OK, I think I finally have it dialed in and I can now relax and simply post snarks when the mood hits me. The racism / bigotry / hate thing, I mean. It's all just teenage-girl, drama-queen trash. Oprah's interview with the ex-royals or whatever they are, helped point the way.
"Golly, Meghan, you've had it so hard! You think someone didn't like you because of some practically undetectable racial characteristic and now you have to live in a $16M mansion on only $7M a year? Why, you're just like me! I'm worth billions and I still have to deal with hate and discrimination. It's simply horrible!"
Here's a simple test for you. Imagine you're talking to a paraplegic. They were born with crippled legs and have spent their whole life in a wheelchair. Nearly everything you take for granted is a struggle for them. Now tell them your troubles. Make it dramatic. Did you hear a Forbidden Word? Did you see a bumper sticker? No wonder you need a safe space! Where's your emotional support animal?
Now imagine that you don't belong to a victim group, so you can't claim oppression. How can you cash in on the craze? Defend them! Be an ally and fight for their rights! After all, they hear Forbidden Words and see bumper stickers. So much Hate™. You're a hero for standing between them and ... whoever it is. If it weren't for them, you'd have to gain attention by accomplishing something real and who wants that?
Meanwhile, the paraplegic lives in a world of obstacles. You? Not so much.
I know a guy at work who is blind. He's got an advanced degree in physics or engineering. I met him when he wrote to me about our web apps not being accessible enough. I met with him and learned how he surfs the web with a text-to-speech browser addition. It was unreal.
Essentially, blind people have to make a mental map of each website. Using the tab key, they hop through the web page's Document Object Model, remembering the tree as they go. When they have to log in, they stop and type in their username and password in the right spots. As I sat with him and he demonstrated it to me, I was blown away.
I can't even imagine what it was like to read physics texts in Braille. How would you encode the differential equations? Crazy, man.
Meanwhile, Meghan Markle and Princess Harry whined about dealing with their perceptions of racial animus while enjoying perfect health, mountains of cash and public adulation. We didn't all point and laugh because we want that sweet, sweet, drama-queen goodness, too.
After all, one time, a while back, I saw a picture in a Dr. Seuss book that probably was offensive to some other drama queens and it traumatized me.
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| This was one of my kids' favorite books. No wonder they're tough. They lived through hearing me say, "A Chinese man who eats with sticks." That's as bad as being a paraplegic. |
5 comments:
Relevant Cartoon:
The Least Fortunate Man on Earth
Hilarious!
I was blessed with parents that would not permit complaining. I've managed to develop the habit since then, but I'd like to think that I keep it relatively under control.
Regarding "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street", I think that a much better complaint about it is that the kid's response to being chided by his father to be more observant, was not to be more observant. Instead, he spent his time thinking up progressively more outrageous lies. And he finally refrained from telling these lies, not because he thought lying was wrong or anything, but because he chickened out at the end.
You know, one could write a modern Mulberry Street wherein the kid walking home sees nothing special, but makes up a story of ever greater injustices ...
Hmm.
"Here's a simple test for you. Imagine you're talking to a paraplegic. They were born with crippled legs and have spent their whole life in a wheelchair. Nearly everything you take for granted is a struggle for them. ..."
I'm *offended* on behalf of my late mother and all other cripples and gimps.
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