One day, my best friend and I had canvassed a large, rather conservative neighborhood near Kansas City to request that people not support a constitutional amendment to define marriage as strictly between a man and woman. It was a gruelling five hours. We got yelled at, preached at, often got a patient but patronizing hearing, and occasionally asked to leave because my friend was gay. We returned to the group, when my husband called. I was 4 hours late. He was stressed because our then 2 year old was feverish and cranky. We had quite the row. I turned to the group and said "Are you sure you guys want to go through all this effort to get married? It is highly over-rated".
I got quite the scolding from my husband.
"You totally lack sensitivity" he yelled. "Is this how you make light of something they are fighting for?"
It happened again when I was discussing the N word with a black neighbor. I told him the term used for people like me (east Indian) was Sand N-word or rag-head. He said that atleast when people were insulting him, it didn't come with suffixes or prefixes. My gay friend was very affronted.
"That was very insensitive" he claimed. "Is this how you make light of a word that is a symbol of oppression and bigotry?"
Then, one evening, our colleagues were talking about female politicians, and Sebelius came up. I said she was hawt.
"You are insensitive." another friend said. "You are as sexist, as the rest of them."
Lastly, when my grandfather died. The room was surrounded by sad, ponderous people. My grandfather loathed ceremony. I did not sit there mourning. I celebrated the man that he had been when he was alive. I chose to speak of the wonderfully funny things he said and did when he was alive.
My grandmother still doesn't speak to me and it has been 10 years.
There is a word for people like me. We are called low self- monitors. We are people who seldom take cues from the environment and are constantly committing faux pas. Many claim we are doomed to be social failures, and dismissed as boors. If you have made a statement in all innocence and been surprised by the shocked looks that you recieved as a result- you are probably one of us.
And a real bigot walks around far more acceptable than we are because he took the social cues and subverted his prejudices.
As a minority and as a female, I am surprised by how often someone who is neither is insulted when I am not. As someone who has canvassed for both pro-choice organizations and gay rights, I am surprised by how often people (whose support is limited to candidate choice) choose to malign me for ...oh claiming my gay friend is acting like a "drama queen" by picking up "Sixteen Candles" on a saturday night.
I know where you are coming from. Afterall, the world is filled with people who say astonishingly racist, sexist, bigoted and ugly things without serious repurcussions. It is a noble thing to call them out. But perhaps if people looked at the context, and realized that sometimes snark is an expression of frustration for someone up to their eyeballs in frustration, then they would not be so quick with their accusations of...well anything.
A snark can be a beautiful thing.