The Elephant in the Room

NORMALIZE NOT
HAVING AN OPINION
ON THINGS YOU
AREN'T PROPERLY
INFORMED ON.

Yesterday, I asked a question, then in the comments, I had some follow-up questions. A few people asked me if I could post the comment separately so they could share it.

So, here it is, but modified a bit.

I wanted to know how the same people complaining it’s unfair that Imane Khelif was born with an advantage are magically and suddenly able to grasp the notion of privilege?

To be clear, I’m not commenting on Khelif’s DNA, but just the notion that someone might have unique traits that advantage them in some ways.

Almost everyone has an athletic advantage over me in most contexts. One side of my body works a little better than the other.

A very tall person could be advantaged in basketball and running. Should they be allowed to participate?

A person with a high metabolism has more energy. Should they be paid less because work is easier for them to complete?

I’m autistic, and a part of what that means for me is that I have a memory that is several times more detailed than the average person’s. This gives me an advantage in lots of academic contexts. Should I have been disqualified from the quiz bowls?

Can we accept that privilege exists and then do the labor of examining and defining our values about how we feel about inherited advantages (privileges) and also inherited disadvantages?

Can we invest the time in determining how we feel about competitive advantages and how that impacts the playing field?

Should people be able to purchase advantages?

Do we think someone who worked hard and trained every day of their life should be pitted against someone more than double their size who didn’t have to work hard to do the same job?

Do we think an 85-year-old man should be pushing carts in a Walmart parking lot if the stakes are homelessness? Or should he no longer need to compete? What should we do to level the playing field for him so that he’s not homeless if he can’t compete against a 20-year-old for one of the only available jobs?

We have to determine what our values are when it comes to what we are willing to do in order to level the playing field. Who do we level it for? In what circumstances? How do we ensure these regulations are applied fairly?

We can’t have nuanced conversations as long as we phrase conversations within false binaries, so we have to first stop oversimplifying everything as if there are only two ways to exist.

Also, we have to determine what our values about competition are. If we have those conversations, we have to think about the stakes. When it impacts someone’s career and livelihood, is that when we want to restrict access to the playing field?

If we balance all privilege, it’s no longer competitive.

If we care about the career of a person not advancing because they didn’t have the same advantages as the person they were competing against, then what are we going to do to regulate who can enter? Are the stakes relevant? Do we cap how much someone with an advantage can gain when others are going without?

Because you can’t claim to want fairness only when you feel like it. Basing things on your biases and emotions voids out the notion of fairness.

We could welcome conversations about fairness if we were willing to be fair in all contexts because fairness, also known as equity, is an important concept.

But you don’t get to decide to be an expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion because of inherited privileges like having your biases and emotions being treated like they are laws others must follow. You have to actually do that work and qualify.

If you can’t answer those questions, then you should probably acknowledge that you aren’t ready to have a mature conversation on this topic, do some soul searching, and in the meantime, maybe shut the hell up.

I am not ‘half Japanese’ and ‘half Lithuanian Jewish'.

When I’m singing a Japanese folk song, I don’t sing with half my voice, but with my whole voice.

When I’m taping together my grandparents’ Jewish marriage contract, worn by time but still resilient, it’s not half of my heart that is moved, but my whole heart.

I am complete, and I embody layers of identities that belong together.

I am made of layers, not fractions.

- Yumi Tomsha

📢🐘💖

Thank you Janet Cheatham Bell for sharing.

"You can't indoctrinate someone into being LGBTQ. You can however, indoctrinate someone into irrationally fearing and hating people for their gender identity and s*xual orientation."

