I’m a little drained and just going through one of those completely unmotivated phases. I’ll think “hey, I ought to blog about that,” but I stop before slapping together a piddly three paragraphs of “LiLo a LOLA? LOLWHUT?” (Though now that I have a title for that blog post, maybe I will write it!)

Yeah. So I’ve been spending my time playing around with Perler fuse beads, rearranging my apartment, and dispensing my wit and humor around the tubes. Oh, and doing a bunch of navel gazing. We can’t forget about the navel gazing.

For a really long time during horrendous breakups, as in breakups from horrible relationships where the aftermath was almost bad enough to wish it never happened, I’d get pretty pissed about friend fallout. It holds true even if it’s a platonic or friend “breakup.” I thought I’d have more to babble about this, but I’m going to leave it in the ever capable hands of “Harriet J.” from fugitivus.net. (And yeah, I know that I now run the risk of her getting her blog trolled. Full disclosure: I generally agree with everything she’s said, specifically on abuse, leaving abusive friend/relationships. If you feel compelled to comment to her, don’t act like a douchebag.)

Anyway. This is important shit. Read it. Emphasis throughout is mine, not hers:

I want to tell the full story of what propelled me to start this blog in the first place.

After I left Flint, I had to deal with friend fallout. Everybody does after a break-up, no matter how good or bad the break-up was. It’s crap no matter what, but there’s this narrative that you can avoid most of the bullshit just by acting with dignity: don’t talk heinous inappropriate shit about your ex, don’t “force” your friends to choose, and just generally move on with grace. That all sounds reasonable enough, if what you had was a reasonable relationship and a reasonable break-up. If what you had was years of abuse and a rape to top it off, doing something reasonable like seeking out crucial emotional support from friends is seen as talking heinous shit, forcing them to choose, and refusing to move on – which also makes it easy for your friends to dismiss you as a vengeful lying bitch, fucking up their ethics. All your rapist has to do is cry a little and say, “I really hope the best for her, she’s a great person,” and suddenly he’s this awesome guy that you, the rape victim, should really shut the fuck up about.

[...]

How I did it was ugly. I used a lot of kinda sort maybe could you I guess the thing is not that I’ saying you would and I don’t really care but what I mean is you know? I had almost no skills in standing up for myself, and didn’t really feel like developing them during an argument about whether or not I was really raped, and if so, whether or not I ought to just shut the fuck up about it already. I was determined to be some dignified picture of you-can’t-tell-I’m-a-rape-victim-because-I’m-so-strong, hoping this would gain me some kind of foothold against Flint.

I mean, I had no interest in playing little power games by trying to steal all our mutual friends away, but Flint did. Fighting back by not fighting sounded like the noble way, but it also sounded and felt a lot like abuse.

More located here. A lot of her posts have resonated with me since I started reading her blog about a month ago, and finding it gave me one of those “ILU INTERTUBES, LET’S NEVER BE APART EVER AGAIN!” moments.

A national tabloid magazine has published a story discussing allegations made by a Portland woman against former Vice President Al Gore. The Portland Police Bureau does not generally disclose information regarding sex crimes, as they are deemed confidential. However, because of the high-profile nature of this case and the fact that the woman involved provided reports to a media outlet, we will provide the following information:

In December 2006, a local attorney contacted the Portland Police Bureau and said he had a client that wanted to report an unwanted sexual contact by Mr. Gore. This allegation stemmed from an incident on October 24, 2006, when the woman involved, a Licensed Massage Therapist, was called to a local hotel to provide a massage to Mr. Gore.

Source: The Portlander.

I feel like there’s a Manbearpig joke waiting to be made.

The proper groundwork for analysis of abortion is in every man’s absolute right of self-ownership. This implies immediately that every woman has the absolute right to her own body, that she has absolute dominion over her body and everything within it. This includes the fetus. Most fetuses are in the mother’s womb because the mother consents to this situation, but the fetus is there by the mother’s freely-granted consent. But should the mother decide that she does not want the fetus there any longer, then the fetus becomes a parasitic “invader” of her person, and the mother has the perfect right to expel this invader from her domain. Abortion should be looked upon, not as “murder” of a living person, but as the expulsion of an unwanted invader from the mother’s body.[2] Any laws restricting or prohibiting abortion are therefore invasions of the rights of mothers.

