Project 52 (32/52): On Tolerance (And Why Intolerance Shouldn't Be Met With It)

.:Project 52 (32/52): On Tolerance (And Why Intolerance Shouldn't Be Met With It):.

What. A. Dick.

I wanted to talk about Anna Banana and how she broke Derek Lorenzo's heart today, but instead, maybe I'll save that for some other time. I know this is all some not-really-viral thing PLDT has cooked up, but really, I feel for the kid.

Anyways, onto more timely things, seeing as we have discussion on the RH Bill, marriage equality, and yes, chicken. For a brief moment, we could have added that "Anti-God Bill" into the melting pot as well, and today's topic would have fit it, too. At every single point, when the militant liberals were calling out the behavior of the conservatives, the one and only point the conservatives would always harp on would be "one-way tolerance." Whatever that means.

See, what most people don't get about tolerance is that it, harkening back to my earlier post, is all about Walang Basagan Ng Trip. If two dudes of legal age want to marry each other, I say let them. If a woman who doesn't have money due to her economic status wants access to these newfangled condoms and pills CGMA has more than enough money to have access to, I say let them. These are simple and basic rights that should be afforded to everyone, and not just to people who have the money for it, or have the procreating combination of gonads for it.

And yes, I am neither gay nor sexually active, so that does underscore what I mean about "tolerance," not that I even disagree with these issues. While Chino Liao may joke that this reflects "hypocrisy" on my part, I think the more appropriate term would be "empathy." Not every cause I support needs to have a direct effect on my life.

In any case, I have been less concerned about not hurting the opposition's feelings lately, even if I don't count myself as a militant when it comes to these issues. I guess it's because over time, I realized that their feelings aren't really that important in the bigger scheme of things. The feeling they get isn't even a feeling of oppression, but simply a tinge of guilt that they misinterpret as oppression. I think they don't understand the meaning of the word when they use it.

You see, the doctrine of tolerance simply states that people can agree to disagree and in doing so, nobody gets hurt. For example, I like Shakey's. On the other hand, this friend of mine likes Pizza Hut. We agree to disagree, and every now and then, I will tolerate my friend and eat at Pizza Hut even if my preference is clearly for Shakey's. That's tolerance, since both choices are equally valid and my choice does not in any way affect her choice.

However, when you demand that pro-gay people tolerate anti-gay people, that relationship does not have the same implication. For pro-gay people to tolerate anti-gay people in the way anti-gay people want them to, they are being expected to be perfectly cool with anti-gay people stripping them of basic rights that anti-gay, presumably straight (Though not all the time.) people already enjoy.

So no, don't expect them to tolerate your intolerance, because your intolerance makes basag their trip (Did I really just write that? I apologize!), while you tolerating who they are in no way affects you at all. You don't turn gay hanging out with them, you don't have to campaign for their causes, and you definitely don't have to marry another dude, either. Tolerating them means you live as you normally would, and you let them live as they normally should. Tolerating you, on the other hand, requires them to tolerate being treated like second-class citizens, and no, there is no reason to tolerate that.

I especially like it when these people claim that they are being "censored" and their "free speech" is being impinged upon when they are clearly whining about the things that they already dislike, anyway. What they don't like is the fact that saying these unfair and discriminatory things actually has consequences, like, getting called out on it. People actually have to be responsible for the things they say? Who knew, right?

This whole thing about the RH Bill has also devolved into a very ironic group of people, specifically, the CBCP, whining that corruption, not population, is the issue. In church. By dragging kids and using them to make their point, as if they haven't used altar boys enough already. And then, they have Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is totally anything but corrupt, champion their cause.

So now, you have a bunch of people who collectively own the fourth largest BPI bank account in the Philippines, a default of goodwill and deference they feel entitled to, and having people say "hey, maybe their privilege to shove things down our throats shouldn't extend beyond their scope of power," and these rich, privileged, more than empowered, entrenched, and not even elected leaders claim they are being oppressed?

I remember the time Christians were actually oppressed. They were being martyred for their beliefs. They were being drawn and quartered and forced to renounce their faith. Nobody's forcing the CBCP to stop telling people to not have sex until they're married. In fact, in the general sense of tolerance, their intolerance is tolerated. They get to say it out loud, don't they? What they don't get, though, is that when people call them out for the idiotic things they have to say, that isn't a show of intolerance, but simply a consequence of them exercising their right to free speech, and their opposition exercising theirs.

