[sudo-discuss] cuddling it

[GtwoG PublicOhOne]

Yo's-

I like what y'all wrote. 

(Speaking of language, "yo" comes from the punk rock subculture, and is
useful as a nongendered second-person pronoun, with "yos" or "yo's" as
second-person plural.  "Y'all" comes from South-eastern US culture as
second-person plural, to differentiate from the generic "you" which has
the problem of not distinguishing between singular and plural.  Both of
these are "organic" to their respective origins, and have become
"generic" enough to be adopted by anyone without having troublesome
connotations or implications.)

Alcides: 

Agreed, best to avoid coming up with slang that suggests earlier slang
that had problematic connotations.  Though, where it's organic to a
culture, I'd leave it up to the folks in that culture to determine for
themselves (e.g. reclaiming of slur-words as empowerment-words). 

Lingo Raffle sounds like an interesting idea, and in addition to doing
it as a deliberate exercise, I'd submit that you just coined a meme that
can be used more widely:  For example someone uses a word, someone else
modifies it, then they recognize they're "playing Lingo Raffle" and try
to develop the word or idea further in a way that expresses what they
mean without causing unintended consequences.

Rachel:

Agreed, persons who are not members of a particular group shouldn't use
language that the group is wrestling with and trying to reclaim from a
previous oppressive use.  This, even with close friends, unless they
volunteer that it's OK or otherwise invite you in. 

Anthony:

If the Catholic church was indeed created on the premise that Jews
killed Jesus, that's one of the grand obscene ironies in history: Jesus
himself was Jewish and thought of himself as basically a radical Rabbi. 
I know you know this, so my point here is to say that modern Christians
can deliberately reject and repudiate the "Jews killed Jesus" meme.  The
fact that we all have dirt on our hands (see below) doesn't mean we
can't attempt to wash it off. 

Eddan:

I didn't mean to suggest that all attempts to be "edgy" or "provocative"
were always doomed to backlash or should be avoided.  One just has to be
mindful, reflective, cautious, and deliberate, rather than "acting out"
or "expressing oneself (thoughtlessly)."  Anthony's fictional work,
published as a graphic novel, involved much deliberation, thinking
ahead, weighing ideas and their potential impacts; this I know because
we discussed it in some depth when he was working on it.

By "organic" I mean, arising out of the cultures/subcultures that are
"home" to you.  That is, it's always OK to use language that you've come
to in that way, with the exception of language that's hurtful to
others.  But cultural cross-pollination takes its own time: sometimes
very fast (as when English rock bands in the mid 20th century planted a
lot of memes in American culture), sometimes very slowly (racial and
gender discrimination are still huge problems here, certain words that
attempt to overcome those forms of oppression have tended to percolate
through the general culture more slowly). 

Rachel/Anthony:

"It is simply my intent to be heard," is straightforward and
unambiguous: it's a demand for empathy and understanding, and it's valid
in and of itself. 

Though, when used in conjunction with language such as "it's not my
intent here to freely exchange ideas," the latter language can be
confusing:  it can be interpreted to mean "I'm not interested in
starting another digressive debate," or it can be interpreted to mean "I
don't care what you have to say" or "you should not discuss this."  How
it's interpreted depends on one's own mood, so it's helpful to check
one's own mood before assuming the mood the other person intended. 

Other stuff:

As Americans we _all_ have complex histories of how we got here and how
our ancestors struggled to build their lives here.  Whether by crossing
the Bering Strait (First Nations peoples), or on ships from England
(religious dissidents) or on ships in chains (African and Caribbean
peoples as slaves), or on ships landing at Ellis Island (Irish,
Italians, European Jews, others fleeing hunger and oppression in
Europe), or on ships landing at San Francisco (Asian immigrants), or
hiking across a dangerous border in the blazing heat (Mexican and
Central American immigrants and refugees), or whatever.  All of our
ancestors have faced the struggle to survive, whether against natural
calamities (pestilences and famines) or catastrophes caused by other
humans (slavery, war). 

And, nobody's hands are clean.  The religious dissidents who were
persecuted in England found freedom here and then turned around and
persecuted the First Nations peoples.  The immigrants in the early 20th
century encountered discrimination in employment:  "No Irish" and "No
Italians."  The genocide of the First Nations and the enslavement of
African and Caribbean peoples, are the Original Sins of America,
something we can only try to overcome but never erase.  Each immigrant
group that "made it" and then turned its collective back on the next
boatload, repeated the history of forgetting its own history. 

These dynamics continue to this day, with the oppression of Mexican and
Central American immigrants (and you can be sure that the Oligarchy
_wants_ to keep that immigration illegal, specifically to exploit the
hell out of them), and the continued oppression of women (e.g. the
candidate for public office in 2012 who went on and on about what
constitutes "legitimate" (criminal) rape, this in the context of
attempting to deny the right to freedom of choice about abortion). 

Our hands are also dirty ecologically: take a look at the Mineral Baby
drawing I sent a link to yesterday, and think about the sheer quantities
of materials each of us consumes in our lifetimes.  Recognize that
although we are 7% of the world's population, we consume 28% of the
world's resources: thus _we_ ourselves are overpopulation due to our
overconsumption, which is pushing the planet toward ecological
catastrophes that are true existential threats to our entire species.

But the point of acknowledging the sins of one's ancestors (e.g.
genocide and enslavement), or the sins of one's own circumstances (e.g.
overpopulation and overconsumption), or the sins of one's own life and
choices (e.g. lapses of empathy & thoughtfulness), isn't to wallow in
the grief of guilt and shame, or to work up a righteous rage, or to spin
frantically or get frozen.  The point of all of these recognitions &
acknowledgements is to apply thoughtfulness and mindfulness, empathy and
understanding, toward the goal of making peace, practicing equality, and
reformatting the cultural hard-drive to face the realities of our times
and the times ahead.

Problem-oriented thinking, that keeps one's attention stuck on "the
problem," is hardly as productive as solution-oriented thinking, that
focuses attention on building and using solutions.  Civil engineers
designing rail and road infrastructure in the Bay Area don't spend their
days wringing their hands over the cosmic injustice of the Hayward Fault
being right next to and under their cities.  Instead they roll up their
sleeves like good hackers, and figure out how much steel and concrete
are needed, and in what geometric configurations, to build
infrastructure that will stand up to a major earthquake.

-G.