Silence is deadly

This is a bit of rant, but I’m hoping to open it up the discussion of tactics used to silence minorities.

I really did not luck out when it comes to discrimination. I’m oppressed as a bisexual, as a woman, as a person who struggles with mental health, as a Jew, as a teenager. It could be a lot worse, I know. But it’s not fun to live your life in fear of discrimination everyday.

I’ve never really got why people want to silence those who simply want equality. I’ve never gotten why it’s so scary that people of color, or woman, or anyone wants to be treated equally. I was raised by leftist radicals, and I guess it never occurred to me that anyone should be denied their basic human rights. I don’t understand it.

I live in a very conservative, upper-middle class, white town. It’s truly frightening how intolerant a lot of people are. But I’ve always limited myself to the small group of liberals, or even moderates, who are part of my school. So when people start sending me chain letters, pictures, etc on facebook that are bigoted and offensive, I’m shocked.

One that made rounds at my school was a horrible piece of flair that called homosexuality perversion, and said that only heterosexual couples had love. Someone was dumb enough to send this to me and a good friend of mine who is gay. The worst part is, the girl who sent it had always been nice and polite to us. It’s awful that people think they can do that.

I happen to be the owner of a webcam . So I decided to record a little shout-out to my friends about this. It turned into a nineteen minute long rant about everything from Prop 8 to religion. But I fond it mostly came down to two things: Feminism and silence

I ended up posting the thing on youtube in three parts, just to see what peoples reactions would be. I may post a link later, but in truth it’s beside the point. This is a good time to point out I am very neurotic in manner. I’m jumpy, talk fast, etc. I do suffer from mental "illness." I’ve accepted it as part of who I am. It doesn’t make me anymore or less of a person.

So far I’ve only got one comment on the video:

"Does feminism make women neurotic, or do neurotic women gravitate towards feminism?"

Really. This person could of said something sensible, cited facts, and actually talked about why they think I’m wrong. But no. They just tried to reduce me to nothing because of my mannerisms. I have no doubt that I will soon get a bunch of "fat and ugly" comments as well.

I’ve been insulted before, and almost never does someone try to disprove my point. Instead, they try and de humanize me.

The weird thing is people still take those who say only sling mud seriously. The leader of the young republicans at my school is infamous for personally insulting everyone who dared disagree with him, yet people still think he’s a stand up guy.

So, I leave this group with a question: How have others tried to dehumanize you, and why do you people still follow those who sling mud?