Compare that to poor people who want to plan their families, but have neither the knowledge nor the money to. Well, guess what? The RH Bill addresses that. They can now make that choice, or they can adhere to what the church teaches, since hey, they made that choice after knowing what their options are.

In the end, that's all there is to it, really. Tolerance means that you allow people to live their life the way they want to, even if you don't like how they live. What it doesn't mean is that you do so at the expense of you living your life the way you want to. That's no longer tolerance, after all: that's plain martyrdom, except the Catholic church won't be canonizing you for it this time.

Project 52 (20/52): On IDAHO (And Why "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" Is A Valid Ethical Rule Of Thumb)

.:Project 52 (20/52): On IDAHO (And Why "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" Is A Valid
Ethical Rule Of Thumb):.

Yesterday, we celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia, or IDAHO for short. Given what a hot-button topic homosexuality has been lately, it's kind of a big deal. 

Also, fabulous!

Despite the leaps and bounds we may have made over the years all over the world, there is no question for the LGBT community and their allies that there is still so much left to do. That much is pretty obvious, what with all the x-phobic things going on, and being hurled in their direction, not to mention the subsequent attempts by x-phobic people in general to silence anyone with dissenting opinions.

Yes, homophobes: we've heard your arguments before. Repeating it doesn't make it any more believable.

This is very old news, ladies and gentlemen. derailing tactics are very common and  used because people don't want to come to terms with the realization that maybe, just maybe, they're actually every bit as bigoted as they happen to not want to be. It's an uncomfortable feeling, especially when most of us hetero-normative people are so used to the privilege of hardly ever being questioned for our romantic choices the way LGBT people happen to be.

Well, boo-freaking-hoo: if a little discomfort makes you cry "foul," then maybe you haven't given enough thought to the discomfort LGBT people feel when their life greatly entails having a precarious and eternal dance of treading on eggshells, always unsure about the exact limits of the tolerance their cisgendered counterparts are exhibiting while in their presence.

I've come to realize that religious reasons are now the only remaining reasons we have to remain adamantly against same-sex marriage. Barack Obama's call for marriage equality doubtlessly raised quite a ruckus in America, and its effects can be felt even here in the Philippines: a shockwave that hit the whole world radically, as we now begin to question long-held beliefs that only obstinate, blind, fundamentalist religion currently finds defensible. Interracial marriage? Female suffrage? Racial segregation? As the Bible became less of a static manual believers need to follow and more of a living, breathing word that Christians grew with, history has proven those on the other side of humanistic progress more than once.

Nowadays, these people expect gay marriage to somehow be the exception to the rule.

Based on what grounds? The Bible? That's patently, woefully faulty as grounds, given that in America and the Philippines, we are supposed to be secular. Thus, while the Catholic church, for example, may choose to maintain a hardline stance against gay marriage (As they are expected to.), they cannot force their stance on an entire nation. As such, the separation of state and church, to put it bluntly, allows them to remain as bigoted and as discriminatory as they would like to be on the marriage issue, so long as those outside their jurisdiction are not obliged to follow suit. Cool. It's not perfect, but I think that's a perfectly livable solution: nobody's going to force priests to marry gay couples, and gay couples can either leave a church that discriminates against them or simply avail of the legal, and thus, secular equivalent.

So what else? The law? Well, in American constitutional law, anti-gay marriage advocates are SOL: the law doesn't define marriage as between a man and a woman, after all. In the Philippines, on the other hand, the Family Code is rather specific about that. Well, I guess gay marriage may need to wait in line after the RH Bill and the Divorce Bill, but obviously, the Family Code can be subjected to revisions. Personally, I'm cool with that: the RH Bill is sadly being forgotten in favor of multiple other causes, and what needs to be done at this point is to focus. One step at a time. Not everyone can handle these things pouring in wholesale.

