Inspired by The Scars of Hubski.
What has left a emotional scar on you? A couple years ago I cut my hand opening a slightly broken Soy Sauce bottle, and ever since I feel rather uneasy opening bottles.
SOYiled story, yeah. What you gonna do about it?
I mean I laughed out loud but fuck if it isn't true.
Every conversation is just me waiting for some racist bullshit to come out of their mouths so I can take an x on the fucking bingo card.
And it's not fair, there are tons of perfectly fine and totally not racist white people out there. But then when one of them turns around to my (seriously gorgeous) Brazilian friend and goes "sorry, I only date white girls" and I wonder WHERE THE FUCK THE PERFECTLY FINE ONES ARE.
Unfortunately it's because human nature makes us remember the bad over the good as a way to make sure we learn from mistakes or potential danger.
This means that while out of 1000 people, 10 might be murderers or rapists or pedophiles. We'll still be really cautious with everyone else who isn't.
You remember getting slapped in the face that one time as opposed to all the other times people didn't slap you.
The fact that this many people circle dotted this dude's comment has got me losin some hubski faith, no lie. I mean I know the circle dots are overall unimportant, but still, shit you guys.
Like when the MRA guy goes around and bitches about racism, the general idea is to NOT encourage his indulgent whining. You can all preach about being thoughtful, so thoughtful and playing devil's advocate, and play pretend, but stuff it. You're giving points to a dude that's arguing semantics. Like I can fucking SEE the same smug shit-eating grin that probably came with pressing the "reply" button after typing this out, like the million times I've seen it IRL.
I'm now able to count on both hands the number of times I've seen this same disingenuous bullshit here. "Ugh, 'Don doesn't trust white people, that's so racist. Now I'm going to go to the store and not get followed around in it, then walk down this street while getting to keep my hands in my pockets without any problems, so I can get into my car and drive away without worrying that some cop won't think it's mine." Boo fucking hoo.
The projection is real. Do I get to complain about hubski's good old days now? Have I been here long enough? If that's true then get me some protein and call me Akihiko 'cause
I'm not sure if there are many other places where you'll find this type of conversation occur as a result of a two word comment.
I'd say the thoughtfulness is alive and well.
This is where things are, dude. Had an interesting conversation with a Colombian yesterday; she told me she doesn't feel safe in East Boston, which is heavily Colombian.
Her reason? Because she knows what Colombian people are like. That blew my mind. I don't know if that's primarily a race thing, but the fact that she just assumes that living around other Colombians is more dangerous than living around Americans in America, is weird.
Holy shit, this comment is almost as bad as one of those people that start a sentence with "I'm not racist, but..."
You seriously think distrusting a race of people based off the color of their skin isn't racist? Seriously, there's literally no amount of mental gymnastics that can spin such an opinion into a logical conclusion.
And so it begins
Edit: bruh it's cool I haven't been on Hubski in forever and I don't forsee that changing anytime soon (I just got Splatoon, you see).
I've had my fair share of smug Internet superiority debates about shit white boys don't understand anything about as it is, this summer is mine. Try minimum, she loves fucking with people like you
Man, I'm not looking to get into a debate over you agreeing that saying "I don't trust white people" isn't racist. Like, you can't even debate something like that. I just saw the comment and was so taken aback I had to say something.
Please, enjoy Splatoon. I hear it's a great game.
Hopefully this tells you something about the better angels of our nature and the nature of the community here. Overwhelmingly shared:
We love you pal!
That said, I am growing a bit impatient for some Hubskina... not gonna lie.
in the words of Bahar Mustafa,
- I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender. Therefore, women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist, since we do not stand to benefit from such a system.
In order for our actions to be deemed racist or sexist, the current system would have to be one that enables only people of color and women to benefit economically and socially on such a large scale and to the systematic exclusion of white people and men, who for the past four hundred years would have been subjected to block colonization.
We do not live in such a system, we do not know of such a history, reverse racism and reverse sexism are not real.
tl;dr shut up white boy
Sorry, but there's no such thing as "reverse racism"; there's only racism. When people start saying things like "you can't be racist against whites because blablabla", they're only making excuses for their own bigotry. They want to be able to openly hate a racial group without the social repercussions that come with such behaviour.