So, I think it goes without saying that I find the pro-life libertarian position to be hypocritical.

In related news, I received not one, but two copies of my new voter registration card. I officially changed my party affiliation (for the, what, fifth time?) and also had to update the address. I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m sure I’ll get annoyed enough to change my party again circa 2013.

Good times, good times.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

Original link located here.  (Edit for clarity: this tweet went up on the 7th, the day the article was posted.)

Unless you’ve been under a rock, I’ve been posting a lot about this Bitch Magazine/biphobia debacle over the past few days.  (Gosh, I’m still waiting on that public apology I requested!)

Now, many fellow members of the LGBT community have made it clear that we have a HUGE problem with the headline and content of this piece.  Now, I don’t advocate that Bitch should remove old tweets, but I do think it’s telling that this tweet popped up on my Twitter about an hour ago:

(Original link located here.)

Seriously?  Really?  On what fucking planet is this acceptable?  It’s bad enough that Kelsey Wallace seems to think that the title was the only objectionable portion of the article, but to post the SAME article (with nothing changed by the title) again on their Twitter account stinks of childish stubbornness.

I’d rather get my feminist analysis elsewhere.

(But, as a side note, I did find this hilarious comment from Kelsey Wallace on the worldwide intertubes.  Scroll down until you hit it; in a nutshell, she has a problem with a blogger’s criticisms of Bitch‘s take on the travesty known as Jennifer’s Body.  It’s so professional of her to track down bloggers and chastise blog posts on their personal sites.  My favorite portion was this line “but I don’t think that warrants your questioning of our feminism or abilities as bloggers.”  Right, because disallowing non-mainstream feminist voices doesn’t imply that the Bitch editors are the arbiters of feminism, now does it?)

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

While I was enraged about the bi-phobic garbage presented in the infamous Casey Johnson/Tila Tequila article posted on Bitch Magazine, I made a sarcastic comment about how begging readers to donate money was a much better use of time than actually fixing the problem.  And what do you know?  A few days later, the Bitch Facebook page linked here in an attempt to beg for subscriptions.

My response to this (on Facebook) pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole matter:

LOL. THANK YOU FOR PROVING MY POINT.

This magazine is a fucking joke. See the handling of the Casey Johnson “article” if you don’t understand why. Hey Kelsey Wallace, thank you so much for ignoring my email after giving us the bullshit, pissy “you can email me if you have issues with Bitch” comment on that thread.

If this magazine’s interpretation of feminism has become posting homo/bi-phobic and misogynistic articles, all but ignoring complaints about them, and then begging readers to subscribe to this hot mess of a publication, then count me out. I’ll be removing myself as a fan and publishing my email to Kelsey on my website as a follow-up to my criticisms about the horrendous “Tila Tequila” post.

I’m certainly doing more for feminism there than reading this nonstop crapfest.

It’s beyond frustrating.  Web editor Kelsey Wallace spouted off a talking point about giving a crap and then completely ignored my email.  I gave her two business days to respond and watched her ignore my email in favor of putting up two posts on the website (one on the 9th and another yesterday, the 11th).  I’m so glad to see where Bitch Magazine’s priorities lie.

Here’s the content of the email that Ms. Wallace couldn’t bother to respond to:

Kelsey,

I think I’ve pretty much covered all of my complaints with the content.  In my opinion, Bitch’s online content has been steadily declining over the past six months.  Many of the pieces I have caught online have bordered on insipid, even when I do agree with the point.  Take the South Park piece, for example.  (Located here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/come-on-down-to-south-park-and-watch-some-feminist-episodes)  I agree that Trey Parker & Matt Stone have presented a feminist (or at least feminist friendly) perspective in quite a few episodes of the show and – as both a radical feminist and a libertarian – would have loved to read a much more in-depth essay about the subject.  Instead, readers were treated to a shallow piece that barely scratched the surface or incorporated feminist theory into the discussion.  I copied & pasted the piece into Word and did a word count on it; it was 390 words and came in at around 1 page.  There is no reason why Juliana Tringali couldn’t have incorporated examples, criticism, and a little bit of feminist theory into a tight, polished essay instead of something that reads worse than most blog posts.