What else, then? Tradition? We've already seen how the traditions of slavery, lack of female rights to suffrage, and racial segregation didn't go over too well despite being pretty longstanding traditions. And if we look far back enough, the tradition of marriage has evolved quite a lot. It wasn't always man and woman in a few cases, and a lot of it sure wasn't even about love, but simply more of a social contract. So given the spotty tradition argument, gay marriage does have pretty solid backing, too.

But really, why do we even care if people love who they love? If they are of age and of right mind, if it is mutually consensual, who cares if they're both dudes? How will the union of two men ruin another heterosexual couple's marriage, unless you're secretly afraid that every single person is actually gay and only pretending to be straight to conform in a heteronormative society? When people cheat and divorce each other willy-nilly, is that not the destruction of a family, as opposed to two people, straight or gay, entering into a lifelong commitment with each other?

When Archie comics starts getting more progressive than you, 

I think you better start worrying about your own worldview.

I realize it's pretty easy to use scare words to really get people to fall in line. After all, if the fabric of morality in a nation will unravel when two dudes are legally recognized as married, then I guess removing that makes up for all the adultery, murder, hate speech, and discrimination already going on in the world? First of all, they're not even comparable. Two people getting married and that marriage working out is an awesome thing. Adultery, murder, hate speech, discrimination? Not so much.

Last night, while I was at 70's Bistro and watching the Itchyworms and Radioactive Sago Project, the latter had this new song entitled "Walang Basagan Ng Trip," which roughly translates to "No raining in on someone else's parade." It was an awesome song, and the message was very clear: if it's not hurting you, if it's not hurting them, then who the fuck are you to tell them to cut it out?!?

Seen performing a song from their album entitled "T*ngina mo, ang daming nagugutom sa mundo, may panahon ka pa rin mag-privilege speech tungkol kay Lady Gaga?" (Image thanks to  Noise Ninja)

People lose sight of this because they're too busy debating on insignificant points like whether Manny Pacquiao just disagrees with gay marriage or actually wants gays put to death. Way to miss the forest for the trees! Even I fell for it: I apologized to him because I misattributed something to him, but a less benign form of bigotry is still bigotry. If people are offended for being called bigots, well, they can try not being a bigot and maybe that would help remove that feeling of guilt that you now want to project on the guy who made you feel guilty.

And that's the awesome thing about it: you can actually try to stop being a bigot. Meanwhile, if you were black, you can't try to stop being black. If you were gay, you can't try to stop being gay. And you certainly can't just pray the gay away.

Go ahead. Judge him. I dare you.

"So wait," someone who suspects they may be a bigot might be asking. "Are you saying that just because we don't want gay marriage because our Bible said so, we're already bigots?"

Yes. Yes, you are. Let's rephrase that question, and maybe you'd understand why.

"So wait," someone who suspects they may be a bigot might be asking. "Are you saying that just because we don't want to give other people the same rights that we privileged lot enjoy because a book that they may or may not believe in arbitrarily said so, we're already bigots?"

Yes. Yes, you are.

In case you haven't realized, that's precisely what bigots are. Furthermore, seeing as bigots are privileged and not the marginalized sector in this picture by any stretch of imagination, you can't really be bigoted towards bigots, even if you tried. If you don't believe me, here's an exhaustive piece to explain why you can't.

So yeah, if this hit you, then yes, you're a bigot. Do you hate that feeling of being made to feel inherently evil when this was how you were for the longest time? Then you now share something in common with a lot of gay people who are normally used as props by straight friends who use them as proof positive that said friends are not homophobic at all, no siree. "I have gay friends, so I can't be homophobic!" Riiiiggghhhhttt. That's like saying you're health-conscious because you had a diet coke to go with your baconator and french fries.

When you ask them for "respect", this is what you ask them to take sitting down. Bull.

Meanwhile, the underlying hint of "yeah, we tolerate your disgusting, hellbound behavior" gives these people daily cause for discomfort that, being gay and being born that way, they have absolutely no way of changing. Bigots, on the other hand, can choose to stop being bigoted, and it'd actually make for a nice change of pace.

Fret not, though: it's not like your bigotry is the only facet to you! Nobody's perfect! Sure, bigotry is a pretty bad thing, but it doesn't make you a bad person. It sounds kinda like the exact same logic bigots use on gay people to justify their homophobia, doesn't it? Welcome to their world.

