strongcoffeestrongeropinions

[strongcoffeestrongeropinions]

Hey leftists, quit being so goddamn nice

If you find yourself on the left side of the political spectrum – or even just more left-leaning than say, actual nazis, we need to talk.

You see, you’ve been playing nice with fascists and you don’t even know it. We’re all guilty of this. Everyone from serious journalists to politicians, public figures, and everyday people. We’ve all been playing right into a game carefully designed to weaken our position and normalize right-wing, fascist ideals.

The game I’m referring to is what I’ll call Fascist Newspeak. Fascist Newspeak has crept up on us slowly, word by word, phrase by phrase. It is the rebranding of horrific things by the right, neatly packaged to be resold back to the masses in a far more palatable form. 

Make no mistake: this technique is incredibly effective. And it is working because we’re all actively participating in it.

Here’s some Fascist Newspeak lingo you should be aware of, so you can stop helping the opposition rebrand their appalling ideologies. I implore you to wipe these words and phrases from your usage immediately, and get everyone you know to do the same. Just because they create a new term that they use does not mean we have to use it.

 “Alternative facts” The ingenious rebranding of “straight up lies”. If you find yourself tempted to use this term, use “lie”, “untruth”, “deception”, or “fiction” instead.

“Family values” The age-old preference for misogyny, homophobia, racism, and nationalism, now with a bow on it. Those who preach “family values” often distort religion in order to justify their prejudices and serve their self-interest. Denying people basic civil rights? Denying women bodily autonomy? Being against welfare and other forms of assistance for struggling families? Banning marriage between gay people? Please. The Addams family’s values were more wholesome than this.

“Pro-life” Try “anti-choice” on for size, instead. This group is against women’s reproductive rights, freedom, and health. Oh, and anti-babies as soon as they’re out of the womb. 

“Alt-right” Perhaps the most insidious addition to the Fascist Newspeak lexicon. The so-called “Alt-right” is a much nicer label than fascism or Nazism, isn’t it? Yet that’s exactly what it is. The name itself creates a false equivalence between this radical, discriminatory, violent ideology and the ideology of the political left. Do not participate in this. “Alternative” is not interchangeable with “evil”.

“MRAs” (Men’s Rights Activists) A term that makes my blood boil. There certainly are injustices that men specifically face, such as being mocked for displaying emotion, femininity, or for pursing nurturer careers, and being assumed to be a lesser parent by default in child custody battles. However, none of these are issues “MRAs” fight for. MRAs are simply a hotbed of vile misogyny. Where women exist to be used and controlled by men, and that a woman making a choice other than to be their living, breathing blow-up doll is a breach of the natural order. Media outlets: stop saying “MRAs”, start saying “radicalized misogynists”.

“Incel” (involuntary celibate) Related to “MRAs”, this is a subset of radicalized, straight, male misogynists who think they are owed sex from any woman they desire. They are an organized terrorist group who have committed mass murders for their cause, to “punish” the gender that they believe have denied them.

“Racially-charged” This is some bullshit. If something someone does or says is racist, call it that. Calling someone racist is not worse than being racist. Softening it with “racially-charged”, “racial”, or “race tensions” mitigates the accusation towards the racist person/group, but does nothing to mitigate the harm caused by the racist act. And if being called “racist” hurts your feelings, deal with your feelings, or better yourself enough to stop being racist. 

 Words matter because they convey ideas. And ideas shape the world. So use the right words. Words that relay the truth. Words that don’t play into the hands of fascists.

Just because we’re the side that promotes tolerance does not mean we must tolerate our own manipulation. Our obligingness is killing us, so stop being so f*cking nice!

[strongcoffeestrongeropinions]

Be a guest, or: how to not be an appropriative assh*le

We’ve all been guests before. Whether it’s at a dinner party, a wedding, or a friend’s house. We’ve all been guests, and hopefully, relatively decent ones.

The concept of being a guest isn’t particularly difficult. It means you’ve been welcomed into a space, to enjoy it respectfully – but you don’t have ownership over it. You don’t get to destroy it, alter it, or make executive decisions involving it. You’ve simply been invited to share in something special. Something that belongs to someone else.

Being a guest is a privilege, and we are taught how to be a polite guest at an early age. It’s not an outlandish concept. Don’t draw on the walls. Don’t tell the host how they should have decorated their home. Ask permission to do or touch certain things. Don’t demand that the host cater to your every whim. Say thank you for having been invited. Basic stuff, right? None of this should be controversial.

So why does it seem to get so complex when it comes to appreciating vs appropriating cultures different from your own? When you think about it through the lens of being a guest, it really isn’t that complicated.

  The first and most important thing is: you have to know when you’re a guest.

If you’re at someone else’s house, it’s pretty crucial that you know you’re not at home. Because the way we behave is different at one’s own home versus someone else’s. In your own space, it’s okay to leave clothes on the floor or dishes in the sink sometimes, because you know you’ll get to it later. But at someone else’s house, that would be extremely rude. A level of respect, extra care, and deference is required when it comes to things and spaces that are not your own.

So look around and ask yourself: did I grow up in this house? Did I paint these walls? Am I paying these bills? If the answer is no, be aware that you are not at your house, and act accordingly.

  Now that you know you’re a guest, be a good guest.

You don’t (and shouldn’t) get to do whatever you want at someone else’s house. As the saying goes, “my house, my rules” – when not at one’s own house, a certain level of submissiveness to the host and compliance to the host’s way of living is the norm. Even if you don’t take your shoes off at home, you would at your friend’s house, right?

