Playing word toss sucks.

"Oh my god, that was so racist!"

"Well, how come you didn't pick girls this time? That's sexist!"

These are just some of the few word-slinging sentences that I've heard being used by younger children in my school. And I don't like it. In my gifted class is where I've seen it most, surprisingly. If I say that Andrew, a Vietnamese guy, is Asian, then Leena or some other junior-division student in the class will say "that's racist!" when it isn't. Here's the definition of racism.

/rā'sĭz'əm/

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Hmm...I don't think that I said that Andrew could do certain things because he was Asian, nor did I say that Blacks were superior to Asians. Racist? No. Observant? Yes! These days children like to repeat words they hear all over. And this isn't doing us any good. Just because I recognize that certain people come from certain backgrounds doesn't make me racist. Many people put forth their identity using their culture. The problem lies in training children to be tolerant and politically correct. Political correctness does two things to a child. One, it makes them over-aware of what they say and in result comes the "I Don't Mean To Be Racist, But..." phenomenon. I've heard that phrase too many times in my short, 14-year life.

" I don't mean to be racist, but last night, there was this episode of Family Guy where Cleveland was a taxi driver and he saw Brian and offered him a ride, but Brian used an excuse and said that he had to pick up milk for Lois. Isn't that funny?"

No, it's not.

So as a last statement I will say this:

If there is no intention behind your action, the action is at its worst, un-intentional.

That All [Canadian] Girl

The link in the title is scary.

Very, very, VERY, scary. If you have ever read Miss Nomered's "And a big hearty 'fuck you' goes to..." then you'll know why.

The very first page is comprised of not one, but two hauntingly serene pictures of Holly Jones, a Torontonian youngster that was abducted in 2003. Nothing really makes Miss N's opinion more validated than that. According to everyone that knew Holly, she was the best, the greatest, and everyone's angel. And she has a parkette named after her. But if she so deserves a parkette, why doesn't everyone else who has been killed or abducted?

Because then the world would be made of parkettes.

Imagine that. Unfair? Yes. Descriminatory? Yes. Shameful? Yes. What did Holly do that was so important? Making people happy. I understand that if this was, oh say, my friend Raquel, I would be on the other side of the fence. But I still wouldn't want a parkette named after her. Cassandra Do, the sex worker mentioned in the same entry linked above, never got a parkette. Because that would mean that people would have to talk about something they find very uncomfortable. Not only was Cassandra a sex worker, but she was also transsexual. Those are two characteristics of Cassandra that wouldn't have "appealed to the demographic" so to speak.

But put a young, pretty, middle class, white girl in the news and everyone's rushing to name stuff after her.

Remember, remember, some time in November.

Now that I've (re)started this blog it's just hit me that I'm going back on a lot of stuff. Things that happened months or weeks ago.
Well, here's another throwback in time.
Months ago (probably in November) my class had a substitute teacher. Now a lot of people would go without saying that a substitute teacher has to have some kind of problem. But this one had a lot of them.
He looked like one of those guys who worked out too much, and was going through a mid-life crisis at the same time. As soon as he walked in the room--sweatpants and all--I had a feeling that something was going to go wrong. And it did. During geography. If memory serves me right (and this isn't all of it), we were reading a part about NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) and human rights when he started to push his beliefs over on us. He ranted about how there is no such thing as child poverty. He rambled ad nauseum about how the UN is a horrible, terrible organization and all NGOs are, as well. He said that abortion was wrong.
And then I snapped.
I knew that it would cause some kind of uproar because I rarely speak up during class other than to answer some questions, but I had to do it. I had to put this misogynistic a**hole in his place. And I did, but the safe, Nerd way. By posing an argument and being intelligent about it.
It was one of the biggest rushes I had ever felt in my life. I could see his greasy face turning red when he ran out of defenses for being anti-choice and heard my classmates chuckling in the background and taking my side.
Ah, the feeling of triumph.

These people disgust me.

So today, while I was looking back on some posts in the Body Politics category of the Shameless Blog, I stumbled upon one post that I had read but not commented on. It was about Thomas Beatie, a trans man from Oregon who was carrying his child for his wife. However there was a quote from the couple about how badly they had been treated. People like doctors, receptionists and the likes. These people disgust me. These are the people who we are supposed to trust our lives with. The same people who smile at a child for comfort when the child is going through hell. And just because they don't agree with what Mr. Beatie and his wife are doing they basically make a mockery of the both of them.

Ah, this reminds me of a previous post. In the same class yesterday, this issue came up and being the right-winger that she is, she said:

"That is absolutely disgusting."

After which I wanted to punch her in the face. Or slap her. Something to get it inside her head that she is a hypocrite. Catholicism in itself is contradictory. Hell, all denominations are contradictory. This whole love everyone as you would love yourself thing is getting to me because of a lot of things. If we are to practice the golden rule then we mustn't call people who are in unfamiliar situations "disgusting" because that is disrespect for human life. Saying that people who under the umbrella term of queer (thanks, Miss Nomered) are disgusting is disgusting in itself.

The strange thing was, in all the topics that we argued on, no one wanted to argue that Mr. Beatie and his wife's situation was not disgusting at all.

But I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not speaking up, myself. Okay, so I'm one person, but maybe I would have been able to change someone's mind?

Look before you leap.

So today I got in a serious three-hour Guitar Hero III session and my mind was trying to not explode in the midst of all the fast-paced high-octane mini-mines that were the screen frets. Then again, I was trying Hard for the first time.

My brother can be a bit of a touchy kid and possibly accidentally touched my uncle's crotch area.

My uncle also happens to be quite a complainer, so he told my grandmother to get him to stop.

My grandmother happens to be quite the yeller, so she consequentially and aggressively said "What is WRONG with you? Do you think he is a faggot?"

Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Nothing in my life (in terms of put downs and other -ist terms) has ever bothered as much as that did. And I don't know why. I know that my grandma has a tendency to be a bit...how should I put it...discriminatory. And it comes off as offensive, but honestly she doesn't know better. But this just struck something that I never knew could be hit.

This reminds me of something else. My uncle, the complainer. He's probably the most homophobic and stereotypical of all in the family and it makes me mad. Of all the things in the world he is trying to do, it's teaching my brother to be "manly".

I want my uncle out of my house.

Well, God Said I Could!

Today was interesting.
Yet another in-class debate at Catechesis classes.

Basically it was about sex, gender roles, stereotypes, and generalizations. I do actually enjoy the conversations that we get into without even realizing it, but one thing bothered me.

We're Catholic and we're supposed to wait until we're married, right? So then there's no need for contraceptives!

Ugh. What my teacher, Maureen, didn't know was that despite what she said before about "at least four of the students in the room getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant before high school" and what she had said before, there is a need for contraceptives. She basically proved herself wrong within a span of half an hour. You see, these hypothetical unwanted pregnancies wouldn't exist if people just thought about it.

Well, you know, we're having sex. But we're not married. I guess if we don't use contraception, we'll just be sinning less than we "already are"!

That's how the catholic church is training the teens to think. And that's where they're wrong. Maybe they just need something to blame. But thank god that my teacher, Mrs. Donoghue-Stanford, knows how NOT to force her ideals on such an impressionable group of people. Mrs. Donoghue says:

You MUST make an informed decision...take the information that you get from everyone: parents, teachers, friends, and other people that you look up to. The rest is between you and God.

Maybe other people may not agree with this, but I personally find this as some form of salvation after four years of no sex-ed at a time when everyone needs it most.

Refresh

This isn't my first post.

I know it says that it is, but that is a lie.

I recently decided to restart my blog with a completely new attitude.

Please enjoy the future.

For my sake.