The Weird Kid
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
You are gonna judge me, I know it.
Sass is sending me down a brain freak out trip. Two posts, or one and a half, about hating judgmental people. I've got to get my cranky self in on this. It's kind of a peripheral tangent, but, come along anyway.
Don't Judge Other People.
I grew up in the 80's and early 90's, where most television shows devoted a few episodes per season to having an unassuming black man/female/Mexican be horribly mistreated by vicious slobbering white men before showing them up with intelligence and quiet dignity in the end. For further research see "Designing Women," "Quantum Leap," and particularly poignant episodes of my own darling, "The Golden Girls."
People don't want to be like those TV bad guys. So they are vocal in having no problem with black people, the poor, the brassy independent woman. But yet smug Christians still annoy them. And loud-mouthed conservatives. And Rednecks. And Fat People who don't act ashamed enough. And Sarah Palin. Their tolerance can only extend so far.
No one glides through this world without prejudices. It's just some are socially acceptable this generation and some are not.
Your life imprints preferences and aversions and irrational fears on you as you grow up. If you cannot stand fat men who wear suspenders, if for some reason they disgust you to the point of crossing the street to avoid them, I think that's okay. Your making your own life a little harder by needing to cross the street all the time, but that isn't my business. I'm sure you've got pretty good, private reasons for how you feel.
And by that logic, if you can't stand fat black men who wear suspenders, even if their blackness is part of the aversion, that needs to be okay, too. It's just fair. Just so long as you don't try to hurt them by word or deed, your aversions are no one else's business.
And if I AM that fat black man in suspenders that creeps you out, I want to be able to shrug you off, or even tell you that I find you pissy, and then go about my business. Not stand in front of you and demand your praise.
So, in conclusion, I am a massively prejudiced, judgemental person. The more something is safe and familiar to me, the more I like it. I size up everything different with a wary eye. It is a variation of the apprehension that kept my ancestors from being eaten by lions, it is something as deep as my bones. I don't understand how this became a dirty thing.
So Don't Judge Me.
Don't Judge Other People.
I grew up in the 80's and early 90's, where most television shows devoted a few episodes per season to having an unassuming black man/female/Mexican be horribly mistreated by vicious slobbering white men before showing them up with intelligence and quiet dignity in the end. For further research see "Designing Women," "Quantum Leap," and particularly poignant episodes of my own darling, "The Golden Girls."
People don't want to be like those TV bad guys. So they are vocal in having no problem with black people, the poor, the brassy independent woman. But yet smug Christians still annoy them. And loud-mouthed conservatives. And Rednecks. And Fat People who don't act ashamed enough. And Sarah Palin. Their tolerance can only extend so far.
No one glides through this world without prejudices. It's just some are socially acceptable this generation and some are not.
Your life imprints preferences and aversions and irrational fears on you as you grow up. If you cannot stand fat men who wear suspenders, if for some reason they disgust you to the point of crossing the street to avoid them, I think that's okay. Your making your own life a little harder by needing to cross the street all the time, but that isn't my business. I'm sure you've got pretty good, private reasons for how you feel.
And by that logic, if you can't stand fat black men who wear suspenders, even if their blackness is part of the aversion, that needs to be okay, too. It's just fair. Just so long as you don't try to hurt them by word or deed, your aversions are no one else's business.
And if I AM that fat black man in suspenders that creeps you out, I want to be able to shrug you off, or even tell you that I find you pissy, and then go about my business. Not stand in front of you and demand your praise.
So, in conclusion, I am a massively prejudiced, judgemental person. The more something is safe and familiar to me, the more I like it. I size up everything different with a wary eye. It is a variation of the apprehension that kept my ancestors from being eaten by lions, it is something as deep as my bones. I don't understand how this became a dirty thing.
So Don't Judge Me.
posted by Imez at 8:32 PM
3 Comments:
I'm also extremely judegmental, and have a hard time coming to terms with it. Like, whom am I to think I have the right to know what is going on in someone else's life that is making them behave the way they are.
We've been having a discussion at our house about the difference between prejudices and stereotypes.
We all have them. It's one way to categorize life. For myself, i am always both pleased and chagrined when mine turn out to be wrong. But that doesn't mean they are gone.
We all have them, even when those of us who try push them away. I like you, I like your openness and the way you express yourself. I think you're DA BOMB :) stressed out mother, geesus wait til smudge is 4. Mine is about to put me in the grave! hugs to you blogger friend. :)
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