LogFAQs > #960832284

If anyone here is wondering, no, I havent read any posts since I shared that video. Ive continued to feel like a pile of dog poop since making it. I un-registered for the final round of the virtual diplomacy league 2021 because my emotions are in no place to be playing a negotiation game.

I said quite a lot that was wrong in ways I couldnt properly see until after I worked through it and experienced the emotional response it produced in my gut that hasnt gone away for days.

I read Wil Wheatons Facebook post from a few days ago telling the story of him at a young age embarrassing himself and learning not to use the F slur for gay people. I have a very similar story with that same exact word picked it up from a comedian, used it once, the whole room reacted, I felt like I was the size of an ant and wanted to disappear. I stopped using the word completely that very day, and I still can remember the shame just like Wil describes. The only real difference is he said it in a room full of gay people and I said it in a room full of straight people who just happened to have way more sense than I did, so my humiliation probably wasnt nearly as great as Wils, but still. It did the job. That word is not okay.

Somehow - some fucking how it had never occurred to me in the front of my mind prior to this evening that I had no comparable experience with trans people. As in, Id never been in the room when it happened. I never had that moment or witnessed that moment for anyone else where a trans person was attacked and I felt that sinking feeling. I have specific, emotional memories of the horrible feeling when someone is being horribly racist to a black person right out in the open. I can close my eyes and think about that feeling. Specific memories, etc. Same thing with gay people, numerous times. But never with trans people (despite the fact Ive known a few and spent more than just a few hours with them).

I was doing the literal thing I said people online offended by The Closer were doing a.k.a. maybe if you had more life experience with people in that demographic you would understand better. Hello? Earth to Steven? What makes you think you understand the strife of trans people when youve never seen it first hand?

I dont even know where to begin to properly address all the various ways Ive messed up.

I am currently just trying to deal with the fact that Ive inevitably hurt people.

What got me started into this whole conversation was just that crappy urge to be correct on the internet that I think most of us can relate to in some capacity. I didnt turn up to just spread hate and hurt people. Just some typical white male ego trying to be the shit or whatever, on a topic the depth of which I couldnt see. I hope at the very least, it doesnt go down in history that my direct response to the particularly problematic jokes from the special was just oh, whats the matter? Cant take a joke about your genitals? Because I will readily admit (as you see) that Ive been wrong and a jerk and reckless and just awful. But I never thought the sentiment of just suck it up, buttercup made sense my whole thing was more along the lines of like, hey, I get that joke X hurt your feelings, but I feel like youre putting the whole man into a box based on that one joke and its slanting every single thing he says in your mind because you have no respect for him any more. So it was more like, I saw people on a scale of 1 to 10 being 11 angry, when like, if all the misinformation, slander, charged headlines, biased blog posts, etc. etc. werent so rampant and if the hurtful parts didnt close peoples ears to him, theyd be closer to like a 7 angry, or something?

At the end of the day, Im wrong and its a whole lot simpler to just be like yo, all this shit is unnecessary than to wear myself out for a whole month doing research to construct a huge point about how like one thing he said shouldnt be quite as offensive as it was taken.

I want to be an ally and make better decisions. I hope, though I have no doubt I said harmful things during that reflection, that people can see that the reason I put myself out there in the raw for a hundred minutes is that while yes that might cause some lesser collateral damage, at least it helps you to see me making an honest effort to understand. Because I do care. And in a similar fashion to how when I see or feel such discrimination with my own eyes and ears, maybe seeing and hearing a random white dude you'd already put into a box based on forum posts might help you understand people like me better too (the ones who are earnestly trying and just dangerously ignorant).

I dont feel like saying Im sorry will help a ton, but Im sorry. Im going to continue being sorry for a long time.

If we could wave a magic wand that had the power to restructure the views of every cishet white dude in the U.S., the lives of all marginalized people would collectively improve. Regrettably, the actual road to that future is going to be full of potholes. Its probably going to look like millions of instances of what I put on display the past several days.

Whats done is done. I cant unsay what Ive already said, but I can do better. Heres to hoping that a revolution is born from all the fallout. Thats the only thing I can think about that makes me feel an ounce less shitty about everything right now.