I used to be able to count on Bitch for making me think about things a little bit differently, but now I can only really count on Intro to Women’s Studies-esque discussions.  Natalie Stein wrote the type of article you expect to see in an Intro to WMST course just before the author gets schooled.  I’d really love to not be subjected to this crap from a “feminist” publication.  Bisexuals take shit from lesbians who think we aren’t gay enough or who want to label us as “dykes.”  Straight men either automatically assume you’re into threesomes or are so intimidated that you might know how to get a woman off better than them.  Straight women are often convinced you’re going to want to lez out with them or are threatened because you’re so much more exotic than they are.

All of this shit that we take is dismissive of the many facets of our sexuality, objectifies us, and is just bad news bears in general; these ideas are based – at least in part – by ill-formed stereotypes of bisexuality.  Instead of tearing down these stereotypes and misconceptions, Natalie focused more on tearing down the unlikable women attached to these stereotypes (to paraphrase a Facebook user: the unstable, exhibitionist bisexual and the fallen blonde heiress).  What could have been a powerful critique on the media circus surrounding this very sad, very real story turned into an excuse to say “HAHA BI = BAD IDEA!”  Geeze, there were so many different, feminist ways this discussion could have gone.  Y’all could have even used the Perez Hilton/Tila Tequila Twitter war (over Casey Johnson’s death) to talk about sexism within the LGBTQA community and stereotypes about LGBTQA women instead of this tripe.

Hiding behind a disclaimer means nothing, especially when it’s used to justify misogynist and homophobic crap.  As I mentioned in one of my Facebook comments, it’s not like unpopular feminist perspectives will be read in Bitch anytime soon – which is the reason newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. have a version of that disclaimer.  It’s downright shitty when – instead of being used for it’s intended purposes – the web editor hides behind such a disclaimer to justify a piece such as this one.  As a member of the LGBTQA community, it really feels like I’m being told that my complaints, issues, struggles, and oppression don’t matter, as long as no one’s feelings get hurt by Patty Heaton.  Honestly, if you can’t see how this is a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you.

In a similar vein, passing all the blame off onto the author is irresponsible of both you and Bitch Magazine, and your miffed tone when you first began receiving criticism is bullshit.  You came across as more annoyed than anything else because those uppity lesbos threw a shit fit; I’m sure this wasn’t your intention, but to be honest, your tone in your initial comment really pissed me off.  It really struck me as typical dismissive breeder bullshit.  Furthermore, before you can even attempt to defend an article about the LGBTQA community, you need to check your privilege and try to understand why so many of us took issues.

It’s fairly obvious that neither you nor Natalie even attempted to see where we were coming from here.  The “solution” was an apology posted way down in a Facebook comment thread that came across as an “I’m sorry if you got offended” styled “apology” and the title of the article was changed.  This was despite the fact that many commenters complained about the CONTENT of the article, myself included.  I really think you missed the point on this, considering you didn’t get that the title was only PART of the problem.  I’m not going to go through point by point and tell you everything that was sexist, homo/bi-phobic, and/or generally fucked up because – frankly – as a gender studies major, you should know better.  These are the reasons I said that I probably would not be restarting my subscription to the magazine; I don’t really want to pay money to be dismissed and have it defended.  I’m very disappointed with the Casey Johnson piece, and even more disappointed with the way it was handled; seriously, Kelsey, we didn’t even get a response from a Bitch Magazine rep until I mentioned I likely would not restart a subscription.

With all that being said, I do appreciate you opening your inbox for comments on Bitch, as well as coming online to facilitate a discussion.  Personally, I hope that this entire debacle can be used as a learning experience.  In the future, I deeply hope that Bitch will take a bit more responsibility when selecting pieces to run in print or online editions, that future authors will be a bit more sensitive to marginalized groups, and that the dreaded “opinion disclaimer” will be used for its intended purpose (instead of a way to deflect criticism from the magazine and its contributors).  As far as right now, I think the least that Bitch could do is put up a public apology on the main page from both Natalie and you; both of you have already apologized once in the infamous Facebook thread and we have every right to expect a formal, written apology on the main page.  I’m not saying that it will fix everything, but I think that it will go much further than you might think.

