I was originally going to call this post “Whoops, you’re a bigot!” but I think a gentler approach would be more effective. The people I’m talking about here don’t seem to have bad intentions; they’re just ignorant, and ignorance can be cured. It’s really okay to not know something.

I’m not discounting the argument that intentions matter less than the results of people’s actions; I totally get that. What I want to do with this post, though, is reach the well-intentioned accidental bigots. If you want to read about why it isn’t the job of the people being affected by bigotry to educate people about these issues, read Annalee’s amazing Tweet thread on this topic. I am 100% in agreement with them. This, however, is a case in which I am choosing to educate.

Accidental bigotry #1: “Love the sinner, hate the sin”

I recently wrote for the June Pride issue of Tumbleweird:

You can’t love someone despite who they are; you love them because of who they are!

A well-meaning woman I know told me that she still loves her cousin (who came out recently) even though she doesn’t “agree with her lifestyle choices.” I’m here to tell you that denying someone’s truth is not love. Calling someone’s reality a “lifestyle choice” horribly diminishes their struggles and experiences.

If you have a loved one that comes out to you, please just tell them you love them… and don’t add the word “anyway.”

 

When you take a “love the sinner hate the sin” approach to someone’s queerness, you automatically set yourself in opposition to them. Think about it this way: a friend of yours comes up to you and says, “I’m gay. I’ve always felt this way, and now I’m finally coming to terms with it and letting people know.” If your reaction is anything besides love and acceptance, not only are you letting that person know that they were wrong to trust you, you are also delegitimizing their entire life.

When you treat someone’s entire reality as if it is a “choice” they are making, you are, in essence, calling them a liar. You are calling their reality a lie. You are somehow stuck on the notion that you know more about their life than they do.

Accidental bigotry #2: Misgendering

When it comes to misgendering, there are plenty of people who do it purposely. For the purposes of this post, I’m only talking about those who misgender with no malicious intent.

If you are a cis man and you want to understand what it’s like to be trans, don’t imagine what it would feel like to be a woman. Imagine instead that you are yourself. You are a man. And your entire life, everyone you meet tells you that you are a woman, calls you “she” and “her,” and tells you that your assertions that you are a man are wrong, or sick, or imaginary.

Think of how relieved you would feel when someone finally recognized you as a man—called you “sir,” called you “mister.”

Now, try to understand why people should be called by the names and pronouns they choose, not the ones assigned to them by doctors or parents. If you don’t know the proper pronouns to use, look at their social media profiles or ask them. Be respectful. Be courteous.

Accidental bigotry #3: Microaggressions

Kay Bolden wrote a wonderful essay on microaggressions and micro-assaults called “I Love Your Complexion! And other micro-assaults on Black women” in which she outlines several pitfalls that (somewhat) well-meaning white people can fall into.

Reading this essay, the term “back-handed compliment” came to mind for me. There are many ways in which we (I mean white people) subtly and not so subtly insult people of color without seeming to notice. Kay says that a microaggression is “an insult that sounds like a compliment on the surface, but has as its baseline premise the idea that ‘whiteness’ is not only the norm, but the standard to strive for.”

A couple of examples Kay gives are telling a black person they are articulate (thus signaling your surprise and showing that you don’t think they are as intelligent as white people), and a white person saying they “don’t see color” (thereby rejecting the legitimacy of the racial experiences of people of color).

I strongly suggest that you read Kay Bolden’s essay if you are a white person. I’ll quote from the final paragraphs:

For many white people, being accused of racism is an affront to their view of themselves as fair, liberal, and spiritual individuals. It’s shocking to be told they have biases, and that their biases have harmed people of color. Sometimes engaging with them morphs into yet another defense of white fragility.

The beneficiaries of racism spend more time centering how they feel and how uncomfortable the conversation makes them — instead how much damage has been done to people of color, and how to stop it.

 

To wrap up, there are obviously more than three ways to be an accidental bigot, but these are the three I see every day. As a white, cis woman, I have made mistakes and will definitely make more in the future.

I was recently at a show with a group of people and I wrongly assumed the gender of one of the folks I only knew tangentially. I kept calling him “her” until someone kindly corrected me. All I could do was apologize and try to be more mindful moving forward. I have also made the mistake of asking friends of mine to do emotional labor for me; I have asked them to educate me about things I should have worked harder to figure out for myself.

As I get older (I’m almost 40, y’all), I find that many of the terms and manners of speech that I was taught were acceptable no longer are (like person-first language, for example). There is no “woke!” I have to continuously learn and change myself, and I’m still going to screw up no matter how hard I try to do the right things.

