I support hate speech laws, and I'm the only person I know who does. Unfortunately, I've never been able to articulate usefully why exactly I do support hate speech laws. However, the more I think and learn about it, and the more I'm exposed to the efforts of everyone I know to convince me otherwise, the more I become convinced that hate speech laws are a good idea. But I still can't articulate why. So I'm going to braindump around the concept and see what I can come up with. You can try to debate me if you want, but you're totally going to win right now because my thoughts aren't words yet.
1. There's a parenting technique whereby siblings are to be left to sort out their interpersonal problems among themselves I've blogged about my experience with it here. The problem for me is that what I wanted was to be left alone. It didn't hurt anyone, it didn't demand anything of anyone. But what my sister wanted was apparently to bother me, to stop me from having privacy, to make sure that I didn't get what I wanted. The same thing with my bullies. Leave me alone, either work civilly with me or ignore me in class, let me read my book. But what they wanted apparently was to bother me. What I wanted had no impact on anyone else; what they wanted was specifically to bother me. But this technique of letting kids sort out their own interpersonal problems treated them both as equally valid. It didn't give any credit to the fact that I wasn't hurting anyone, I wasn't bothering anyone. Because they did want to hurt and bother, they were good at it; because I didn't want to hurt and bother, I was bad at it. Therefore, they always won, and the net result was that someone was hurt and bothered. Which is, objectively, a negative outcome, whereas if I had been left alone the outcome would have been neutral or perhaps even positive.
My child-self didn't have these negative skills of hurt and bothering, but she did have the positive skills of amusing herself quietly without hurting or bothering. In a society, these are excellent, helpful, even productive skills to have, and if our child society had been mediated by adults, my child-self would have been left alone to be productive and our little corner of society would have been better for it. But when kids are left to their unmediated anarchy, these positive skills are worthless and the negative outcomes prevail, to the detriment of all but the lowest common denominator.
There needs to be…something, some way of mediating discourse to prevent the people with the best bullying skills from winning just because they have the best bullying skills. There needs to be some way of giving more credit or weight to positions that are productive as opposed to positions that are harmful. There needs to be some way of creating a public environment in which people can't bully their way to credibility. Without this, we may as well be back on the playground.
2. Go read Death or Cake and them come back here (this is an archive.org page and the formatting is messed, so you have to scroll down about halfway before the content starts). In this particular article they're talking about US political parties, but let's take it as broader interpretation: the contingent calling for Cake is being opposed by a contingent calling for Death. This reminded me of something I wrote during the last municipal strike. It uses up a lot of time and energy and bandwidth and column space and airtime to have to constantly counter shouts of "Death! Death!" It's draining, and it's preventing us from being productive. Maybe Cake isn't the optimal solution, but all the energy we're putting into countering calls for Death is preventing us from being able to to build a better cake, or maybe a pie instead.
We need…something, some way of taking Death off the table, so we can examine Cake objectively. How do we make it work for vegans and diabetics? I have a great recipe for gluten-free cookies! What if there was a nice salad? We can't do this when we're frantically trying to negotiate down to a maiming.
3. A while back, I read this article by a US columnist on Canadian hate speech laws, and I got the impression that he isn't seeing something that's apparent to me. I'm still not able to fully articulate my reaction (although I can point to the exact part of my brain where it occurs), but I think at least part of it is that the concept of hate speech is far more closely circumscribed than this columnist - or, I think, people who are opposed to hate speech in general - realize. You can't just point at someone saying something you don't like and scream "Hate speech!" and get them in trouble. And any idea with some actual non-hate substance to it can totally be expressed in a way that doesn't constitute hate speech.
I don't have on hand any real examples of hate speech with substance beneath, so I'll try to explain this using the Death or Cake example. Suppose that, rather than simply shouting "Death! Death!", the Death contingent was saying "You know, we have a bit of an overpopulation problem here…" We could work with that. We could start talking about improving access to family planning or introducing voluntary euthanasia options. It would not only save a whole lot of time and energy and yelling, but also keep anyone from being maimed in the name of "reasonable" compromise.
That is part (not all) of the nuance of what constitutes hate speech. "Death! Death! Death to Those People!" is hate speech. "We have an overpopulation problem. " is not. That's part of why the more I think about it, the more I support the existence of hate speech laws. It's a little step in the general direction of giving a bit more weight to productive positions. It's a little step towards taking Death off the table so we can focus on the real issue of controlling overpopulation while keeping the existing population from starving. It stops people from being able to go around doing harm just because they're bigger and louder like the bullies. And maybe if my bullies had been forced to say what it was they wanted from me, why exactly they wouldn't just leave me alone and what exactly they hoped to accomplish, maybe we could have had a situation where everyone was happier and no one was bothered.
4. When I say that any idea with non-hate substance can be expressed in a way that doesn't constitute hate speech, some of you are probably thinking "But not everyone is as good with words as you are! How can you say - and this in a blog post full of 'I can't quite articulate' - that people should get in trouble just because they can't express the precise connotation they need?" But that's how the rest of the world works. If I want to compliment a subordinate on her outfit, it's incumbent upon me to do so in a way that cannot be interpreted as sexual harassment. If I joke to the woman waiting in front of me in line that we should shoplift our purchases and then it turns out she's a police officer, it's incumbent upon me to do so in a way that makes it clear I'm not actually planning to shoplift. If I want to tease you about something, it's incumbent upon me to do so in a way that isn't cruel. So why should the people making the most hateful statements in our collective discourse get a bye?