But yeah, it's a free country, and if you really want to, you can be as bigoted as you want to be. It's only when your bigotry is already hurting other people that it becomes a problem. And that's where the "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" ethical rule of thumb comes into play.

Someone wants to buy sorta-kinda expensive ice cream because Magnum seems like such a cool thing right now. Cool (literally)! Walang basagan ng trip.

Some girl posts pictures of her purchasing this sorta-kinda expensive ice cream, and even shares the receipt on the picture. It's a bit tacky, but it doesn't hurt anybody, so cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

Thousands of people call said girl an "attention whore" and a host of other mostly gendered insults. These thousands of people don't know her, have probably never met her, and are in no way affected by her having Magnum. They claim "so what?" and they "don't care" so much that they spend hours of their time just to cyber-bully this poor girl. Hold on a minute! What did she ever do to you guys? Walang basagan ng trip!

What did this girl ever do to you guys?!?

People with actual good taste in music decided that they would rather not watch Lady Gaga. Cool, go ahead and not watch. I'm sure NKOTBSB will be much, much better, anyways. Walang basagan ng trip.

Hardline Christian groups take one look at Lady Gaga's songs "Born This Way" and "Judas," and petition to have Lady Gaga's concert actually canceled. Unless she's having sex onstage, and unless little kids are expressly allowed to attend a concert that should clearly not be for all ages, hold on a minute there! Walang basagan ng trip.

Gay people want equal rights and to be free from discrimination. That sounds fair to me. Cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

Straight people don't want to get married to people of the same sex. Well, it's not like accepting homosexuality as perfectly fine means you're also homosexual, so that makes sense. Cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

The government is going to let any two consenting adults, regardless of creed, race, or sexual orientation, get married. Marriage as a union of mutual love? I'm all for that! Cool! Walang basagan ng trip.

The government is going to insist that in order to deal with the population explosion, for the next decade, only same-sex marriages will be allowed. That's not gonna fly. Hold on a minute there! Walang basagan ng trip!

The Catholic church, being a religious institution people may freely choose to participate or not participate in, will remain steadfastly against gay marriage. Cool, they are free to do that. Walang basagan ng trip.

The Catholic church will threaten lawmakers with excommunication or with the non-existent "Catholic voting bloc" so that they would not make laws like the RH Bill. Are you seriously going to let 11 women die in childbirth everyday without a fight just to honor your Bible? A Bible that not everyone, not even your own leadership, subscribes to and interprets universally? Walang basagan ng trip!

Had I written my thesis based on this principle instead of focusing on Levinas, I have a feeling I'd have ended up all the better for it, and I'd probably have a PhD by now. Then again, maybe not, but it was just a stray thought I had to mention.

Am I saying that all these choices people make are the right choices to make (Although again, homosexuality isn't a choice, but the other examples mostly stand.)? Of course not! It's just that the whole point of human beings having free will simply means that if any of these choices, such as marrying or not marrying, watching or not watching Lady Gaga, using or not using contraception, turn out to be wrong, then it's part and parcel of the human condition to realize the rightness or wrongness of these decisions.

To remove these options, to remove the possibility of making these choices or even mistakes, that is when it becomes patently wrong, and that is when it crosses the threshold into basag-trip territory. If all this TL;DR text hasn't made that point clear enough yet, that's a very, very bad thing.

Kung ang trip mo, hindi naman bumabasag sa trip ng ibang tao, walang karapatan ang sinumang basagin ang iyong trip.

Thank you very much, Lourd De Veyra.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard to go wrong with a simple ethical rule of thumb like this. For as long as your own inclinations do not trample upon other's inclinations, then by all means, hold onto them for all you want. You can be as straightedge as you want so long as you don't shove the straightedge lifestyle down anyone's throats. You can drink all you want so long as your drinking poses no danger to other people (Hint: you're not driving.), and you're ready to deal with the consequences of drinking. You can even be as bigoted as you want so long as you don't hurt anyone else with your bigotry!

That last one's a little bit tricky though, isn't it? Guess you still need to work on that, then, but don't worry about it. We accept you for who you are. ;)

You've been trying for 2012 years more or less, but keep trying. You'll get it eventually.

