Teacups

There are good times for anger and outrage. There is a good use for such things. In doing the work that needs to be done, anger can be useful.

Then there is abuse and becoming the very thing you say you despise. I've watched the line crossed a few times, this week. Unfettered rage in some instances is good, but to lash out at everyone and everything, and dogpile on top of an individual is... less than helpful. If we can't see that line, then we have no business calling what we do justice. It's vengeance. I'm not interested in vengeance. Call me whatever name you want. I don't care. Learn to harness the rage, or drop it, but don't pretend all lashing out, at all times, is going to solve our problems.

I get blocking a highway. I get snarking at someone who is a rape apologist. Ousting someone and lying about them because they used the word stupid is just too much. I can't. I just can't. It's not equivalent to the big words that start with n or k. Dogpiling and alienating because someone might use the word crazy again, on accident, because it's a word that doesn't resonate the sort of oppression that the big words do, is too far for me to go. I get that some words are hurtful, and try to avoid them in casual instances, when there are people who made it clear this is a line in the sand for them. However, people who lash out over something that doesn't ring as loudly a bell as the n word does are not helping. Make note of why you don't like that word, but really, when the word stupid has so little impact and is as plentiful, making someone an outcast because of it is just too much.

And then the victim blaming in another circle. It's okay to blame those women for their abuse, this time, because reasons... Nope. Blaming a woman for being in an abusive situation isn't right, full stop. I get the movement has good reasons to be mad at the men involved. This is not how it gets solved, though.

I'm not going to fit into the cliques, ever. It is something I accepted long ago. No matter where I turn, people always throw me out. Believers and non-believers alike. I just never go far enough for some people.

The woman who refused to eat because there was a bowl of ranch dressing on the same table as the vegetables comes to mind. Or the way she pouted through her meal because the restaurant offered her a straw which was wrapped in paper. The roommates I had before I was vegetarian, in 1992, who screamed at me because I'd had a burger or something when they were out, and they could still smell it in the apartment. Getting in a rage at people over the word "stupid." These are where I draw the line.

None of them made the world a better place. They just added more shit to the pile. There are legitimate ways to use rage. I don't think these are the ways to use them for effective solutions.

Now, on into a new night. Next week, I go about arranging my life in a new way, now that I have extra time in the weekday afternoons. Away from the keyboard warriors. Away from tempests in several teacups. Off I go.