Those who have fallen by the wayside...

My High School Fellow's sheer Moronity... 

If that's even a word. 

(if not, it should be)

Recently, a teacher from my high school that I keep in contact with posted something on facebook about why people were or were not voting for Trump in the upcoming election, and for people to please not drag Hillary into the discussion. There were some simple responses of I will not vote for him, and some I will vote for him's. There were of course the quintessential posts about "he'll make america great again" and all that claptrap. And then there was a post by someone stating that she was definitely not going to vote for Trump because...

Person #1: "He is a greedy racist narcissistic ignorant asshole who cares about no one but himself. He doesn't give a shit about our country, he just wants the attention and is pandering to fear"

Pretty solid stuff right? Nothing we haven't all heard before as a viable reason not to vote for Trump in the 2016 election. Nothing too unreasonable here. I continued this sensible discourse with a comment of my own, showing my support and appreciation for her beliefs with...

Me: "Agree with everything you said! He's got a media deal going for when he loses... He's so good at drawing attention it's the perfect business for him to go into next." 

Also a pretty solid reply. Not too "nasty" or anything. Just the belief that he has found his true calling and that is "media whore", but said much nicer than that. Unfortunately, as is common on Facebook, someone replied to my simple comment with an inflammatory statement.

Person #2: "What would you say Hillary is best at? Protecting our troops? Ha! Not a chance"

I was somewhat taken aback at this, as we had been talking about Trump's true gift as media central, nothing to do with the military, his position on protecting troops abroad, foreign policy, or anything relating to those. We were simply commenting on him ability to grab attention and draw people in. As I am not the greatest lover of the military in the US or the purposes to which it is used, I found myself unable to not answer such an off-the-wall inflammatory comment. Just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Me: "(teacher's name) did kindly ask people not to bring Hillary into this as it is a discussion about Trump's shortcomings, not "who is worse at ____"... But to answer your question even though it probably wasn't directed at me... Well, as I really don't think american troops should be occupying other countries because the US government destabilized those regions in the first place, no I really don't give a shit about that. And I would say Hillary is less likely to start a nuclear war, so in that scenario she is the better option for not only protecting troops, but everyone in the damn world."

In retrospect, I can see how my statement, when read by an individual who's brain runs on a very different wavelength than my own, might be construed differently than the intended meaning. When typing my response, I was thinking how I have never heard Trump say a single thing about protecting any Troops, just about how he thinks it's okay to blow up the family members of terrorists, and how waterboarding is totally fine if it gets results, and even if it doesn't, they probably deserved it. (For those not aware, the killing of innocent family members and waterboarding are considered hate crimes and torture). I was also thinking about how the last republican president sent our troops into dangerous situations in order to cause chaos and gain control over crude oil natural resources for the US to make a profit off of. So, when I was saying that american troops shouldn't be occupying other countries I was thinking that it is immoral to invade another sovereign nation for the express purpose of stealing something that belongs to them to then make a profit ourselves. A side effect of that initial action by our great president Bush was the destabilization we now see in the Middle East, the rise of multiple different terror groups - usually initially funded in part by the US government for some legitimate purpose, or supplied with weapons for something that would have benefitted us... probably. So my comment about the destabilization was just mentioning that I recognized why there were troops there to begin with, even though I don't think they should have ever been placed there. It was my way of saying that I don't support our invasion of other countries, but I kinda get why we haven't pulled out completely just yet. And then my wonderful and lyrical comment about how Hillary might just have the mental capacity to avoid WWIII, whereas I'm not so sure if Trump is sentient enough to manage that.

