The Crooked Treehouse
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves
  • Storefront

Honest Conversation Is Overrated

Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In  Twentieth  And  Twenty-First  Century  America

Openly Bigoted

6/27/2015

0 Comments

 
When Chic-fil-a decided to be more Openly Bigoted a few years ago, one of my very close friends, a woman who had stayed at my house when she was fighting with her idiot boyfriend, and who had invited me to her wedding before she and her idiot fiance broke up, a woman who introduced me to her best friends: a lesbian couple who lived in the South End, wrote a long post about how she was devoting her free time to protest in favor of Chic-fil-a's freedom to be homophobic.

Because she was my friend, and someone I'd always viewed as an ally, I refrained from being sarcastic, and asked her how she could reconcile the way that company was treating at least four people she cared about (the fourth being the guy I dated through most of our friendship), and she sent this long disconnected Jesus tirade about how Christians were being persecuted for blah blah blah, false dichotomy, metaphorical bible quote taken literally, etc. So I defriended her, and sent her a very brief e-mail telling her that I was disappointed that she valued a fictional version of a two thousand year old dead guy more than her living friends. I didn't hear from her again until the Boston Marathon bombing, where I sent her a reply of "I am unaffected." and presumed, correctly, that I wouldn't hear from her again.

Today, in the midst of all the rainbow memes, and wedding pictures, I scanned through my friends' posts and was pleasantly surprised to not find a single argument. Like, REALLY surprised. So it was with much disappointment that I found a solitary post, made by the woman I almost married twenty years ago talking about how "love won when Jesus died on the cross" which is...ASTOUNDING. You'd think that if you were going to be Jesus-y, you'd go with "love won when Jesus rose again" or "love won when...." actually there's not a lot of love in the New Testament, once the whole "let's kill the protagonist" angle starts up.

She went on to talk about how difficult it was going to be to teach her children about checks and balances when "there aren't in any in the new America". And how this wasn't about marriage equality rights, this was about states' rights.

Huh, where have I heard that recently?

As I've been doing more and more often recently, I wrote a long, calm, point about why I disagreed with her status, and then, instead of posting it, I erased it and defriended her.

I know there is a sentiment among many of my friends that you shouldn't be silent, and that you should fight through your feelings and argue with people about their ignorance and/or bigotry, but that's not for me. I've long grown tired of trying to use logical thinking when talking to a bunch of metaphor-comprehensionally impaired bigots who belong to really judgmental book club, which is ‪#‎notallChristians‬ but ‪#‎yesallliteralists‬. How can I hope to compete logically with someone who, if he existed, has been dead for so long that he wouldn't even know that calendaric time has started flowing in the opposite order.

Also, when I get frustrated with people laying down irrelevant platitudes that they didn't even come up with themselves, but overheard on their news show of choice, I tend to say very specifically hurtful things that I can't take back like "I feel really bad for your children, what with them being homeschooled by a prejudiced idiot." or "I don't think someone who majored in violin at a glorified musical academy is really qualified to be discussing constitutional law." or "As the person who helped finance the abortion you got when you cheated on me, I think you are woefully unqualified to be talking about morality and so-called-family values." but that's not going to solve anything.

I'm fairly meticulous with who I am Facebook friends with. I don't expect everyone I talk to agree with me on what kind of poets I respect, or whether the last episode of Lost proved that the show was super racist, but if I see that you've made a post about Barack Obama where you use any pejorative term that dehumanizes him (I'll disagree with you about "stupid", but I won't be mad about it. I understand "disappointing", and any synonym for "liar" is acceptable what with him being a politician and all) or if you want to defend the use of racist imagery or using the law to impose your religion on people, or tell me how woman aren't qualified to (insert anything here...actually anything), then I don't give a shit that we used to go to Middle School together, or that we both really like X-Men comics, I'm done communicating with you.

