In fairness, I have to at least consider the problem might be with me. Or it might be that there is a "victim" mentality at work.
Those who have followed/known me for a while, likely you've heard me talk about this subject before, but this is a slightly different tack on the matter. In the interests of brevity, I'm keeping it very simple.
Here's how I see it: When a person has a bad experience (whatever that is), there are two basic things they can do. They can get over it, or they can stick on it.
Some people stick on things. They can't or won't get past bad experiences, and from my observation, the common denominator of those is, they feel like they were victimized, their power, ability, survival potential stripped from them, and woe is them.
Those not totally caved-in by the bad experience often become crusaders, and some of them have done some pretty cool things, to prevent the bad thing from happening to others.
But here's where it starts getting hinky for me: Caved or not, these types of people typically start viewing their whole world through the lens of this bad thing. They identify themselves as a "_______ survivor", for example. This bad thing has become a defining moment for that person -- how they define themselves, how they define the world. Everything becomes identified with the bad thing.
This is not always correct. Identification of dissimilar things is a hallmark of insanity, actually. Let's put that in other terms: If you think apples and oranges are the same type of fruit, that's nuts. We can agree on that, right. So how sane is a person who thinks everyone is racist? Or how about the people I know who think anything a man says is automatically suspect, because it came from a man. It doesn't matter which man, it doesn't matter what he's actually saying, or how he actually comports himself, or anything. He's a man, so can't be trusted.
I call this a "reverse -ism". It's not really reversed at all; it's still sexist, racist, etc. but it's from the viewpoint of a victim. And because they're the victim, it's "not really" racist (etc.), because they know what racism is. Well, being discriminated against, believe it or not, doesn't give license to discriminate.
My impatience with these people is fairly well known, and it stems from the fact that discrimination bothers me. I don't think it's right. It bothers me that there are people being victimized by these things. It really bugs me when such a person turns that into a justification for doing the same thing to others (if perhaps on a different scale). It bugs me when someone picks a bad experience for their defining moments.
I know that people don't always get to decide what happens to them in their lives. But I also know that like it or not, they do get to decide what to do about it. You can heal, or you can carry your pain around with you for the rest of your life and use it to bludgeon other people.
Whenever this subject comes up, inevitably someone tries an ad hominem attack, implies or states outright that because I'm male, white, etc., I can't possibly know what I'm talking about; some will even tell me I don't have a right to have this opinion about it. And right there, you have a perfect example of a reverse -ism. Because I've been discriminated against, for those same reasons, and more! I've been discriminated against because of my religion. And because I've been overweight at various points in my life. And because I'm hard of hearing. My nationality. My ancestry. My appearance or fashion sense. And sometimes just because I was there.
I've had bad experiences. I don't call myself a "divorce survivor", even though that was an enormously traumatic time. And that's only one example, not even the most major. Point is, I don't define myself by my failures, or my failings. Closest I'll come to it is the hard of hearing thing, and even then it's not like I join the society of HOH people or something. It's just something people need to know so they don't get upset with me for not hearing them.
So take your ad hominem and shove it.
I prefer to define myself through positive things. I prefer to see the world as clearly as I can, as objectively as possible and as now as possible.
I don't care what kind of body you're wearing. Or how old it is. Or how damaged or defective it might be. I don't care what kind of genitalia you prefer. I don't care what god you worship, or even whether you worship a god. What matters to me is what you do — right here, right now. To me, this is the only reasonable action.
I could go on — I could always go on — but here's where I'll stop.
And for a significantly longer and more exasperated take on this, my blog specifically about racism.
