i am the first to admit that i have been extremely lucky, with a very radical leftist lesbian feminist environmentalist mother. it never ever occured to me to be prejudiced when i was growing up. now that i'm older, it never occurred to me to hate myself for the exploration of gender and sexuality that i'm doing. (sometimes i get squirmy and think that i'm faking it just because i think it's cool, but i don't think that's the same thing as internalized homo/trans/bi-phobia.) i think the reason i'm 'educated' as you say, is just because of a deep personal principle about acceptance. not just acceptance but respect. we've got to learn to respect what we don't understand. we've got to respect people's self-definition. how did i get here? why should i know... i guess i was just lucky in my upbringing... i just can't conceive of being anywhere else.

i am widely known as the political morgan, too, so you've got our views in something of a distilled form. trent used to think i was a man-hater... which i think is hilarious, because i have been the leader in the exploration of trans stuff. what i hate is male privelege. and white privelege. and ignorant assholes. i know i should be more tolerant... it's one of my biggest faults. i just can never see WHY i should be at all tolerant of intolerance. i know that maybe we can't bring people back from intolerance unless we tolerate them a little while, but i just get so stuck on how fucked up their views are. i know it's bad that i tend to make judgements on people based on their political beliefs. i TRY so hard not to, and have even managed to have polite conversations with right-wing christians. the other morgans are better at this. i try so hard to get beyond my politics... but the political IS personal. i just feel like i CANNOT sit back and accept that this kind of thing is going on, that these kind of viewpoints are being flung about. i was unpopular at camp when i was a lot younger, because i would be so quick to turn conversations political. i would never stand for people saying things were 'gay' or calling people 'faggots'. ever ever ever. i would get all hot and bothered at the merest hint of it. now i am a little more grown up, i understand that sometimes people have to be educated gently. i'm better at doing this with gender and sexuality. but class and race... seems like people have had enough time to unlearn this shit, doesn't it?

i don't know. i continue to examine my actions deeply, and listen to the counsel of the more placating morgans, but i continue to stand firm in my beliefs. i would rather err on the side of being too passionate, than too quiet. oppressed people have been quiet for too long. [i'm not claiming to be oppressed, i'm just making the point that too much silence is a really bad thing and people need to start speaking up.]

words are incredibly powerful. so are actions. you have to be true to yourself in both.

"This is the point I was also trying to make before. Choosing to dislike someone based upon the fact that they make these statements and only these statements is just as bad as the statements. Should I hate my grandfather who is a wonderful, caring man and has been my grandpa in a wonderful way because if I happened to marry a black man he would disown me? No I don't think so, b/c then I'm returning his discrimination with like discrimination. Anger doesn't fight anger and discrimination will not fight discrimination. (btw, if I fell in love with a black man I would marry him regardless of my grandfather, but I would never hate my grandfather. Be angry at him yes, be hurt yes, but hate? dislike? No). And if I meet someone and they are otherwise a wonderful person but then they call someone a nigger, I explain that I don't want them doing that around me, that I would appreciate it. Do I hate them forever b/c of it? Do I dislike them? No."

this is what makes me uncomfortable about myself sometimes, and it is what i was trying to articulate in my last post. because i tend to be SO hotheaded about this. i know that fighting intolerance with intolerance is not the right way to battle things (and i am only violent in my quickness of speech, i am a TOTAL believer in nonviolence in every way. i don't think blood has to be shed in some kind of a revolution to bring matters to rightness. i don't think we should fight a wrong with another wrong; we'll just create another twisted society if the revolution is violent. like in the USSR.) in personal matters, we can be the most forgiving thing in the world. someone can be downright abusive towards us and we still are sitting there forgiving them. but with political stuff i jump out and breathe fire. i am working on it... thank you for calling me on it.

at the same time, i think that too much tolerance of intolerance is dangerous. it is too easy just to sit there making excuses for the oppressors. it is like abusers -- oh, he only hit me because i made him angry. oh, she only acts that way because she learned it from her father. oh, he doesn't really mean it when he throws me against the wall. oh, zie is really a nice person when zie's not drinking.

i never want to do that. i never want to make excuses for my girlfriend's racist grandfather. i never want to bow down and accept it, say that he's only so racist because it was what he learned from a young age, he has never had the opportunity to unlearn it. there is too much opportunity to unlearn it. we are not living in a place that will throw your ass in jail simply for being unracist. (far be it from me to say we're living in any kind of ideal state here, or to make generalizations, but in my experience we don't tend to go as far as fascism. feel free to have a different opinion.) there are excellent resources for unlearning racism and other kinds of prejudice. there are all kinds of people and organizations there to help you figure stuff out. it is just intrinsic to me that you don't hate people for being a different color, or religion, or sexuality, or gender, or belief structure, or anything. i want to educate the world. i grow so fucking impatient for change. i don't have to deal with the racism one anymore, which i think is part of why i am so mortally offended. if he were saying the same things about queers, i would be very offended, but i might have more patience to educate in a rational and nonsarcastic way. (well, a LITTLE bit of artfully placed sarcasm can be glorious in battling any kind of prejudice. hehe.) i don't know. i just try to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis... and i haven't written skull off as a person. [black widow and bitch might have, buti really don't, i promise.] i am hotheaded and i'll swaer but i'll always be willing to listen to the next thing you have to say. ALWAYS.

i don't say that racist or classist or any type of prejudiced people are going to hell. i don't write them off as a person. i get really impatient with them, but i don't stop giving them chances. i am grateful there are other people for them to go to, though, because i just get so emotional about it.

and actually i will sometimes go on a rant about how our society needs to be set up to allow people to express themselves that way... i have gotten in so much trouble on other lists for saying that i think [just an example] skinheads should have the space to meet and to protest peacefully and whatever else they want to do. no i don't think they have the right to oppress anyone, but they have the right to stick their heads in the sands. i don't believe in hell; i don't think that they are going to 'get their due.' i hope and vaguely believe that karma, out of compassion, might place them in a situation where they have a chance to unlearn this shit. that's not out of vindictiveness. that's because i think they have more chance to grow and heal and love their own self if they can learn to stop hating others. but it doesn't mean i have to be their friend. it doesn't mean i have to be their personal saviour and educator. it's pretty egotistical to think that you can be the element of change for everyone. i can deal with people who are intolerant, too. dite's grandfather is racist, and i rant and rave to her about it in private, but when we're with him i try hard to be polite. i try hard to show that i am a respectful young lady towards her elders. etc etc. i certainly won't ask them to accept me as trans and i feel grateful that they accept my relationship with dite.

i know i have come across really bad, like a hypocrite. i try not to judge people like that. i really do. and i think that in my ranting i have given a mistaken impression, that i have written skull off and that i always write people off. i try hard not to. and hell if you put me in an intolerant situation not on the internet, i tend to act totally different. i'll try to engage the person i see as prejudiced and get them to talk about where their beliefs come from. or i'll act in a way that basically presumes that they won't be prejudiced... which actually works wonders a whole lot of times. like i'll come out to people casually, as if it's not big deal, and basically talk to them like there would be no problem ever. so if they ARE prejudiced, i force them to 'come out' about that to me. and if they do, then i'll examine their statements one by one, ask them why they think so, try to break it down and show them on a basic, logical level why i feel differently.

on the internet, it is easier to rant.