5. Hate speech laws are to free speech as libel/slander laws are to freedom of the press.
6. As I've written about before somewhere, I do well in a society, but wouldn't do well in anarchy or a survivalist situation. I've found something I'm good at, and someone pays me money to do that, and then I can trade that money for things I need. In exchange for contributing what I can and keeping out of everyone else's way the rest of the time, I have enough food and shelter that keeps the bugs away and time and space to learn and think and grow. And a lot of the reason why this works is because of laws. Because we have laws, my employer pays me what's due to me, my landlord doesn't kick me out or raise my rent every month, the grocery store sells me food at the posted price and the food isn't poisonous, etc. This allows people like me who aren't good at fighting for their very survival to participate and even thrive, and it also allows our society as a whole to ascend Maslow's pyramid. I think hate speech laws do the same thing for discourse. It takes death off the table so we can work on building a better cake while also solving the overpopulation problem, all without anyone getting maimed along the way.
That's all the words I have at the moment, and it feels like somewhere around 20-30% of what's in my brain. More later.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
How to introduce resistance into Wii Fit exercises
Wii Fit suggests that for certain strength-training exercises, you might want to introduce resistance once you've gotten used to the exercise.
Problem: it's hard to hold a weight/waterbottle/whatever in your hand while you're holding the Wii controller in your hand, and it won't count your reps if you don't have the controller in your hand. And holding both the controller and the weight in the same hand makes it difficult to maintain your grip on the weight, which is a wee bit unsafe.
Solution: use an elastic to strap the controller to the weight. Hold the weight and do the reps normally. This way the Wii controller will still count the reps, but you don't have to wrap your hand around a controller AND a weight.
Problem: it's hard to hold a weight/waterbottle/whatever in your hand while you're holding the Wii controller in your hand, and it won't count your reps if you don't have the controller in your hand. And holding both the controller and the weight in the same hand makes it difficult to maintain your grip on the weight, which is a wee bit unsafe.
Solution: use an elastic to strap the controller to the weight. Hold the weight and do the reps normally. This way the Wii controller will still count the reps, but you don't have to wrap your hand around a controller AND a weight.
Things my parents did right
In some past blog posts, and possibly some future ones that I have festering, I've written about things my parents did wrong. I write about these not for the express purpose of dissing my parents, but rather a) because they're the best examples that I have readily available, or b) because it explains something about the way I think or act. I write best using examples that are very immediate to me, and this is what I've got.
But for the moment, I thought I'd counterbalance this by sharing some of the things my parents did right.
- They taught me to read and count and do arithmetic at a very early age. I was started reading at 2 and could count to 100 at 3.
- Even though there was no precedent in either of their families for people having their own rooms, they made sure each of us could have our own room.
- They took me to the library whenever I wanted and let me check out any books I wanted in whatever quantities the library would permit.
- They let me experiment with the computer as soon as I could reach the keyboard. I was trying to write programs from a book at the age of 5 or play my father's computer games at 8, and they just...let me.
- When I had computer problems, my father would walk me through troubleshooting rather than fixing it himself, so it quickly became second nature.
- They let me cook experimentally whenever I wanted, and my mother did enough of the cleanup that I wouldn't be discouraged from trying to learn to cook by the cleanup burden.
- I was allowed to go for bike rides on my own at the age of 10. I wasn't brave enough to wander far, but it gave me a bit of a sense of independence and some time alone to think.
- They often (although not as often as they should have) simply called my bluff when I wanted to try something ridiculous. I wanted to eat an apple when I was a baby without any teeth, so my mother handed me an apple to see what would happen. When my 6-year-old self decided she wanted to learn calculus (because that's what my mother taught), I was given an introductory calculus textbook.
- They gave us comprehensive books dealing with puberty, including a full range of sex ed information. Although our family reads from the library, they bought these books in a bookstore and gave us each our own copies to keep in our respective rooms, so we could look at them privately without anyone knowing and get factual information without having to worry about awkwardness or embarrassment. This caused me to develop my own standards for intimacy and protection without the influence of anyone else's opinion - standards that still serve me well to this day.
- They did a pretty decent job of butting out of my educational decisions as I progressed through high school and into university and allowing me to manage it as an adult.
- As I approach 30, I find they're finally respecting my adulthood. My finances are good, so they don't comment on the price of my shoes. If they discovered I wasn't sleeping alone, they'd (superfically, at least) treat it like none of their business. If I say I need a sleep-in or an hour on the internet or a glass of wine, they take me at my word rather than trying to arbitrarily ration or convince or coerce me otherwise.
But for the moment, I thought I'd counterbalance this by sharing some of the things my parents did right.
- They taught me to read and count and do arithmetic at a very early age. I was started reading at 2 and could count to 100 at 3.
- Even though there was no precedent in either of their families for people having their own rooms, they made sure each of us could have our own room.