I then had the very great pleasure of this response:

Person #2: "youre a god damn idiot" (yes, the punctuation was missing, not an error on my part)

Now at this point I was genuinely curious as to who this person insulting me was. He had written other rude comments on other people's voting choices, and I had a vague feeling I recognized the name. Now remember, the person who started the post was a teacher that I had in high school, so I did not discount the possibility that this rude individual calling me an idiot might be someone that I had met while in high school in Bend, OR. So, as the logical solution to being curious about who someone is, I stalked him on facebook. And to alleviate any confusion that statement might incur, I mean that I clicked on his profile and started rummaging through pictures. To my not-entirely-great astonishment, I not only recognized the person's face, but I actually remembered who they were, and that we had come into contact before while in school together. Not personally as friends or even acquaintances, but interacting with friends of friends of friends... I did remember his face, his speech pattern, even the time he accidentally smacked his friend in the balls.

His pictures on the endlessly useful facebook showed an very muscled young man, who appears to be on a fire fighting crew, spends time firing guns in the wilderness, hunts, fishes, and is pretty much the usual suspect of all around country-boy conservative that I have grown to despise with almost every fiber of my being. (Not every fiber, as I reserve at least 20% of my being for the ownership of my dog, haha).

I of course could not let the challenge to my intellect go unanswered, so I responded thus:

Me: "If having an opinion that differs from your backwards notions makes me an idiot, then I will wear that title proudly. Just because I do not support invading other countries to take control of their natural resources for US profit does not make me an idiot. Similarly, thinking that Hillary is the safer option for maintaining some sort of "world peace", also does not make me an idiot. 
And you are a budding war monger as far as I can see... Do you really want to start in on personal insults? I can come up with plenty, but I really don't see the point."

Now, I was really on my high horse, greatly enjoying being on the high moral ground for not being the first to issue a personal insult. And I was really looking forward to what he would respond with, because I had already pigeon-holed him into the type of person who gets so upset when he cannot understand one's argument or see their point of view that they resort to aggression tactics and attempts to either upset or intimidate their opponent so that they win. That kind of thing doesn't really work on me as the more aggressive they get trying to intimidate me, the more riled up and aggressive I get in return. I'm that unusual type of female that doesn't cower when a man yells at her, but instead puts on steel toed boots, grabs the nearest weapon, and prepares for battle. Unfortunately, the original poster of the discussion decided that it was time to put an end to the brewing storm, and removed my old high school "buddy" from the conversation because personal insults are not nice...

So I will never know what he would have said in response to me. I do know that he was later invited back into the conversation, probably with a warning to behave, and he promptly proceeded to confirm my worst fears about republicans and rural conservatives. Not only did he rail against Hillary or use every attempt to malign her, but he also vehemently supported everything about Donald Trump, his policies, his "beliefs", his speeches, and the fact that he wore an american flag pin about the size of a penny, was apparently a great sign of support for our wonderful military. The fact that Hillary does not accessorize similarly appeared to be a great personal insult to this male from my past.

On the same FB post, another person (person #3) extensively listed why they were not partial to Trump's political stances...

Person #3:

To which that asshole person #2 just had to respond...

Person #2:



I could have summarized all that, but I really didn't feel like tainting my own soul by typing any of that utter shit from person #2. I always knew that there were backwards people out there that could not only justify Trump's skewed world view and principles, but actually agree with them. I just never realized that I might have actually come into contact with them. And now i'm struggling to reconcile this new world view, and the fact that whenever I visit home I may come into contact with this person. If I do, i'm going to really struggle not to give him the ultimate glare of death that I was notorious for in high school. If looks could kill there would be a glorious line of bodies trailing behind me, mainly of assholes like this.

I know that there's this whole "freedom of speech" thing that conservatives and liberals alike enjoy protecting their speech. And sure, I'll respect your right to say and believe whatever you want, but hell to the no will I respect what this guy believes... As far as i'm concerned, people like this do nothing to enhance their community. They sit around, drinking beer and complaining about how the liberals are making their lives shitty. Instead of working hard, educating themselves, contributing to their community and the world, they just complain about their lot in life and vote in fuckers that will only make things worse for people like them. And if things do get worse, they continue to blame the liberals, not the republicans that are actually in charge.