Thank you for letting me sound off to you.

Sincerely,
Vicki Moore

I don’t understand why this email – along with the suggestions in it – was ignored.  I guess that the Bitch staff has a huge case of butthurt when it comes to criticism directed at the magazine, which is pretty disappointing.  You would think that a magazine billing itself as an alternative to mainstream media might actually function in an alternative manner.

‘Magine that.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

1. It might be 8 days into the New Year, but the late Harry Browne’s libertarian New Year’s resolutions are an excellent read.  It would be super cool if more people would remember these.
2. On a related note, The Cato Institute put up a small blurb on the “libertarian surge“; I wasn’t feelin’ the blockquote, but did appreciate David Boaz’s notes.
3. Here’s a twofer on the Facebook bra color status meme.  I mean, the meme for Breast Cancer Awareness Month!  Yeah, that’s the ticket!
4. In pop cultural news, Lost beat out President Obama’s State of the Union for a Feb. 1st broadcast.  I’m guessing he and the First Lady are big fans; now, if they could just get Joe Biden to STFU when the show is on.
5. The Tax Foundation argues that high taxes and an inhospitable business climate have led to a loss in jobs for Ohioans.  That’s going to be Philly pretty soon.
6. If you live in the Southern US, you might want to check out Operation Defuse, a new Texas based organization that aims to “empower the public so they may better understand the police/surveillance state by educating them about fusion centers and the role they play in both militarizing and federalizing our police forces.”
7. I’m glad to see that the Green Party is doing something, well at least CA and NY Greens are.  If the party had done a little bit more aside from act like disorganized hippies, I might still be a member of it.
   
8. I’m breaking my own informal rule by linking to the same site twice in a dump, but Alan Reynolds from Cato at Liberty explains how Faux News is simply wrong about the true unemployment rates.
9. In “so cool” news: Kathleen Hanna has donated a whole buttload of papers from her Bikini Kill days to NYU for their newly announced Riot Grrrl collection.
   
10. Dennis Kucinich is not too thrilled about – what appears to be – shady, backdoor TARP dealings.  A+, Obama, A+
11. Ladies of Liberty Alliance still has some calendars leftover.  If you purchase a 2010 wall calendar for just $9, they will throw in a desktop calendar for free!  Come on, buy one, it goes toward a great cause!
12. NJ ditches mandatory minimum sentencing for selling drugs in a school zone.
13. In “Settling for the Lesser of Two Evils is the Greater Evil,” Liberal Arts Dude discusses why he wishes we could have a “none of the above” option when we vote in the US; he also debunks common two party objections to third party politics.
    

And this is how we get back into the swing of things!

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

This all led the author to use the term “fake lesbian relationship” in her headline.

Luckily, many other Bitch readers were also pretty pissed about the off-base and phobic shit in the article. Frankly, I am shocked that anyone from Bitch thought this article should have been run on their website, but before I delve right into that mess, I really need to unpack all the sterotypical garbage here.

1. Oh, those darn attention seeking bisexuals!

As one Facebook user remarked, no one claims that Paris Hilton isn’t into dudes because she’s used her sexuality for attention. The attention seeking portion of it doesn’t make the sexuality any less real or valid, and is so heavily rooted in bi-phobia. What bisexual hasn’t heard claims that they’re just doing it for the attention, especially bisexual sex kittens – who are also always doing it for male attention? Surely no femme looking sex kitten or vamp type could have actual desire for another woman or even be experimenting; nope, it must be Girls Gone Wild syndrome.

2. Why can’t these homos be two-dimensional Super Gays instead of being nuanced individuals?

I can’t believe that Bitch Magazine would allow something to run that was so dangerously close to making a “credit to your race community” argument. Dude, really? Do I have to make more of a point here? Seriously, Tila Tequila, Courtenay Semel, Samantha Ronson, Portia De Rossi, Fergie, Perez Hilton, Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, Andy Dick, Sir Ian McKellen, Elton John, Jim McGreevey, Barney Frank, Dan Savage, and Christian Siriano are NOT the emperors of gay people. None of ‘em hold that title. They are not saints, they are not perfect, and they are certainly not two-dimensional stereotypes. Are we good on this?

