Coffee With NM

I had coffee with frequent commenter nm this afternoon down to Caffeine there on Demonbreun. I had a cafe mocha which was beautiful, with a little white leaf of steamed milk on top, but I’ll be darned if it didn’t taste just like nothing. Not coffee, not chocolate, just kind of warm tastelessness. And yet… I found it oddly soothing and comforting. This is going to sound strange, but I would have it again.

NM is awesome, just as you would suspect from reading her comments here–thoughtful, insightful, and challenging.

It was good conversation, too, where you come away feeling drained and yet refreshed and you want to tell someone about it, but you kind of don’t know where to start.

So, that’s what it was like.

Bring Your Boob Freckle to Work Day

So, I bought the cutest flounciest skirt ever and a lovely plum sweater to wear with it.  And I’m no fashionista, but I do pay attention when folks recommend that you buy clothes that flatter your assets.

And so said sweater flatters said assets.

And I’m not sure I have the balls to pull this sweater off (ha, not like that) all day.  We’ll see.  If I can work up the courage to wear it like having your boob freckle out in the open is no big deal, this may become my favorite sweater. 

W.’s Problem

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to why W. is irritated in the "B. calls everyone racist; everyone has a cow" thread.  And I’ve even read his own post on his site about it.  And, actually, it was seeing the title of his post–"I Know How The Invisible Man Felt"–that really got me mulling.

Which Invisible Man?  Wells’s?  Or Ellison’s?

Because here’s the question I’d like to ask W.  When you ask a question, do you expect an answer?  I don’t just mean "Yes, I hope people will answer" I mean, can you, out in the world, so regularly expect to be responded to in a positive way when you come to someone’s attention that you interpret non-response as some kind of deliberate statement about what people think of you?

I’m still thinking about Short and Fat’s comment over at Watching the Defectives, too:  "I consider racist a pretty ugly term on par with c*nt, n*gg*r, and f*gg*t especially when hurled at other people for no real apparent reason."

I was so taken aback that I had no response for him.  I mean, America, please!  How many white guys in the history of our nation have hung from trees while crowds of people stood and laughed below because those white guys were "racist"?  How many white people leave bars well-known for their racist-friendly atmosphere in groups of two or three because non-whites wait outside for them to leave so that they can beat the shit out of them just for fun?    Are all white people encouraged to dress modestly and to never go public places by themselves and to not get drunk in public so that they’re not perceived as racists and thus easy targets for rape?

It’s hard to talk about this stuff and uncomfortable, even for me, and I like to mull this shit over more than most people.  But it’s precicely where Short & Fat and W. are upset that I’m starting to get a sense of the real stuff that’s unsaid, and, I presume, unacknowledged.

Here’s what it looks like to me: Some of us presume we will be responded to in some kind of positive fashion when we ask for something.  Others of us are completely unaware of how afraid folks are of our capacity for violence, to the point where we can say with certainty that calling someone a "racist" is on par with calling other folks "nigger," "faggot," or "cunt."

I’m not trying to take anyone to task or to make anyone feel bad or to try to start any fights (though I reckon this may).  I’m saying, this is what privilege looks like–that we can take for granted that we’ll always be interpreted in the best possible light and, if we aren’t, we experience that as extremely hostile and insulting.

Let Lindsey Show You How It’s Done

Lindsey has such a beautiful and eloquent take-down of Kleinheider that I’m beginning to suspect that, if Kleinheider were not a real person, we Lefties would have been well-served to pay WKRN to make him up.

If not in response to Kleinheider, where else would we get the chance to stretch our limbs and hone our-patriarchy blaming skills?  I almost feel like we should buy him lunch in appreciation for his willingness to say what he thinks so that we can eloquently eviscerate it.

Ha, lunch.  As if Kleinheider would ever come to lunch with us, even if we did pay.  Ha, probably especially if we did pay!

Anyway, you should read all of Lindsey’s post, because it just kicks ass left and right.  But here’s my favorite parts:

Seriously, Mark A. Rose will relent and admit that feminists fight for important causes if I just bow and shower Western Civilization with kisses for finally acknowledging that women aren’t merely property to be bought and traded like donkeys (even if that practice still continues in certain ways)?

Well, shucks, Mr. Rose, I am so sorry for my lack of gratitude to this fantastic society that so graciously recognizes my basic humanity. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. AND YOU, AND YOU! In case those allcaps weren’t indicative of my thankfulness, I just want to let everyone know that I am on the floor writhing and weeping out of gratitude to my great White Christian masters and their holy benevolence, which led them to the conclusion a few decades ago that it wouldn’t make the Baby Jesus die if the womenfolk got to vote and whatnot. THANK YOU. THANK YOU ALL. I AM WAVING LIKE A PARADE QUEEN AND WRITING IN ALLCAPS AND I COULD NOT BE MORE GRATEFUL FOR THE FREEDOMS IMPARTED TO ME BY THOSE FANTASTIC WHITE CHRISTIAN MEN OF GENERATIONS PAST.  [and who says feminists aren’t funny?  Oh, that’s right.  Sarcastro.]

and

So, sure, it might be instructive for me to sit here and ponder the privileges and responsibilities of being Western and/or American (it’s something I think about, seriously, EVERY DAY, in one fashion or another), but I’m confused: Since when is acknowledging “privilege” considered — in conservative circles — anything but a futile exercise in self-loathing? [Ha, ha, ha, etc.]

Anyway, I have nothing more to add except that, yet again Kleinheider’s “defense” of men seems to rest on the assumption that conservative men are timid, delicate, semi-retarded asses who are too scared and stubborn to think about things from any perspective other than their own without being tricked or bribed into it.  How the fuck is that attitude about men considered good and proper and the way things should be while the feminists are considered man-hating?