Whine and Cheese; June 2 2019
If and when I pose a question to a specific community, how long am I going to wait for someone whose opinion is completely irrelevant to chime in? Specifically, if I go, “Hey LGBTQ+ community! Here’s a query, because I’m interested in your viewpoint on a matter!”, at which point in that sentence should I expect to be cut off by a cishet person?
In a world that made any kind of sense, you’d think ‘never’. But that’s not how things work! No, if a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, there’ll still be some white cisgender hetero dude claiming the tree was being exclusionary by not falling in the middle of a city.
This week, I asked the LGBTQ+ attendees of Anime North for their point of view. I didn’t know where I stood on the issue of lifestyle panels (Polyamory 101, Ask an Asexual, info Q&As like that) at an anime convention anymore, and I wanted to know what they all thought. These are panels that are specifically for and about these groups, so it didn’t seem relevant to ask people who would:
1. Have no interest, and
2. Not have any new information to bring to the table.
And GOD DAMN, the hostility! The veiled homophobia! The not veiled homophobia!
Members of a majority cannot fathom not chiming in! If I were to ask people interested in birdwatching where the best places to set up with a pair of binoculars are, should I still expect someone totally outside that community to pipe up and angrily spew something about how their hobbies are worthwhile, too?
As a white person, I know that queries and commentary shared among POC isn’t for me. It’s not an oppression thing – not that I can even be oppressed for being white, but that’s a separate conversation – it’s just not relevant to my life, my experiences. Any opinion I could possibly form on their conversation is 100% irrelevant.
For the love of everything, if someone aims a question at a group of people you’re not a part of, recognize that it isn’t a personal slight. It’s no different than someone talking about that wine and cheese party you didn’t go to, because you’re lactose intolerant and prefer beer. And if, say, you’re an ally who went to the party but didn’t imbibe or consume, you might have something to say, sure! But you sure as hell can’t talk about the bouquet of the wine or the creaminess of the cheese because you didn’t experience either thing.
Hope I got that terminology correct. I don’t drink wine, myself. Feel free to educate me if you want, but I’m still not going to be taking part in any intellectual discussions about wine because I don’t enjoy it.
See how easy that is?
Anyway, story time:
The goddesses continued to ruminate, and I packed up my things. My grappling hook and my knives, my ritual books and holy symbols. Basic gear for traversing the wilds. I probably should have been listening, but I was (understandably, in my opinion) distracted. I’d had help coming this far, and now I was going to have to return to civilization on my own.
It would be a long trip, and I doubted I’d see a real bed for at least another week. Seven more days of moss-pillows and bundling up under leaves, unless...
I eyed Leander. Well, he wouldn’t need his clothing anymore.