Bartender Geek

Absolutely. It never hurts for a person to meet up with "the enemy" and discover they're human too.

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What if I've spent much of my life living amongst those who refuse to believe I'm a person, no matter how hard I try?

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That's tough. I guess you just keep on trying...

But that's a very general answer. I don't know what your actual circumstances are.

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Her actual circumstances are that she's a fat Black bisexual woman, and lots of people think that people in one or more of those categories don't matter.

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Those are shoes I've never stood in. At least not in this lifetime...

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I am sorry, sir, but right now I'm tired of trying. I'm looking at this election and feeling like all the trying I did in my life has come to nothing.

I read your post about how liberals need to sit down and shut up. I've read several like it this week. I wish someone anywhere would write a post pointing out that Trump made a lot of terrible bigoted statements which frighten many Americans and emboldened some of the worst, and that just perhaps the rest of his supporters might do some good to publicly deplore acts of bigotry. But no one will say that.

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I don't know, I read the Guardian every morning. And that's been full of nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth since the election. I've been writing the things I've been writing as a counterweight to that.

I think it would be gracious of Trump if he called off the attack dogs and told them they weren't speaking for him when they perpetrate hate crimes. I think they might take it from him. And what would it cost him? Nothing.

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hillarygayle.livejournal.com

I don't think anyone should ask that of you. Would it be awesome if they met you & magically realized the error of their previous ways? Absolutely it would. But it's not fair to ask you to put yourself in such a position on the chance that might happen. :(

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Thank you. :)

I was asked to do exactly that when I was 13, and I guess my reaction to this post is in part those scars aching.

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filkerdave.livejournal.com

I'm seriously considering applying for a license. The coming Trump administration has me that worried.

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Any reason not to? It's pretty cheap to apply in New York. You won't be able to carry in New York City, and Nassau County has some weird restrictions -- as I understand it, you can only carry on your way to and from a target range. However, you can take as circuitous route from the range as you want... if you join a 24 hour gun range, you can be on the way to the range any time you want, as long as you don't have any alcohol on the way...

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filkerdave.livejournal.com

I live in Nassau county, naturally.

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Yep, I checked your userinfo to see which is why I looked up Nassau County and saw that workaround. On the other hand, if you can document the reasons for your fear, such as the increase in hate crimes, you have a better chance of getting an unrestricted Class A license to carry, which is what you want. I mean, that's what you want even if you aren't ever thinking you'll ever use it for defense, anyway, because it's just more convenient.

Do it, if only for fun and for hobby, but also to interact with people you otherwise wouldn't. You may find out that all your assumptions about them are true, but maybe you'll find some common ground with some of them.

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filkerdave.livejournal.com

I work in the finance industry. I don't have a shortage of Trump supporters in my day to day life.

I'd actually do it because I expect the Jews to get what we always get in times of turmoil. Blame.

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I'm sorry, sweetie. I am so thoroughly sick of trying to be an ambassador, trying to demonstrate the humanity of women and Black people and whatever else people see when they look at me. In my experience, ambassadorial work at best just results in people carving out a me-shaped exception in their prejudices. And now, I feel ilke half the country soundly rejected my humanity, and my Latinx friends', and my Muslim friends, and so many other people's. Considering the rising wave of antiSemitism, I fear for you too.

Maybe I'll be in a bridge-building mood again sometime. Right now I'm noting the rising numbers of Black women who have these salt-of-the-earth types walking up to them and calling them niggers and saying "this is Trump's America now" to feel much like it. I wish you luck. I've been wishing my favorite gun nut luck for awhile now.

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I'm not expecting you to. I'm expecting you to do whatever you have to to survive. I'm just thinking this is something those of us who look like them can do.

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I'm just thinking this is something those of us who look like them can do.

Thanks. I mean that seriously.

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redbird

I've spent thirty years of my life saying "this is what a feminist is like" and "yes, you know at least one bisexual" and so on. Yes, being out is a political act, but "my editor is bi" or "my cousin is gay" is more effective than "this random person I met at the club for half an hour is Jewish," and I don't have the stomach to brace myself for attack first, and hope that they still think I look like a decent, normal person while I am so braced.

