If you do nothing else today, read this excellent post by Greta Christina. All of it. Right now. No, put down Tiny Tower. Stop reading my previous post. This is important shit that needed to be said, and no one can say it more eloquently than Greta.
And for what it’s worth? I get emails like the one Greta posted frequently, especially after these shitstorms. It’s working, people.
I often comment that religious people don’t have the right to never be offended when someone questions their beliefs. Their ideas – theistic, supernatural, cultural, or otherwise – are still ideas. This is because I strongly support the concept of a marketplace of ideas – that “the truth or the best policy arises out of the competition of widely various ideas in free, transparent public discourse.” A religious idea must defend it’s worth just as a political idea would, and offense is sometimes an unavoidable side effect of this discussion.
After the many, many feminism or diversity related internet kerfuffles, I usually get at least a couple comments along the lines of “Why is it okay to offend religious people but not women/blacks/homosexuals?! Hypocrite!”
Let me try my best to explain.
Like I said, religion is an idea. Gender, race, and sexual orientation are not. They are (for the most part) immutable biological traits that a person has very little choice in. There are certainly bad ideas out there, whether they’re wrong for factual, logical or ethical reasons. I have no obligation to completely avoid offending you when all I’m saying is “I disagree.” But there is no inherent “wrongness” or inferiority in being a woman, or a racial minority, or gay. To suggest such a thing while lacking any logic or rationale is exactly what causes sexism, racism, and homophobia.
It’s one thing to demand intellectual honesty of intangible ideas. Blasphemy is a victimless crime, after all. Offense aimed at intrinsic human properties is hardly victimless.
Temporarily ignoring concepts of privilege or -isms, a lot of these kerfuffles boil down to people lacking common human decency. While I don’t think religious people have the right to avoid all offense, I do think we should try to minimize the amount of offense we cause. Now, that’s not the same as saying “Don’t be a dick” ala Phil Plait. I think dickishness definitely has it’s place and can be an effective way of getting a message across in certain situations. But we have to ask ourselves “Can I accomplish the same goal while being a little less of an asshole?”
If accomplishing your goal requires offense, unapologetically go right ahead. Otherwise unpopular ideas would be silenced into oblivion. Because really, you’re always going to offend someone. Atheists can’t even say we exist or that we’re good people without pissing people off!
But when you’re needlessly enraging people with no goal in mind, that’s not equivalent to being edgy or snarky or a firebrand. That’s being a fucking asshole. Or if you’re doing it because it gets your rocks off – a troll. And if someone points out you hurt them, it’s a little troglodytish to insist that you didn’t or that you don’t care. I think a lot of this can be explained by the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but it’s still disappointing.
I could go on about this all day – but I’ve given a whole talk on the topic, so watch it if you want more details and examples about minimizing offense.
Practically speaking as someone within the atheist community, it’s even more important that we try to tone down offense when it comes to minority groups. Diversity matters. It’s not just unrealistic to tell minority groups to suck it up and be stronger – it lacks compassion. We’re not saying they’re inferior or need coddling, but that if you put up with this shit constantly, why would you voluntarily join a group that adds to your frustrations? It’s precisely the reason why one of my rules of comment moderation is that I’ll ban people who use hateful speech. I could tell other commentors to suck it up, or I could make a safe environment where people feel comfortable contributing.
Even if I think you should do it out of the goodness of your heart, Greta Christina often suggests a purely Machiavellian reason for such a tactic. That making more people feel welcome in this movement will only help us grow even larger and more powerful. So if we want to succeed in our goals of promoting rationalism and humanism, we first need to make sure we can get as many allies as possible.
We simply can’t afford to make the same mistakes of every other progressive movement before us.
A young child reacts to meeting his first gay couple:
“So that means you love each other!” Yes, yes exactly. You, child, have an understanding that exceeds most right wing politicians.
Amazing how people aren’t bigoted until they’re taught to be bigoted.
SPLC certified hate-group Mission America claims teacher unions are giving financial incentives for students to become gay. Because not only is homosexuality a choice, but the constant harassment and threats are worth the small chance that you get a tiny fraction of your college tuition paid!
Japan is cursed because the emperor had sex with a demon. Duh.
What is Dr. Marcus Bachmann a doctor in? Bigotry? Homophobia? Because it’s certainly not clinical psychology.
Speaking of scary Bachmanns, Michelle is now winning the polls in Iowa. …What.
In lighter news, remember that marriage pledge Bachmann (and Rick Santorum) signed that was full of homophobic bullshit and vowed to ban porn? It also suggested that blacks were better off back when they were slaves, but now they reworded it to not so sound mindbogglingly racist. See? Progress!!! No word on when they’ll remove the stupidity from the rest of the pledge.
I don’t believe in karma, but this is one of those moments when I wonder. I guess your lovely donations to keep me from flying to bufu nowhere (thank you!) after Skepticon tipped me over some cosmic balance. Because today I went outside to discover my car was no longer where I parked it.
Hoping I was having a senior moment and had really parked somewhere else, I walked all the way down my street and then up the adjacent one. No car to be found. But when I got back to my spot, I finally spotted a towing sign that I had failed to notice. Definitely better than my car being stolen, but not exactly great either.
Turns out my usual parking spot outside my apartment turned into a tow away zone because Saturday morning was the Wallingford Kiddies Parade. CURSE YOU, KIDDIES!
I’m kind of pissed though. There’s no special permit to park on my street, and I’ll often leave my car there for a week or two – I rarely use it. I parked there last Sunday, so the sign was put up after my car had been sitting there for a couple days. And I didn’t see the sign because, well, it was on the other side of my car. It’s not visible from the entrance of my apartment or the path I take up the sidewalk. So, there goes $105.89. (EDIT: Damnit, I just realized that was for towing alone. I still owe another $42 for the ticket! Argrgrhghghggh!)