Project 52 (18/52): On The Ms. Universe Conundrum (And Why Miriam Quiambao Should Shut It)

.:Project 52 (18/52): On The Ms. Universe Conundrum (And Why Miriam Quiambao Should Shut It):.

All hail homophobia!

The last time Miriam Quiambao was relevant, she was down on her knees. Now, before I make a wildly sexist joke and thus make this blog an unsafe place for women, I think I’ll leave my opening statement at that.

In a completely surprising and unexpected move, Donald Trump recently announced that Ms. Universe will start allowing transgendered women to join the pageant beginning next year. That sounds mighty progressive, until you realize that one, you have to be legally a woman in your country of origin to be allowed to join, and two, if you’re past 27, married, or with child, you’re SOL as far as joining Ms. Universe.

Not that there should be anything ascendant about joining a beauty pageant, what with it being the continued upholding of patriarchal conceptions of beauty and empty motherhood statements reflexive of beliefs born from indoctrination. I wouldn’t outright say it’s exploitative (Even some feminists might debate that it’s fine if the woman really wanted to join one.), but I sure as Hades wouldn’t call it liberating or empowering. Only in co-opting the system and making it work to their advantage could something like Ms. Universe be liberating or empowering, and not the system itself.

Last Tuesday, I had an interesting conversation about this with Chuck Gomez, a member of the LGBT community, who spoke about the topic with a clear measure of disinterest. First of all, he pointed out that this discussion, as far as the Philippines is concerned, is completely moot: transgendered women are not legally recognized as women in the Philippines, so there is no way we would be sending any transgendered Ms. Universe delegates for a loooong while, what with the RH Bill still up for debate to this very moment.

So really, how progressive is this move by Donald Trump anyway? And how meaningful is it, in the long run, when after everything has been said and done, Ms. Universe is a private entity or foundation, and can make the rules as it pleases? If Trump declared tomorrow that female pigs could join Ms. Universe, who can stop him, really? It’s his show, it’s his foundation, it’s his money. What we think about who should and shouldn’t be allowed in the competition is just irrelevant after everything has been said and done.

Despite that, what is relevant though, is that this discussion has been a futile distraction of what is clearly a first world problem: a nation like Canada, with its superb health care and its standard of living, can afford to answer questions about whether or not a legally recognized transgendered woman has any right to join a beauty pageant. In the Philippines, a transgendered woman who has to live with a predominantly Catholic mindset that coins patronizing statements to justify their discrimination against her lifestyle, wouldn’t even bother thinking about whether or not she can legally join Bb. Pilipinas, when she has to worry about feeding her family first, and worrying about daily oppression for her sexual orientation or the fact that she used to biologically be a man.,

Ever noticed that there is no single secular reason to be homophobic? It happens in nature. It happens without any statistical risk to forever preventing a species from propagating because everyone happened to be homosexual. Only when you use religious reasoning does homophobia become a tangible concept, and being in the Philippines, it makes you wonder why we are using a supposedly loving and almighty God to justify our hating people for what they do in their bedroom.

As far as I’m concerned, the issue of Ms. Universe is a question we really shouldn’t even waste time asking about. Truth be told, when it has zero effect on us because our laws don’t recognize the transgendered as women, when our own level of progressiveness is nowhere near many of the Western nations we just blindly aspire to emulate, then maybe the right question to ask is: what is beautiful, really? Is it the patriarchal conceptions we attach to these pageants, akin to how dog shows grade dogs based on hard and fast criteria based on the expected look of their breed?

And really, when it comes to Miriam Quiambao, I honestly don’t have anything good to say about her at this point, particularly because for the longest time, it boggles my mind how easy it is for people to pick and choose which verses of the Bible should be taken literally and which shouldn’t. We’ve seen this argued or even joked about so many times already, but the Bible also prohibits eating shrimp, planting two different crops on the same soil, interwoven and mixed fabrics, and recommends a lot of stoning to death for people who break a lot of these laws.

Suddenly, Sexism!

.:Suddenly, Sexism!:.

How dare you get all uppity and ask for things like decent and humane treatment?

