Posted this to Tumblr, felt it was necessary to repost it here:
Jesus Tittyfucking Christ on a pogo stick, people, why is it that every goddamn post criticizing a privileged group has to be either prefaced with “Yeah I know not all X,” or gets constantly derailed by some idiot or another being like “Not all X!” or “I’m X and I’m not that bad!” Do you people not comprehend the notion of “implied data” or are you just ignoring that with malice of forethought?
If I make a post of an observation of white people, I should NOT have to preface it with either “Yeah yeah, not all white people, sheesh,” or with “I’m white and I observe about other white people,” because honestly, NOBODY IS FUCKING SAYING “ALL WHITE PEOPLE.” I WAS TALKING ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE IN GENERAL!
I should NOT have to say “Yes, I know, not all straight people” before making an observation about straight people as a group. I should NOT have to say “Yeah yeah, not all men” before making an observation about shitty things men in general do. I should NOT have to say “Yeah I’m not saying ‘all’ cis people do that,” when complaining about cis people being shitty. I should NOT have to preface my complaints and/or observations WITH ANYTHING AT ALL, because THAT SHIT IS ALREADY FUCKING IMPLIED!!!!
If I were to complain, “Ugh. Lawyers, man. Evil bastards,” anyone with even HALF a brain would know that I do NOT mean ALL lawyers. They would understand I was just complaining because I’d had a bad experience with one. They would understand that I am, by implication, only speaking about the bad ones.
If I said, “Ugh, humans suck,” nobody but an idiot would interject with “I’m a human and I don’t suck!” or “[insert person] is/was a good person!” So why is it if I or others talk about white people, or straight people, or men, or cis people, that some people always have to automatically assume we’re talking about every single goddamn person in that group when they should fucking well know we aren’t? It’s absolutely ridiculous bullshit, but I see the same thing even in people I know and like and think of as otherwise intelligent. HOW can so many people be so goddamned fucking STUPID?????
Something else I don’t understand, is that even if you think “not all X!” in response to something I bitch about, why in the bloody fuck would you speak that thought aloud? Do you know how you sound? You are contradicting your own statement when you do that. If a teacher told some rowdy boys “Boys, hush,” and some boy who had been quiet til then said “Not all us boys are being noisy!” Well congratulations, asshat, you just BECAME one of the noisy boys by being a little asshole. It’s the same shit! If you say “Not all white people are racist,” you might or might not be proving yourself to be a racist, but you ARE proving yourself to be an annoying idiotic dickweasel. Or in the case of a recent post, “I’m white and I can pronounce those names,” it’s like yeah, congratulations on completely missing the point. I wasn’t saying white people can’tpronounce those names, in fact I was saying the opposite; I was saying they CAN if they put in the effort, and I was also pointing out that an overwhelming majority of them don’t bother to put forth the effort in the case of brown people because hey, you can’t undo 300 years of racism in 50 years. Nor was I saying they were consciously or willfully being racist. For Pete’s sake, people, SAYING SOMETHING RACIST DOES NOT NECESSARILY MAKE YOU A RACIST, IT JUST MEANS YOU’RE LIVING IN A RACIST SOCIETY! Why you can’t just accept that fact and correct your behavior like a good little human is something I cannot evenbegin to comprehend. If I tell you your goddamn computer is sending virus-laden spam, that just means it’s been exposed to a virus, not that it willfully decided to send spam. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, these things are memetic viruses, and someone pointing out that you’ve been infected by the virus does not make you racist, sexist, or whatever. You know what does make you those things, though? When your reaction to being called out on racism is “No I’m not racist! I have a black friend!” or if your response to racism/sexism/whatever is “You’re too sensitive!” or anything other than “Sorry about that, I’ll try not to do that again,” THAT is when you decide to be a racist/sexist/whatever.
Having the memetic virus does not make you the virus, it makes you a victim of society. Choosing to live in denial of being infected, choosing to ignore the problem rather than trying to fix it, and/or choosing to make your behavior EVEN MORE obnoxiously racist/sexist/whatever in response with shit like gaslighting (which is what shit like “You’re too sensitive” is), THAT is a willful choice to become the very thing you’re claiming to not be.
So I can only come to the conclusion that anyone who says “Not all white people!” is either the world’s biggest moron for being unable to understand the basic concept of “Oh they’re not talking about ALL white people, just white people in general,” or is choosing to be a fucking racist. Or homophobe, or transphobe, or whatever other shit you’ve been called out on that you refuse to genuinely apologize for, that you choose to not fix.
Oh and I swear on all that is unholy, if you go spouting off on more of the same “Not all X” bullshit in response to this post, I’m not even going to say anything, I’m just going to Ignore you and maybe report you for spam. So if you don’t agree with me on this, then FUCK OFF!