Simmering to boiling
Heh. It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, eh?
I need to find more time to write -somewhere - because I’ve got all sorts of shit beginning to reach the boiling point in my brain.
So, I figure to summarize (i.e. brain dump) it here - feel free to help me tease this stuff out.
1. On anger and taking offense - inspired largely by the Method Shiny Suds kerfuffle sparked at Shakesville, I’m increasingly enraged (heh) by the idea that “ardent feminists” (as opposed to those nice feminists who don’t ever actually get angered and take action?) are out there looking for things to get angry about, and the idea that it’s easier to get angry and take action than it is to take a deep breath and let things go.
I let things go all the damn time. I let easy 10x more things go than I do actually get worked up about because there are only so many hours in a day and I have other things to do with most of them. I have a family, a job, pets, hobbies, friends, sleep, simple relaxation and self care - all of which are more important to me in the scheme of things, especially right now with the holidays and a history of preeclampsia to try to convince me to keep my blood pressure down, at least until May.
It is sooooooooo much easier not to think about whether I should buy this particular product because it is made by a company who does not respect the basic humanity of half the population. It is so much easier not to sit down and write an eloquent well spoken letter that I know will be ignored at best and totally misconstrued and patronized at (hopefully) worst. It is so much easier to not let myself get heated and invested in something that may end up with public mockery and ongoing frustration.
SO. MUCH. EASIER.
I let shit go every day. I pick battles. I sit in my office and simmer quietly rather than call coworkers out on their sexism or fat phobia or “ironic” racism. As Liss says, I eat the shit sandwich because sometimes that’s just easier. And I don’t go looking for every little thing to be offended by. It is the stuff that is painfully fucking obvious that upsets me, not a slip of the tongue. A sexist joke upsets me a hell of a lot less than fat phobic snark made in all seriousness. And context is everything.
2. Appropriation of the dominant culture - I’ve been mulling this concept based on a lot of things - conversations on blogs I read about Christianity and whether even non-religious folks steeped in the dominant culture benefit from Christian privilege whether we’ve practiced it or not. A post one of y’all linked to a while back that I did not participate in regarding the “cultural appropriation of Christianity”. And the Christmas season generally, in which I participate in enthusiastically, despite never having been a practicing Christian myself.
I’m inclined to think that once a belief system posits itself as the dominant overarching system of an entire culture, appropriation becomes moot. The entire point of trying to position the US as a “Christian nation”, something we hear all the damn time from the religious right, means that there is no way for those of us who are not Christian to “appropriate” anything - it has been thrust upon us since birth. I celebrate “Christmas” as a secular holiday with all the trappings of centuries of Christianity’s own appropriation - there’s a large (fake) evergreen in my living room, strewn with lights and shiny things, including a big silver star at the very top. Stockings hang from our mantle, Santa Claus visits every year (well, sorta since the first born now knows the truth of that one).
I probably know more verses to sacred carols than many lifelong Christians. I love to sing carols, even the most religious of them. When I was dragged to church by my grandparents, the singing was the only part I understood. Which, really, is the whole point of the singing - to bring even those people who may not understand the sermon or mass (particularly when Latin reigned and only the most educated could understand what was being said) into the fold.
Which brings me to the more salient point that if there is a “war” about Christmas, the Christians have won. Their holiday is the ever arching cultural purpose of the entire month of December at this point, at least in the US. Every channel airs Christmas themed programming. Every live theater in the US does something this time of year. Every secular business has Christmas decorations and plays carols. There is no place to turn in this country where Christmas is not glaringly obvious. This, folks, is privilege right there. And I suppose it’s no wonder that any challenge to that, in the form of even acknowledging the holidays that Christianity expressly appropriated, is a threat.
