I'm trying very hard to not paint ya'll as people who, when confronted with complaints that you're dismissing other's problems out of hand, dismiss them out of hand. LoudWhispers is the only one here making any sense to me, since he actually listed a problem other than "lol look at all the whining."
I apologize in advance if I'm misconstruing anything anyone is saying. I'm going to soapbox for a bit, and if you think "I'm not disagreeing with that" then just assume it doesn't apply to you (because it doesn't).
Discrimination is a thing that exists. If someone is labeled "weird" or "unusual" for any reason, very likely they're going to be discriminated against. It doesn't matter if they have control over it, or even if they want themselves to conform to what others want; they will be mocked, ridiculed, and thrown out.
There isn't a standard set of "valid" reasons people might have to complain about discrimination. It's not just race, sexual orientation, etc. It's pretty much anything others might pick up on and start mocking them for. Remember that bullying doesn't end after high school; it happens among every age group, among every set of people.
Some things are, in general, less mocked than others. You're more likely to be mocked and discriminated against due to race than, say, sexual orientation or gender. Other things might still be less problematic. This does not invalidate the lesser ones though. "Other people have it worse" is a horrible fallacy used to dismiss valid problems all the time. We should probably focus on fixing the bigger problems before the lesser ones (triage our time and effort, of course), but the lesser ones are still problems.
As such, your standard "normal" person (cis white male or whatever) has the least things to worry about in this regard. That doesn't necessarily mean they have an easy life, nor does it mean they can't have problems of their own. Just that their problems aren't as likely to be a result of discrimination or prejudice (though that's still possible, of course).
Now, some problems can be overblown. Some things can be taken out of proportion. Saying something racist or transphobic is bad... maybe it's not worth exploding into rage over, though. Maybe just taking the person aside and saying "hey, that was offensive" is good enough. Realize though that something Bad still happened and needs to be resolved somehow. And also remember that excepting outright harassment the person has the right to say something offensive, just like people have a right to call them out on it.
Finally, people have a responsibility to say what they mean. I'm not advocating political correctness here; I'm advocating saying things that can't be misinterpreted as something else. If you're a homophobe, I'd much rather you say homophobic stuff bluntly than in a veiled fashion. Makes it easier to call you out on your bullshit. Accidentally saying something homophobic or racist or transphobic or whatever is a problem and the fault is on the speaker, not the listener. That's what Mr. Krahulik did wrong (and what he's apologizing for), even though it's been established he himself is not a bigot.
Author
Topic: Amazingly Stupid Things You've Heard People Say (Read 1002390 times)