- I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender.
- In order for our actions to be deemed racist or sexist, the current system would have to be one that enables only people of color and women to benefit economically and socially on such a large scale and to the systematic exclusion of white people and men, who for the past four hundred years would have been subjected to block colonization.
I will agree the majority of racism is directed toward black people, and the majority of sexism to non-men. But she is basically saying because of the 'current system', SHE is unable to be racist or sexist. They are completely unrelated.
- tl;dr shut up white boy
It's also pretty mean and narrow minded, I was expecting much better on Hubski.
- These can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems that consider different races to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. It may also hold that members of different races should be treated differently.[1][2][3]
hmm sounds like structures of privilege to me
A note in support of humanodon to all who might come this way thenewgreen --
Let's do a mini-meta-analysis of this post.
The question is "What has left a[n] emotional scar on you."
(and most of us are, like, I'm not going to go there. Too painful. We're talking about a flipping emotional scar... something happened and it still hurts. It still hurts, those things that happened. Like a physical scar, it's not that noticeable anymore mostly, after all the years, but the pain is still all over the place and seeps outside of my control sometimes, less and less all the time, but whoa...)
So humanodon, who I've met in person is the nicest guy.
But he starts to look at something that happened once (or daily, for that matter) and all he can say is the outcome -- the part of the scar that he is aware of... he realizes that he doesn't trust white people.
There are exceptions all over the place, I'm sure, but he has to cognitively work at trusting white people and be aware of how his gut white-person reaction might affect him.
You don't have to agree with me Grendel but I don't see that statement as racist. I see it as a personal expression of emotional scarring and eightbitsamurai recognized it too.
White people: some non-white people may never really trust you. It's not about you. It's about them trying to protect themselves. And then again, white people, you might have all kinds of not white best friends who would take a bullet for you or marry you.
My step-father (of blessed memory) was a very successful person in many areas of business, law, finance, etc. He couldn't trust non-Jews. He had many best friends of all religions and ethnicity, but he knew in his core that he could only really trust Jews. In fact he didn't much trust anyone in the world except my mother.
My non-Jewish boyfriend at the time resented that deeply, took it personally, felt left out.... of course he would. But it wasn't about him.
We all define trust in different ways, and there are levels of trust. I would think every single person with an emotional scar of some sort has also experienced a deep loss of trust.
Comments?
If I said I don't trust black people, wouldn't you think that's racist? If I said I don't trust women, wouldn't you think I'm a misogynist? Look, I'm not judging humanodon personally here, maybe he can't help feeling this way, maybe he realises it's wrong. I was just pointing out that being prejudiced against a whole group of people because of their race is the very essence of racism.
I was typing out more, but it ended as a rehash of lil's comment. Let's see how I can try to add more.
1: Humanodon's comment was posted in the "emotional scars" thread, which shows that it was caused by something that did the scarring.
2: Let's assume that it was racism by white people that did it.
3: You said "That's racist".
You're not wrong, but you're missing the context of the discussion here. "I don't trust white people" can be assumed to mean "I don't trust white people because I think that they're going to be racist like other white people I've known and treat me badly". It's not phrased as something to be proud about, or something to copy. It's an admission of an "emotional scar", like in the thread name. It's something sensitive.
- maybe he realizes it's wrong
It's not the thread to argue with people about what's right or what's wrong. It's about listening to people.
EDIT: I need to post faster. I run out of time to butt in.
:| That's not a good result. Normally I go back and re-edit my post if I see you've already said it better. I can get that "insightful posting" cred by saying something different.
EDIT: Like right now when I realize it seems like I'm taking the things you say. Not serious about stealing ideas.
Everyone has prejudices, but I do my best to admit mine. Can you say the same? If so, rad.
Also (and this is for everyone) how much of yourself did you project into the reading of my statement?
