Shit Idiot White Cis Straight Men Say #2

Welcome to the second installment of my Shit Idiot White Cis Straight Men Say series. In the first post in this series, my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend insulted her "tiny female brain" and he was rightly torn apart and fed to wolves electronically. In this exciting episode, we shall experience racism and prejudice against Muslims. Fun for all.

But first, a disclaimer. I am white and not Muslim, which means I do not know or understand fully the experiences that Muslims and people of color face. If anything I say in the following comments and/or blog post is overstepping my boundaries and/or misusing privilege, please call me out on it so that I never say anything like it ever again.

Please feel free to say this to me at any time.

With that, let's begin.

 The link is to a Chicks on the Right post about a march to the White House that the American Muslim Political Action Committee plans to have on September 11, 2013 in protest of how their 1st amendment rights have not been upheld and how grossly Muslims have been treated since the events of September 11, 2001. Makes sense, right? Apparently not to this guy and the Chicks on the Right. I responded how I often respond to stupidity on the interwebs: sarcasm.

Really, Mr. White, Cis, and Straight? You need examples of discrimination against Muslims in America? I mean, at least you gave me something incredibly easy to find proof of, but have you really been living in that much of a bubble? It took me literally three seconds of Googling to find this article. I even gave him a quote so he didn't have to hurt himself actually reading the article.

Oh, yay! Another thing that I can find proof of in my sleep. Also, a lovely generalization of the Muslim religion, which he clearly knows nothing about. I gave him another article and quote for him to read (or not).

It's not like the quote I gave him just explained why that might be or anything, but whatever. I can spoon-feed information when necessary.

And there he goes, pulling the "the mainstream media has a liberal bias" card that conservatives are ever so fond of. I'm just going off the few journalism classes I've taken, but I'm pretty sure that most of the mainstream news media (besides FOX News and MSNBC) try pretty hard to be politically unbiased in the stories that they present. Doesn't mean it always works, but they're definitely not blatantly liberal. Even if what he's claiming was true (which it's not), other biases would prevent those stories from being told.

Because his conjecture about Islam not being a peaceful religion is rooted in so much fact. And, you know, at least he got the white part of the media bias right. We can work with that. And manipulate his own misinformation against him later.

Totally, Mr. WCS. Repeating a tired cliche is definitely going to win you this debate. Especially since the only actions you're taking into consideration are the actions of an extremist group that most of the practicers of that religion reject.

Nobody's arguing that one, dude. And I believe this brings our "use of the phrase 'actions speak louder than words'" tally up to four.

It's extra frustrating because he clearly understands, he's just choosing not to accept it.

That is a different thing than the thing you were saying before, sir.

There are two possible explanations for that statement: 1) He's changing his previous statements to fit his present needs even though they don't line up or 2) He's so trapped in his little rural Iowa Christian bubble that he doesn't realize that there are really other religions outside of Christianity that atheism could possibly oppose. I'm going to assume it's a combination of both.

Everybody loves a good cop-out. Apparently that question was too much for him to handle. I'm taking that as a victory on my part.

Seriously, though, I think conceiving of different religions besides Christianity as actual entities deserving recognition is unfortunately very rare for individuals from the Bible Belt of this country. They haven't seen those people in everyday life, so the only knowledge they gather of their existence is from the mainstream media, which doesn't even provide genuine voices for those people. This is a big part of why I feel getting as many different voices in the mainstream as possible is of the utmost importance. Voices of marginalized peoples need to be heard without people having to strain to hear them because, unfortunately, not all that many people are willing to put the effort forward to hear them if they have to try.

In conclusion, I'm going to continue the tradition of putting adorable animals at the end of these. Here you go.

Shit Idiot White Cis Straight Men Say #1

Last night, my girlfriend's ex demonstrated his extreme mastery of Facebook misogyny. After a crap ton of super fabulous women kicked his ass with the sweet power of words, I realized that there had been quite a bit of Facebook idiocy happening lately. I also realized that the group of people perpetuating this idiocy had some things in common. Namely, they were white, they were cis, they were straight, and they were men. So, I've decided to start a series of posts not only to honor (read: shame) them, but also to hopefully spark discussion about why this keeps happening.

Now, I've taken some precautions to preserve the identity of these guys and anybody else involved in the discussion. I've done this out of the benevolent goodness of my heart. Actually, I'd just really rather not have to deal with more crap from them if I can help it.

I'm going to start off this series with the event that inspired its conception. Here's the original status that started the shitstorm.

One of my girlfriend's Facebook friends posted this status. It's your typical female empowerment Facebook status, slightly problematic, but with an overall good message. And about fifty people liked it, which is awesome. More power to the empowering Facebook statuses. But then this happened. For clarification, black is the original poster, while brown is Mr. White, Cis, and Straight.

Now, this doesn't seem malicious at first. It's clearly not intended to be malicious, either. I am in no way claiming that men do not face societal pressure, because they do. They do not, however, "experience body envy as much as women". Do men have pressure to fit the masculine ideals in the media? Yes, but they don't have the threat of objectification hanging over their heads. The feminine ideal that women are expected to meet is an object of masculine desire. The masculine ideal that men are expected to meet is powerful and has control over his own domain. The idea of objectification is much more dangerous. Also, apparently a girl's mother is supposed to teach her what men go through? What?

Now, a lovely debate between this guy and my girlfriend erupted, but I'm not going to subject you to those screencaps because 1) they contain big long paragraphs that aren't necessary to get the gist of this story, and 2) I'm lazy. All you need to know is that Mr. WCS ended it passive aggressively and that was that. Or so it seemed to the outside eye.

I searched "The Plot Thickens" in Google Images and this was the best I could do. I'm sorry.

Mr. WCS sent my girlfriend a private message. It really speaks for itself, so here it is.

 No. Not okay. This kind of gendered insult demonstrates the misogyny that the original status was crusading against. Also, the protective girlfriend in me wants to rip off his balls and feed them to wolves, but that's neither here nor there.

So, my girlfriend in a move of spectacular brilliance, screencapped this glorious ignorance and posted it on Facebook for all to see. The backlash was fun.

The fun was taken to the next level when his mom joined in.

I would make my own commentary about why that's a bunch of bull, but look! A lovely Facebook commenter already did it for me!

The comment thread that follows is longer than the Nile, but I'm sure you get the gist at this point. I think what really got to me about this was the fact that he was getting support for his misogyny from other WOMEN. I almost understand the mom, since it's probably hard to see the flaws in your own child, but this guy had support from a few other women not related to him as well. Misogyny in our society is so internalized that when someone stands up against it, they're the ones who get reamed. You know what, people who perpetuate misogyny as the norm in our society? 

Because I don't want to end this post on a negative note, here's an adorable gerbil on a swing. Have a nice day.