Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Heist on Something....
lighter:
What would you do if you received these right wing chain mail from anyone else? I typically deleted them until I lost patience quickly, then politely asked to be removed from their mailing list on the chain.
I've seen very pointed responses to racist sexist jokes, but you'll want to handle this one face to face, bc you don't want B' s group of racist sexist friends lobbying against you over this.
B has some flaws, and you have to figure out how deep they go. What can you live with? Is he capable of self reflection, and empathy? Those are pretty important, Hops.
And.....he dreamed if you sleeping in each other's arms with nothing but peace and joy.
I'm tempted to toss a little red flag on that one, just bc.
I want you to have what you want. Just do it with both eyes open. I say this bc I'm more likely to bs myself, and practice DIM thinking regarding past mate's character flaws. That's a terrible strategy, ime.
Know what you're in for.
That your friends seemed to like him means he's not so obtuse he's sharing these topics in mixed company. Maybe he hangs with people who believe these things. Maybe he hasn't questioned them. Maybe he's just on a mailing list and hasn't thought through.
If he's spending hours looking this stuff up, and starting the chains..... that's, perhaps, different than getting tacked on to an extraverted racist's chain mail list.
I'm wondering what B will do if you bring the topic up. What will he identify as the "problem" in need of resolving? Your views on the topic, or the very serious cultural problems that need to be addressed by everyone? What does he think would help?
Maybe he'll answer that question reflexively, and give you all the information you need.
Maybe he'll give it some thought for the first time, and surprise to you both with his answer.
Lighter
sKePTiKal:
Sigh...
You're getting the grand tour of B, warts & all, Hops. You're one more level of trust closer to his inner circle, if he's taking the risk of sharing this with you. It's probably something he's sharing to see how YOU react to it. A fishing expedition to find out more about you and how personally you take politics, as they're currently being popularly defined. Are you flexible enough to accept that he may hold different ideas on topics - even diametrically opposed to yours - and still feel comfortable, trusting and attracted to him?
This is something I think a LOT about, because I don't want to limit my circle of friends, acquaintances, and potential beaus to one political affiliation - if there is a preponderance of other reasons I'm interested. To my way of thinking it's the height of prejudice to immediately dismiss another person simply because they hold different political (or religious, or whatever) ideas... UNLESS, their whole identity is wrapped up in that affiliation and there is no other dimension to them. Then, it's a case (again, for me) that the person has self-limited their thinking/interactions to what's derisively known as the "echo chamber". For me, it doesn't matter, which of the two sides they've chosen - it's that they only SEE two sides, that's the problem.
BOTH sides are indulging in some pretty mean, petty and cruel jibes/criticisms of each other. Just like Junior High cliques. That behavior (to me) prevents the possibility of finding out just how much the PEOPLE who are supporting opposing sides to an issue, really do have in common. At Thanksgiving, it was easy to see that Matt's mom and I shared a lot of similar, hard-core, basic and fundamental values... even though we come at an issue from the opposite ends of the political spectrum. For all I'm talking about trust & anxiety in new situations - as the most conservative person in that whole group, I didn't feel threatened, out on a limb, or like I just didn't belong there.
So, the question is: is B giving you a test? To see if you can tolerate, put up with and overlook what, to you, is clearly a "wart"... but just as clearly, isn't a defining characteristic of his personality (as far as we know). Is he curious about your beliefs and opinions here... and this is his way of avoiding coming right out & asking? (Then, I'd wonder why he couldn't just bring up the topic directly...)
Or was it just sharing that side of himself, because he feels comfy enough with you to do that? Releasing the outcome of whatever reaction you might have? (ie, not thinking at all that it might offend)
I have a feeling I'm going to babbling a lot today. But back later... I do have things to accomplish today.
Hopalong:
Y'all are amazing. You offer such a rich field of angles, possibilities, nuances and intuitions through your unique lenses and experiences. All your brains, all your brains! (said the zombie). In our tiny VESMB crowd, I'm experiencing crowd-sourced intelligence as truly powerful, inspiring, hopeful, growth-stimulating, on and on. Thank you.
Tupp, you view him (and me!) in such a forgiving and compassionate light. You have a "light" touch with judgment and that's really helpful. I scream away judgily in my head and react intensely to various signs and symbols, and along you come offering a kinder, broader view. Complex! And naff.
This cut right to it for me, and is so perceptive:
--- Quote ---I don't think things like making assumptions about people, ignoring that they are treated differently, albeit subtly and quietly in some cases, acknowledging that some people have access to fewer opportunities because of their colour/gender/ sexuality/whatever count as an 'ism' in some people's minds. Shades of what's okay and what's not.
--- End quote ---
I also think your raising the possibility that he didn't even scroll all the way through the images was helpful. It's always useful when my Pavlov-culture-panic bells go off to hit pause for the possibility that what I think was happening didn't happen at all. That said, the general tenor of the jokes collection was mean. Somebody wrote something about "heartland hostility" coating the internet, and I got what they meant. (Not really a geographical point.) But I don't know if it's his own hostility toward various people/classes/tribes, or just a carryover from the environments he's lived in.
B told me something interesting that I hadn't quite figured out, because he is so pleasant and personable around people. He's actually a shy introvert. Didn't dawn on me. For example, some of the things he does that I've worried are controlling might be, or might alternatively be projections of how he makes HIMSELF feel more comfortable. He frequently asks about "dress code" when we're just meeting friends for dinner. Should I dress...casually? (I stopped giving a hoot about what people think about what I wear decades ago.) And I'm invited to a NYEve dinner at friends of his now. So he starts saying something like, I don't know whether you'll feel comfortable about this, but it's not just my friends I've told you about, but their children and some people I don't know anything about may be there... And I thought that was odd, and told him "Don't worry....I really don't ever need protection, socially" and he went, oh okay, I get it, it's just that I'm such an introvert... Then a light went on. Huh, it was really helpful to suddenly get that. (He's so socially smooth I had not thought about E vs I, and his "power" and success made me not perceive "shy" until he told me he was.)
