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stonering's offer to knit me a scarf, the "Matt" scarf in memory of Matthew Shepard has stirred up a lot more feelings than I can physically handle right now.Why us? Why him? Why can't people just accept it? Why do so many of us get bashed or killed, or kill ourselves? Why does it have to hurt so much because a great majority of us can't be honest with those who pretend to love us, can't be honest with ourselves?
It doesn't make sense to me - I don't understand it. Maybe someone can explain it to me, because it doesn't seem psychologically correct to hate a group of people with such a passion. It doesn't make sense to me that I can't walk down the street without fear. It doesn't sit well with me that though things are changing, that there's a *need* for things to change. Can someone please explain this to me? Can someone tell me why people hate at all?
Not just those in my community, but everywhere. Why do so many people get disgusted when a black person and a white person kiss? When a man and a man or a woman and a woman show affection?
Maybe I don't understand because I'm on the recieving end. Maybe I don't understand because there's something wrong with me. I just don't get it - why is it okay to beat the queer boy in the lunchroom or at recess until he has blood running down his face and scars so deep no surgeon or therapist can ever remove them. Why is it alright for a girl to be raped by some biggot who thinks he can show her the "right way"?
You know, one of the first things we're taught in psychology is that Hate is not a natural emotion - it is a learned emotion. It is a socially dependent emotion. WHY does society teach it? Why do we subject our children and our selves to the notion that if we hate someone we are better than them? If we kick someone while they're down, that makes us superior? If we take the control away from them, if we make them beg, if we make them bleed, if we make them die - we're better. What is wrong with us? What is wrong with all of us?
Maybe I'm naive and maybe I'm a simple minded person, but maybe that's the way we should all be.
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I don't know the answer. I do know I'm sorry.
I disagree with your Psych prof. I think hate is an ingrained human emotion. I think its the one thing we all do very well, thankyouverymuch, with little intervention required. If it's not sexual orientation, then its religion, or politics, or something even less meaningful. Sigh.....
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Feelin muuuuucccch better today though, so *hugs*
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I am feeling much better, too. Yesterday was just one of those days, ya know. I was in total PsychoLorraine mode.
Now, I'm in kitties and icecream Lorraine mode. *offers you mint chocolate chip and a tiny tabby*
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None of it should be alright. It makes me sad and angry that all those things happen.
I'm sorry you're having a rough time at the moment though.
I'm too tired right now to be empassioned I think. So I'll just send you more hugs.
*many hugs*
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Much better after I've slept on it. Still a depressing thought, though. Guess we can just hope and do our best to make things better.
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*hugs* again.
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That's what I'm saying though - there shouldn't *BE* this angst, you know?
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You've got me on my hobby horse now - this thing about whether something is natural or not. Some things that are natural are good, and some are horrible, so I don't get why people alwyas have to go on about things being "natural" or "unnatural" as though that was equivalent to "good" and "bad".
If it's true that hate is unnatural (and I'm not sure it is) then its taught at a very young age. Everyone learns to fear the "other" whether it's the next-door neighbours, the next classroom, the people from the next village, the next island, the other continent... people with ways that are not their ways. It's part of learning who your friends are - a basic survival skill, but it gets taken to extremes. Even sheep recognise individual faces of other sheep. Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean its something we want to encourage. Its natural for males to try to inseminate the youngest female they can, to ensure that its their genes that are carried forward, but its not nice and its not fair.
"If we kick someone while they're down, that makes us superior? If we take the control away from them, if we make them beg, if we make them bleed, if we make them die - we're better. What is wrong with us? What is wrong with all of us?"
If we kick someone when they're down, they can't kick us. What's wrong with us is fear. Then once someone is down, I think there's some kind of hard-wired sadistic impulse that takes over. Orangutan A seems to be motivated to attack Orangutan B more ferociously if B shows fear.
"Maybe I'm naive and maybe I'm a simple minded person, but maybe that's the way we should all be."
We should all be trying to be better, but it takes so long, its frustrating I know. I can't believe how primitive people are in their reactions sometimes, and how small their circle of concern is. It bugs the hell out of me, when news items reporting a disaster tell you how many people from your country were harmed - what difference does it make what nationality the victims were?
I'm a vegetarian, and want all animals to have a right to not be interfered with by humans - ie. an end to hunting, meat-eating, vivisection... think how long I'm going to have to wait... but at least I'm not the one at the sharp end - no one's trying to eat me.
There is nothing wrong with you. Its a crazy world.
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I thought about the us & them thing last night too, but I couldn't articulate it. Some of it is pretty primative stuff. And from sheep keeping, I tend to think of primative as where the good survival traits come from. And in some sense all the things Bradley mentioned - gay, black, female -- comes down to identifiable as different, and potentially weaker.
I do wonder what can be done about it all. It should be *not ok* for any of the things Bradley talked about to happen. I am daily wondering what I can do to change things, especially from my position as a white, thirty-something, mundane looking mom. It bothers me even when I see folks hitchhiking along the freeway, and don't stop for them, because it woudlnt' be tough for someone to overpower me, or with a kid in the car, have a good deal of leverage over me. But I wish the world I'm living in wasn't a place where I had to think about those things.
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I like that theory much better.
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I think people need to be militantly naive.
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marie
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If you get a chance go read a book called "Transgender Warriors" by Leslie Feinberg, its an easy read and an interesting look at queer history. I know your busy, but it helped me accept myself.
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