classicalafros67

[classicalafros67]

On Why I Refuse to Talk to My Grandmother

This is not meant to be educational. This is not meant to slander my grandmother. This is only meant to be therapeutic – a way to organize my thoughts and release my emotions in a healthy way. I want to note, before I begin, that I am talking to my grandmother, but only out of necessity, for logistical and business reasons, until we come up with a recompense or I have to cut her out of my life altogether. I’m not even sure that I am going to share this, but I still wanted to write it, so maybe for a time, my anger, bitterness and disappointment can be placed elsewhere.

Recently, I wrote this piece, didn’t really share, but I didn’t finish it either on an example of how my grandmother has treated me and continues to treats me.

“I feel like I’m a pretty outspoken person when it comes to talking about gender expression, sexuality, gender, feminism and activism, EXCEPT when it comes to my family. Living all as a queer and gender non-conforming African-American, living with ones (loosely) religious, judgmental and controlling family members is anything but easy. In fact, it’s fucking hard as hell, and I’m pretty sure it’s the base of all of my mental illnesses. I’ve grown up to be silent and speak when spoken to. I believe that my guardian (grandmother) believes that she must rule with an iron fist and control and repair me at any cost, so I can be properly digestible for society. As I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to heavily resent her as these repairs and plays for control are disguised as concern and unconditional love. Recently, it has gotten pretty rough between us. I resent having to go home, so I go out as often as possible either spending the night with my friends or my boyfriend in the city.

One of her plans to repair me (and by repair, I mean “masc me up”) was foiled this week when I spent most of it in the city with my boyfriend in order to get away from her. The car that we are currently sharing got a majorly avoidable flat tire. I agreed to help pay for a new tire, but she wanted me to watch the tire get changed?? I could always google, but, hey, what do I know I guess? So, like always, she got upset that I had not come home, (mind you, I am 22 years old, recently graduated from college, and working multiple jobs to move out of there) and had started calling up a storm and MARKING all of the locations I was at. (She forced me to get this app on my phone where she can track me. Again, I am 22 years old.) I eventually went home because she was holding the car hostage and refusing to get it fixed until I came back, knowing that I needed it to get to work.

She tells me that we need to talk, but every time I attempt to talk to her about anything heavy, my sexuality, how I express myself, gender expression, ect., it turns into her talking at me and justifying, for herself, how she feels and why she acts a certain way. I have always been bad at having these conversations with family, but I am tired of the way my grandmother treats me. I haven’t been talking to her for the past couple of days because I refuse to go to business as normal and move on like nothing is going on, and I’ve been making a list of reasons why I’m upset with her which has become… extensive.

This list is disorganized and mostly just the tip of an iceberg talking point that we need to settle. It overall encompasses her disguising her homophobia, embarrassment and desire to control and socialize me (i.e. other toxic behaviors) as concern and unconditional love. Her forcing me to get an app that allows her to track and mark everywhere I go is her ploy to keep me under control, yet she disguises this as a way for her to let me know that she is home when I could careless, and she ignores that I am old enough to go where I damn please, don’t do drugs, don’t smoke, don’t party, but “there is too much going on in the world right now, I just need to know where you are.” Ask me… This will also lead me to my next point on how I express myself. I like, no, I fucking love makeup. My fashion sense, as I’ve mentioned before extends from dad to literal queen mom. If I want to wear a suit, I’ll wear a suit, if I want to wear a dad outfit, I’ll work that. If I want to wear sweats all day, girl yes. If I want to wear high heels and a floral top, I will WORK that. And if I want to wear makeup with any of those outfits, I WILL! Can you guess which one grandma absolutely hates? She’s horrible at addressing things too, so she gets passive aggressive. She always has a snide comment about what I wear or my makeup and “how bad it is for [my] face.” Even today, she looked at my Facebook and demanded me to take down my cover and profile picture because I’m wearing a full face of makeup and a floral shirt and my cover photo is the pride flag with the male, female, and intersex signs. It got to the point where I blocked her because I can’t mentally handle all the controlling.

I don’t know. I think I just want her to admit that she’s embarrassed of me if nothing else, recognize that I’m only living here circumstantially, that I am still an adult that she can’t/shouldn’t try to control, and that we should really learn to live with each other.”

We did eventually sit down in the kitchen one late night as I returned home and attempted to express how I felt. I wanted the conversation to be an eye opener for her that she couldn’t police how a grown person could express themselves be it online or in real life. Instead, it turned into an interrogation about, “who molested you?” “where did we go wrong?” and fake tolerance. I just ended up having to face my grandmother, someone who I had deeply respected and revered, someone who helped me through college and through life when I moved out of my father’s house, express her homophobia and internalized misogyny towards me in words disguised as concern and worry.