These people are so obsessed with military glory, with our "brave troops", with the idea that America is the "greatest and most powerful country in the world", when in reality the whole world both laughs their asses off at our backwards-ness and inability to make a smart choice whenever it is presented to us. While also being freaking terrified that we'll let someone like Trump actually rule over us, because that will have world-wide consequences for them as well. When people like this exist in the world, its really hard to look past this and see the somewhat-sensible republicans out there that are just trying to make the best out of a shitty situation in their party. I cannot respect them for voting for Trump, even if he is their party nominee, but I can somewhat see where they're coming from in that they don't like him, but are voting for their party to have control of government for the next 4 years.

But those who not only vote for Trump but espouse everything he touts from his podium on high... those people scare the shit right out of me. Those people are the ones who give the rest a bad name, who go to rallies and scream that Obama is a muslim, those are the ones whose FB profile pics show them holding big assault rifles, sipping a can of beer, sitting in their big-ass jacked up truck, with a huge american flag hanging out the window, wearing camo, and possibly even taking a selfie with a dead deer, all at the same time. These are the guys that make me scared to walk down a street at night, that make me nervous of daring to voice my opinion in a public space, who would beat up someone just because they have a different opinion, who would go down to a voter station deliberately to intimidate minorities out of voting... Those are the guys that allowed Trump to be the republican nominee, and those guys are the ones who will riot when Trump isn't elected in 7 days...

And If there is any god(s) out there that I haven't recognized as a thing yet, please intervene in this madness for the whole world's sake. If you really did make the world, surely you don't want to see everything in it burn because Trump felt insulted by a something Putin said about his hair... There are much better reasons to watch the world burn than that, I'm sure...

Victim Blaming... The all american pastime of the US

Victim blaming for both rape and murder...

Americans have so many national passtimes... Baseball, flag obsession, racism, sexism, religious zealotry, appropriating the name "football" from the rest of the world and repurposing it and renaming the original sport bearing that name "soccer", bombing innocent bystanders and failing utterly to actually kill the person they're aiming for, and - at the forefront of my mind today - victim blaming. It's been an interesting year for us living in the amazing US of A. We've had Donald Trump turn from an amusing sideline of the election into an actual threat who could possibly have control over nuclear weapons in the not-so-distant future. We've had rapists left-right-and-center getting ridiculously pathetic short sentences, rape victims being disbelieved and slut-shamed. We have had news reports virtually every week about police shooting people all over the place - usually unarmed black kids and adults, the Black Lives Matter movement gaining incredible momentum - and of course opposition. We've had a football player kneel during the national anthem in protest of police shooting unarmed black people and white people going back to the overt racism we saw when the KKK was a popular club to be in, and then that same football player be called a muslim, a terrorist, received death threats, told he's a communist, should both kill himself and allow others to kill him, etc... 

Pretty much the US is a fucking insanely stupid nation at the moment. It's scary to live here, and i'm a privileged middle-class white girl. If i'm scared, I can only imagine how people who are actually in danger from this shit that's happening feel. I'd be fucking terrified to even leave my house. I'd become a hermit and only come out at like 4 or 5 am when almost everyone is asleep and there's less chance of me becoming a target for someone's racist vendetta. 

The US has an interesting history of blaming people for things they can't help. When the British "discovered" North America, they blamed the Native Americans for defending themselves, and punished them by slaughtering them, scalping them, and killing them (admittedly unknowingly) with diseases. When the Dutch and British started the whole slave trade, white people in the US enslaved Africans simply because they had a different skin colour, language, culture, etc... When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Government rounded up all the Japanese (and even Chinese) immigrants they could and shoved them into what were basically concentration camps without the whole gassing chambers part. For thousands of years, women have been considered "unclean", "stupid", "hysterical", and "too delicate" for pretty much everything except embroidery for the simple fact that we have vaginas and periods.

But we seem to have entered an all new low period in our history when we blame women for being attacked and raped, and black people for being murdered. The girl who was sexually assaulted behind a dumpster "had it coming" to her because she was intoxicated, and therefore we cannot even consider punishing her rapist because "it will affect HIM for the rest of his life..." Never mind that she will have to live with the memory for the rest of her life, knowing that when she was helpless someone took advantage of her and tried to stick his penis inside of her... No, the rapist's life and future are what we have to protect right now, obviously...

