as a person in my position, i have very little right to write about prejudice. being a christian, i am taught about persecution but i don't really face it considering it's one of the world's most popular religions. the biggest so-called aggression might be a coffee cup that adjusts its design to include all people and all celebrations held in the winter time, or maybe a national pledge removing mention of my deity in order to apply more to everybody, especially considering this country was founded by those who wanted to practice their respective religions freely. i have no right to speak for my muslim sisters and brothers who are forced to apologize for the islamic equivalent of the ku klux ****. what happened to 'all lives matter' when the matter of syrian refugees drifts up, carried by the streets paved in blood, carried by boats across oceans and for some reason these lives don't matter?
to add to the injury i am a middle class white kid, and i hate to break it to you but reverse racism doesn't exist. institutions are not arranged in a way to put me down and keep me quiet. i am rewarded for my successes, called 'bright,' and when my sports team loses i am allowed to cause more damage than those who start a riot over injustices worth having a voice for. i can join the marches and use my position to raise others' voices but i must be careful not to drown them out, because i do not have authority to place my voice above those who have lived the experience
but i do have a different set of experiences my own:
biologically speaking, i am female. according to consumerism, i want a thigh gap wider than the wage gap-- oh, wait, statistically speaking that can't exist, not when we are discouraged by ongoing systems not to discuss salary, conversations that might shed light on evasion of what i deserve. bring up feminism and the first thing you'll hear is "oh, so if everyone is equal, i can hit a girl, right?" no, because i don't want you to hit me. because you shouldn't want to hit anybody, regardless of gender identity. how scary, how scary, that the first thing that comes to a cisgendered male's mind when he thinks 'equality' is abuse. another thing you're bound to hear is "well then i shouldn't have to hold doors open for women" as if politeness is taken away when you stop seeing me as something weak. hopefully you've been taught manners at some point in your despairing life.
i can't even begin to approach the topic of the persecution of trans women, but i can give you the horror stories of my sexuality:
lesbians hate me because how dare i also like guys, straight guys disgust me because they only think 'three-way' when they see 'bi,' gay kids just tell me to pick a side, and my mother will say how it's one or the other as she rolls her eyes. if i date a dude, they tell me it's hetero. if i date a chick, they call me a *****. it's like my identity is only valid when i'm all alone: otherwise i'm either not welcome at pride parties or not welcome in my own home. don't get me started on the poor pan kids who are told that they're just being pretentious bisexuals, or the ace kids told that they just need to be fixed, or the kids confused about the difference between a sexuality and 'political correctness' (news flash: you just have to respect someone's humanity)
here, i'll repeat it: respect someone's humanity.
if someone tells you that you hurt them,
you have no right to decide that you didn't.
when a marginalized group makes fun of you, it is not a reverse anything because all they are doing is hurting your individual feelings, whereas they are put down by the normativity engrained in us from cradle to grave. you tell us to stop being so sensitive but then get angry when all the fed-up trans kids shout "down with cis!" or all the black voices rise to rally "black lives matter!" or women saying that they "hate all men!"
after all,
if i told you i had a plate of cookies, ten in total,
two with laxatives and one with cyanide,
would you take the risk?
or would you just assume that all the cookies are potentially poisoned?