------I don't want anything from this post. It's not here as a dramatic "if you do X, you better defriend me now!!!111!1!1!" statement. I'm happy to do the work of defriending myself if I see repeated ignorant bullshit. It's mainly that I'm sad that someone I used to be really close to, someone who, granted, has always been from a really weird family, a family who, after they moved west somehow found Jesus in every corner of their house, and at the grocery store, and on their toast, has finally pushed me to the point where I just can't communicate with her anymore

--------for those of you who've been around since The Insafemode Journal days, Yes, this is the same woman who called me at work to let me know that she had a half-brother who turned up. She was letting me know because her mother had given him up for adoption and "My mother would never have agreed to meet him, if he hadn't mentioned that he wanted to share with her the gospel of Christ. So maybe if you accept Jesus, you can get in touch with your birth parents." She was unimpressed when I let her know that if I wanted to get in touch with my birth parents, I just had to fill out paperwork with the agency that oversaw the adoption, as I was a ward of the state of Connecticut, not Jesus. And when I informed her that, in fact, my family abandoned Christianity specifically because my former-altar-boy father was told by The Catholic Diocese that he wasn't fit to be a parent, she started to talk about my family's shortcomings. I hung up on her, not just because I thought she was being an insensitive, unChristian ass, but because I was also in the middle of a nine hour shift waiting tables.

--------we now return you to your regularly scheduled series of posts about how annoying people are in retail environments

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Asterisk
    Awkward Non Sexual Situations
    Awkward Sex Situations
    Beckee
    Being Gay
    Being Insafemode
    Ben
    Big Honken Liars
    Brookline And Qughincy
    Celeste
    Clarissa
    Comics
    Communication Problems
    Comrade
    Dad
    Dallas
    David
    Deaf Culture
    Dmitri
    Drugs
    Ducks
    Dude
    Elvis
    Emily
    Fledge
    Fortune Cookies
    Fucken Love
    Gay Sex
    Gender
    Hahvahd
    Hampshire Damn College
    Health Problems
    Holidays
    Horrible Pizza Place
    Im A Drunk
    Internet Dating
    Jackie
    Jbob
    Jennifer
    Jeremy
    Jim
    Kevin
    Kimberly Hyphen Surname
    Kimberly Hyphen-Surname
    Landlords
    Literature
    Mr Hpl
    My Family
    My Father
    My Mother
    Odd Jobs
    Online Dating
    Opening A Bottle Rocket With Your Teeth
    Pets
    Poetry
    Police
    Politics
    Quarantine Time
    Rainbortion
    Random Inanity
    Retail
    Roommates
    Ryan
    Saint
    School
    Scotts
    Sir Trick
    Slam
    Slow Flashes
    Sora
    Steggy
    Theatre
    The British Invasion
    The End Of The World
    The Loop
    The Numbers
    Theo
    The Slut Across The Street
    Tommy
    Trick
    Unharry
    Vegas
    Victor
    Wiz
    Zuzu


    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    February 2011
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    September 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    May 2008
    April 2008
    March 2008
    February 2008
    January 2008
    December 2007
    November 2007
    October 2007
    September 2007
    August 2007
    July 2007
    June 2007
    May 2007
    April 2007
    March 2007
    February 2007
    January 2007
    July 2006
    May 2006
    December 2005
    November 2005
    October 2005
    September 2005
    August 2005
    July 2005
    June 2005
    May 2005
    April 2005
    March 2005
    February 2005
    January 2005
    December 2004
    November 2004
    October 2004
    July 2004
    June 2004
    April 2004
    March 2004
    February 2004
    January 2004
    December 2003
    November 2003
    September 2003
    August 2003
    July 2003
    June 2003
    May 2003
    April 2003
    March 2003
    July 2002
    June 2002
    April 2002
    January 2002
    September 2001
    July 2001
    March 2001
    February 2001
    October 2000
    September 1999
    June 1999
    December 1998
    October 1998
    September 1998
    August 1998
    July 1998
    June 1998
    January 1998
    December 1997
    August 1997
    June 1996
    February 1996
    November 1995
    August 1995
    May 1994
    January 1994
    December 1993
    June 1993
    January 1993
    December 1992
    November 1991
    April 1991
    July 1990
    May 1990
    April 1990
    January 1990

    RSS Feed

      Need To Get In Touch With Me?

    Submit
All work on the Crooked Treehouse is ©Adam Stone, except where indicated, and may not be reproduced without his permission. If you enjoy it, please consider giving to my Patreon account.
  • Tips From The Bar
  • Honest Conversation Is Overrated
  • Popcorn Culture
  • Comically Obsessed
  • Justify Your Bookshelves
  • Storefront