- They took me to the library whenever I wanted and let me check out any books I wanted in whatever quantities the library would permit.
- They let me experiment with the computer as soon as I could reach the keyboard. I was trying to write programs from a book at the age of 5 or play my father's computer games at 8, and they just...let me.
- When I had computer problems, my father would walk me through troubleshooting rather than fixing it himself, so it quickly became second nature.
- They let me cook experimentally whenever I wanted, and my mother did enough of the cleanup that I wouldn't be discouraged from trying to learn to cook by the cleanup burden.
- I was allowed to go for bike rides on my own at the age of 10. I wasn't brave enough to wander far, but it gave me a bit of a sense of independence and some time alone to think.
- They often (although not as often as they should have) simply called my bluff when I wanted to try something ridiculous. I wanted to eat an apple when I was a baby without any teeth, so my mother handed me an apple to see what would happen. When my 6-year-old self decided she wanted to learn calculus (because that's what my mother taught), I was given an introductory calculus textbook.
- They gave us comprehensive books dealing with puberty, including a full range of sex ed information. Although our family reads from the library, they bought these books in a bookstore and gave us each our own copies to keep in our respective rooms, so we could look at them privately without anyone knowing and get factual information without having to worry about awkwardness or embarrassment. This caused me to develop my own standards for intimacy and protection without the influence of anyone else's opinion - standards that still serve me well to this day.
- They did a pretty decent job of butting out of my educational decisions as I progressed through high school and into university and allowing me to manage it as an adult.
- As I approach 30, I find they're finally respecting my adulthood. My finances are good, so they don't comment on the price of my shoes. If they discovered I wasn't sleeping alone, they'd (superfically, at least) treat it like none of their business. If I say I need a sleep-in or an hour on the internet or a glass of wine, they take me at my word rather than trying to arbitrarily ration or convince or coerce me otherwise.
Good morning!
Here's what I'm doing today and why.
There's going to be a bit of a delay getting started, because I decided this year's blogathon should also include writing emails to my elected representatives (I still haven't done the ones I should have gotten out in the wake of the municipal election!) so I'm hoping to knock those off first. But if everything goes smoothly, there should be lots more coming throughout the day.
There's going to be a bit of a delay getting started, because I decided this year's blogathon should also include writing emails to my elected representatives (I still haven't done the ones I should have gotten out in the wake of the municipal election!) so I'm hoping to knock those off first. But if everything goes smoothly, there should be lots more coming throughout the day.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Things They Should Invent: prominently indicate on monuments the year they were built
Disclaimer for this post: I saw something, I had an emotional reaction to it, and that ultimately led to an invention that I'm blogging. I don't have enough knowledge to know if my emotional reaction was founded or not and haven't done the research, but my point for this post is to explain the reasoning for the invention.
Walking down University Avenue, I noticed that the great big war memorial thing has old-fashioned colonial names for places in Africa on it. I thought it was a generic cenotaph - never really gave this much critical thought - but it turns out it's a Boer War memorial.
That makes me vaguely uncomfortable. From what little I remember from history class, my impression of the Boer War is that it was hella colonialist, with a goal of claiming or keeping parts of Africa for Britain. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of a massive epic monument to warmongering in the name of colonialism and the glory of the empire displayed so prominently in my city, especially since my Toronto welcomes newcomers from all over the world, including the parts of Africa memorialized here by being carved in stone under their colonial names.
But, at the same time, it wouldn't do at all to take the monument down or edit it. It is a memorial to actual specific dead people who still have living descendants. It's also a well-executed piece of public art, and a historical artifact from the Victorian period. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for letting a monument stay where it is.
I understand why this heroic colonialist sentiment was expressed at the turn of the 20th century, and I'd have no qualms about the monument if it was clear "This is what people thought in the early 1900s." It's actually important to know what and how they thought of colonial wars back then. But my concern is that it seems, to my eye at least, to be saying that we still think the sentiment is unwaveringly relevant and appropriate. If only there was some way to put an asterisk on monuments saying "The ideas expressed here are those of their era and do not necessarily reflect the society of today."
So here's the solution: Every time they put up a monument, they include a readily visible cornerstone or plaque clearly indicating the year when it was commissioned or erected. It would work like the cornerstone on a building. You know how if you go past an old building you sometimes think "Hey, an interestingly old building!" and look for a cornerstone to see how old it is, but if you live or work in the old building it's just your home or your office and its age isn't especially relevant? The monument would work the same way. If it's still relevant and pertinent to observers and therefore fulfilling its original intended function, no one will pay any particular attention to the cornerstone. But if time passes and the monument becomes less relevant, the cornerstone will mark it as from the past, and anyone wondering "WTF, Rhodesia?" will see that it's over 100 years old and interpret it as a historical document.
Walking down University Avenue, I noticed that the great big war memorial thing has old-fashioned colonial names for places in Africa on it. I thought it was a generic cenotaph - never really gave this much critical thought - but it turns out it's a Boer War memorial.
That makes me vaguely uncomfortable. From what little I remember from history class, my impression of the Boer War is that it was hella colonialist, with a goal of claiming or keeping parts of Africa for Britain. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of a massive epic monument to warmongering in the name of colonialism and the glory of the empire displayed so prominently in my city, especially since my Toronto welcomes newcomers from all over the world, including the parts of Africa memorialized here by being carved in stone under their colonial names.
