Thursday 20 December 2018

Up on my high horse.

Yesterday I tried to educate someone on the damaging effects of sharing rage-porn posts like the one about “people wanting Santa to be a woman or gender neutral”. I am not sure if my message eventually got through or just pissed her off but the post was deleted, and quite a few people read the comments. A tiny, minuscule victory of some sort. Not a drop in the ocean, more like a drop of condensation down a window in middle class British suburbia.

Normally I don’t bother. Normally I switch off to Facebook friends who express outrage at the inaccurate, continuous and unfair reportage of marginalised groups. The outrage coming from a foolish belief in the toxic story twisted from someone’s innocent, discursive tweet rather than from the deceitful journalism. And it is foolish, because the stories are meaningless and none of it touches their lives. I never see them get that angry at, say, reports about trans people who were murdered because of their identity. That is more outrageous to me.

But there it is. “To me”. Those are my values, not theirs. Who am I to sit on my high horse to tell them otherwise? And I am on a high horse; I am not affected directly by transgender politics and I sit in a comfortable, educated position from which I can pass judgement.

So where’s the line? Where do I use my privilege to educate? Where do I know when to shut up?

I can’t leave it. If I can help expand one person’s view I have to at least try. I’d be a hypocrite if I kept my mouth shut.

I just have to watch out, because it’s so comfortable up here on my high horse. It’s so easy to theorise, to moralise, when you are not touched by the problems on either side.

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