When it comes to rape the first question is not, "what the fuck did the parents teach their fucking rapey kid growing up?", it's what was the girl wearing, was she revealing too much cleavage, how short was her skirt, did she flirt with the guy, was she a "tease" or "leading him on", did she consent to kissing or fondling, because if so she was definitely asking for sex too, how much did she have to drink, was she wearing makeup, did she tell him she had a boyfriend, did she have a history of one-night-stands, was she "loose" with her sexuality, did she go to parties often, etc... We don't look at the perpetrator of the rape, the person with the penis who - for some reason - thought it was okay to force himself on a resisting woman. No, we look at the woman and analyse everything about her to decide how much she is at fault for another person attacking her. We give her a score of 9/10 her fault for the rape, and the guy only a 1/10, because he must have just misread the signals. 

Universities don't expel rapists, especially if they're on a sports team. They punish the victim of the rape and force her to go to a school where she sees the person who may have ruined her life, who has given her nightmares, panic attacks, a fear of intimacy with people she cares about, possibly even a fear of hugging her parents or friends, and who knows what other triggers and side effects of being sexually assaulted and abused. Judges give rapey little swimming kids 6 months in prison and then let him out after 3 months because anything else will DAMAGE HIS FUTURE... HIS future, mind you. His father pleads with people to be kind to his kid because 6 months in low-security prison was a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action"... Why not teach your kid to respect women and if he tries to rape any of them turn him in yourself or beat the shit out of him until he understands what apparently 20 years under your tutelage failed to teach him in the first place. 

"20 minutes" was 20 minutes too much action. Even 5 minutes is too much, 1 minute, 30 seconds... There is no "amount of rape" that is okay. It's not like there's a line of right and wrong, and when you hit the 30 minute marker you've suddenly gone too far. Like, 29 mins and 30 seconds of rape is okay, but 31 minutes earns you a prison sentence... It doesn't work that way. You don't get a free pass because it was a small time period. That's like saying that you get to murder 6 people without any consequences, but if you murder a 7th, OMG, you done fucked up... 

People get taken to court and stripped of their life savings because they bumped the car in front of them and the other driver falsely claims whiplash, when they still have an open cup of water in their cupholder that didn't spill a drop. We can consign a person to bankruptcy and strip them of everything they own because some dude wanted a fat payout by suing, but god help the person who suggests that we legally punish a rapist. That's "cruel and unusual"...

Similarly, all people seem to do these days is blame black people for their own murders at the hands of cops. They don't look at the little kid that was playing in the park with a toy squirt gun, they look at the dude who called it in and said there was a black kid with a gun. The cops didn't investigate what was going on, they just tore up to the park in their cruiser, flew out of it, and shot a little boy dead. No questions, no "put the gun down", no consideration that this was a little kid playing in a park. White people look at a grown man that was shot by the police and they ask "Was he wearing a hoodie? How tall was he? Did he look angry? Did he put his hands up immediately, or ask questions first? Did he resist arrest? Did he follow instructions? Did he have past convictions? Was he doing anything illegal?"... They tell black people to just "follow the law and do what they say and you'll be fine"... Well, obviously not! I'm pretty sure that by now some black people just drop to the ground with their hands out the minute they see a cop, regardless of what they're doing at the time, even if they are just selling girl scout cookies... It's no longer about keeping your nose clean, going about your business, and being safe. It's about assuming you must look like a criminal 24/7, so you have to always assume someone's going to try and shoot you.

