I am not exempt

I hereby acknowledge I am capable of being a racist, sexist, homophobic , transphobic, classist, ablist, agist shitstain.* I've probably done all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ablist, agist shitstainy things in my life and gotten away with it.

*Please feel free to fill in the prejudices I haven't listed.

I do not exmpt myself from these sins. I admit them, and in my better moments I try to learn from them.

Even so, because I am white, a U.S. citizen and capable of picking up some of the nasty shit that surrounds me, I will probably do something racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ablist, agist and shitstainy in the future. Although I make a concerted effort to avoid it, I'm not going to say it can't happen.

When I do act like a bigot, I hope somebody calls me on it. I hope I can hear that message and learn from it.

I've attended a lot of anti-racist and anti-homophobic training. The issue of power is always discussed. "Racism" is definied as a system that has real power to make life difficult for people of color. By employing and supporting racism through bigotry and hate speech, I could and would make life more difficult for people of color.

People of color do not have access to the power that is white racism. Therefore, the bigotry and hate speech of people of color is not racism. The word racism defines the system.

Bigotry is an illogical hatred for a different group of people. Anyone, including people without power, can participate in bigotry and hate speech. Hate speech has different effects, depending on where one exists on the power spectrum, but it still is logically defined as hate speech and bigotry.

Yesterday, I read a different argument over at Heart's space. This argument equates racism, bigotry and hate speech and says only the powerful can exhibit this behavior.

In this specific instance, the discussion was about hate speech toward transgendered people. Please click on over and read the whole piece, because I don't want to speak for Heart. She explains herself quite logically and doesn't go all academic on the reader, as some of us do.

You can read it here.starting at thread #208 by Heart. Here's a short quote from a follow up:

When a radical feminist female uses insulting words in the direction of transwomen, she understand this to be no different from using insulting words in the direction of males. It might be rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, it might be insulting, but it isn’t hate speech. It’s not discriminatory. Because given power differentials as they exist between males and females, females aren’t situated socially so as to be able to discriminate against males, or to be bigoted towards males or to be phobic against males. To the contrary, our experience as females is that males *are* to be feared because they hurt females and to say so, and behave accordingly, is not “phobic,” it is based on female reality.

I completely disagree with this theory. I believe it to be fundamentally flawed.

First, I believe, as I said above, that all of us are capable of hate speech and bigotry. These are the actions of individuals, not systems, and although they do not reach the level of racism, they still suck and ought to be avoided. By all of us.

Second, and more problematical, is that Heart claims that women have been harmed by men, therefore hate speech and bigotry toward men is merely an accurate description of the way men behave.

Obviously, I agree that men have and continue to harm women in all sorts of ways. I'd be a fool to disagree.

However, bigotry and hate speech is always illogical. It's illogical because we can never accurately define a group of human beings that is exactly one thing or another with no exceptions.

So, again, I am not exempt. And I hope my readers will call me on it when I do fuck up in the future.