I can contest it, but I don’t know if I have any chance. They probably will tell me I should have been diligently checking around my car every day. But what if I had gone on vacation for a week? What if they decide to turn my parking spot into a towing spot while I’m in Vegas? It all just seems very stupid and unfair.
The cherry on top was that the lady at the towing service told me the wrong address, which resulting in my friend driving me all the way downtown before I called and realized we actually had to drive way north of Seattle. Blarrrgghh.
tl;dr #firstworldproblems #lifelessons #ThereGoesMyVegasBoozeMoney
Thank you for listening to me whine. Blag Hag will now resume it’s regularly scheduled programming.
Speaking of Skepticon – one of the reasons why I agreed to be part of their photo shoot is because I’m going to be speaking there! Woohooo! So add Springfield, Missouri to my list of exciting travel destinations.
You know what I don’t want to add to that list? Georgia.
A bit of an explanation (and an attempt to quell the rage of my Georgian readers): Skepticon is a free conference. They do a lot of fundraising to try to keep it as cheap as possible. This is all the more impressive because it’s run by a student organization at MSU. Unfortunately, I am also a student, so it means we have poor students trying to buy poor students plane tickets.
So here’s where I turn to you, good readers. As it stands, the cheapest flight from Springfield to Seattle involves not only arriving way past midnight, but having a layover in freaking Georgia. It’s bad enough that I’ll have to brave public transportation alone in the middle of the night. But flying to the complete opposite side of the country is too illogical for me to handle. Especially after attending a skeptical conference – my brain may well explode. Apparently not many Seattle people need flights from Missouri.
So if you have a couple bucks to spare and want to help Skepticon (while keeping me sane), consider donating to the For The Love of FSM Please Don’t Send Jen to Georgia fund:
Because hey, you don’t need to show lots of skin to look sexy, and the most important thing was to do something I was comfortable with. And if Dan Barker can pose fully clothed, so can I.
Calendars will go on sale in about a month, and all proceeds will help fund the amazing, free skeptical conference Skepticon. Thanks to my friend Brendan for being an awesome photographer.
Bonus points to anyone who recognizes where this was taken! Edit: That was quick! Yep, this was taken at Gas Works Park in Seattle.
(Hint #1: This is one of those contexts where it would be okay to comment on my appearance.)
(Hint #2: Because this one instance of an acceptable context exists, that does not mean that all future contexts are to be ignored. One yes does not mean “always yes.”)
I know – no one cares anymore, right? But I think this needs clarification, and my blog is the only place I can do it. So if you’re sick of all this (like I am, honestly), no one is forcing you to read or comment.
After reading thousands and thousands of comments about this Elevatorgate kerfuffle, I was honestly surprised how people were interpreting my statements, or the statements of those who agreed with me. People said I was calling Richard Dawkins a misogynist, a rape apologist, and an all around horrible human being. I use certain harsh language when I’m passionate about an issue – but others seemingly interpret that as raging hatred.
So let me make it clear.
Having privilege is not intrinsically a bad thing. It does not make you a horrible person. From the amazing parable explaining privilege (which please, please read if you haven’t already):
Every single one of us has some kind of privilege over somebody. What matters is whether we’re aware of it, and what we choose to do with it, and that we not use it to dismiss the valid and real concerns of the people who don’t share our particular brand.
That’s why I was upset with Richard. Because while he is someone who supports many great feminist causes and issues surrounding women’s rights, like fighting against female genital mutilation, that specific thing just wasn’t the issue in this case. So even though his heart was probably in the right place, he was being dismissive. But more disappointing than his initial obliviousness about his privilege was his stubborn denial of said obliviousness when called out on it.
But honestly, it’s understandable. No one likes being told they’re wrong in general – but people get especially uncomfortable having their privilege pointed out. I sympathize – it took me a long time to understand white privilege and not feel like it was somehow attacking me or calling me racist. So I don’t really expect Richard to turn on a dime and instantly understand why what he said was hurtful. Because understanding privilege is hard. And it’s even harder when you’re a public figure who’s being made example of – you don’t have the leisure of slowly figuring things out.
So, I do disagree with Rebecca Watson on one detail. I don’t think it’s time we boycott Dawkin’s books or lectures. I think we need to give him the time to wrangle with this drama, since understanding privilege is not easy or comfortable. And that’s why when I offered to talk with him at TAM, I wasn’t being flippant – I was being honest. I still greatly respect him as a fellow atheist and evolutionary biologist, but I’d respect him even more if he sincerely attempted to understand why he was wrong.
And if he doesn’t want to chat, or doesn’t read the letters from atheist victims of sexual assault, or never issues some sort of remark or apology… Well, yes, I will be disappointed. But it’s not like Dawkins primarily writes feminism books. I will have to come to grips with the fact that my heroes are not perfect, but I’ll still happily chat with him about atheism or my research.
I don’t think Dawkins is a terrible human being. I think he just proved he’s human and made a mistake.
Here’s an interesting post on the science behind “SmartShade” foundations, which are marketed as having the magical ability to match your skin tone. How do they work?
Spoilers: They don’t. But the article is still worth reading for the science lesson behind the deception.
Speaking of which, tell me again how these things can be marketed as matching your skin tone when their patent explicitly says they don’t?
As if her rampant homophobia, support for teaching creationism in schools, and general stupidity wasn’t enough, Bachmann just vowed to ban all forms of pornography. It’s the cherry on top of a Crazy Sundae, really.
How does someone like this get elected to anything, let alone come anywhere close to the presidency? My country, it terrifies me.