And then when it comes to the protesting, the black community can do nothing right. Either they protest by trying to get laws passed to protect themselves, or they go to court to get punishment for the murdering cops, and nothing gets done. Protesting via the court system isn't effective. So they try getting support from the communities and politicians around them. But no one is interested, or even sees that there is a problem. So they get mad and sit down in the middle of roads and conduct peaceful if disruptive protests. They get attacked by white bystanders and the police, even though they are exercising their constitutional right to protest. Next they get really angry and hold violent protests, marches, smash windows, destroy public property, anything to get the attention of the world and highlight the very real problem that their community faces every single day. Discrimination, racism, hate from white people, unequal opportunities, lack of resources and lack of quality education in their communities... The list goes on and on. Even when a single black person protests in a completely non-disruptive, non-violent, not in your face at all way - by taking a knee during the national anthem at a football game - he is held up as an example of a "dangerous, disrespectful black man". Called hateful names like communist, devil, told to go back to where he came from, told to leave the US if he doesn't like the way things are... 

We blame the victims of crime all the time. We blame rape victims for being too provocative. We blame the victims of cop murder for being ex-cons or just looking suspicious (i.e. having darker skin caused by more melanin pigmentation), we blame regular murder victims for pissing the wrong person off, being disrespectful, refusing to do something for someone, not having better house security, etc... We blame pregnant young girls killed by their boyfriends because they wouldn't abort for getting pregnant in the first place. We blame women killed in childbirth for getting pregnant in the first place, even though they tried to have an abortion for their own health and safety. We blame young LGBTQA people who commit suicide for being LGBTQA, and say that if they could only just have tried to be "normal" heterosexuals then they wouldn't have been unhappy enough to kill themselves... 

When horrible things happen to good and innocent people, we blame THEM for it. Not their murders, or their tormentors, not their rapists and their torturers, not the abusive boyfriend or the religious fanatics, not the unfair court systems that pass laws preventing women from terminating pregnancies that threaten their lives... We blame the very people we SHOULD have been helping. We allow this disgusting victim blaming culture to not only perpetuate, but to thrive. 

Why? I have no idea. I cannot comprehend how little compassion a person has to have not to feel the pain of these needless deaths or feel sorrow at how their lives ended.

The Orlando Nightclub Shooting

The Real Issues Here, not Fear Mongering

My thoughts are with the survivors of the Orlando Pulse shooting, the families and friends of the deceases, and the souls of the murdered. There is nothing that can be said, no comfort that can be given after such a horrific event, and all I can say is that I am so sorry for their losses.

I am once again sickened and horrified by the latest shooting event in the US. This has become an every week thing, if not more often. 2 shootings in 2 days. One was a rising talented youtube singer at a concert shot by a supposed unbalanced fan. The other was the largest mass shooting event in the history of the US resulting in the deaths of 50 people with another 50 or so injured, some still in surgery and in critical condition.

All day yesterday and today all that has been reported on the radio is the connection of the shooter in Orlando to ISIS, Trump's insinuation that Obama is in some way to blame for the shooting, the constant obsession over the ethnicity and religion of the shooter, etc... The internet is full of forums of people talking about how the shooter was an immigrant and we need to close our borders, how our decreased military presence worldwide is why this tragedy happened. People are liking posts about how it's Obama's government that has led us to this point and allowed such a thing to happen, people are retweeting disgusting comments about how the shooter is the hero for killing gay people. This is reminiscent of the shooting that occurred several months ago at a Planned Parenthood, where people were applauding the nutjob who shot up a waiting room, claiming he was a hero saving babies lives. I wrote a blog post about that as well when it occurred, disgusted by the so called "Good Christians" outpouring of hatred against dead people, and how they somehow deserved to die for aborting helpless freaking babies.

Now, instead of focusing on what the real issues here are, the media is completely ignoring the real reasons why this horrible tragedy happened. Homophobia and a lack of gun control. That's the real root of this shooting. I am the first to usually look at religious extremism as a motive, and yes, that may be the reasoning behind the homophobia, but it's the homophobia that resulted in the shooter choosing this particular target. A club that is frequented mainly by the  LGBTQ community and it's allies was the target, and if this is not put down as a hate crime then i'm not sure what the hell the media is doing anymore. It was a hate crime committed by a domestic terrorist. Not an international terrorist working for ISIS, not a muslim immigrant, but a U.S. citizen born in the U.S., raised in the U.S., who didn't like gay people. That is domestic terrorism - the same cause of the Planned Parenthood shooting - and homophobia.