3. OMG TILA TEQUILA HAS GONE OVER HER 140 CHARACTER LIMIT OF GRIEF!

Before Shot at Love, the only real distinction Tila had was to be the person with the most popular Myspace page ever. Shocking that she might grieve online? Let’s be honest, yeah, it’s not the smartest idea. If nothing else, when you’re emotional, you are so much more likely to say things you’ll later regret, and given this twisted mess of clusterfuckery, it’s probably a much better idea to take a breather and log off Twitter for a few days. But is Tila Tequila really the first person to publicly mourn the loss of a loved one? Is she really the first person to make bad decisions on the internet? Even if she was the first to do it, how on Earth is this proof that this is somehow a “fake” lesbian relationship?

There was a lot of great feminist theorizing that could have happened here. We could have seen a discussion open up about the media circus surrounding Casey Johnson’s death, or even a discussion about any of the objectionable portions of Stein’s post; instead, Bitch Magazine’s web editor, Kelsey Wallace, felt that this bi-phobic tripe was a better use of bandwidth. How do I know this? Well, Ms. Wallace jumped into the fray of critical comments (after I had commented that I would likely never get another subscription to the magazine) with the following miffed comment:

Hi, this is Kelsey, the Web Editor at Bitch. Thank you everyone for your comments. I have contacted Natalie, the author of this post, and asked her to respond to your concerns about her interpretation of Casey Johnson and Tila Tequila’s relationship. Please keep our policy in mind that “Opinions expressed on this website are those of their respective authors, not necessarily those of Bitch.”

As for those of you who feel that all of the content on the Bitch Media website is rapidly declining and is at the level of a high school women’s studies course, please feel free to contact me (kelsey@b-word.org) to relay any specific criticism you may have.

Thanks again,
Kelsey Wallace

Notice two things: the statement does not address the specific issues others had with the post, and it uses a disclaimer to deflect all criticism onto the author. Opinion disclaimers are meant to protect a publication from extreme criticism over an unpopular view. In this context, it would be meant to cover the mag’s asses if they had someone writing about why they don’t support gay marriage because they don’t support marriage (for example). The disclaimer isn’t intended as a clever little shield to deflect rightful criticism such as horribly bi-phobic language and points made in a supposedly feminist publication. (What’s next? Are we going to see articles warning us about the Lavender Menace?)

By hiding behind it and hanging Natalie Stein out to dry, Kelsey (and, by extension, Bitch Magazine) might as well be saying, “not our problem!” I guess we’ll just ignore the web editor’s responsibilities re: approving pieces for publication. It was completely irresponsible to allow this article to run in the first place. The solution was to change the headline of the piece (to “Sapphic Salon: The Death of An Heiress, The Milking of the Press“), to completely disregard the issues within the article, and to give a half-hearted “sorry if you were offended” styled “apology” within Facebook comments. As of right now (11 pm EST, 1/9/10), there is still not an apology or any acknowledgment that the article was shouldn’t have been posted in its current form.

Considering that Bitch likely won’t be asking Angela Keaton to contribute any pieces to their site under the guise that her opinions are not necessarily shared by Bitch Magazine’s, I think it’s safe to call “bullshit.”  It’s even more depressing to me because it feels like Ron Paul campaign BS all over again.  Why is it that my issues – as an LGBTQA woman – can be sold out and dismissed, but it would be the worst crime in the world to give Jill Stanek a voice? (I say this as being one of the main organizers on this event.) I’m guessing that it will be a cold day in hell before we see Kelsey Wallace giving either Wendy McElroy or Camille Paglia a voice in the publication.

It’s the same old homo/bi-phobic crap that we queers have been subjected to since the beginning of friggin feminism. It’s tired and played out, but sadly, probably won’t fully change; instead, privileged straight people will continue to act like they know how we should feel about any subject. Maybe we would all be a little better off if we started listening to marginalized groups and stopped speaking for them.

Then again, what do I know?