But, at the same time, it wouldn't do at all to take the monument down or edit it. It is a memorial to actual specific dead people who still have living descendants. It's also a well-executed piece of public art, and a historical artifact from the Victorian period. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for letting a monument stay where it is.
I understand why this heroic colonialist sentiment was expressed at the turn of the 20th century, and I'd have no qualms about the monument if it was clear "This is what people thought in the early 1900s." It's actually important to know what and how they thought of colonial wars back then. But my concern is that it seems, to my eye at least, to be saying that we still think the sentiment is unwaveringly relevant and appropriate. If only there was some way to put an asterisk on monuments saying "The ideas expressed here are those of their era and do not necessarily reflect the society of today."
So here's the solution: Every time they put up a monument, they include a readily visible cornerstone or plaque clearly indicating the year when it was commissioned or erected. It would work like the cornerstone on a building. You know how if you go past an old building you sometimes think "Hey, an interestingly old building!" and look for a cornerstone to see how old it is, but if you live or work in the old building it's just your home or your office and its age isn't especially relevant? The monument would work the same way. If it's still relevant and pertinent to observers and therefore fulfilling its original intended function, no one will pay any particular attention to the cornerstone. But if time passes and the monument becomes less relevant, the cornerstone will mark it as from the past, and anyone wondering "WTF, Rhodesia?" will see that it's over 100 years old and interpret it as a historical document.
Monday, November 08, 2010
How long a tube of Touche Eclat lasts
When used 5 or 6 times a week to cover undereye circles and the occasional zit, a tube of Touche Eclat lasts six months.
Just in case anyone was googling for that :)
Just in case anyone was googling for that :)
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Analogy for different commitment preferences
There was recently a wee kerfuffle in the blogosphere when Stephen Fry said that women like sex less than men, because women don't go around cruising for random anonymous sex.
I didn't think this was worth blogging about in and of itself, but this morning in the shower it gave me an analogy.
Think of different commitment styles as different sex acts, which they kind of are on the emotional level. There's all kinds of sex acts out there. You probably have your favourites, and then some others that are enjoyable enough but not absolutely geil, and then others that you don't particularly mind but don't especially mourn their absence, and then some others where frankly you'd rather go to bed alone with a good book.
Commitment preferences work the same way. Some people like it better with only one partner, some people like it better with many. Some people think having a personal relationship on top of the sexual relationship complicates things, some people think nothing could be sexier.
So to say that someone likes sex less because they have no interest in random anonymous sex is like saying someone likes sex less because they have no interest in, say, figging. (Don't google it while at work).
I didn't think this was worth blogging about in and of itself, but this morning in the shower it gave me an analogy.
Think of different commitment styles as different sex acts, which they kind of are on the emotional level. There's all kinds of sex acts out there. You probably have your favourites, and then some others that are enjoyable enough but not absolutely geil, and then others that you don't particularly mind but don't especially mourn their absence, and then some others where frankly you'd rather go to bed alone with a good book.
Commitment preferences work the same way. Some people like it better with only one partner, some people like it better with many. Some people think having a personal relationship on top of the sexual relationship complicates things, some people think nothing could be sexier.
So to say that someone likes sex less because they have no interest in random anonymous sex is like saying someone likes sex less because they have no interest in, say, figging. (Don't google it while at work).
Friday, November 05, 2010
Building a better It Gets Better
I've been reading some of the criticisms of the It Gets Better project, and I have some thoughts, not all of which are solutions.
It's biased! It's anti-rural, anti-religious, and assumes higher education is right for everyone.
An effective It Gets Better has to tell the speaker's own truth. We each have to describe our own experiences, with our target audience being our younger selves. We simply aren't qualified to tell people whose needs or truths are different from our own how to make it better - we would descend into meaningless platitudes by attempting to do so, and troubled kids have already heard more than their fair share or meaningless platitudes.
My truth, as I have experienced it, is that leaving the church makes it get better, living in the city makes it get better, going to university is the easiest path to that.
My younger self would have needed to hear this message. It never would have occurred to her that the city could be better. She thought the city would be full of Big Mean City People, and if people were this mean to her in a Nice Friendly Small Town, surely they'd be even meaner in a Great Big Mean City. She had constantly been told that university is so much harder than high school and that your teen years are The Best Years Of Your Life and had never once been exposed to the idea that it might get easier. While it's obvious and practically cliche to us as adults, especially to the wired, savvy, meme-perpetuating demographic that is readily influenced by Savage Love, it was completely foreign to my younger self and this message would have been new and helpful to her.
If the It Gets Better project lacks a diversity of experiences, the solution is not for those of us for whom the urban atheist university route was helpful to STFU. The solution is for other people whose It Gets Better took a different path to speak the fuck up and tell their younger selves what worked for them. If it can be made to get better while staying the small town where you grew up, or while being religious, or without going to university, that's fantastic! But I personally don't know how to make that happen - I've only had the one set of life experience - so the people who do know other paths to make it get better need to chime in.
