor whites "vote against their interests." Once more with feeling: Presuming they are socially conservative, they are voting for their moral interests. Rich liberals do this all the time. 
  • CNN aired The Hunting Ground Sunday.  As someone whose never been raped (but has been harassed quite frequently, and I guess by the widest parameters of the definition, sexually assaulted), I'm not supposed to have an opinion about this. I am supposed either offer 110% support for victims (called "accusers because, oh I don't know, we still have a fair legal system in this country), or shut up. I don't like being told to shut up. And I think this is a valid point to make: I couldn't help but note how "perfect" all the victims featured in the documentary were. First-generation to go to college, all-American, valedictorian, cheerleader types. Had I been a rape victim, I don't think I'd ever be featured in a documentary. I'm loud, angry, got shit grades in high school (and the first semester of college, if I'm being honest) and socially inept. I don't say this to take anything away from those victims (though the doc itself has been fairly criticized from both sides). It's a familar, comfortable narrative, but it does a huge disservice to women and men who have been raped who don't fit the perfect victim profile.
  • I unfollowed a bunch of people on Twitter. If I unfollowed you, I am not sorry. I can't count on one hand the number of people I've unfriend or unfollowed in the past: the guy who insisted reverse racism was thing; the online buddy who turned out to be a bigger online buddy to the person who considers herself my nemesis; the benign parent blogger turned tea party whackjob; and the girl who posted nothing but Nicki Minja gifs to point that my Tumblr dashboard looked like the Nicki Minja fanclub homepage. But right now it's just too toxic and too damn tribal.