But I’m learning. You be, too! Google stuff. Seriously. Do it often, and read everything. Read stuff from people that aren’t like you.

PFLAG has a ton of resources on LGBTQIA+ issues. Medium has a lot of great articles about race. The National Center for Transgender Equality has a lot of info about trans and non-binary people.

We don’t need another white woman talking about race so that she can prove to people that she’s not racist. That’s not what this post is about. If you’re reading this so that YOU can feel secure about your lack of racism, this post is not for you.

So why am I talking about race?

Ijeoma Oluo, someone I will mention more than a few times below, says:

We have a real problem of racial inequity and injustice in our society, and we cannot wish it away. We have to tackle this problem with real action, and we will not know what needs to be done if we are not willing to talk about it.

… The alternative is your complacency in the continued oppression of people of color. … And if you are white, and you don’t want to feel any of that pain by having these conversations, then you are asking people of color to continue to bear the entire burden of racism alone.

So let’s talk about it.

Hi. I’m a white woman.

While I’m much more in the cis female part of the spectrum, I’m gender nonconforming, but I have never had to worry about the kinds of things my trans friends have had to worry about, so I’m counting my gender identity as a privilege.

Although I am queer, I am also married to a straight, cis, white male, so most people assume I am straight also. That’s another privilege box checked.

Like I said, my husband is white, straight, and cis, so I’ve never had to deal with assholes who treat us badly because of their hateful bigotry around race, sexual or gender prejudices. Check, check, and check.

Privileged AF

Here are the things that have never happened to me. No… more than that. Not only have they never happened to me, I have never thought about the possibility of them happening to me.

I have never:

• had the cops called on me because I was waiting to meet someone in a coffee shop (or sitting anywhere, minding my own business).
• been made to feel unwelcome because of my appearance or accent.
• had someone mistake me for “armed” because I was holding a phone or other non-weapony object.
• been asked to step out of the car for no reason when I get pulled over.
• been asked not to attend an activity because I am of mixed race.
• had people assume I am aggressive or dangerous because of the color of my skin.
• been asked by an employer to straighten my hair so that it looks more “professional.”

There are so many more things that I’ve been automatically opted out of because of my privilege. Too many to list.

But here’s the important takeaway: These are all things that happen to people of color ALL THE TIME. And while I’m horrified by the stories I hear about the racist shit people say and do, my friends of color never seem surprised. They have lived with prejudice all of their lives.

They know racism. As much as I read/hear about it, I can never understand what it’s like to live as a person of color in the United States.

My very limited experience

I lived in the Dominican Republic for roughly two and a half years in the Peace Corps.  Aside from the initial training, and the last six months in which I lived in the capital, all of my time was spent living in Jima Abajo, a very small inland pueblo.

No one there spoke English, and most of the people living in Jima Abajo had never seen a white person face-to-face.

(To be clear, I am not suggesting that being white in the Dominican Republic is like being Black in America.  I wasn’t stuck in a racist system that took away my opportunities and rights. When I say that my experience is very limited, I mean it. I was still privileged as fuck, even when I felt like an outsider.)

There were a lot of preconceived beliefs about white people that I worked to overcome, with very little success. For instance, a single woman living alone was considered to be a prostitute. A woman with tattoos was thought to be “wild” or at least not a good person. Because of things they had seen in movies, many Dominicans thought that white women were very “loose” in general. These are only examples, but they helped inform the greater trend toward my dehumanization, which had some pretty devastating effects on me.

I’m talking about the Peace Corps because it was one of the few times in my life when I stuck out in a crowd. Attention was constantly being given to me based on the color of my skin, eyes, and hair. It felt embarrassing, and sometimes dangerous, to walk down the street looking like me. I was so conspicuous.

But here’s where the similarity ends: Most of the attention I got was positive, or at least well-intentioned. Kind of. I mean, most Dominicans consider light skin, light-colored eyes, and straight hair to be pretty. That’s a whole other thing to unpack—how the beauty ideals of Spanish colonialists are still at work in the Dominican population—so even though I was a minority as a white person, I embodied an aesthetic considered “beautiful,” which differentiated my experience from what people of color experience here in the United States.

The attention my friends of color tend to get in the United States is rarely positive. And like I said, even if it’s well-intentioned, it’s uncomfortable to be the center of attention for something immutable about your appearance. Non-white ethnicities are sometimes even fetishized for their appearance, which can go beyond making them feel uncomfortable, and put them in danger.

I was talking with a friend recently about how isolating it feels for them to be the only person of color in a group of white people. They said it’s probably akin to how it feels for me to be the only woman in a group of men. I appreciated that comparison, and I have definitely felt discomfort in that situation in the past, but I’m sure there are differences that I’ll never fully understand or experience.