There's also the fact that that the original intention of It Gets Better is to prevent suicide. I haven't taken this stance myself because I believe in people's right to commit suicide if they want to, but if that truly is our goal then maybe we should be focusing on what will give kids a glimpse of the better rather than on perfect long-term planning. Just getting them into another environment where they aren't treated with contempt will help. For example, under normal circumstances you might not advise a kid to take on debt to go to university in a large expensive city when they aren't sure what they want to study or if university is even right for them. However, if that kid is bullied and suicidal, sending them on full OSAP to whatever Toronto post-secondary institution they can get into with permission to transfer or change their minds later guilt-free may well save their lives. Even if their course of study isn't right for them, they get to spend some time in a less judgemental environment that's away from prying eyes and conducive to experimenting and finding oneself. If this isn't the most optimal route, they can at least have a reprieve from all the bullying and judgement while they figure out what is. If you know another route that doesn't involve such a debt load, put it out there! In the meantime, we are sharing what we know.
But it doesn't get better for everyone!
If it hasn't gotten better for you, I am truly sorry. This is very much a problem and it very much needs to be solved, we just need a space outside of the It Gets Better project in which to do it. The people for whom it hasn't gotten better need to work on articulating why it hasn't gotten better for them, and then the It Gets Better community as a whole needs to work on figuring out what we can do to make it get better for everyone. This is important. Someone with influence needs to set it up. Because we do actually want it to get better for everyone.
However, within the original mandate of helping bullied kids, those of us for whom it has gotten better (my younger self never thought she'd be in a position to utter something so privilegy!) still do need to share the how and why, because it will be helpful to at least some troubled kids. We aren't trying to neener and we aren't trying to marginalize you, we're just trying to help the people whom our truth can help right this minute. We'd also very much like to help make it better for you too, and for everyone. Let's work together to figure out how.
Kids shouldn't have to wait for years and years for it to get better. We should make it better for them now!
I totally agree! I'd love to make it better for them now! No one should have to suffer what my younger self did! The problem is, I don't know how to make it better for kids right now. I haven't the slightest clue. If you can tell me, I'll do it. If there's brainstorming going on somewhere, I'd be happy to dive right in if I can be of help.
Blogging and tweeting my truths about It Gets Better for the benefit of kids who can identify with my younger self are things I can do right now, so I am doing them. I don't know of anything I can do right now to make it better for today's kids right now, so I haven't done anything. I would love to do something or to throw money at something to make it better instantly and if you tell me I'll do it. But I don't have that information at the moment, so I'm doing what little I can.
This reminds me of a problem I've noticed not just in It Gets Better, but in life in general. It Gets Better is telling kids that if they're bullied, they should tell an adult. Do adults know what to do if a kid comes to them saying they're being bullied? I don't know what to do and I get to be an adult. My parents didn't know what to do. Do teachers know what to do? Mine couldn't make the bullying stop, although there's certainly room for teachers' skills to have improved in the last 15-20 years. This happens in other areas of life too. When you're a kid, they tell you that if you find a needle you should tell an adult. As an adult, I don't know what to do if you find a needle. Any awareness campaign that tells kids to tell an adult needs a partner campaign that tells the adults what to do!
It's biased! It's anti-rural, anti-religious, and assumes higher education is right for everyone.
An effective It Gets Better has to tell the speaker's own truth. We each have to describe our own experiences, with our target audience being our younger selves. We simply aren't qualified to tell people whose needs or truths are different from our own how to make it better - we would descend into meaningless platitudes by attempting to do so, and troubled kids have already heard more than their fair share or meaningless platitudes.
My truth, as I have experienced it, is that leaving the church makes it get better, living in the city makes it get better, going to university is the easiest path to that.
My younger self would have needed to hear this message. It never would have occurred to her that the city could be better. She thought the city would be full of Big Mean City People, and if people were this mean to her in a Nice Friendly Small Town, surely they'd be even meaner in a Great Big Mean City. She had constantly been told that university is so much harder than high school and that your teen years are The Best Years Of Your Life and had never once been exposed to the idea that it might get easier. While it's obvious and practically cliche to us as adults, especially to the wired, savvy, meme-perpetuating demographic that is readily influenced by Savage Love, it was completely foreign to my younger self and this message would have been new and helpful to her.
If the It Gets Better project lacks a diversity of experiences, the solution is not for those of us for whom the urban atheist university route was helpful to STFU. The solution is for other people whose It Gets Better took a different path to speak the fuck up and tell their younger selves what worked for them. If it can be made to get better while staying the small town where you grew up, or while being religious, or without going to university, that's fantastic! But I personally don't know how to make that happen - I've only had the one set of life experience - so the people who do know other paths to make it get better need to chime in.
There's also the fact that that the original intention of It Gets Better is to prevent suicide. I haven't taken this stance myself because I believe in people's right to commit suicide if they want to, but if that truly is our goal then maybe we should be focusing on what will give kids a glimpse of the better rather than on perfect long-term planning. Just getting them into another environment where they aren't treated with contempt will help. For example, under normal circumstances you might not advise a kid to take on debt to go to university in a large expensive city when they aren't sure what they want to study or if university is even right for them. However, if that kid is bullied and suicidal, sending them on full OSAP to whatever Toronto post-secondary institution they can get into with permission to transfer or change their minds later guilt-free may well save their lives. Even if their course of study isn't right for them, they get to spend some time in a less judgemental environment that's away from prying eyes and conducive to experimenting and finding oneself. If this isn't the most optimal route, they can at least have a reprieve from all the bullying and judgement while they figure out what is. If you know another route that doesn't involve such a debt load, put it out there! In the meantime, we are sharing what we know.