Being a polite and respectful guest also means not trying to dictate the rules of someone else’s home. Don’t redecorate, for example. Try the food that is shared with you. Appreciate the generosity of that offer and savour the flavours. You’re more than welcome to enjoy it. But don’t try to suggest “improvements” to a treasured family recipe, and don’t rename the recipe to something you think sounds cooler. Again – you’re a guest, and as such, don’t have the power to make executive decisions.

  And lastly: don’t steal credit from the owner.

Imagine if you went to a friend’s house, liked the interior design, and claimed to have picked out all the furniture yourself. Or, imagine if you claimed you built the actual house, when it was in fact your friend’s great-grandparents who painstakingly built their family home, brick by brick, and lovingly passed it down through their family. That would be appallingly arrogant, wouldn’t it?

This is a large part of why cultural appropriation is so obnoxious and damaging. Credit gets lost, histories get erased, and people wrongly get adulation (and often, lots of money) for stealing something another group put blood, sweat, and tears into creating.

  So in summary: everything isn’t yours. That’s okay. Make peace with it. You are not the authority on all subjects. Make peace with that too. Often, someone else will be the expert on a topic, and you have the privilege of being there to listen, learn, and show gratitude. You’re a guest.

If it’s an art form, like rap music or drag for example, and you enjoy it – wonderful. Soak it in, let it inspire, delight, and entertain you. Appreciate it to the fullest. Support it with your money, if you can. But if you’re not a part of the culture that owns that thing (in this example, black culture and queer culture, respectively) – just know that you’re a guest, and behave accordingly.

If it’s another culture’s language, food, history, attire, experiences, or traditions: be respectful. Don’t claim ownership over it, don’t try to define what it is or isn’t, and listen, instead of interjecting yourself when members of that group are sharing their experiences or expertise. And crucially: immediately stop doing something if people from that culture tell you that action is causing them pain.

Stealing credit can happen accidentally or on purpose, but if you claim to love something, educate yourself on it enough to at least know a bit about its origin, so you can give credit where credit is due.

Because if one more person tries to claim that the Kardashians popularized cornrows, or that Kim’s makeup artist invented contouring, I’m going to scream.

[strongcoffeestrongeropinions]

We need to stop using the term “offensive”

I’ve thought this for a long time, but it’s time I finally put it into words. This particular chapter in history is rife with conversations about identity, ownership, culture, gender, and relations between groups. It’s a time of change, when what we deem acceptable or unacceptable in our society is shifting at a faster pace than it has for decades.

This is thanks to the hard work and courage of activists from all walks of life, all across the world. Important, long-overdue conversations are being brought to the forefront, with social media often serving as the battleground. The intolerable is finally being dragged into the light to meet its reckoning. But with this change, these evolving social mores, comes friction.

We’re not all on the same page. We haven’t all had the same life experiences. And there is as yet no established, black-and-white code of behaviour to point to as our guide for correctly existing in 2019. As a result, there are a lot of messy debates (read: fights) happening on Twitter, Facebook, in every comment section and in the real world.

Possibly the most frequently heard sentence in these debates is “that’s offensive”. A simple enough phrase, designed to call out and condemn a certain behaviour or belief system. The problem is, “offensive” is defined as “causing someone to feel resentful, upset, or annoyed” (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). It’s about feelings. And while a person’s feelings are valid, they are entirely subjective.

Someone’s feelings being hurt isn’t ammunition enough to change a standard of behavior across all of society. Because, inevitably, another person (another woman, another black person, another trans person, etc.) in the conversation will chime in to say they don’t find that particular thing offensive, and then the debate reaches an impasse.

I don’t think a person’s hurt feelings are reason enough to demand an entire group change the way they currently think, speak, or behave. Hurt feelings do not inherently mean the other party is in the wrong. (See: people’s feelings being hurt when they’re called racist for doing something racist.)

Before you misunderstand my position, please allow me to explain.

Hurt feelings are part of the human experience. We’ve all been hurt, and we will all continue to be hurt by something someone says or does to us, whether intentionally or not. Managing one’s own feelings and carrying on with life anyway is a necessary part of adulthood.

So the problem isn’t actually that something is offensive. The thing that needs to be proven to justify a change in behaviour is harm.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism aren’t wrong because they hurt peoples’ feelings. Unpleasant feelings are but a speck in a much larger negative outcome. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism are wrong because they cause damage. They create unfair stereotypes that cause people to lose out on important opportunities. Career prospects, housing, promotions, investments, actual justice in the legal system.

They lead to violence. Trans people face the highest rates of being assaulted and even murdered, simply for daring to exist in public. Violence against women both in and out of the home is routinely shrugged off as normal. Our culture promotes rape, and victims are blamed for the crimes committed against them. Black and brown people are regularly murdered by white police officers who face no consequences (unless you count paid time off work as a consequence – I call that a vacation). Screaming children are ripped from their parents’ arms at the U.S. border and put in actual, literal cages.

Queer children and teens have soaring rates of self-harm and suicide thanks to the unending anguish of living in a world where you’re told the way you are is wrong, immoral, and disgusting.

Eleven-year-old girls have eating disorders because of the onslaught of imagery of one particular body type, one that is unattainable thanks to body modification and editing software, and being told that only if you look exactly that way are you deserving of love, attention, or even basic kindness and respect.

These are the consequences of letting harmful beliefs, words, and actions run freely. This is the damage. Trauma that can last a lifetime – if you survive it – and even be passed down through generations. These are the things that justify a universal shift in our code of behaviour, and the uncomfortableness that comes with it.

So the next time you encounter someone spewing racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic rhetoric, call it what it is. It’s not just offensive.

It’s damaging.