Dorian at Dorianisms: “Men Who Get It”
The danger lies in beginning to assume that you are some kind of Ultimate Authority, and in particular, that you can teach people about their own experiences. That you know better than marginalized people what is happening in their lives, with their marginalization. That you are the Ultimate Arbiter of what is and is not offensive. In short, once you assume you “get it”, it’s very easy to become a mansplainer. Or a straightsplainer or ablesplainer or whateversplainer, as the case may be. The point is that this is really, really, bad. And can pretty directly be traced to the assumption that you “get” something better than, y’know, the people who actually live it.
Embarrassingly for a former English major, I lost words, even simple ones. “You know, those things! They go on feet!” I’d cry, frustrated.
“Shoes?” my mom would ask. “Socks?”
Still, what could be better than a return to family farms and home-cooking, which many of these gurus champion? The images are powerfully nostalgic and idyllic: cows grazing on sweet alfalfa, kids’ mouths stained red with fresh heirloom tomato juice, and mom in the kitchen rolling out dough for homegrown-apple pie. But this is not an equal-access trip down memory lane.
darryl cunningham at tallguywwrites (LJ): The Facts in the Case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield [Image-heavy]
A fifteen page story about the MMR vaccination controversy.