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Jenn writes;
> I want to write something in the Issues FAQ about 'trivialising'
> - such as people using the word 'rape' to mean other, less intense
> forms of injury.
I trust this FAQ will be carefully worded so as not to imply
new 'rules' (as some have expressed concern over), but to serve
as a guide to people seeking a feel for this list, its people, and
general content that will/will not get one flamed.
> Would people who truly understand how it hurts when
> something is trivialized do me a great favour and either discuss
> this on the list, or email me privately?
I think it's a good discussion for the list!
Like you Jenn, I have never been raped in that I have never had
another person force a sexual act upon me. Thus, I do not
purport to know -from experience- what that kind of rape is
like. I also know that 'rape' has other definitions. The 500
year long rape of America and it's Native People for instance.
It is a very powerful word and, like other powerful words,
I'm not sure its meaning can be conveyed within the scope
of a mailing list FAQ. You either understand it because
you have lived it or are otherwise connected to it, because
you observe the depth with which it affects other people,
or you don't understand its power at all. As you seem to be
looking for people to speak from experience, let me use
another powerful word. "Nigger."
Wow. Took 5 minutes to make myself type the damn word.
I was born and raised in Detroit, in a fairly diverse environment,
by very liberal and equality minded parents and extended
family. I was lucky enough to go to a very ethnically diverse
private school through 6th grade. I suppose I was about
as color-blind as a child in America could get. I knew what
racism meant, but as far as I knew, it was something in books
and on TV; something that happened in society's ugly past but
unthinkable in the present. I never really saw it firsthand until
7th grade when I started going to public school. I never
imagined its scope until 8th grade when we moved to a small,
rural, all white/Christian town.
I don't know what was worse; the racist attitudes themselves
or the sheer casualness of it. The idea that people can harbor
such hate and ignorance towards other people because of skin
pigmentation, being born in one part of the world or another,
hold a differing definition of 'God,' whatever, was nauseating
and beyond my comprehension (both the nausea and the
incomprehension only get worse with time). The most
horrifying thing of all was the assumption that I shared these
attitudes because I too was white/Christian. Classmates
would tell me offensive ethnic jokes or spout Nazi-esque
propaganda, and be genuinely puzzled when I tried to explain
why I, a non <enter group name here>, would be offended.
4 years of enduring such bigotry on a daily basis left me
feeling ... well ... raped.
So, to explain how I feel every time I hear a black person refer to
another black person as 'Nigger' (which is becoming very common
in the U.S.) ... where can I even begin? 4 years of being deluged
with one of the ugliest words in any human language; to hear it
casually tossed around, by and towards the very people it degrades,
well, all I know is that I'm sicker than ever and somewhere, the
KKK is having a victory party.
Perhaps to compliment a brief FAQ on the subject of
trivializing, you could point to a few of these letters that
discuss the issue.
- - Mary; whose soul has a migraine right now, though in the end,
it's healthy to discuss such issues once in a while with
people who can listen/empathize.
- --
"Your own wisdom must decide your course."
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
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