I know that women have been the targets of terrible injustices over the centuries, and I’m not minimizing that. But white women have never, as a whole people, been kidnapped from our homes and brought overseas like cargo to be sold into slavery. We have never had strangers from afar push us out of our homes and relocate us to reservations. We have never been the victims of genocide.

So, yeah… not exactly the same.

What now?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that white people won’t have the answers on what to do about racism.

I’ve read Ijeoma Oluo’s book, So You Want to Talk About Race.

It’s been challenging, in all the right ways. The more I learn about race, the more I realize my own ignorance about the topic. That is a good thing. We privileged folk are unaware of a lot of systemic racism because it is so ingrained in our culture that it’s invisible to us. We need to gain awareness! And I mean that we need to gain it constantly. There will always be more to learn.

It’s not enough to “be woke” and “stay woke”… we need to keep waking up every fucking day.

One last thing. How can we be allies?

I don’t have the answer. That’s a question with no single answer, but I’ll list a few things I’ve learned, and link some resources. I hope they’re a little bit helpful.

• Listen to people of color, listen to women, and listen to people in the LGBTQIA+ community when they talk about their experiences. Believe what they say. Understand that when race intersects with gender, ability/disability, and other factors, people have to contend with different (or more complex) bigotries.
• Stop trying to prove you’re not racist/sexist/other-ist. It’s not about you. Being defensive is no way to be an ally.
• When you see bigotry happening around you, pay attention. If it is  dangerous or inappropriate to step in, record the incident on your phone. Sometimes simply standing near the person being targeted is helpful.

Here are some resources that may also be helpful:

This is a video that was created for the post-Brexit UK:

The Nod is a great podcast that “tells the stories of Black life that don’t get told anywhere else”:

 

There are a ton of articles out there on the subject of being an ally, but here are a few of Ijeoma Oluo’s:

So You Want to Fight White Supremacy

White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves

What have you learned? Do you have any resources to share?

As some of you know, I’ve been writing content for Fuse’s blog for awhile, now.

That’s definitely been taking its toll here, since I’ve had less time to focus on my own blog. Not to mention the adventure that was Enterprise Week… that was a HUGE endeavor. I’ve actually written a bit about Enterprise Week on Fuse’s blog, but I’ll be writing a little more shortly, since my group of kids was focused on the environment and Earth Day is coming up.

Instead, what I think I’ll do here next is talk about the formation of our 501c3 called Tri-City Area Gaming (TAG). I’ll talk about the process, the people involved, and possibly the brand standard I developed for TAG. I hope that sounds interesting! I’m doing it either way!

And speaking of not having enough time, lately… I’m dropping some responsibilities. Tonight I’ll be telling the members of the support group I’ve been running for over five years that I’m stepping down. For at least a year, I don’t feel like the group has been serving its original purpose, and I often feel like a mediator, trying to balance the stronger personalities in the group to make sure everyone feels heard. It was a tough decision to make, but ultimately, I think letting go of this group will be good for me.

I also let go of responsibility of one of my two monthly Spanish Practice meetups. I can do one, but two was just too many. Fortunately, an awesome lady from the group is keeping up with the second meetup herself!

Anyway, I’ll keep trying to keep up with all of the things I’m up to, without taking on more than I’m able to do! What a concept!  : D

This is a hard post for me to write. It’s not nice.

Not that it’s mean-spirited; these are things that I have felt needed to be said for a while now. But they aren’t things that people necessarily want to hear.

There are a few individuals that I’m “calling out,” although I won’t be naming them. If they read this, which I hope they do, it is likely that they will feel hurt or defensive, which isn’t my intention. I guess my hope is that they will hear what I’m saying and take it to heart. If you’re thinking how unlikely that is, I can’t say I disagree with you.

Brendan and I have an agreement between us: that if someone in our lives is toxic, we will simply remove them from our circle of friends. Since the brain tumor, this agreement has become even more important to us. Anything can happen—either one of us could die today. So we don’t want to waste even a moment dealing with toxic individuals.

With this post, I am attempting to address the reasons why certain people have been removed from my life.

No one is perfect, people. When I see these traits in myself, which absolutely happens, I work very hard to overcome them. Hopefully others can do the same.

The “Managers”

“Managers” can often be seen attempting to teach, coerce, or control their partners. Some of them even behave this way toward their friends. What at first can be seen as helpful advice (especially during the “honeymoon phase” of your friendship) becomes more and more patronizing the longer you know them.

The less self-aware the “Managers” are, they more likely you will witness them practicing not-so-subtle attempts to control their partners/friends by telling them how to play a board game better, what to eat, how to dress, etc. If the “Manager” knows on some level that their behavior isn’t okay, they will probably only do it in private.