Follow up: Kelsey Wallace, web editor of Bitch Magazine, ignores reader complaints.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

This is, of course, all under the guise of restoring her autonomy to her. This, certainly, could have nothing to do with the state essentially getting all butthurt about Polanski’s flight, and is all about restoring law and order!

Isn’t it ironic?

Also in “omg, are you living under a rock news”: Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize despite his authorizing his own troop surge in Afghanistan. It’s because, as I’ve sarcastically noted before, Bush was an asshole, but Obama has reasons for continuing Bush’s war-mongering, civil liberties disrespecting, homophobic, oppressive policies.

It’s like a no smoking sign on your cigarette break, my friends.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

1. Let’s start with the depressing: Afghanistan General Stanley McCrystal sees no indication of an al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan.  So, could we maybe, GTFO or is killing brown people too much fun?
2. Sheldon Richman of the Foundation for Economic Education discusses some of the problems with raising tariffs on cheap Chinese tires.  I liked this quick synopsis a little bit better than Reason’s.
3. Here is some information about why Philadelphia is broke.  Most of the commenters are fucking brain donors, so don’t bother reading.  Note, there are no confirmed cop firings in that article.
4. Can Rihanna even remember the World Trade Center collapse?
5. In neato news: the New York Times does a small writeup on bento boxes.  Despite the fact that it makes me sound like a Wapanese asshole, I fucking love the things.  They are so cute!
6. In fucking “duh” news: Rob Miller isn’t the only one who has raised $1M for his congressional bid.
7. Abortion is a medical procedure, therefore, I expect it to be covered under my health care plan.  Instead, Obama is not going to cover it, presumably because pro-lifers don’t want their tax money going towards abortion.  Too bad that morality doesn’t extend to elective procedures like surgical starvation, which I’m assuming will be covered.
8. Apparently, Tila Tequila was assaulted, allegedly by her boyfriend.  I won’t be following the story too closely, because I’m sure the interwebz have been buzzing with “she was asking for it”esque statements because she’s Tila Tequila.
9. In much less irritating news: enjoy this short blurb from Chow.com about the “lobster boom.”
10. In “at least it involves a cockface getting pummeled news”: Main Line Animal Rescue (based out of DC), will be donating 5 bags of dog food to a DC based animal shelter for every time Michael Vick is tackled during the Eagles’ October 26th game.
11. It’s getting chilly out, so have my favorite knitting tutorial site.
12. If you’re wondering why I don’t support the whole Tea Party thing, CNN can hand you a ton of reasons.
13. In a similar vein to link #11, it’s getting chilly out, which means it is almost my favorite season ever: PUMPKIN SEASON!  SHAZZAM!

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

Man, oh man, have I got something to say!

In my head, I see several connections between support systems, politics and a diseased social circle.  Another theme that keeps popping up is that the support systems, politics, and unhealthy social circles work together and reflect a microcosm of society; this is especially true in light of my new-found libertarianism and my old school feminism.  Personally, my biggest concern is the negative impact that a non-existent support system can have on people within the social circle and the implications it has for community building.  When your political circle and social circle are essentially one and the same, what happens when there is a lack of adequate support in either of them?  What are the implications in general, and does this stunt individual growth or growth of the group?

I know, I know.  I’ve probably bitten off a lot more than I can chew and these intertwined issues must be unpacked over the course of several posts so I don’t risk venturing into tl;dr territory.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, a large problem I have with my former social group is that issues are never actually resolved.  For example, my female (ex) roommate gave me a ton of problems during my move-out, including writing “self-respect” on one of my boxes (or at least condoning this act), lying to Libertarian Boyfriend and me, and just generally attempting to make my life miserable.  My last (indirect) contact with her was in late April; prior to that, I hadn’t directly contacted her in any way since late February.  About two months later (in June), I was tabling at Philly Pride with the Philly LP party; I ran into quite a few people I knew there, including a small group that included her.  She came up, said “hi.”  I ignored her.  She said “hi” again and followed with a “DRUNKENATHEIST I SAID HI!”  I responded with a very brusque “hello” because I felt I had made it pretty clear that I was ignoring her.  She stormed off and I can guarantee that she announced to our mutual friends that she “tried” to make things right with me again.  (For the purposes of full disclosure: no, I don’t know if she had intended to work things out if I had been more cordial towards here.  I’m simply judging from her lack of followup and my hunch that history is simply repeating itself here.)

