Words

[puppetmaker]

In Caroline’s school there is this habit that if you say the word black or white in a sentence, someone immediately calls you a racist even if you are in an art class talking about light and shadow in a painting. This also goes for saying Latino too usually when the other kid knows that they are losing the argument. So Caroline and I found other words that mean black and white and she had been using those.

Another word that has been bandied about recently as an excuse for bad behavior is discrimination. Discrimination means the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually. You are not being discriminated against if you don’t get your way, which is how some people are using it these days. But then some people will try anything so they can discriminate against people they don’t like and hide behind the idea that they are being discriminated against.

I know I was lucky that I grew up in an area that looked like we are the world so I encountered lots of people with different beliefs and customs. And I think that made me a more rounded person. My parents raised me to be a moral person who sees beyond the surface of a person and I believe they succeeded. I will admit to a prejudice against stupid.

Fandom has some strange practices of discrimination. I use to call the non-fans mundanes and we would giggle at their responses to the convention around them. A phrase I still hear said at conventions is “don’t tease the mundanes” or more recently you can substitute muggle for mundane.

There is the geek hierarchy, which has changed over the years but there is always some form of fandom that everyone looks down on and wonders why “they” are at the convention. You can find a version that has been floating all over the internet here at The Brunching Shuttlecocks. Personally I think the more the merrier at a convention and if you keep cutting people out because you think less of their fandom, your convention is going vanish from the face of the earth eventually because you aren’t trying to see what they next generation might be interested in but this is a whole other discussion. For saying that fandom is all inclusive, it can be down right discriminatory when it wants to be and racist too.

I am grateful for the inclusion of people in fandom.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

We used to say "don't scare the normals" we passed in hallways in the con hotel, or at the nearby Arby's we'd walk to to eat with the Klingons. :-D

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

I have friends who call people Mundanes or Muggles and it's always irritated me. In my typical idealistic way expect nerds and weirdos not to dehumanize other groups the way they complain that others have done to them, but human nature prevails.