What I want to know is when is enough going to be enough? There have been 998 mass shootings (where 4+ people died) in the 912 days since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting on December 14th, 2012. In 912 days 1,105 people have been murdered by guns in mass shootings, and another 3,929 people have been physically injured - not even counting the emotional damage from being in this situation, the PTSD that some survivors must have, the impacts on the family members and friends of those killed. In just over 2 years since the first "wake-up-call" shooting we have done nothing to prevent this from happening. We blame it on mental health issues, which undeniably have had a hand in these shootings in some cases. We blame it on immigrants and Islam - which also have played a role in some of the cases. But when have we ever blamed it on christian-based motives and "morals"? When has anything actually changed to make the acquisition of a gun more difficult? When have we had the nerve to call it what it really is: Domestic Terrorism? When have we looked at the perpetrator and said the words that really show the underlying motives? Pro-life, Homophobic, Christian, Islamic, Pro-gun, white supremacist, racist. 

First, people manage to somehow confuse hate crimes with mental illness. Sandy Hook can be attributed to a combination of mental illness and developmental/behavioural issues and was probably not a "hate crime". On the other hand, the shooting at a Charleston Church with a predominantly black congregation can probably be classified as a hate crime brought on by racism and the perpetrator there seemed obsessed with white supremacy. And therein lies the difference. On one hand you have a person with actual mental and psychological deficits, and on the other you have a person with an intense hatred of a specific group of people. Once again, after the Orlando shooting, republicans are calling for more mental health awareness but saying that there is no need for gun control. Because obviously every person who uses a gun inappropriately must have some mental illness. It can't be for any other reason. The mass shooting in Orlando was not a crime committed due to mental illness, rather a crime committed due to homophobia and hatred against the gay community.

Second, there is the discussion of the shooter at the Orlando nightclub and how he has connections to ISIS and international terrorism, rather than domestic terrorist and his homophobia. The man's own father says he showed his disgust and hatred of men who liked other men. There has been no link found between the individual and ISIS. ISIS put out a statement congratulating the shooter and saying how wonderful it was that so many had died. ISIS exists to monger fear, to sow distrust, and to turn us against one another to make it easier for them to cause havoc. The media says that this statement shows the terror group "claiming responsibility" - which it does not actually claim - and this just gives more weight to ISIS's campaign to terrify everyone. But, it has nothing to do with the shooting event itself. NOTHING has been found to indicate any connection between the shooter and ISIS other than his religion. As far as the information shows, this was purely a crime against the LGBTQ community and was a hate crime. Discussing connections to international terror groups distracts from the real horror of what happened and diminishes the suffering of those injured, the families and friends of those who have died, and those who survived the traumatic attack.

Third, there is a ridiculous amount of emphasis being put on the fact that this man was a Muslim and followed the religion of Islam. People seem to think that his religion dictated that he must go and kill gay people. This could have easily been a white Christian man, and no one would dare insinuate in that scenario that he would have been following the orders of his god and Jesus by killing gay people, even if he chanted that very thing as he shot people. While the shooter was probably motivated by the belief that his religion taught against homosexuality, it doesn't actually matter what his religion actually was. All of the major world religions teach against homosexuality; Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, even some sects of Judaism and Hinduism. The fact that he was religious and was taught that homosexuality is wrong by his religion is of note because it was a religiously motivated hate-crime but the individual religion is completely unimportant here.

Fourth, hate crimes in this country have been increasing since extremist views about race, religion, and sexual and gender orientation have come to the forefront of our countries politics. Donald Trump is a political figure running for the highest office in the U.S. who is openly homophobic, racist, sexist, and who feeds the rabid masses foaming at the mouth for vindication that their hatred against certain groups of people is justified. He eggs on his supporters to violently assault people that don't agree with him. He promotes the illegal barring of an entire race from entering the U.S. on the basis of "they might be terrorists". And he regularly slanders people based on race, religion, and gender. All of the extremists out there now have someone to rally behind and they are becoming more and more comfortable expressing their views in physically violent ways. With a person like Donald Trump running for President, it's no wonder that we have a racist kid shooting up a black church, a radical pro-lifer shooting up a planned parenthood clinic, and a homophobic man shooting up a LGBTQ community gathering place. 

