Rocketsurgeon Wrote:[...]I try to acknowledge that I have some homophobic and some racist ideas that I absorbed and which I must work to confront directly in my own heart, if I am to expunge them and be a better person.
Well I can see your point of view easier now then, I've never had to do that because none of my family is racist, I didn't go to school for more than a year - I was homeschooled - and I generally never mixed with racists. And the same goes for sexists or homophobes. So I've never really had to question my own bigotry because I've never been bigoted or mixed with any bigoted people really. I just think of it was obvious that it's all wrong. I understand your point of view more when you give me this info.
Quote:That is why the reactions, which continually claimed I was calling someone a bigot, based on the fact that the word homophobia is commonly (but not always!) used to refer to the actions of bigots, upset me so much.
I am sorry I upset you man, you upset me too. I mean, I'm sensitive and I get easily upset - I mostly got upset because I warned you that it was silly and irrational of me to be upset and sensitive to you merely hypothetically suggesting the fact that I may be homophobic. I just detest homophobia so much and this is why I warned you that it upset me and I wanted to clarify and you to drop even the idea of me being homophobic. I've got better things to do than wonder if I'm the sort of person I despise. You may say there are other definitions - but the only definition of homophobia that really matters is the bigoted kind. Despite the fact that 'fear' of homosexuals (which I also do not have) is often connected to it, questioning that is kind of trivial if the whole point you're going to make in the end is of course that I, Evie, am not a bigoted homophobe.
Quote:I get where someone could have had that reaction, initially, to my badly-worded intro, but it was only after my secondary explanations were totally ignored[...]
Well I felt exactly the same Rocketsurgeon. I kept trying to clarify why I wasn't a bigot. To be honest I thought I would only have to do it once.
Quote:I'm not here to make anyone feel bad about themselves. I'm not here to shove an opinion down anyone's throat. But I will challenge people to think, even if they don't like the answers, and I will always defend myself against false accusation.
I am not accusing you of thinking I'm definitely a homophobe, I am accusing you of wanting me to ask myself whether I might have even a tiny bit of it when I pre-warned you that I was sensitive to the idea - and even though I re-clarified repeatedly afterwards why I'm not even a tiny bit homophobic - that because I don't need to examine myself that way and I really don't want to think of myself as even a tiny bit bigoted that way. Not because I'm in denial but because I've examined it all before and I don't need to because I'm not bigoted. I don't like thinking about homophobia or racism too much unless I'm actually having to defend myself from a real bigot. It's such an unpleasant thing bigotry.
Okay friends?
