Skialalia

'Political correctness'. When I hear those two words it's likely to trigger a fit of near-uncontrollable rage. I'm sick to death of hearing people bleat about how terrible it is to be 'politically correct', and how oppressed they are and how outrageous it is that they can't have 'free speech'.

And by 'free speech', they mean the right to say anything they like, no matter how racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise insulting, and not be called on it. They mean the right to tell jokes that cut others deeply, or even sting a little, and no one is allowed to object to that. Their rights are all-important, and how dare anyone say otherwise?

Well, you know what? Sure, you have the 'right' to say what you like. And I have the right to call you out for being an unfeeling, vicious asshat. I have the right to cry 'Shame on you!' when you hide your callousness behind laughter, and then have the temerity to mutter that people 'can't take a joke' when someone is offended by what you say.

I have the right to refuse to listen to you generalise about people based on their gender or sexual orientation, and the right to subject you to withering scorn and ferocious argument for your casual racism when you claim you're 'only calling it how you see it'.

I have the right to name your speech for what it is - hatred.

'But I don't hate gays/women/Aboriginals/Muslims ... some of my best friends are ... I've got a friend who is (insert stereotype here) and he doesn't care if I say those things ...'

Et fucking cetera.

These people never stop to think that the 'best friend' who doesn't object to the racist jokes, or the gay stereotyping, or the casual sexism, might be keeping silent. They don't consider that behind that smile might be hurt, or regret, or shame. And they apparently don't realise that even if one person does find their bigotry acceptable, that person doesn't speak for everyone.

So yes, I will call you out when you make a disgusting, racist joke. I will object when you resort to stereotyping and hurt someone for whom I care deeply. I will make a point of forcing you to confront the damage you do. And when you decide you want to poke 'fun' at someone who's called you on that behaviour by attacking them where they're most vulnerable, I will, by god, rip you up one side and down the other.

And if you want to whine about how fucking oppressed you are, or flounce around proclaiming your superiority because you have 'more important things to worry about than someone's precious feelings'? You had better not do it near me.

Because I will enumerate, point by point, every single time you've been hurt and come crying to me or gone whining on Facebook or LJ about the unfairness of others ... every time you've cried because someone's attacked you for simply being a particular race, or religion, or gender ... every time you've demanded your right not to be stereotyped by a television show ... and I will explain to you in minute detail how far you are responsible for perpetuating a world in which that can happen.

Don't cry to me if someone attacks you about being mentally ill if you're the type of person who makes casually racist jokes.

Don't complain that someone has discriminated against you for being a pagan when you've denied others a place in your circles because of their gender.

Don't try and engage my sympathy when you refuse to exercise even a shred of empathy or integrity because you think you have a 'right' ... or worse, because you're just too fucking lazy to think about other people before you flap your mouth.

It's not 'political correctness' to refuse to perpetuate a harmful stereotype ... to excise racist words from your vocabulary ... to show a little goddamn care.

It's being a decent human being. And it really isn't that hard.




(Oh, and for the record ... if you hear/see me saying something racist, homophobic, etc? Call me on it. Tell me what I've done. Because I know damn well I'm not entirely free from this behaviour - but I want to be.

And if I've offended or hurt you because of that? Then I'll damn well apologise unreservedly. And try like hell never to do it again.)

Idiot trolls who wander into my blog and Twitter feeds.

I mean, honestly - grow up.

You're not clever when you edit my posts to say what you want them to say and try to get people to believe the quote originated directly from me.

You're not clever when you try to play 'gotcha' by telling me I have no proof for what I write, when I've provided links and photo evidence.

You don't come off as superior when you use words like 'alleged' to refer to matters of public knowledge and documented facts.

You come off as smug, self-satisfied brats.

My ten-year-old daughters are capable of behaving more maturely than you. All you accomplish is to show yourselves up as idiots, and get yourselves treated to my block list and spam filter.

Kindly FOAD and let some real commenters have the bandwidth.

The post-Xmas flop-around-and-stare-at-the-masses-of-cleaning afternoon just got rudely broken.

A brown snake decided to go for a wander down the street. First we knew about it was when the neighbour across the road came charging out of his house with shovel held high. He bashed it a few times, then, as we piled out of our house with kids in tow, the woman from the house directly across from us chopped it across the back of the neck with the shovel blade. Then, as if that wasn't enough, the woman next door grabbed the shovel and started hacking at it wherever it was twitching. This, despite people near her saying, 'Stop, stop.'

She only stopped when a badly-aimed blow pushed the snake towards the gutter, leaving a smear of blood behind.

I don't think it's too exaggerated to say it was like something out of Lord of the Flies. Sure, the snake flailed around when it was first hit, but there was something unpleasantly avid about the way the three of them just kept hitting it.

I got on the phone to the Council - you're supposed to report the presence of snakes, particularly venomous ones, and I was pretty sure it was a brown. It being the holidays, it took a while to get onto someone, but finally I was talking to a real person. They were pretty upset about the killing, and not just because brown snakes are native animals and therefore supposed to be left alone. In this case, though, it wasn't just a situation where someone who was being threatened by the snake struck out in self-defence. It was a series of deliberate acts.

Then I stood on the nature strip and watched it writhe and twitch until its nervous system finally shut down. There was one last heave and it flopped over to expose its belly, and that was it.

When the Council guy arrived, I went over to have a close look at the snake. It wasn't just dead. It was mangled. We could see where the shovel blade had chopped into it all the way down its length. One of the cuts had split the skin away from its body. The only consolation was that the cut behind the head had probably killed it well before the woman next door started in, and that the movements afterwards were not from pain but just nerves firing randomly.

Lilygirl, who'd come over with me, was a little distressed, and no wonder.

We gave the Council guy a rubbish bag for it, and he asked us to dispose of it.

I think what I can't get over is that it was just so needlessly cruel. There are procedures in place to deal with snakes. You don't bother them, for a start. If they're in your house or backyard, you call the Council and you stay the hell away, and you definitely don't take to them with a shovel. This snake was wandering down the road on the warm bitumen, nowhere near anyone. The Council could have come out, picked it up and released it away from houses. There was just no need for that guy to come racing out with his shovel held high.

Was it some kind of atavistic fear - you know, snake = danger - that made them all attack it like that? I don't know. I've never been afraid of snakes; I can't say I'd be easy with the idea of a brown snake in my backyard, but this one was in no way threatening.

Maybe it was that stupid thing we humans get where we figure we Know How to Handle This, and everyone's got a different solution and they all try to implement it at once - usually with less-than-desirable consequences. This time, though, it was an animal that got caught up in that.

I don't know ... but it's cast a bit of a pall over the day. I'm fairly sure Lilygirl is going to be troubled by it for a while. I'm betting that bedtime tonight will be interrupted several times by her coming out to tell us that she can't sleep because she's worried about what they did to the snake.

In a way, it's good that she saw the act for what it was - a piece of cruel stupidity. That she had to see it at all, though, is the bit that makes me angry.

Apparently the Catholic Church didn't know that child abuse was illegal - just immoral."



So that makes it all right.


*splutters incoherently*