Fifth, we once again have a discussion on our hands about gun control. All the things that have been pandered about different communities; "good guy with a gun" nonsense, the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, "the liberals are trying to take away our guns" diatribe... What we "liberals" want is for more people with sketchy backgrounds not to be able to get ahold of dangerous weapons that can cause this amount of damage to other humans. We want the system to be improved so that people with histories of narcotic convictions or domestic abuse or mental disturbances that could lead to psychotic breaks or extremist viewpoints about sexual identity, race, religion, women's choice, etc... won't get ahold of deadly weapons. If you are a sane person who has no history of violence or drug related charges and who shows no inclination to violently attack someone because of their race, gender or sexual orientation, religion, or life choices, then by all means go ahead and buy a gun. But something needs to change in the system now, not in 10 years when even more people are dead. 

And Finally, can we please acknowledge the insanity of people CONGRATULATING the shooter on killing people. It doesn't matter if these people were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, other, or even straight... they were living breathing human beings. For people out there to celebrate their deaths is disgusting and horrifying. Sure, it might be a small group of people out there that feel this way, but the fact that they exist proves that we have a broken society. They wouldn't have this intense hatred if people didn't tell them that it's okay to hate gay people, that it's okay to believe they should "burn in hell" or "die for their sins". If prominent individuals (pastors, priests, ministers, preachers, rabbis, reverends, imams, politicians, government workers, parents, groups like WBC, etc...) did not actively promote homosexuality as evil and abnormal and sinful and wrong, then these extreme viewpoints would not exist and we wouldn't have evil little fuckers making comments like the ones below. Just read them and let it sink in that the things that you might think most important in your world (god, religion, holy texts, preachers, etc..) can cause people to actively celebrate the deaths of 50+ people and congratulate mass murderers.

  

 

 

 

 

Growing up Unconventionally

To be born to Immigrant Parents

To begin, I'll go over my background a little bit. My parents are foreign in that they were not born, nor did they grow up in the US. My father was born in England to Polish parents and grew up jointly in England and Poland, and lived much of his adult life in South Africa. My mother was born in South Africa, grew up there, and lived most of her young adult life there. My older sister was born in South Africa and grew up there until the age of six. My parents moved to the United States in 1995 because they were concerned at the rising rates of violence, particularly against white women, and did not want my sister and I (though I had yet to be born) to become a rape statistic. At the time, 1 in 3 white women were raped in their lifetime in South Africa, and they wanted their children to avoid such a fate. And so they moved to the United States, and I was born that same year.

Now I may have been born and grown up in the USA, but I was not raised as such. My parents did not raise me to be an American. They raised me to be a worldly person and they raised me as they were raised, understandably. When other kids were watching American cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants, Kim Possible, and the Powerpuff Girls, I was watching British programs like The Animals of Farthing Wood or National Geographic animal documentaries. When other parents were playing Elvis Presley music in the house, my parents were playing the Beatles, Queen, and classical orchestral pieces. When other parents were watching old western movies and war movies with John Wayne in them, My parents were watching things that were popular in England and South Africa at the time.

Up until I began kindergarten, I had a very strong South African accent, because that is what I was around. I lost that most of that accent gradually when I started school and was exposed to other American children. However, I was still not exposed to much "American Culture". When I made my first friend, she was English. Her parents were from England, and she and her older sister had been born there. She was in the same boat as me, growing up the child of immigrant parents in a country of - what to us were - foreigners. Since were were 6 or 7, we have been friends, and for a very long time Best Friends until geographic separation disrupted that.