“Why are you wearing makeup?”

“Boys don’t wear makeup”

“I thought you were doing it to get back at your daddy”

“I’m getting a handle on the whole gay thing. I’m getting a handle on the fact that one day you’re gonna bring a man home. But, now, this makeup is too much! And the clothes you’re wearing. And you’re growing out your hair…”

These are some of the words that were shared with me on that night. It has been a couple of weeks and the conversation still rings in my head back and forth. There are so many petty rebuttals I both wish, but am glad that I didn’t, say. I understand that you care so much about the products I buy and put on my face. I understand that the rules to this binary society so strongly holds on to and polices how one performs their assigned sex at birth. I understand that with that in mind that anything outside that expectation is therefore repaired, most commonly through violence. I especially understand the fragility of masculinity and how anything that easily breaks that line is met with violence.

But I also wish that my grandmother knew that she was and is inciting the violence that she’s afraid will be inflicted on me. Violence isn’t just physical. She understands that as my grandmother, she has a power of influence over me, but instead of using this power and seemingly unconditional love as a force for good, a force to uplift the grandchild and encourage them to be themselves unapologetically while advocating for a better and more accepting world to others, she uses this power to police, criticize and repair my expression, my sexuality, my identity.

Imagine the mental, emotional and psychological damage that inflicts on someone. Every article of clothing you wear – judged. The shoes you wear – judged. Growing, styling or curling your hair – judged. How you talk – judged. What you talk about – judged. Every little thing about you – judged and threatened with getting kicked out of the residence you live in.

“Well, as long as you live under my roof, I don’t want you wearing makeup or girl’s clothes.”

All of this violence inflicted, while the attacker continues to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the relationship, and sweeps everything under a giant rug. This violence which affects so many other queer youths. To tell you how bad it is, I have contemplated being homeless, even at VERY low times suicide, just to be away from her. This is horrible considering that despite the violence, I will love my grandmother no matter what, I would like to mend our relationship, and I feel so guilty for feeling that way. But I cannot possibly see that happening until she magically addresses her own problems and stop projecting her societal desires onto me and my siblings.

So, for now, until I am in a financial position to move out and never come back, I refuse to talk to her unless absolutely necessary. I refuse to pretend to be her friend. I refuse to pretend I can tolerate her being around me. I refuse to pretend that I’m not purposefully avoiding her as much as I can. I refuse to let her involve herself into my life for her to gossip and disapprove. I refuse to let that toxicity invade my life again, and I shall seek help and refuge where I can in continuing therapy and being with the family and friends who accept me and love me for exactly as I am.

Postscript—

I think in terms of making this a discussion, because I could use advice on how else I can move forward. Am I missing something in this situation? I’ve talked about this several times in real life with friends and family, and I keep getting the same answers — “She’s just worried about” “She’s stuck in her ways” “She’s your grandmother, she’s supposed to act that way” But I call absolute bullshit. People can change at ANY age from ANY era, and this situation, I feel is WAY more nuanced than her being worried about me. I’d rather her not die a bigot, so I want to open up ways that I can have discourse with her and show her tools to learn more about the LGBTQIA community.

[classicalafros67]

I need every person on this website to realize one thing.

Y'all can still be part of a marginalized group while also having internalized bigotry to said marginalized group you are a part of.

Women can still internalize misogyny and be harmful to other women

Gay men and lesbians can still internalize homophobia and be harmful to other gay folks

Trans people can still internalize transphobia and be harmful to other trans people

If you are bi or pan, or m-spec in anyway you can still internalize biphobia, panphobia, and m-spec antagonism and be harmful to other m-spec people

Disabled people can still internalize ableism (for their own or other disabilities) and be harmful to other disabled people

People of color can still internalize racism (to their own or other races) and be harmful to other people of color

Fat people can internalize fatphobia and be harmful to other fat people

Asexual and aromantic people can internalize a-spec antagonism and be harmful to other a-spec people

Internalized bigotry is absolutely a thing. If I see one more bi person spout biphobic rhetoric, or a trans person spout transphobic rhetoric, or a woman spout misogyny but then claim because they are part of X marginalized group that they couldn’t possibly be spreading harmful rhetoric.

Guess what, it is possible, and it happens all the damn time. How do I know? Cause as a disabled person I have been ableist to other people and their disabilities. I am learning and growing and doing my best to combat internalized bigotry that I have.