What people think Pride is:
* Rainbows
* Parades

What Pride actually is:
* Being valid in the closet to stay safe
* Boring every day life as your authentic self
* Having Community
* Feeling Free
* Loving yourself more than needing to be loved by others
* Surviving hard s**t
* ...still, rainbows 🌈
* Being accepted AND respected as ourselves
* Gender Euphoria
* Protecting Trans Youth
* Fighting for Equal Rights
* Honoring those who paved the way: especially Black Trans Elders
* Feeling at home in yourself
* Validating intersections
* Q***r s*x ❤️
* Celebration

📢 🐘 ❤️ 🏳‍⚧🏳️‍🌈


Thank you Bless the Messy

"Gay Pride was not born of a need to celebrate being gay, but our right to exist without persecution.

So instead of asking why there isn't a Straight Pride movement, be thankful you don't need one."
- Lz Granderson

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧❤🐘

September 15 - October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month !

What's the difference between Hispanic, Latino and Latinx?


❤️🐘

What's the difference between Hispanic, Latino and Latinx? Latinx. Latino. Hispanic. Cristina Mora explains the origin of these words.Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any new videos: http://bi...

September 15 - October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month !

The Awesome Story Behind National Hispanic Heritage Month


❤️🐘

The Awesome Story Behind National Hispanic Heritage Month Do you know the history of Hispanic Heritage Month and why we celebrate from September 15 to October 15? Salud.to/heritage

"[This song] builds on a lineage of anti-city songs in country music... cities are painted as spaces where crime, s*xual promiscuity and personal and financial ruin occur, while the "country" is meanwhile framed as a peaceful space where happiness reigns.

The urban-versus-rural divide, and the antithetical moral characteristics projected onto them, is not unique to country music and has roots hundreds of years deep, at least. The discourse over city and country has evolved over time, and taken on its own identity within country music. Songs that pine for an idyllic rural past have been a part of country music since the genre was first invented as a marketing category for rural white Southerners in the 1920s."

NPR

Jason Aldean's 'Small Town' is part of a long legacy with a very dark side The 'anti-city' country song is a well-worn trope, one that pits idyllic country life against the corruption of the city. But Aldean's controversial song reveals the dark heart of the tradition.

Your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does. ❤🐘

In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.
- Angela Davis

❤️🐘

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.
- Maya Angelou

I know it's tragic the WiFi isn't working,
but let me tell you a story
of catastrophic proportions
from my childhood.

🦣🔇📼✏️🐘

June 25, 1978 Gilbert Baker's Rainbow Flag flew high above San Francisco Pride for the first time.

"It’s really about the idea of a rainbow, the idea of all the colors, the idea of a spectrum. So whether it’s eight or six or sixty or one hundred, it doesn’t matter.

The thread that runs through every gay life - every LGBT person - is that we all have a moment in our lives where we come out to ourselves; where all of a sudden you’re true to yourself. That moment is what connects us through all the generations and all our different stories.

That’s the thread of the Rainbow Flag.
That single moment when individuals claim their own truth is true power."

Gilbert Baker, creator of first Rainbow Pride Flag

[ Quote from NBC News interview https://youtu.be/S_bzpr2jalQ?t=4m13s ]

[[More info about Rainbow Flag and variations over time:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT_movement) ]

The only choice I made
was to be myself 🌈

📢🐘❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧

I don't wear 🌈 items to tell you
who's in my bed. I wear 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧ so
the family across the street knows
they are safe. So the couple in the
restaurant know they aren't alone
So the boy who sees me notice
him looking at dresses knows
won't judge. I wear pride because you
make them hide


📢🐘❤️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧

Out or not
you're loved

❤🐘 🏳️‍⚧🏳️‍🌈

Men need to know it's okay...
to talk about feelings
to ask for help
to break down
to not be okay
to cry
to go to therapy
to be vulnerable
to need support

🐘❤️

"I hope to leave behind memories of someone who really tried to do good; memories of an ear for all those that are troubled; memories of someone who did all they could, even if that means having less quantity of achievements and time. If I am remembered as an example of courage and a quality of hopefulness then maybe my life will have had consequenc."

- Harvey Milk
June 28, 1974

Thank you Harvey Milk Foundation
❤🐘🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