sigelphoenix

I have a ton of blog reading to catch up on, due to the fact that the last five days were jammed full with getting all of my Christmas shopping, writing all of my final papers, and doing all my winter-time celebrating (i.e., holiday party and my birthday). But here's the first thing to jump out at me:

Via Jenn at Reappropriate, Rosie O'Donnell makes a racist (anti-Chinese) joke. And surprise, surprise, no one does a goddamn thing about it.

One of the reasons this pisses me off so much is that I recently heard about O'Donnell having a public spar with Kelly Ripa over Ripa's homophobic comment. Ripa insisted she didn't intend to be homophobic, and O'Donnell replied, "I'm just saying from where I sit as a gay person in the world that I have to tell you, that's how it came off to me." In other words, as the non-privileged person, she (rightly) has the broader perspective concerning what is privileged or bigoted. However, when O'Donnell says that her racist comment "was not meant to mock," and Asian-Americans try to assert their perspective, we're told that we just don't have a sense of humor.

Bigoted "humor" is one of the things I hate most. Because when you try to call someone on their privilege, they always use the chickenshit response, "hey, it was a joke, get over it." Instead of taking two seconds to see what's wrong with what they said, they just carry blithely on. And what ends up as a throwaway comment for them is usually the 600th repetition of the oppression I have to face every damn day.

So, Ms. O'Donnell, let me tell you - being a lesbian who knows a lot about queer issues doesn't give you a free pass concerning other forms of oppression. Yes, white women can be racist too - that's kind of what one of the giant schisms in Western feminism is all about.

You know what? Just like I'm tired of sexism in the anti-racist movement, it's also really fucking tiresome to have to deal with racism in the queer movement, feminism, and everything else.

And while we're at it, you know what's not okay? This whole "nobody's racist anymore, but sexism is all over the place" whining from white women who don't have a clue what it's like to deal with both. Or any other form of "my oppression is the only one still out there, so you shut up about yours." We're all stomped on in different ways, so stop trying to be the special snowflake whose hardship is the worst.

On another topic, go take a look at Hey Hetero!, a public art installation in Australia that highlights straight privilege. Which I've got in spades. (Because, you know, being yellow and female doesn't mean I get to forget that I'm a straight person who doesn't get harassed for the gender of my partner. Who'd've thunk?)