Everyone has internalized bigotry because the society we live in is bigoted. Y'all may not want to hear it but we are all raised to be bigots. We have to unlearn what we have been taught, amd using the fact that you are part of a marginalized group so you don’t have to confront your own internalized bigotry helps absolutely no one, and not only harms other people of that marginalized group, it hurts you too.

Please y'all, you have to understand this. Stop saying “I can’t be transphobic cause I’m trans!” As a fucking gotcha! It means nothing because internalized bigotry exists and is rampant in society!

[classicalafros67]

This is a good post for discussion!

My sociology professor had a really good metaphor for privilege today. She didn’t talk about race or gender or orientation or class, she talked about being left-handed.

A left-handed person walks into most classrooms and immediately is made aware of their left-handedness - they have to sit in a left-handed seat, which restricts their choices of where to sit. If there are not enough left-handed seats, they will have to sit in a right-handed seat and be continuously aware of their left-handedness. (There are other examples like left-handed scissors or baseball mitts as well.)

Meanwhile, right-handed people have much more choice about where to sit, and almost never have to think about their right-handedness.

Does this mean right-handed people are bad? No.

Does it mean that we should replace all right-handed desks with left-handed desks? No.

But could we maybe use different desk styles that can accommodate everyone and makes it so nobody has limited options or constant awareness that they are different? Yes.

Now think of this as a metaphor. For social class. For race. For ethnicity. For gender. For orientation. For anything else that sets us apart.

[classicalafros67]

Let's Talk About Gender Expression

I believe as humans that we’re on a never ending journey to discovering our identity and how to express it. I also believe that there is no wrong or right way to do this as long as it doesn’t involve harming someone in any way. However, as many of you know, especially if one belongs to a marginalized group, our society does not share this belief. We’ve already covered societies’ systematic techniques to maintain the status quo. We repair what’s not “normal.” We reward people that fit and perform easily in our narrow boxes. We showcase these “normal” people to reinforce their desirability. More than a couple of weeks ago, we discussed gender and how our society traps us in a list of restrictive expectations. I shared an example of my little queer life to demonstrate. This week, I want to expand on that part of the conversation.

I realized that in my talk about gender that I had also brought up gender expression in my effort to explain how my expression doesn’t fit the binary. Funny enough, the only two things I can truly think of doing that isn’t a masculine expression is wearing makeup and being queer. If someone was to pass me by on a day that I dress like a dad or am working out, they would just assume that I am categorially masculine. However, I’m absolutely obsessed with makeup, I love clothes of all varieties, and the only thing that has kept me from trying on or flaunting dresses is that I’m a pretty muscular and hairy guy, so I don’t think I would be able to pull that off. Despite all of this, I cannot just categorize myself into masculine or feminine as an identity as I see other queer and trans people do. Expression is not a dichotomy. Although, I love my makeup and my fashion, I typically do dress like a dad more, at least when I’m home for the summer, i.) because it’s a quick and comfy way to get dressed, and ii.) for my own physical and emotional safety.

Being the tech savvy queer boy that I am, I use dating apps such as Scruff, Grindr, ect., and I see profiles littered with “masculine for same,” or “masc for masc.” I am not writing this blog to attack those profiles, but to merely bring up the slight hilarity of the owners who message me assuming that I’m “masc” because I’m athletic and have a beard and body hair. I also find it funny that when I explain my interests, one of which being makeup, that these men are either still interested because they still believe that I’m “masc,” or the guys that awkwardly ignore it for that same belief. This situation is nuanced. I say that it is nuanced for the many factors that contribute to this form of, yes, misogyny. The desire for some gay and queer men to engage with others whom they believe are properly preforming masculinity seems to be an attempt to showcase that being queer is just as normal as being straight in a way. The “I’m just one of the guys too” mentality. Now, I get that growing up to perform masculinity is just how some gay men turned out, and I get that that is just their personality. However, it does not excuse the femme bashing that results from attempting to maintain masculinity’s desirability among the queer community. I have the privilege of presenting as masculine, but I understand that there are some more fem/less masc men that are rejected by these same men. I wish that that was the worst case of discrimination that femme men experience, but there are other cases of femi-negativity in our community and abroad. (Blair; Hoskin 2014) There are cases of straight men performing femininity, God-forbid they express their feelings and such. Queer and straight men seem to suffer from femmephobia if they are seen as femme. They are made fun of, rejected or fetishized, and not seen as men because “they act like girls.”