Off topic except that I started imagining (err per Lighter, hope this isn't rationalizing bad behavior) that shy people sometimes can go along with some aggressive humor or things they might not generate themselves because it's part of male bonding, for example. Dunno yet, but that's another nuance that might help, if it's true. Time will tell. He could be both. Shy and controlling. Bigoted (oh hope that's too strong) and kind to a local muslim. As you said: complex.
Thanks, Tupp! What a blessing you are.
love
Hops
Hopalong:
Lighter, every time I read your counsel I feel confident.
Or, you conjure up an unfamiliar confidence in me. To try on. At least try it on.
You tell me I can observe. I can remain my own emotional center and not give it away.
I can experience play, laughter and risk while thinking.
(You also make me feel smarter and more perceptive than I actually am.)
Your touch of wariness is strengthening, and your reminder to enjoy in the present anyway because I can handle the future whichever way it goes, is heartening.
I feel as though I'm looking out-of-focus at a map and you're just saying beside me, well if we take this route we would wind up there, and if we take this one, there. Overall, look at all the options there are.
Thank you! (x100)
I'm curious why his romantic pronouncement inspired a little red flag "just bc..." I liked that you said that but don't know why I did.
love,
Hops
PS--the truth is if I got a cruel-joke right-wing email from anyone else, I'd likely not want to continue being close to that person. That's why I'm feeling some distress about this. (It's the "mean" and not the specific politics that matter to me. Policy differences between moderates are fine. And one of my best friends has watched/trusted a right-wing fake-news network forever. We just don't go there. I dunno how long one could avoid "there" in an intimate relationship. Wish I did. I keep thinking of Mary Matalin and James Carville....)
Hopalong:
Amber, thank you.
This is really, really wise-wise-wise-wise...(that's my echo...). Busted, and fairly reminded:
--- Quote ---To my way of thinking it's the height of prejudice to immediately dismiss another person simply because they hold different political (or religious, or whatever) ideas... UNLESS, their whole identity is wrapped up in that affiliation and there is no other dimension to them. Then, it's a case (again, for me) that the person has self-limited their thinking/interactions to what's derisively known as the "echo chamber". For me, it doesn't matter, which of the two sides they've chosen - it's that they only SEE two sides, that's the problem.
--- End quote ---
This was a really good question for me to focus on:
--- Quote ---Are you flexible enough to accept that he may hold different ideas on topics
--- End quote ---
The answer is yes. Definitely. My mind is elastic enough and my curiosity and humanity big enough that I really do care about learning how another "side" approaches topics, problems, and solutions. No doubt. Listening, extending respect...in my view are the only possible cure to the horrible divisions that are breaking us in two as a society.
But.
I'm not sure I'm flexible enough to accept that he may hold different ideas on people. How one treats them but also how one thinks about: classes of people who are "other", people who are vulnerable, people who are different, people who don't see the world as you do. It's not practical policy questions that concern me about the reactions I've had over these things, it's the theme of contempt or lack of compassion. ("Ugly" women working in diners, Harvey Weinstein rejecting a hated female with a hideous smirk, black human beings drawn literally as stick figures...).
It's like being a humorless prude. I am not a humorless prude! But I do feel a little like one when I view things like those images. I instantly see the object of the crude derision as a human being in a particular context. And I am saddened when another person doesn't uphold their humanity. Particularly when it's a powerful, wealthy, male, white person finding the belittlement of the "other" hilarious.
Remains to be seen whether B genuinely finds these things hilarious, and I'm more than ready to find out that he does not. But it's a thing, because it's cropped up two or three times. Just a thing I need to find out more about.
If he were actually "testing" me, politics-wise, I'd be shocked he was so strategic. But I'd also be completely comfortable with failing such a test. It would be such a manipulative way of learning more about me. I'm not thinking he's really that sly. But he is very smart. Good thing to ponder.
I'm thinking a gentle and direct conversation about it, because he's responding so far really wonderfully to probing conversations....will be the best way to deal with it. I think I can just tell him what I thought I saw (the theme of other-ing and contempt in humor) and how that doesn't fit with how I experience him personally, but what's it about for him, does he think?
I believe he'll give me answers, and not deflect. I truly do think he'll do that.
Not at a NYEve party, but another time soon, I would like to know.
Lastly, about humor. Truth in jest. One thing that makes me happy is that he finds me funny. He laughs at my idiosyncratic wit (my poet-brain...when I come up with specific and weird images for stuff). When I told him his whiskers felt like "little redwoods that had been cut with a rusty chainsaw" he cracked up. When I said about my body that "I'm tapioca from the collarbone down" he cracked up. Metaphors and quirky perceptions that bubble out of me when we're being playful, he really likes. Or my deadpan delivery. Dunno but it's pleasing to have that appreciated.
(Nothing a goof-brain, particularly a writer, likes better than making another person laugh...)
Thanks again for the challenges and the incisive questions, Amber. Hoover is ON. (And I admit I see whataboutism everywhere.)
hugs
Hops
PS--It's not lost on me that B loved a "bleeding-heart liberal" enough to stay married to her for 40 years. And that he's considering another one!
PPS---Aaand...this article felt to me like a wise conglomerated VESMB post for the nation, so apt:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/polls-show-americans-distrust-the-media-but-talk-to-them-and-its-a-very-different-story/2017/12/27/ed9bbabe-ce3b-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_sullivan-810am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3e4fca51ae0f
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