To say that geeks (Particularly, male ones.) have been looked down upon as immature, petulant, whiny man-children would be stating the obvious. Indeed, geeks have caught a lack of flak for things that are apparently now mainstream, particularly video games, and superheroes. I identify with being a geek because let's face it, when you're friends with Sacha Chua, Clair Ching, Peppy Salita, and Sean Uy, that's probably what you are.

There are a ton of negative things people paint in broad strokes about geeks, but there's one in particular that makes me cringe every single time, especially when some of us appear to go out of our way to prove it: that (male) geeks are ridiculously misogynistic people.

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion going on about Ari Bakhtanians, a fighting game player who made very lewd and sexual comments about a female gamer, Miranda Pakozdi. As if using sexually charged language weren't bad enough on its own already, what makes this worse is that Ari Bakhtanians was actually the team captain of Team Tekken, which Miranda was also part of.

How stupid do you actually have to be to videotape yourself making these comments about a woman? I mean, seriously. I never even heard of Ari prior to this, but afterwards, I could only shake my head at the things he did, and the stupid excuses his sorry @$$ came up with after the fact. Granted, Ari and Miranda have reportedly patched things up already, but just like the FHM Cover brouhaha, I don't think this means that this should be the end of dialogue.

This morning, I saw the news that the Azkals are being sued for sexual harassment by Cristy Ramos. This is a pretty interesting and disappointing development, considering how much fame and attention the Azkals have been getting.

In both cases, we see clear instances of harassment, and what is glaring about this is how these things happen to women more often than they happen to men, and how because of this gap, we see a lot of excuses being thrown to cover up for the offending men.

In the case of Aris, people have been using the fact that this is the Fighting Game Community as an excuse for his bawdy, uncouth behavior. I mean, wow. Really? We're going to institutionalize ill behavior towards other people now? Because really, if he wants to exercise his freedom of speech to demean Miranda, why are his defenders now demanding that people critiquing him suddenly care about his feelings and not make any comments? You mean, only Aris has the right to free speech now, and we can't call him out for being a grade-A douchebag? How does that double standard even begin to make sense?!?

It's been upsetting me a lot whenever I find myself playing an involuntary game of Oppression Bingo, as wave after wave of defenders for what should be taboo for an FGC that actually wants to expand and gain more recognition crawl out of the woodwork. That these people don't know any better is a given, seeing how they've spent most of their lives completely oblivious to the privilege they enjoy for belonging to a patriarchal society.

For a guy, it's easy to be oblivious to the glaring gender differences between men and women that are institutionally in place because it simply isn't relevant to us. Because so few of us have to deal with people leering at us and giving us so much unwanted attention, we think that it's such an ego boost for any woman to have someone praise them for their looks or their body, and to ogle them for it. For gamers, women are so few and far in between that when someone remotely attractive comes along, she becomes the center of attention for all the guys, and not all of these women will enjoy the fact that she can't enjoy a game in peace without some horndog hitting on her in the middle of it.

For the most part, men don't get that. And it's so easy to say they just need to toughen up and grin it and bear it because we aren't going through it every single day in our lives. When a man sticks his neck out to woo a woman, the worst that could possibly happen is that he gets heartbroken. But when a woman breaks somebody's heart, she runs the statistically valid risk of being physically abused for rejecting a man's advances.

The gap of empowerment between men and women seem immaterial to men because they are the ones enjoying the benefits of this gap. While some will actively go out of their way to keep this balance of power largely in their favor, a vast majority simply don't see it, so don't think that anything is wrong with it. Of course. How could anyone expect them to?

That doesn't excuse their behavior, though. And with this case the Azkals are facing again, no amount of being good-looking or winning tournaments (Which hasn't even been happening lately.) is going to be enough of an excuse for their behavior around Cristy Ramos.

Hades, you can even throw in Chris Brown and Rihanna and how many people quickly assumed that Rihanna getting beaten up was probably her fault, which just sent a cold chill down my spine.

Precisely because the power balance is not commensurate, a man beating up a woman is in no way a show of equality. This, and affirmative action, seem to be concepts that the privileged simply cannot wrap their heads around. It's frustrating to see these people insist on upholding the institutional power imbalance, and feeling so high and mighty about it. There's just something to be said about people's insistence on wanting to be douchebags, then wanting to silence people who call them out on it. Freedom of speech works both ways, bud.