 I have two questions: i.) what is wrong with acting like a girl, and ii.) aren’t they men if they identify as men? It sort of irks me that if a man is femme, they are no longer a man. However, these tactics resulting from femmephobia are a way to repair the transformation that feminine men present: expressing gender beyond the expectation. Femmephobia is prevalent in the gay community because gay men’s masculinity is already challenged in the eyes of the world. Someone, in a way, is giving up their masculinity because a masculine sexual script is to be dominant, to penetrate, to be in control, and with gay anal sex, someone is dominant and penetrating, but there are also those whom give that dominance up, those whom are penetrated, those who switch between these scripts, and those whom do neither. While what is done in a stranger’s bed is none of their business, this sexual complexity confuses heterosexual people and results in many using words such as “queers,” “sissies,” “fairies,” and “faggots” to describe and emasculate us. Some gay men have embraced these words to take away its power. Others have rejected them and have been performing masculinity while bashing femininity in order to find acceptance from other masculine members. Likewise with straight men, if one is femme in the straight community, they are seen as gay and face the same/similar discrimination, and if one is masculine, one can often find themselves being dragged into femmephobic, homophobic, and misogynistic actions.

The phobias are toxic, dangerous and frankly ridiculous when you remember that being femme, butch, or somewhere outside and in between is just a way to express oneself. Before this gets too long, I want to ask you guys about your experiences as masculine, feminine, androgynous, non-binary, ect. folk.

Much love

   Sources used:

 “Experiences of femme identity: coming out, invisibility, and femmephobia” by Karen L. Blair and Rhea Ashley. 2014.

“We Need To Address Femmephobia In The Queer Community” Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. 2017.

“Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions” Janet Lee and Susan Shaw. 2015.

[classicalafros67]

Let's talk about Gender

 I feel that this conversation always brings up a can of worms, and that people are immediately ready with prime typing fingers to respond, "lol there are only to genders, male and female," or something along the lines of, "if you have a penis ur a dude lol, no changing biology, sorry." Before I go into that in depth, I believe that, as a really great professor recently told me, I should go into the academic theory of it all. As I mentioned in my last post, I want this conversation to be constructive, so in order for me to even begin thinking of starting this conversation anywhere, I will first tackle the theory of socialization, then identity, then gender. (And hope I can explain it in a way that is clear.) To be completely honest though, this will be a long one folks, and one which I cannot shorten. It is imperative that we understand this before we dive into discussion, however, I invite you to scroll through the discussion (starting in the fourth paragraph) and refer back to the few paragraphs before explaining the theory if you get confused about anything.

First, let’s talk about socialization. A quick definition of socialization is the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable in a society. It is very interesting how socialization happens as we utilize symbols. (symbols will used in a way to portray things that form cultures such as the media, consumer products, linguistics, vernacular, art, and even behavior) Take the example of media – the way people tell the news, or who’s the obvious target for that Axe body spray or Dove deodorant. Consider how these symbols that you grew up with may have affected your world view. Next, think of the ways these symbols are distributed and how. These symbols are distributed through what we call vehicles of influences. We break this up into three parts: intimacy, repetition, and reach. Intimacy being the exposure of symbols through people we know or trust. (e.g friends of family) Repetition being the multitude of times that you are exposed to a symbol. (e.g. if you’ve had a discussion on gender multiple times, as I’ve had, and you’re reading this and probably hearing the same things more than once about gender once we, finally, get into it) Then reach being the weight and geography of people being exposed to a symbol all at once. (e.g. Hasan Piker’s, a host and producer on The Young Turks, reach to expose or repeat symbols towards others is WAY wider than my blog which I’ll assume will only reach a couple people)

After learning this, we are left to ask how socialization is negotiated. According to scholar and professor Nancy Armstrong, “Culture is a struggle among its various factions to control its signs and symbols.” How do we control the symbols to form the desired culture? Like with the vehicles of influence, there are three ways: maintaining (the status quo or current/accepted condition), transforming (deviating from the status quo), or repairing (sactioning the transformation).

Phew! That’s a lot of theory! And we’re not done, but I promise there’s not a lot of theory left. (we’ll get cracking on TRANSFORMING GENDER soon! Radical!!) The last piece is the theory of identity and how that puzzle piece fits into socialization. (although, there’s a pretty obvious hint if you thought about your world view development!) Identity is how you perceive yourself. It is also a performance of expectations of behaviors based upon the category we put ourselves in while interacting with others. The theory of identity breaks itself into four largely entangling parts: self-concept (our expectations of a category or a performance), self-esteem (how well does one/I fit into this category/schema?), expectations (self definitive), and performance.