“Managers” tend to believe that they are very smart, and that others want to benefit from their knowledge and expertise. If they find themselves in a position where they must learn something, they will generally ask a lot of questions designed to make them look smarter than the “teacher.” I once had a “Manager” tell me how I was setting up a game wrong—a game he had never played, and I had—without irony.

While “Managers” are by no means relegated to one gender, this article about mansplaining from last year does a pretty good job of spelling out some ways to tell if you or someone you know is “managing” (or mansplaining). Chances are pretty good that if they’re doing this stuff a lot, and they’ve been doing it for a long time, they may not even realize it’s happening.

The “Passionate People”

“Passionate People” mistake anger—or dickishness—for passion. The worst ones know it’s not passion and just use the term as a smokescreen.

Saying “I’m a passionate person” does not give anyone license to be abusive to people. They can be as passionate as they want to be, but when they mistreat someone, using passion as a scapegoat is weak and dishonest.

Apologies are a great way to mend friendships. If “Passionate People” just said they were sorry for their behavior instead of trying to excuse that behavior or disguise it as a character trait, they would probably hold onto more friends and have deeper friendships.

I had to break up with a friend of mine after he made my cry for the second time. I tried to pass of the first incident as a fluke, but the second time around I wised up. We were in public, and I’m almost certain he did it on purpose.

The “Exceptions”

You’ll hear people who think of themselves as “Exceptions” trying to opt out of their privilege. “Exceptions” will proclaim that their whiteness/maleness/whateverness either doesn’t come with privileges, or that they have managed to somehow opt out of those privileges.

Many of these “Exceptions” think of themselves as social justice warriors. You will see them arguing with well-meaning people on Facebook and Twitter, calling out people for using certain words or other faux pas, usually with the intention of making themselves look better.

An “Exceptional” ex-acquaintance of mine once railed against my husband for posting an article on Facebook that basically said that it’s okay for kids to take time figuring out who they are. He tagged my friend, whose daughter was having a hard time because she felt like she should know what her sexual orientation was, and didn’t at the time. Our friend thanked him for the post (and later said it was helpful for her daughter).

Then, for some reason, this “Exception” decided to chime in and proclaim, apparently speaking on behalf of all 14-year-olds, that “14-year-olds know their bodies!” She went on and on about how bad this post was, using very angry and inflammatory language. I’m very glad my friend’s daughter didn’t see the comments on the post; she was already feeling like something was “wrong” with her for not knowing everything about her identity and orientation without the help of this “social justice warrior.”

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Okay, that got a little heavy, so here’s a video from Awaken with JP:

Sorry about the overuse of quotation marks in this post.

I’m not going to apologize for anything else I’ve written here; I’m trying to be courageous, and make it known why I’ve cut off contact with certain people. I hope this helps someone out there rid themselves of toxic people, and of toxins inside of themselves.

I’m married to a wonderful man named Brendan Quinn. This post is addressed to him.

Hi, baby. I love you so damn much.

Together, we’ve been able to pursue our dreams of owning our own company, publishing games, creating (as yet unfinished) video games, and traveling to all sorts of interesting destinations. You have helped and supported me through some very difficult times, and I’ve helped and supported you, as well.

We’re partners. We’re best friends. We’re very, VERY happily married.

We’re also human beings, which means we’re not always on our best behavior. I think what makes our marriage work so well is that we talk about shit as it comes up. I mean…we have to. Otherwise, it just sits there stinking up the room. So we talk through problems as they arise, and make sure to put the emphasis on how to make it better instead of on who to blame. You’ve helped teach me how to do that better.

Today, we’ve been married five years. It feels like so short a time, and somehow simultaneously, it feels like I’ve known you forever.

Everything I said in my wedding vows still holds true. I just want to tack on a little addendum: I will never, ever stop learning and growing. I’ll keep striving to be better and better—and not just for you, but for myself as well. I know you’ll understand what I mean 🙂

You’re the absolute best, love. I hit the lottery, and I know it. I’ll say it again: I love you so damn much.

Hey, loves!

It’s been way, way too long since I’ve checked in!

I’ve suddenly become very busy, and I’m trying to balance my time with my recovery. Working out and cooking have made their way back into my life, which is super fun and feels awesome. I’ve also got some new design projects! All in all, things are going splendidly. I just need to figure out how to keep everything in balance, and allow time for my own art projects and blog writing.

There are a couple of blogs bouncing around in my head. I’ve been writing them mentally while driving, showering, etc… you know how it is. They’ll make their way here soon 🙂