At the end of 4th grade, my parents removed me from school and began homeschooling me because they knew they could do a good, if not better job of it than the school system. We followed the requirements of the homeschooling association and so I did learn many things that American children did, however me mainly focused on what my parents had learned growing up. I learned world history, the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians, and the French and English. When I learned about the World Wars, I didn't just hear about how heroic America was for joining at the last minute and helping end it.  I learned about how the European Allied Forces struggled for years to keep afloat, to prevent the spread of Hitler's armies. I learned about the contribution of various countries and how the war affected Europe and Europeans who were closest to the conflict zones. I didn't learn endlessly about how brave and selfless America was and how the housewives suffered endlessly because their men were not there to help them. I did learn about it, but the focus was on the grand scheme of things, not just on America's contribution. When we studied geography, I learned about WORLD geography, and did not have to memorize the capital cities of each and every state. My parents didn't think it was as useful to know about the capital of Mississippi, a place I would likely never go, whereas knowing that there were countries out there called Australia, Japan, and Madagascar was probably going to be more helpful in my future. Knowing the difference between Australia and Austria, Sweden and Switzerland, and learning about the various languages, cultures, and people in those areas was important to my future and my world knowledge.

I had a very rounded education, but not much interaction with pop culture, american music, american tv cartoons or tv shows popular at the time. My parents listened to NPR on the radio constantly, they watched BBC world news, and so that is what I listened to and watched. I had a thoroughly foreign upbringing. And I am endlessly grateful for that. I know more about the world, and world views and issues than many of my "peers". I understand more about foreign politics and issues that go beyond the borders of the country I live in than even many adults I meet. I understand the consequences that the government that I live with will have upon the world. I can think beyond myself and my country, and for that I am grateful.

And yet I have always been picked on or bullied or teased about where I come from and what I know. When I was younger it was about music and the fact that I didn't know what "Fall Out Boy" was. When I lived in Australia, I was teased about my "American" accent. When I came to college, it was about the TV shows that I didn't know, or the Actors that I had never heard of, like John Wayne.

And I am sick and tired of having people criticize me for my lack of knowledge of all things American and wonderful, when they cannot take it in return. I am always astounded that people don't know about Maggie Smith, or Dame Judy Dench... Of British TV shows like Miss Marple, Midsommer Murders, and Masterpiece Theater... Of movies like Keeping Mum and Death At a Funeral (the original, not the horrible American remake). And yet, if I dare to voice how astounded I am, all I get is... "Well it's not American so why should we know it?"

The world does not begin and end with the blessed USA. There is more out there than the portion of the continent of North America that houses the United States. There is more land, more political arrangements, more music and culture and film and literature, more human beings out there. And yet I am always the odd one out, the less knowledgeable, the less aware simply because my specialties and likes and dislikes and humour is not American.

In the past I have had to deal with this type of ostracism because I do not have the same likes as my peers, and in the past I have ignored it and moved on and been the bigger person for the most part (excluding my obsession with proper pronunciation). But the past is not now and I am not the same little girl that had to deal with people being mean to her.

Why do my tastes have to be wrong. Why does my knowledge have to be irrelevent. Why does what I like have to always take a backseat to those around me. Why does no one ever ask if I could show them what I like and let them decide if they like it too. Why, oh god fucking why am I always the one who is weird when I act surprised that those around me don't know some of the biggest names in foreign film and TV.

And the argument is always that I was born here, in the US, so I should know all this stuff, and love America and it's culture. Because I was BORN here. I wish I hadn't been. I wish my mother had got pregnant a few months earlier so I could have been born in South Africa. Then at least I'd have the excuse that people seem to need, that I WASN'T born here. Maybe then i'd catch a break and people wouldn't hound me for not knowing what they know. Maybe then people would actually be willing to try and understand why I'm so different. Maybe then they'd actually care.

I am sick and tired of it, that just because I had a different upbringing and foreign parents and was raised to have more of an interest in world media than in American media I am strange. It hurts to have people who I think of as friends belittle and disregard me and my upbringing because it wasn't the same as theirs, because it wasn't fucking American. So I just don't give a damn anymore.