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Originally Posted by SecretAgentMa'am
I'm not actually talking about being called out for who you are. More not being called for what you do because of who you are.
"I'm a woman, I can act however I want and it can't be sexist."
"I'm a transman, I don't have male privilege to throw around."
"I'm a POC, nothing I say can be racist."
That's what I'm talking about.
Also, regarding morals: I think we've made a big mistake in not being willing to claim morals or take a moral stand. Yes, some people think we're all immoral. My moral center says those people are the ones who are immoral. If one side says they're taking a moral stand, and those they're opposed to won't, things will continue just as they are. Different people have different morals, and we would help ourselves a lot more by standing up and claiming *our* morals and holding them up against the morals of the opposition. As long as only one side is willing to claim a moral stand, only one side will be seen as moral. This is one of those cases where we need to be willing to say "no, what you're calling moral is actually wrong and immoral."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyson
I agree with you about our community being accountable. In my opinion, if we cannot start with being accountable to one another here, then ? I am having a problem with the "moral" statement. Who's morality? There are some that think our way of life is NOT moral and I would disagree.
I don't want to get caught up in another round of semantics. Thank you for posting your thoughts, and I support you in speaking up.
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I am going to say that we do need to talk about morality. Dr. King gets invoked a lot and, quite honestly, I find it tiresome but I'm going to invoke him today. I'm invoking him because the *reason* why a national monument was opened in his honor this week is because he spoke for a moral vision. He said to America that the struggle for civil rights WAS a moral struggle and that one side was wrong and it wasn't his. He was, in fact, right. The struggle I was a beneficiary was was first and foremost a moral struggle because segregation was first and foremost a moral stain on our country. I believe that our struggle is a moral struggle, that there is the right side of that struggle and the wrong side of that struggle and those who argue that queer people have no place in society because this or that holy book says we don't are on the wrong side of it.
You ask what morality? I don't know that I have specifics but let me toss out a touchstone that I wish I had thought of but I didn't. If we ask ourselves "would I feel comfortable if everyone applied this rule, behaved this way, held this ethic" and if we can come away with a yes (or perhaps even a probably) then chances are that's a pretty good bet that you're onto something that works. It works in so many domains and I think if we use that as our flashlight and our machete as we hack through the underbrush then I think we will likely do more good than harm.
Why? Because let us assume that people don't want to screw themselves over. I don't. I'm willing to take some things on the chin but I'm not going to intentionally put my family on the street! Once we get past the simple stuff (the not killing, not taking other people's stuff, etc.) and we get to the knotty issues that touchstone really comes in handy.
How would I like to be spoken to? Well, I prefer not to have racial slurs thrown at me. Since I cannot think of a single good reason--certainly not one any of y'all would accept--that I should be able to use racial or sexist language but you can't, I should avoid using racial or sexist language. I prefer not to be pushed in the mud, so I won't push you in the mud so that you won't push me in the mud. Is that a perfect moral system? No, there is no such animal. It is workable, though.
So what kind of morality? All people have worth and value. Their worth and value is intrinsic to them being human beings. All people have rights, those rights adhere to them BECAUSE they are human beings and injustice entails denying them their rights because of this or that fully arbitrary trait. (This allows us to seriously constrain the rights of, for instance, a serial rapist who has proven he has no interest in playing nice with the rest of us) All people have a right to bodily integrity meaning that violence against persons is wrong.
This doesn't give us a list of moral codes but it begins to form the outline of a morality by talking about the values we hold dear.
Cheers
Aj