One thing I *know* white people need to get over is associating the shame in slavery with the enslaved instead of the enslaver.

It's scary for us to face the true realities of control & oppression because we are forced to confront our position in this system &, for us regular schmucks, it is quite firmly in the "enslaved" position.

We aren't free. We are controlled, abused, & exploited. But *we see shame in it*, because we have participated in the shaming of enslaved & oppressed people.

We make science fiction about it—about how tightly controlled we all are—but we aren't really able to accept that type of sci-fi represents the here-and-now.

And our fear of accepting this leads us to play along with our oppressors. We must keep the fragile illusion that we are the people on top, not the ones below.

We place the shame of oppression where our oppressors tell us it is & not on them where it so justly belongs.

It is not shameful to be abused or exploited. It is *incredibly* shameful to abuse & exploit others.

My dad told me that his dad "would be proud" of the way I do not give unearned respect to people who are "above" me socially or institutionally.

Made me pretty happy actually.

If calling bullshit on privileged bullies is a proud family tradition, count me in.

I dunno, look, I wasn't raised to respect someone simply because their status was higher than mine.

I WAS raised to believe that status usually accrues to people who are worthy of respect, & I had to unlearn *that* BS, but I have always reserved the right to judge for myself whether someone deserves my respect based on their actions & their behavior towards other people.

If a person of high status demonstrates disdain for people of lower status, that kills any respect I may have immediately.

If you *actually* believe the indoctrination you receive about "meritocracy", & you *actually* pay attention, you will eventually become disillusioned with the whole white-supremacist patriarchy, because it becomes very, very, very clear that "status" trumps "merit" every goddamn time.

It took so long to see because we pretended otherwise. We pretended that status & being worthy of respect were related, but if you test that thesis over time, the results will be very conclusive: that's a lie.

I sometimes find it really weird when people talk about being "embarrassed" by the Trump regime.

It doesn't always bother me, but when it's in the context of "the world used to respect us", it very much does.

Do you want the American Empire to be respected globally? If so, why?

Do you actually think the American Empire deserves respect? Or do you think it did at one time in the past? If so...when? When was it good?

Since it is bisexual day of visibility, I guess I can pontificate a bit.

Here's my thing:

Bisexual folks & trans folks have to stick together & support each other because any world that does not have room for trans people will have no room for us either.

Biphobia & transphobia both revolve around enforcing gender binaries. They both demand that we "choose sides". We are the people who don't fit into the neat categories people want to sort other people into.

When the folks playing queer respectability politics say we have to get rid of the "transes" because they are too deviant, the next people who are getting told they aren't respectable enough will be bisexuals.

It's how it goes. We bisexuals "bring the movement down," ya know and "make it hard for people to take queer people seriously."

So I avoid that respectability BS because I already know that anyone who decides trans people are in the way will eventually realize they don't want me either.

Biphobia presents bisexual people as dangerous & especially perverted disturbers of the status quo. So if you're bisexual, & you see someone characterizing someone else that way, trust & believe that anyone who labels people in that way doesn't want you around either.

It irritates me when I am reminded that a significant percentage of the people demanding we remake the world to match their expectations also think that Jesus is going to take them to Heaven any day now.

I sometimes forget because my sect of fundamentalist Christianity did *not* believe in the Rapture or even "End Times", so I forget that some of these people really are trying to ruin people's lives as much as possible before they dip out & don't have to deal with it.

Spouse & I are watching Peacemaker Season 2 as it comes out, & we are loving it.

But I go on YT & all these nerd commentary channels are trying to guess what the plot twists will be, what new projects in the DCU are being hinted at, & generally just obsessively speculating about future media (whether it be what will happen next in the show or it relates to other shows & movies).

I don't honestly get it. I don't get why people are watching shows to mine for data about potential future shows.

I think Disney is going to soon find out that a lot of the people who canceled their subscriptions are not going to come back because they were already dissatisfied with their streaming services.

Every single streaming platform has become a giant pain in the butt.

If you give people a reason to cancel out of anger, why would they come back after you did the absolute bare minimum to attempt to appease them?

There is no separate struggle for the liberation of privileged people.

There is no cut-off on which people matter.

You aren't better than anyone else. No one is beneath you.

You do not get to choose your liberation but not theirs.

You have to tune out the voices that tell you that you deserve good things because you are better than someone else. That is a lie you were told so you would participate in someone else's oppression.

As long as status & hierarchy still have their hooks in you, you aren't getting free.

As long you believe that you deserve to have something that someone else doesn't, as long as it is important to you to be better than someone else, as long as you demand special respect from anyone, as long as you imagine there are people beneath you, you will not be free, because you don't want freedom: you want to be above others.

The biggest fucking hurdle for some people is just accepting that the reason they were told they were special is because they were being prepared to accept & participate in the oppression of people who are not considered so special.

This is one reason why men especially are so doggedly conservative. One of the things they stand to lose is that belief in their specialness. Their ego can't take it.

As a woman raised in extreme patriarchal religion it's hard for me to comprehend what it must be like to feel so important, but my brothers were told that if they were manly men they would conquer the world, win at all kinds of things, & command the respect of everyone around them because of how great they are as white men.

I guess I see why it's hard to give up, but seriously, dudes. Get over yourselves.

Me patiently explaining to my brother what I mean when I say I have far left views: "you could call it 'anarcho-communism'. Say it with me slowly. A political graph would call it "the libertarian left". I believe we can create better societies built on cooperation instead of greed & authoritarian control.

Him: "but the left wing hurt me."

Me: when?

Him: *names things the truly evil bank he used to work at did, things the Biden admin did, & things Democrats said to pollsters."

Me: 🤦♀️

@GuyDudeman
What do you mean? Am I joking that I don't want Colbert & Kimmel to be spokespeople for "the left"? Am I joking when I say they are fundamentally conservative? No, I am not. I am extremely serious.

They are milquetoast liberals who will defend "law & order" to the last.

If I were trying to advance a right-wing agenda & was going to go after a mainstream white male "liberal" show host to put fear into critics of the regime, I would probably go for, I dunno...John Oliver, someone who actually puts forward substantive & persuasive content.

I would worry about how a guy like him sways public opinion a lot more than Jimmy Kimmel.

But this isn't a campaign against "the left". This is Trump getting petty revenge on a guy who makes him feel small.