Now onto gender! I first learned about what gender meant sociologically. In Jeanne H.Ballantine’s third edition of, Our Social World, gender is a, “socially constructed meaning associated with being male or female… and how individuals construct their identity in terms of gender within these constraints” (246). Gender is mostly based off of sex and stereotypes of what is masculine and feminine.  Definitions of masculinity and femininity are different in the United States than they are in Spain or Indonesia, and so on. One could even believe that gender is made up accordingly to a society; hence social construct. (It is also important to note that gender and sex, while entangled, are not the same thing.) However, when it comes to the psychological definition in John W. Santrock’s, Adolescence, “Gender refers to the characteristics of people as males and females” (168). And when we consider gender and adolescence together, there’s a group of other things to consider. As one can see, there is not a concrete definition of gender, especially when you consider beyond the biological and stereotypically. I vehemently believe that there will never be a concrete definition for gender when you consider identifications beyond the binary of male or female. I also believe that this scares people because for so long, the symbols of our culture have maintained the bifurcation of male or female with no negotiation of the spectrum of this. Even when one considers the biological makeup of a person, their primary and secondary sex characteristics, their sex chromosomes, (XY, XYX, XXX, and more), there is not a true binary for that either. Another example of this would be someone who is intersex. (Intersex being when one has a reproductive or sexual anatomy/ies that do not seem to fit the typical binary definitions of female or male) So with all this complexity in mind, why do we look at gender and sex as a binary? Why do we sanction a person’s gender identity or even gender expression when it doesn’t fit our concepts or expectations? Actually, it is for that exact reason that we sanction it. We have been socialized (Western culture) to see gender and sex as a binary. (e.g. these are girl toys, these are men’s jeans, that soap is for guys) Think of my Axe body spray and Dove soap examples. To which genders are the products targeting? (Why is there a section in the Walmart dedicated to Men’s Dove Soap?) The transformation of this binary is seen as a threat not only to gender identity, but to expression and behaviors.

When it comes to gender roles, however, the definition is a little more concrete. According to Santrock, “gender role is a set expectation that prescribes how females and males should think, act, and feel” (168). When I think of a cisgender woman (cisgender meaning someone who comfortably identifies as the sex and gender they were assigned at birth), I think of long hair, pink skirt, painted nails and beautiful eyeliner. When I think of a cisgender man, I think of muscles, beard, suit and tie. These are the social expectations that have been placed in my head as to what man or woman should look and act like. Still, that expectation is never the full reality. These expectations of masculinity or femininity are best portrayed in a spectrum versus a binary.

 Take me for example. I identify as a cisgender male. I stated my self-conceptions of what a cisgender male should look like, and we have been socialized to know what a masculine man should act like. In fact, the archetype of masculinity would be a strong, in-control man whom is out of touch emotionally. (Lee, Shaw 119) I remember once in a psychology class, when we were asked to name some typical characteristics of being male we could identify with, I could barely name any. I was able to do a better job at naming some typical characteristics of a female. I believe that this is because I grew up around cisgender women, who conformed to scripts of femininity, as a kid. My father raised me with my mom, but I mostly grew up around the women in our family, and I looked up to my mom more than my dad because she was around me the most. Even when I moved in with my dad, the majority in that house were women as well. I was encouraged to like art, nature, and music, and my father did not like that so much because those subjects were not seen as manly. In my mind, especially as I grew up, my father had a ridiculous personality; bottling up emotions, having explosive fits of rage, being irrational, never truly thinking deeply about things and so on. With that, I imitated my mom, who was the exact opposite from my dad. It wasn’t until high school, after I came out to my father as gay, that I tried to imitate his masculinity in order to gain his praise again. I got into sports, tried to anyway, and joined the speech team and so on. The speech team is an example of me demonstrating my report talk which in Deborah Tannen’s definition is the, “talk that gives information” (179). Public speaking is an example of this, and according to her, males are typically good at this. I did not think too deeply into this when I was 14, but I think I somehow knew that public speaking was typically seen as a “boy thing” rather than a “girl thing.” But of course, I quit speech my junior year of high school because I was way better at music than I was at public speaking. Can you see ways that my family, mainly my father, maintained the status quo of masculinity, in this case to the point of toxicity, and attempted to repair my feminine characteristics especially when I came out?  Despite my many feminine characteristics, I do believe that I also have some masculine traits due to how I survived my social environment. (performance according to interactions) I was bullied a lot through elementary and middle school for many reasons; I was short, I was skinny, I was black, and I was suspected to be gay even at that time. My parents raised me to believe that when someone bullies you, you stand up to them. This belief caused me to become very aggressive as a child. I got into a lot of fights with many of my bullies. One fight I got into ended with me gaining some permanent scars on my face. Additionally, as a young adult, I weightlift now along with running, and I’m surprisingly strong when it comes to that. I become very aggressive and forceful when I’m in the gym.