Sexism in this day and age will always be a hot-button topic that many people will want to sweep under the rug. Despite that, I hope that by calling attention to it enough, I could contribute somehow to changing that fact along the way.

Project 52 2012 (9/52): On Discrimination (And Why It's Gotten Worse By Getting Subtler)

.:Project 52 2012 (9/52): On Discrimination (And Why It's Gotten Worse By Getting Subtler):.

And so we get into all this safe space and anti-discrimination stuff I sometimes touch on every now and then. You might even say that within my tiny sphere of influence, I treat it like an advocacy at this point. I've even written this two-part article about it this week.

This has been a rather interesting time for anyone with a modicum of interest in race relations. Admittedly, this is a weird concept in a country like the Philippines, seeing as our seemingly desperate sense of Filipino pride extends all the way to taking pride in anyone with a drop of Filipino blood in them, up to and including Rob Schneider. Rob. Freaking. Schneider.

What? No Betamax? Rob Schneider, you fail!

Sure, the whole FHM cover brouhaha was also tinged with class issues, but they aren't mutually exclusive from race issues, and both are rife with glaring examples of discrimination. What does get annoying is when some people insist that because they don't see anything wrong with something, then there's nothing wrong with it. Sorta like how people generally miss the fact that there's an arrow in the FedEx logo. And yet it's there.

You might say they're keeping themselves in the... should I even go on?

The above was the ill-advised, or at least, the troll-bait cover from FHM's upcoming issue, featuring Bela Padilla. Now, the cover is reportedly being replaced for when the magazine actually comes out, and FHM and even Bela Padilla herself apologized for the cover. I'm not writing this to crucify FHM or Bela Padilla, but that doesn't mean the discussion about issues of discrimination should similarly stop. If anything, this whole thing should spur further discussion with minimal shaming or condemnation in order to facilitate understanding.

Except that probably won't happen.

Every single time discussions about race crop up, the only time Filipinos really feel a noticeable sense of outrage is when it's a Chip Tsao or an Alec Baldwin or a Teri Hatcher making the apparently racist statement, and Filipinos far and wide crying foul. We'd even happily do it when one of our own dares to spit upon the sacred altar of "Filipino pride." However, it seems that whenever we do come out as racist to other nations, we don't really do much to put ourselves in check, or else there would've been a larger uproar for the time Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, much as I love her to pieces, actually said that the Chinese invented corruption.

This whole issue is no different, as every single play from the Derailing For Dummies handbook was utilized just to sweep the issue under the rug, either because the issue seems irrelevant to most of us privileged people, or because a topic like this may be uncomfortable for privileged people who get upset when they find out they're actually racist. It's pretty coincidental that even Cracked has a relevant article about racism up this week, and it parallels a lot of the things I say right now, with a whole lot more comedy mixed into their take, obviously.

Granted, we don't live anymore in a world where it's okay to segregate blacks from whites, or women not being allowed to vote is par for the course. These things have become galvanizing symbols to rally against: these very blatant, egregious examples of inequality will find very few supporters.

Unfortunately, this also means that these blatant, egregious examples are normally the only things we look for when trying to find inequality in our world today. We seem to need something galvanizing before we so much as consider that maybe, just maybe, something oppressive is already happening right before our very eyes.

Most of us do live with privilege. In an ideal world, everyone would think the same way people of privilege do, where we assume we will get by this world on our own merits, and we can afford to be color-blind or gender-blind because everyone else is more of the same. Race as a mere social construct becomes completely obliviated because there no longer is no need for it. But then, neither would we have need for any of the other social constructs like sovereign nations or families. Which is to say, we don't live in an ideal world, and whether we like it or not, these social constructs are here to stay.

As people of privilege, we can afford to live without being conscious about race, because it rarely affects us, for as long as Desperate Housewives doesn't take another swipe at us. With privilege, we can afford to not be disturbed by, say, a pun likening dark-skinned people to shadows because it's just words, and only sticks and stones can break our bones, and these black people better toughen the fuck up and stop trying to find excuses to get offended all the time.