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snippy

I already have my CHL (have had it for over 5 years) and I used to go to the range regularly. And I'm a liberal, pro-abortion and pro-GLBTA rights and pro-intersectional feminism. I've been exposing them to me for a long time.

It hasn't worked. It works to make them okay with me, but it doesn't change their long-held views about "people" instead of individuals.

The things I've seen actually work are when someone they love comes out of the closet, whatever kind of closet they are living in.

Now, I can't seem to change most progressives' minds about guns, either. I did it once, with a very particular argument that worked for that person.

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It might to be easier right now to change progressives' minds about guns... a high preponderance of hate crimes seems like a really strong argument.

But yeah. There's a huge gulf between "okay with a gay person" and "okay with gay people." Or black, or Muslim, or whatever.

The benefit, as I see it, is in understanding their worldview, more than changing them. If you know how someone ticks, you can come up with appealing arguments.

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snippy

There have been progressive-ish groups all along: the Pink Pistols for arming gays, the JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) for Jews and other minorities.

The downside of knowing how someone ticks is finding out that they don't and will never think of you as a person equal to them, with equal rights.

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hillarygayle.livejournal.com

"Blue collar gun nuts" are my family. I'm the odd gal out, both in the fact that I have no interest in guns and that I'm politically liberal. I wish I could say it's softened anyone's view toward liberals.

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aelf.livejournal.com

I am a conservative living in a liberal state. Even for people I've known for years, it's continually outing myself, to their reponse "I forget you're conservative, you're nice and thoughtful." Because in their head, all conservatives are Republicans, and all Republicans are expletives. When their environment constantly reinforces that belief, it's easier for them to forget that I'm one of those bad, evil, horrible people, than it is for them to confront how they're being manipulated.

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At least when one comes out as conservative no one can send one to conversion therapy.

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aelf.livejournal.com

Conversion therapy is a terrible thing.

And that's part of the problem - the assumptions we make about the other. There is nothing I can do or say to convince you what my actual stance is on conversion therapy, and what I think conservatism says about conversion therapy. You probably don't care (and I'm not saying you should), here I am simply the proxy for what your experiences have taught you that other people mean.

Which, unfortunately, exactly supports my comment. And even your previous comment about your experience - there's little that can be done about reaching out to other people. We all have our experiences. We all have the way our brains function. And so it goes.

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Actually, that's not why I mentioned conversion therapy -- I was too elliptical.

I definitely know the gut deep frustration of being told "Oh but you're one of the GOOD ones." But when you used the term 'come out' it sparked off my memories of friends and acquaintances telling me about losing family members, homes, having their dignity stripped from them and being tortured. It occurred to me that different kinds of coming out have different risks.

We all bring our experiences, histories, and what we've learned trailing behind us wherever we go, curling up to force every new experience to filter through. It's kind of an amusingly ironic parallel that we've both experienced our attempts to change negative assumptions about groups we're in crash into the iceberg of being deemed good exceptions to otherwise evil groups. After half a lifetime of trying to find ways past that iceberg, I feel, at least right now, that maybe there aren't any.

As you said, as so it goes.

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aelf.livejournal.com

*nods* I hear you. Thank you for your further explanation.

Different kinds of coming out, and in different places. I can comfortably be agnostic here. In other places, not having a church is questionable, and not being religious is unheard of. But mostly for those things, the risk is loss of job, community. Not life and limb. It's unconscionable that people can risk so much simply for being who they are.

I wish you well.

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cellio

Do you have any getting-started advice for a woman who has never held, let alone fired, a gun, but who used to be a decent shot with a crossbow? I mean, before you go to a range you probably have to have some idea what category of gun you should be learning about, right? Or is that wrong and there are petting zoos (so to speak) where you can explore such things?

(In case any of this matters: short, a little stronger than average, poor vision, lefty.)

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