For comparative purposes, let’s look at a separate example.  I had a falling out with another friend right about a year ago; to make a long story short, out of nowhere, this friend began to distance himself from me and he and his boyfriend were trashing me with biased info from my ex-girlfriend.  Given that we had sat down and had discussions about similar issues, I publicly disclosed some personal info on a now-defunct college gossip website.  It was shitty.  I never claimed that it was a nice thing to do and I always knew that my action would effectively end my friendships with the couple.  Earlier this year, in the interest of just making peace and moving on, I sent out a long, well-written, well-thought out apology to the former friend.  I’ve never received a response from him.

I would be confused if these scenarios hadn’t played out many times within this social circle.  The first scenario is often viewed as a perfectly acceptable way of working out your differences, but the second is seemingly viewed as “stirring up old drama.”  Once I sat down and really looked at all the interwoven issues within the group and – again – the bigger implications for community and political building, everything made complete sense.

Starting with the first example, the problem isn’t that Former Roommate (FR) spoke to me.  My problem lies with the idea that our falling out – which was caused by an all-around shitty situation – is supposed to be swept under the rug because she acknowledged me.  I understand that FR may have been acting on an impulse when she approached me, and although I’ll bet a lot of money that she didn’t think the whole thing through, it’s still indicative of a much larger issue.  Likewise, if the former friend in the second example didn’t want to accept my apology, that’s fine; if he had given me a “fuck off,” that would be one thing.  Though many people would have supported him in giving me that response, it’s interesting that he would choose silence.  In all fairness, he could very well have filtered my email address to his trash a long time ago.  I haven’t tossed out that possibility; once again, though, judging from this greater group’s history, it’s highly unlikely that my email was filtered.

Regardless, speculating about the theories and possibilities behind their individual behaviors isn’t the point; really, even if I could tell you what exactly was going through their heads, it wouldn’t change much anyway.  What I can tell you is that both of these incidences point to one prevalent idea within the group: not rocking the boat is of the utmost importance (with some exceptions, of course).  I’m the one in the wrong in both situations: in the first, because I dared to not welcome FR with open arms; in the second, because I dared to try to make things right by apologizing months after the fact.  In both situations, my unwillingness to act is if nothing had happened is somehow misinterpreted as a desire to “cause drama.”

I have never been a believer in the “do not make waves” mentality, as I don’t see how it facilitates strong or healthy relationships within any social or political circle.  I’m also not comfortable with the dynamic it establishes, wherein conformity is more highly valued than individual thoughts, ideas, or opinions; it isn’t that far of a leap to start viewing a difference of opinion as a threat to the relative peace within the social circle, which is an attitude I have experienced firsthand.  Furthermore, there is an implication that those not subscribing to the thoughts, ideas, opinions, or values of the majority should be penalized.  The result is that any dissent is automatically stifled and the dissenter(s) think before speaking hir mind in the future.

This mentality is dangerous and problematic on both the individual (micro) and societal (macro) levels.  From my vantage point, this resistance to alternative perspectives is more than just an issue of someone feeling slighted.  It has some pretty damaging results on the individuals it is imposed upon; hell, much of what I’ve been talking about here is – literally – cult-like.  From first hand experience, it’s difficult to segue back into any sort of supportive social or political circle when your former social and political circles weren’t very supportive.

It works to destroy any possibility of forming a support system within local communities, let alone forming a healthy, strong-knit community of any sort.  By “healthy” and “strong-knit,” I am referring to ones where differences can be heard and ideas can be challenged; these are the ways our communities become stronger and our activism becomes more meaningful.  Such a heavy emphasis on conformity prohibits most – if not all – growth in general, let alone in our political ideas.  If we really want to hope for any sort of change, then we need to see this growth and nuance reflected in our discussions; that only comes from listening to and exposing ourselves to real life problems, different solutions to our problems, and different perspectives.  Otherwise, we’re only breeding intellectual bonsai trees. What – individual or societal – good comes from intentionally stunting our growth?

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.