I don't trust white people. Do I trust some individuals who are white? Sure, but as a faceless group? No, that would be absurd of me to, just as it would be absurd to trust anyone I don't know on the basis of race. It is also racist to trust white people simply because they are white.
Duh.
Would it be helpful to humano or any routinely oppressed person to get rid of the prejudice against their oppressor they may have, when walking into a situation with their oppressor where it is indeed likely that their oppressor may act as they have done routinely and habitually, and oppress them?
Am I using the word "oppress" too much here?
It is reasonable to assume that, if a person or people of color has/have a prejudice, as you call it, against white people, the prejudice is as a result of poor treatment by that culture (which we can just call the DWC or Dominant White Culture for short). Humanodon has implied or stated that here.
In that case, how does it behoove humanodon to walk into a situation deliberately ignoring his feelings, which are caused by repeated first-hand experience, that it may not be safe for him there? If I have been repeatedly victimized by men in my life, I may be very careful about which men I choose to spend time with going forward. I may refuse to leave bars with strange men or be alone with them. That can be construed as a prejudice. But let's say that I've been sexually harassed or abused three times when I left bars with strange men or was alone with them. Is it smart to say "Well, I just have a natural prejudice against men because of my experiences. I acknowledge it, and now I'm going to refuse to judge other men based on this treatment, and continue to leave bars with strange men or be alone with them." Is that a smart thing for me to do?
- Is it smart to say "Well, I just have a natural prejudice against men because of my experiences. I acknowledge it, and now I'm going to refuse to judge other men based on this treatment, and continue to leave bars with strange men or be alone with them." Is that a smart thing for me to do?
The smart thing to do would be to stop leaving bars with strange men and also to stop judging all men negatively. I don't think you're interested in knowing what the smart thing would be, anyway. You seem more interested in providing some sort of justification for racism and sexism.
A lot of people would probably see those comments as racist or misogynist -- Your two statements generalize about a whole group of people you don't know. Statements like "I don't trust women" would probably be hurtful to a woman who wants to be trusted by you. You are probably feeling a little hurt by H's statement because you are white and want to be trusted by him.
Your question to me was "wouldn't you think that's racist?" My answer is "no" - I'd think you have been hurt by black people or women or white people or whatever and to protect yourself you have decided to stop trusting anyone with any similar characteristics.
I often say "I don't like (visual) art." On the one hand, art doesn't speak to me as much as words or music do. Also I was married to a visual artist once and he somewhat ruined art for me.
If you were an artist, would you be hurt? Why?
You have choices too. You can label H. "racist" and think that your comment is weighty and judgemental and righteous and correct.
Or you can maybe say, "It sounds like you're hurting and had a shit-load of crappy experiences perpetrated by white people. it's probably wise to be cautious."
- "You can label humanodon racist" or you can say "it sounds like you're hurting..."
We're talking in a thread about emotional scars, so I assume he's hurting. At the same time I also think he's being racist because, well, that's what it is. Like I said in another comment, I wasn't trying to attack him personally.
For the record, I'm Italian. Our "whiteness" is still a matter of debate. When I think of white people, my mind goes to Germany, Norway, etc. I don't feel white and I don't feel hurt by humanodon's statement.
I am still thinking about this thread after a while.
I think it is fair to say that while others have told stories about their scars, maybe humanodon was a bit more, direct? brief? In some ways, maybe that makes it harder to empathize with/understand? (Maybe humanodon doesn't feel comfortable telling a story, that's fine, just being aware of how we say things is always a good call)
If I said to anyone,
- "Black people: some non-black people may never really trust you. It's not about you. It's about them trying to protect themselves."
I'd also really like to call out minimum_wage. "tl:dr shut up white boy" and "i said shut up white boy" are not productive, blatantly racist (hurtful), and frankly disappointing - caelum19 also noted this. I could just hush minimum_wage and move on, but I would also like to hear what others think...
- My question is, why is that okay to say to white people, but not black people?
A lot of people believe that black experience is so fundamentally different from white experience that they are willing to cut them all kinds of slack in recognition that a white person doesn't walk in a black person's shoes.
