Backlash and other thoughts

One of the many problems of the world relying on minorities to fight their own battles is that we do not have the resources to fight the bigger battles - things like ensuring students in school are EFFECTIVELY taught anti-racism, the truth around gender variety, how not to be sexist, and so on.

I want to be perfectly clear on that: if a child continues to be racist, sexist or transphobic, their education has been a failure - this is not one of those situations where it is about expressing a different opinion: if children grow up with racist, sexist, transphobic or other failings they are morally as much of a failure as a mass murderer, because that is what they are often doing. 

If you doubt that, look at police killings of people of colour, the murders of women that are misnamed "honour" killings, and the abuse of transphobic people that leads to suicide. 

Teachers need to disabuse themselves of the notion that they are only passing on intellectual skills and abilities: they are active influences on children - along with peers and parents who too often are suffering the failings of their own upbringings and passing those on to others - and failure to recognise (possibly because of the failings of their upbringing) that raises questions about their fitness to teach. 

This last week has seen transphobia disguised as journalism - backed up by others in the media. 

This is the problem with the media: you cannot wail about press freedom when you misrepresent perpetuating a predominant position as presenting both sides of an issue (the presentation is unequal) or when you indulge in gossip and tabloid trash. 

If you want the press defended, then make yourself defensible by cutting out the trashy tabloid abuse and vindictiveness - deal with your faults first, or you are open to a charge of hypocrisy.

There are others who also need to deal with their problems as well - and both Victoria Police and the court system have moral egg on their face after a sexual harasser was reinstated to the police, despite questions over whether he was genuinely reformed or not. Do you have no clue - and I address this to all involved, including the court system - what sort of message this sends to victims of sexual harassment? Are you all so stupid you think victims will not have second thoughts about going to the police??? 

I know the levels of trust in the police felt by the LGBTIQ+ communities is probably the lowest it has been in a quarter century at the moment, after a litany of problems such as the police union bragging about how proud they were over crippling injuries they gave to a gay man.

I'd like to end with a couple of points. 

Firstly, an article about a decline in empathy, which looks for a connection between that and technology. I consider the decline real, but that it is due to life now being harder - largely because of the neoliberal ideological fantasies that so much everyday people have been sucked up into. We don't just need more attitudes of kindness, however, we need survival to be easier, which requires people to stop trying to become wealthy p***ks through housing, people stopping getting sucked in by commercial propaganda (aka "advertising") and thinking they need anything but a minimalist lifestyle, and the dinosaurs in management to change or be replaced by the up and coming newer generation of managers who are people - not profit - focused and thus are better stewards of their company's resources and able to access a wider range of human capital through being inclusive.

Secondly, work has been getting worse for me - I am exhausted to the point it is affecting my work (and has long been affecting my health), and although I am now getting the support I need (which has been delayed by the profession's male biases), that on top of everything else means I do not know how much longer I can continue with this current lifestyle, and I may need to make some major changes that may see my online presence end or be curtailed, either permanently or temporarily.