Of course it's easy for the privileged to say these things. They don't go through it every single day, much like a man in general would not have to live in fear of being raped, and might find it easy to make jokes about how Michael Bay's take on Transformers pretty much "raped" their childhood. What's not easy is to check one's privilege at the door, and to actually recognize what's important for the Other in front of us, instead of what's important only to ourselves.

Now that discrimination has gotten subtler, it has become fashionable for people to cry about the likes of affirmative action or the PC police, as if avoiding saying a word or two for the sake of not upsetting a marginalized group that has institutionally been discriminated against since they could remember would be the end of the world for the privileged. Is perpetrating the endless cycle of oppression against the Other all for the sake of "freedom of expression" really more important than just striking a couple of words from your vocabulary?

I find it a bit bewildering how someone who is caught doing or saying something racist feels so offended, and suddenly makes it about them, instead of the fact that they actually went and offended someone, to begin with. This very casual shift of denying acknowledgment of the Other and her issues only proves that the Other is indeed being marginalized, to the point that we, in our privilege, feel entitled to have the focus about us even when dealing with or simply dismissing their issues.

Discrimination has gotten worse because the fewer instances of discrimination remain seemingly non-taboo, the more steadfastly we will insist on holding onto them. Just look to homophobia and ableism, if you don't believe me. Because we're so busy looking for burning crosses and gas chambers, we forget that little daily affirmations of oppression can and do ruin the day for those who are marginalized.

And no, a lack of malicious intentions or even outright good intentions is not an excuse for offending people. When you step on someone's toes, you apologize for it especially if you didn't mean to do it (If you did mean to, you're clearly looking to start something, anyways.). Intent isn't magic. It's not a get out of jail free card.

Furthermore, since some people know I do contribute to the Filipino Freethinkers, and I even went and supported their call to uphold the right to offend in the middle of the Mideo Cruz issue, why am I suddenly being seemingly inconsistent and suddenly wishing people don't get all offensive against the marginalized?

If you're reading carefully enough, the key word is "marginalized." Obviously, if you're Catholic and in the Philippines, then you are anything but. If anything, atheists are the marginalized ones, and their crusade for secularism is precisely their call for equality. If people are free to insult the beliefs or lack thereof that atheists have, why is the opposite, insulting the beliefs of the religious, suddenly taboo? Does believing in God suddenly make you and your opinions (And make no mistake about it: the existence or non-existrence of God still stands as an opinion, albeit a very important and personal one.) superior?

True, not every single dark-skinned person was offended by the FHM cover, much like not all of us were offended by Chip Tsao's satirical tirade against this "nation of servants." That doesn't invalidate the feelings of people who were offended by any of these, either. It's the opportunity to discuss and educate ourselves from these occurrences that is one of our takeaways from this, rather than to be dismissive of the feelings of people who feel hurt by acts of actual or merely perceived discrimination.

For example, wouldn't it be better to explain to your black friend that the word "niggardly" isn't exactly what it sounds like, rather than to just point and laugh at him for making an honest mistake?

Some things require more explanation than others, though.

And if, after reasonable discussion, your friend still feels put off by the word, then is it such a big deal for you to just never use the word around him again? I think while one cannot rely on human decency in this world, this should never be an excuse for not displaying it. This is akin to how while Mideo has every right to offend religious folk in the manner that he did, I didn't have to like his art (I was never a fan of post-modern art, period, so this is no surprise.), nor do I need to do the exact same thing.

True, everyone's a little bit racist sometimes. And while it doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes, there's a lot to be said about displaying basic human decency and compassion when it's within our power to do so. While it'd be nice if everyone could take a little joke, the last thing we have the right to do is to tell other people how to feel, because nobody in their right mind goes out of their way wanting to get hurt or offended.

Ultimately, discrimination happens in an imperfect world the more we are blind to the differences among us. It takes a lot of perspective, and genuinely walking a mile in the shoes of the Other for us to even begin to understand. Otherwise, we end up doing another unintentionally condescending "If I Were A Poor Black Kid," and no amount of good intentions could conceivably excuse the sheer insensitivity and ignorance of that.

Stop being insensitive, or he's comin' for you...
no good will come out of completing that statement, will it?