Thanks for the kind words! I like that your comment opened up the topic. I have a feeling that so many people are taught to point out prejudice and to label any and all prejudice as inherently bad and as something that "good" people should not have, all while ignoring the fact that we all walk around with prejudices all the time.
Anyway, for those following along, I have met lil. She could be called white, or seen as white or she can be seen as lil. I wouldn't trust her, just because she is white and I wouldn't trust her just because she is who she is. I am inclined to trust her because I've gotten to know her a little bit.
I have to agree, it's a hell of a lot different to ask someone about their emotional scars. If you're going to do it, you'd better show people that they're not alone in being vulnerable.
I have FAR more emotional scars than I do physical ones, I would wager that we all do. It takes a very safe environment for me to discuss them. Hell, I pay someone on a weekly basis for such an environment and it's the best money I've ever spent but it's a fragile level of trust that must exist to divulge such things.
This is not a topic to be taken lightly imo.
You're right, sorry guys.
When I get home, I'm going to post the most embarassing, cringey most stupid story I have. I have only told one person about it and I'm 60% sure that's why she stopped speaking to me. It also effects me on a pretty much daily basis and it sucks.
I was pretty aggressively bullied for several years in middle school (2008-2011), and I'm still really sensitive to a lot of insults.
In particular, I was bullied for being a 'faggot' by the popular group (10-15 boys, one of which was my next door neighbor and childhood friend (we haven't spoken since 2011, despite living 40 feet from each other)), but I think I mostly brought it on myself by trying to fit in with them instead of appreciating the people who were actually kind to me. This kind of wrecked my self-esteem for a few years, and I think I only truly pulled out of it when I met my current girlfriend. I'm doing WAY better now, but I still have trouble connecting to other men.
I haven't really processed this yet, but I'm pretty sure I was molested at summer camp. I really only realized this a few months ago, but I remember having a HUGE crush on a counselor at camp, and eventually she started reciprocating--we did some stuff that was VERY intense for my age (I was 11 or 12 while this was going on), mostly making out and touching. We kept texting after summer camp, and she would convince me to exchange exposing pictures with her. This spanned ~1 year until she suddenly stopped talking to me. At the time, I loved the attention, and obviously I was crushed when it ended, but now I can't help but feel like the situation was incredibly fucked. She told me that she had a thing for very young boys (she was into shota/yaoi type shit, afaik), and it never processed. Like I said, it didn't click until recently that she is 6 years older than I am...and I have NO idea if this has affected me at all. I have a normal relationship now, and I don't think it's caused me any problems, but holy shit...was I molested?
Some people on that minecraft server were constantly calling me gay, which on it's own would be fine but the way there saying it has left me finding it rather difficult to open up, or even become close to guys. It's nice to know I'm not the only one, and I wouldn't have even consciously realised without your post.
Back in the day when I hadn't even known of the word gay, it meant happy. So guys, I can he super gay at times lol, seriously have to make a YouTube video on that one - proud to be happy! Gay! Which is happy! Emotional scars by insecure turds, never a good experience. That's why they call names, having issues of their own, throwing it to others.
Is this supposed to be the funny stories thread or the boring stories thread?
EDIT: Seen Wage's comment, it's completely on point. Who's going to talk about shit they're "emotionally scarred" about if you open it with something that devalues the whole idea?
My stepdad beat the shit out of me until I moved out and I learned alcoholism from my mother.
So I live in Rainsville, Pouringland, Wetia and we're not used to sun. When we do get it, people get surn burnt, bush fires go out of control and the sun can even be something that gets complained about.
Think it was 2009, maybe 2010 and it had been sunny the past few weeks. I was having lots of fun catching fire to stuff, because fire's awesome. When I found a patch of this weird, extremely dry, extremely thin film-like bush that cought fire very well. I wanted lots of it of course!
But it was full of spiders, and I'm terrified of spiders. So I thought it would be a good idea to 'smoke them out' by lighting fire to the bush, and then kicking it out.
