The Character Romance thread (Official)

That was also my fault. I was getting PM's left and right, and then the sad stuff with gaycaravaggio happened and I had to try and break things to the Jaal thread, but I failed with that and made it worse, then the thing with massbass happened, and others, and yeah I think I snapped. All my fault. I knew better but still kept going.

I think get all the facts before taking sides.  I really don't know what happened with MassBass.  I thought he was a good guy, but apparently not. 

I wasn't posting in the romance thread then, but I understand you think I am responsible for all the sins of my people. Again, I don't care if you were angry. I think I explained that pretty clearly in the post you just replied to.

I am personally not a big fan of "jokes" that "punch down," so to speak. I'm a white, affluent, American, cis-gender woman, who reads as straight 'cause I'm in a monogamous relationship with a man. It's kind of wrong of me to make a joke about say... my black friend's blackness. She faces oppression for her skin color, and by making a joke I am exploiting her oppression. I gained momentary amusement and social capital, at the cost of further promoting racist stereotypes. Sure, I can make that joke, but I shouldn't, and I definitely should not get offended if my friend is hurt by that joke.

Context is also important. My partner is Asian. Occasionally I get to make jokes that would be racist in pretty much any other context, because he and I have some sort of mutual understanding (i.e. an inside joke). He understands my intent, so it's "OK" within the context of our relationship. However, if he were to ever decide that a joke made him uncomfortable or was racist, he would be totally right in drawing the line. 

To give you an unrelated example... Imagine a child is holding a bat and swinging around and around in a circle because it makes them dizzy and it's fun. Their smaller sibling is wandering around nearby and the first child hits them in the face with the bat. Parent asks, "why did you do that," and child responds "I was just having fun!" The child's statement is true. Their intent was to have fun; however, the result was that they injured their sibling. Their actions were thoughtless - even if their intentions were benign - and they should be reprimanded because they caused someone else harm. If that child were then more concerned that they had been reprimanded than they were concerned that their sibling likely has a broken nose, their parent should point out that their sibling's immediate and real pain is more relevant than the offending child's hurt feelings.

Same logic applies in these types of things.

The way I see it, not everyone's going to agree on what is homophobic and what's racist; it's generally about the consensus. That's because racism and homophobia are social constructs used to excuse real life actions. If a statement is in line to what contributes to how that group is mistreated (i.e. I'm Jewish and the stereotype/conspiracy theory of Jews controlling the world is founded in antisemitic paranoia and used as an excuse for hate crimes and general antisemitism), then it's probably bigoted in nature.

PC is not necessarily right or wrong; it's again related to society and what is seen as right or wrong to say. Kind of like politeness, I guess. If someone steps on your foot and then doesn't say anything, no one is gonna blame you for being weirded out or even kind of irritated, since apologizing or at least acknowledging your foot was stepped on is expected. However, the main difference is that bigotry has to do with power dynamics, so it's a bigger deal than just politeness.

Trust is earned. Trust but verify.

I'll use myself as an example, you have no reason to take anything I say at face value. Vet as and when you can.

Canon.

Are you enjoying these lol debates on something that will never touch you *homophobia*/affect you in real life? Did you find that heterophobia support group btw?

Eh, bias against straight people can exist, theoretically. But bias itself =/= the power to act on that bias. That's why heterophobia is not an institution. There's no laws against people being all hetero with eachother. At least not in our current society.

I don't think I've implied otherwise to the underlined.  But should posters who are, lets say dismissive, of heterosexual people, be tolerated because there is no institutionalized bias against hetero people?

Well since I now know what really happened all those months ago and I don't have to protect anyone anymore, since I was lied to, I want to offer a sincere apology from the bottom of my heart to all of you guys. All of you. Here and in the Jaal thread. I learned a lot from this chat and though it'll take time to prove my words, I will do my best to show you I do support you, and you are all welcome in the Jaal thread if you want to post there. I'll make sure of it.