 I could probably list off a hundred more things that I do that can be seen as both masculine and feminine, but why does any of this matter? Why is so important that I stay healthy? Why does it MATTER how aggressive I am or how many fights I’ve been in? I share my story without taking care to how I talk about it to show you that I am also victim to this socialization. I was victim to thinking that I needed to fit perfectly into the binary of a masculine cisgender male. However, my love for art and music complicated this, my love for makeup complicated this, my open expressiveness complicated this, and my queerness complicated this. At every step of these complications, someone would attempt or succeed in sanctioning this whether it be myself and my low self-esteem (or my “despite my feminine characteristics” quip), the bullying, the suggestions to play football instead of sing in that musical, or the disgusted shouts from grandma if I walked downstairs with eyeshadow on. With constrictive symbols and the refusal to extend or accept the potential symbols into other categories, we effectively repair them, sanction them, and punish those who dare to try to transform these symbols. It is evident that these repairs and even the maintenance itself causes harm. The socialization of gender, sex and expression as a binary in itself isn’t the problem. It is the refusal to accept these categories are more complex than a binary. It is the repairs that we place upon the people who do not fit the binary of these categories.

We refuse to listen to each other, empathize with one another, and effectively continue to discover new, more intellectual and complex ways to see a sign or a symbol. We argue with each other in guise of discourse learning nothing from each other —for the goal is to be right, not to learn. This effectively lets these repairs upon transformation persist especially when it comes the topic of gender and gender expression. And so the cycle of ignorance continues. I know that I did not cover everything,(I’m think that I might have to break this into parts) so please leave some answers to my questions, advance this conversation here and abroad, and be the transformation not the repair.

Sources:

Santrock, J. (2010). Adolescence (13th ed.)

Ballantine J; Roberts, K. (2014). Our Social World (3rd ed.)

Lee J; Shaw S. (2015). Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (5th ed.)

[classicalafros67]

Who am I? Another Day Another Set of Rules.

Before I start doing anything all blog-like, perhaps I should start by introducing myself. Hello Tumblr, my name is Khahari, and I’m going to warn you right now that I am an awkward human being when I don’t want to be. (And I hate introductions, but this feels appropriate for my goals for this page.) I am a cisgender male who identifies as queer and black. I am a musician. (My main instrument is my voice) I am a current college graduate and am still finding out what to do during this gap year period between undergrad and grad school.

So I figure, along with my hunt for jobs, auditions, a handle on post-grad life in general, that I create a blog of sorts that, hopefully, opens up a productive dialogue and debate on topics that need to be discussed. In my experience with social media, many or most debates or discussions on big topics such as race, privilege, gender identity, sexuality, policy, feminism, ect., turn into or fall victim to cesspools of trolling, shouting matches, misinformation, and echo chambers. My goal is to avoid this by bringing up such topics and their entanglements and encouraging others to engage in the conversation in a way that is productive, academic and contains ways to look at the bigger picture of it all.

First things first is to start with some ground rules of sorts. I know it’s the internet, and people will probably break these either on purpose or due to human error, but we have to start somewhere right? These are a couple to start with, feel free to suggest more!

1. Everyone has a right to your opinion, but opinions can be very wrong. Make sure your opinion can be backed up by unbiased information, or academic information.

2. Freedom of speech is great, but do not use this as an excuse to hide behind one’s ignorance or, worst of all, bigotry.

3. If I’m doing a good job at this, conversations might get heavy, or passionate, or just plain emotional, please refrain from insulting, or dismissing people’s emotions. (Unless, of course one does as rule #2 refers, but still no ad-hominem attacks)

4. Remember everyone’s humanity. Unless we have a literal nonfeeling robot interjecting in the discussion, everyone involved is human and deserved to be treated as such. (This involves respect, empathy and understanding)

That’s all I got for tonight y’all. Again, please feel free to add some potential rules for discussion. Also, if there is anything else you want to know about me, within reason, please ask away. :)

tl;dr Hi my name is Khahari, and this is my blog :)