Kicking it out wasn't very effective, it just spread the fire to other parts of the bush, this is where my little brother gets scared and goes running about 100m home to ask our parents for help. I didn't want to get it trouble, so I yelled at him not to. Thankfully he didn't listen, because that fire was spreading fast, and about 10 metres away was a extremely massive, overcrowded pine forest.
My dad had stopped most of the bush fires with a shovel, but one fire had made it's way to a tree, and about 30% of it burned before it went out for whatever reason. These trees are very close together so if that fire had engulfed the tree, I would have been in much bigger trouble.
Parents wouldn't talk to me for 2 days, I felt terrible, the spiders probably felt a lot worse, haven't lit a fire since.
When my uncle, Pablo was about 12 years old he was playing with the woodstove in my grandparents home. Somehow, he ended up burning half of their house down. Now he's a fireman
Who knows, maybe you'll be a fireman someday..... Or an arachnologist.
Haha. One of the fire men who came up after my parents called said they burnt down their house, but I thought it was made up to make me feel better.
Being a fireman doesn't sound very appealing, an arachnologist sounds even more unappealing. But like you said, who knows.
Caelum19, I'm having a hard time believing that I'm about to write the following. If I remember correctly I was fifteen years of age at the time. Hadn't had a girlfriend and didn't know much either. I mostly sat alone in class, being the antisocial fat kid most others would stay away from and ignore. I thought I was ugly, didn't really have what you'd call a group of friends either. Except there was this Russian girl (whom I began to see as a loser later on in life) in my class. Everyone, even the teachers, praised her for being smart, and hey she probably was, she studied, and I never did (some people wonder how I passed). At that time I was obsessed with watching sailor moon, stories of love, battle, and sexy anime girls, nearly undressed . Heck, I didn't know better back then. That same praiseworthy girl knew how to draw, as I heard from my classmates. Then it hit me, I could ask her to draw some characters from the somewhat adultly censored anime I clinger to at the time. She did it, after I offered to pay her $20 for a few drawings, which were no more than sketches really. I found myself infatuated! Bloody fool, falling for a monster, or was it just an insensitive girl. (Caelum19, I hope you enjoy reading this story, as I've shared but once in the past). I thought I was in love with her. Then a plan, as illogical as it was, was to sell my super Nintendo and games, to buy her a gold necklace with a cross. I sold my beloved games, for far less than they were worth, yet no tears were shed. Another girl from my class asked what I was writing, as it was the Jerold for science, and I obliged by handing her the paper. A love confession! Right after she read it, her eyes were filled with tears, and as I can no longer remember the finer details, I'll simply go on from I do remember. After some discussion that girl from science helped me out by handing the Russian gal my love letter, and the gift of sacrifice. I stood outside of the building, very nervous, extremely shy. She'd taken what was given in my name. Gal from science told me later the Russian said to her "don't tell anyone about this". She probably meant it in the harshest of term, obviously who'd want to go out with the fat antisocial kid. Nowadays I believe I've made it further than most of my classmates, probably in every aspect. I look good, I have money, two kids (an ex wife, as it didn't work), an exceptional personality, and I've gone to term with the fact I'm not like the crowd. Caelum19, if you hadn't written your story, I most likely wouldn't have written mine. Thank you for sharing :-)
- Caelum19, if you hadn't written your story, I most likely wouldn't have written mine. Thank you for sharing :-)
And what a shame that would have been! Thank you for sharing too. :)
Why was the science girl upset? Or was she happy for you? Either way she sounds pretty cool.
What happened with science gal eh? I'll make it short, I was duped, as a fool often is. Consequences of having a mother who worked all the time, a father who wasn't around, and two pedophiles getting at me. It just isn't normal. Of course those are two stories left on their own :-)
Well, there was the time when i was eating ice cream. It hadn't ever happened before. I was eating it... No licking, no picking. I was simply eating it, like any other food. And then it happened... It came right out of nowhere... NO ONE Would have expected it, or at least i never did! ... Brain Freeze! I Agree with thenewgreen, it's a sensitive topic caelum19, oh and i'm sorry to hear about your cut - note to self, ignore broken glass bottles, wouldn't want to drink glass, accidentally, or cut ones self - good motto.