But it doesn't get better for everyone!
If it hasn't gotten better for you, I am truly sorry. This is very much a problem and it very much needs to be solved, we just need a space outside of the It Gets Better project in which to do it. The people for whom it hasn't gotten better need to work on articulating why it hasn't gotten better for them, and then the It Gets Better community as a whole needs to work on figuring out what we can do to make it get better for everyone. This is important. Someone with influence needs to set it up. Because we do actually want it to get better for everyone.
However, within the original mandate of helping bullied kids, those of us for whom it has gotten better (my younger self never thought she'd be in a position to utter something so privilegy!) still do need to share the how and why, because it will be helpful to at least some troubled kids. We aren't trying to neener and we aren't trying to marginalize you, we're just trying to help the people whom our truth can help right this minute. We'd also very much like to help make it better for you too, and for everyone. Let's work together to figure out how.
Kids shouldn't have to wait for years and years for it to get better. We should make it better for them now!
I totally agree! I'd love to make it better for them now! No one should have to suffer what my younger self did! The problem is, I don't know how to make it better for kids right now. I haven't the slightest clue. If you can tell me, I'll do it. If there's brainstorming going on somewhere, I'd be happy to dive right in if I can be of help.
Blogging and tweeting my truths about It Gets Better for the benefit of kids who can identify with my younger self are things I can do right now, so I am doing them. I don't know of anything I can do right now to make it better for today's kids right now, so I haven't done anything. I would love to do something or to throw money at something to make it better instantly and if you tell me I'll do it. But I don't have that information at the moment, so I'm doing what little I can.
This reminds me of a problem I've noticed not just in It Gets Better, but in life in general. It Gets Better is telling kids that if they're bullied, they should tell an adult. Do adults know what to do if a kid comes to them saying they're being bullied? I don't know what to do and I get to be an adult. My parents didn't know what to do. Do teachers know what to do? Mine couldn't make the bullying stop, although there's certainly room for teachers' skills to have improved in the last 15-20 years. This happens in other areas of life too. When you're a kid, they tell you that if you find a needle you should tell an adult. As an adult, I don't know what to do if you find a needle. Any awareness campaign that tells kids to tell an adult needs a partner campaign that tells the adults what to do!
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Resentment
My father emailed me a piece of language-related humour that I first heard half a lifetime ago, when I first started studying the language in question. My thought upon receiving this: "Does he seriously think I've never heard that before?"
That brought back a memory. I was a preschooler and had just been introduced to the concept of jokes. Like for the first time ever. Like at the "Why did the chicken cross the road?" level. So I'm gleefully telling basic, childish jokes to my parents (in my capacity as a child who had been introduced to the concept of joke-telling that very day), and my father says to me "Do you seriously think I've never heard these before?"
Of course, I didn't reply to my father's email that way. I just disregarded it for a time, and then replied with a bit of internet humour that vaguely intersects with his interests once I thought of one.
Then I realized that my father was my age when I was born, which means he was older than I am now on that day when I first learned to tell jokes.
Which means that he should damn well have developed the people skills not to reply to a joke that way!!!
It's not the fact that he shot down my childish jokes that's making me resentful, it's the fact that this (or, more accurately, the cumulative effect of a lifetime of this in my home life) led me to believe that's the normal way to respond to things. Which severely hindered my social life, as you might imagine!
I was into my 20s before I began developing the skills to approach social interactions with anything other than "Neener, neener, look how much smarter than you I am!" As you've probably noticed, those skills are still far from perfect. And they haven't become a habit yet. I have to make a deliberate, mindful effort to employ them, all the while fighting to supress the lifetime of instinct and habit that are still telling me to go for the neener neener.
Which is exactly what ended up happening when I made an ass of myself in front of Eddie. Giddy with endorphins and fangirl joy, I walked up to the greatest inspiration of my life, looked him in the eye, and neenered.
What should have been a joyful memory I can lie back and wallow in is now a humiliating memory that rears up and slaps me in the face at random times. My first (only?) chance to speak with my true, positive role model was ruined because of the influence of this negative role model I was unwillingly saddled with in my formative years.
And he doesn't even get the slap in the face of "Do you seriously think I've never heard that before?" because I want to be a better person than that.
Although I don't have it in me to be enough of a better person not to write this blog post.
And the tragic irony of it all is if I didn't have this resentment about being mis-socialized simmering in my brain, with this spectre of humiliation at making an ass of myself lurking around ready to rear up and slap me when I least expect it, I'd probably have the mental energy to write something that would make everyone - and Eddie too - notice and appreciate how smart I am.
That brought back a memory. I was a preschooler and had just been introduced to the concept of jokes. Like for the first time ever. Like at the "Why did the chicken cross the road?" level. So I'm gleefully telling basic, childish jokes to my parents (in my capacity as a child who had been introduced to the concept of joke-telling that very day), and my father says to me "Do you seriously think I've never heard these before?"
Of course, I didn't reply to my father's email that way. I just disregarded it for a time, and then replied with a bit of internet humour that vaguely intersects with his interests once I thought of one.
Then I realized that my father was my age when I was born, which means he was older than I am now on that day when I first learned to tell jokes.
Which means that he should damn well have developed the people skills not to reply to a joke that way!!!
It's not the fact that he shot down my childish jokes that's making me resentful, it's the fact that this (or, more accurately, the cumulative effect of a lifetime of this in my home life) led me to believe that's the normal way to respond to things. Which severely hindered my social life, as you might imagine!
I was into my 20s before I began developing the skills to approach social interactions with anything other than "Neener, neener, look how much smarter than you I am!" As you've probably noticed, those skills are still far from perfect. And they haven't become a habit yet. I have to make a deliberate, mindful effort to employ them, all the while fighting to supress the lifetime of instinct and habit that are still telling me to go for the neener neener.
Which is exactly what ended up happening when I made an ass of myself in front of Eddie. Giddy with endorphins and fangirl joy, I walked up to the greatest inspiration of my life, looked him in the eye, and neenered.
What should have been a joyful memory I can lie back and wallow in is now a humiliating memory that rears up and slaps me in the face at random times. My first (only?) chance to speak with my true, positive role model was ruined because of the influence of this negative role model I was unwillingly saddled with in my formative years.
And he doesn't even get the slap in the face of "Do you seriously think I've never heard that before?" because I want to be a better person than that.
Although I don't have it in me to be enough of a better person not to write this blog post.
And the tragic irony of it all is if I didn't have this resentment about being mis-socialized simmering in my brain, with this spectre of humiliation at making an ass of myself lurking around ready to rear up and slap me when I least expect it, I'd probably have the mental energy to write something that would make everyone - and Eddie too - notice and appreciate how smart I am.
Powerlessness and yelling and rudeness and job security and Toronto politics: messiest braindump ever
Last August, I read this Miss Conduct post about how rudeness comes from a lack of power.
My first thought was "This is HUGE! I must blog about it!" And I've had writer's block ever since. I know what I want to say but I can't make it into a blog post, so I'm just brute force braindumping. Each of these points should be developed into a couple hundred words, but I'll just spew now and maybe clean it up later. There's something in here, and I'm not going to get at it unless I braindump.
1. My first thought was about childhood. When you're a kid - or at least when I was a kid and based on my experience with other kids - you yell more. That's because you're powerless. You're completely at the mercy of the grownups and their rules. I've blogged about this many times before. As I became a proper grownup and especially because I started living alone, I found myself yelling much less. It's not that I became more polite, it's that I became better able to be polite. I had the [insert word that's halfway between "empowerment" and "agency"] to be polite, because I had the option of walking away.
2. This became even more pronounced when I got my first proper grownup Good Job. It was easier to be polite, and it was easier not to yell, because I was suddenly in a position that is, by general social standards, respectable. On one hand the world treated me with more respect, and on the other hand I had the security and the confidence, and, frankly, the trump card of paying my own way. More "power" (insofar as this can be considered power - it's more privilege but emotionally it fits the originally analogy) meant fewer people were aggravating me, fewer stresses were aggravating me, and it was way hella easier to be polite and not yell.
3. My second thought was about working in fast food when I was a teen. The restaurant was located in a poshish suburb, where people had big houses and fancy cars. And they yelled. Looking at it with adult retrospect, I can't see where they were coming from. Why would you yell at a fast food cashier? So you have to wait two minutes for fries, or you have to pull around away from the pay window, or someone accidentally drops your change. Why is that even on your radar? As an adult with a proper grownup job - albeit one that's nowhere near posh enough to buy big houses and cars - I can't even imagine caring. So why didn't money/power/privilege buy them the calm that it bought me?
4. At this point, I realized that I'd drifted away from rudeness vs. power and into yelling and anger vs. privilege and respect. But I know in my gut it's the same thing or closely related. So that's why this blog post got paralyzed way back in August.
5. And then Rob Ford got elected mayor of Toronto.
6. Rob Ford yells. People who are inclined to vote for Rob Ford think he's down-to-earth. In my corner of adulthood, down-to-earth people don't yell - that's what makes them down-to-earth. What are these people's lives like that their definition of down-to-earth includes yelling?
7. Rob Ford's target audience is skewed towards houses and cars, which, in Toronto, are hella expensive. They must, necessarily, have several times more money than I ever will. But they're angry. Why are they angry?
8. The non-selfish aspect of my personal politics is focused on Good Jobs. (The selfish aspect doesn't contradict this, it's just focused on very specific things that affect me personally.) I know, from my personal experience and those of my family and friends and everyone I know who's ever had a Good Job, that a Good Job is transformative. And, in my own experience, it's what makes the angry go away. And this might even be multi-generational. If I have a Good Job, and I'm not angry, then my kid not only has a secure environment to grow up in, but doesn't have to face generalized anger at the dinner table every evening, thus making them feel even more secure and less prone to anger themselves.
9. But the Rob Ford people, the people who are angry, are working against this politically. Why? Do they not know that Good Jobs make the angry go away? Do they already have Good Jobs (since they have all houses and cars and expensive things like that) that didn't make the angry go away? Do they not have Good Jobs but have somehow managed to acquire houses and cars that they now have to pay for and they're scared? But, if so, why are they trying to get rid of what few Good Jobs exist?
10. Then I read an article in the Globe and Mail on stress as a serious social-medical problem, and was struck by this quote:
That's what a Good Job does - resilience. It creates opportunities for a Plan B. If my glasses break, I can drop everything and get them fixed without running out of money or losing my job. If I get cancer, all I have to worry about is nausea and hair loss - I'm not going to lose my home or my job. It's less scary, less stressful, and ultimately means that there's less yelling in your life. And, politically, I want that for everyone. I've had a glimpse of it, and I want to share it. But my city seems to be run by people who are angry and yelly and stressed and scared, and yet want the opposite of this situation that creates resilience. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense.
11. I realize I have no right, authority, or credibility to go swooping in and saying "You voted wrong! I know better than you!" But what I'm saying here is my truth as I have lived and experienced it, as I have observed in those around me and those I admire from afar. Rudeness and anger and fear and yelling decrease as empowerment and agency and respect and social credibility and resilience increase, and all these things increase with good employment conditions.
12. Growing up, I'd probably yell at someone every other day. Now, I can't even think of the last time I yelled at anyone. I like this, and I want everyone else to have it too. But the people who look to me like they need it the most don't want anyone to have it.
I don't know what to do with this.
My first thought was "This is HUGE! I must blog about it!" And I've had writer's block ever since. I know what I want to say but I can't make it into a blog post, so I'm just brute force braindumping. Each of these points should be developed into a couple hundred words, but I'll just spew now and maybe clean it up later. There's something in here, and I'm not going to get at it unless I braindump.
1. My first thought was about childhood. When you're a kid - or at least when I was a kid and based on my experience with other kids - you yell more. That's because you're powerless. You're completely at the mercy of the grownups and their rules. I've blogged about this many times before. As I became a proper grownup and especially because I started living alone, I found myself yelling much less. It's not that I became more polite, it's that I became better able to be polite. I had the [insert word that's halfway between "empowerment" and "agency"] to be polite, because I had the option of walking away.
2. This became even more pronounced when I got my first proper grownup Good Job. It was easier to be polite, and it was easier not to yell, because I was suddenly in a position that is, by general social standards, respectable. On one hand the world treated me with more respect, and on the other hand I had the security and the confidence, and, frankly, the trump card of paying my own way. More "power" (insofar as this can be considered power - it's more privilege but emotionally it fits the originally analogy) meant fewer people were aggravating me, fewer stresses were aggravating me, and it was way hella easier to be polite and not yell.
3. My second thought was about working in fast food when I was a teen. The restaurant was located in a poshish suburb, where people had big houses and fancy cars. And they yelled. Looking at it with adult retrospect, I can't see where they were coming from. Why would you yell at a fast food cashier? So you have to wait two minutes for fries, or you have to pull around away from the pay window, or someone accidentally drops your change. Why is that even on your radar? As an adult with a proper grownup job - albeit one that's nowhere near posh enough to buy big houses and cars - I can't even imagine caring. So why didn't money/power/privilege buy them the calm that it bought me?
4. At this point, I realized that I'd drifted away from rudeness vs. power and into yelling and anger vs. privilege and respect. But I know in my gut it's the same thing or closely related. So that's why this blog post got paralyzed way back in August.
5. And then Rob Ford got elected mayor of Toronto.
6. Rob Ford yells. People who are inclined to vote for Rob Ford think he's down-to-earth. In my corner of adulthood, down-to-earth people don't yell - that's what makes them down-to-earth. What are these people's lives like that their definition of down-to-earth includes yelling?
7. Rob Ford's target audience is skewed towards houses and cars, which, in Toronto, are hella expensive. They must, necessarily, have several times more money than I ever will. But they're angry. Why are they angry?
8. The non-selfish aspect of my personal politics is focused on Good Jobs. (The selfish aspect doesn't contradict this, it's just focused on very specific things that affect me personally.) I know, from my personal experience and those of my family and friends and everyone I know who's ever had a Good Job, that a Good Job is transformative. And, in my own experience, it's what makes the angry go away. And this might even be multi-generational. If I have a Good Job, and I'm not angry, then my kid not only has a secure environment to grow up in, but doesn't have to face generalized anger at the dinner table every evening, thus making them feel even more secure and less prone to anger themselves.
9. But the Rob Ford people, the people who are angry, are working against this politically. Why? Do they not know that Good Jobs make the angry go away? Do they already have Good Jobs (since they have all houses and cars and expensive things like that) that didn't make the angry go away? Do they not have Good Jobs but have somehow managed to acquire houses and cars that they now have to pay for and they're scared? But, if so, why are they trying to get rid of what few Good Jobs exist?
10. Then I read an article in the Globe and Mail on stress as a serious social-medical problem, and was struck by this quote:
Combatting these feelings is not easy and begins with resilience. Just knowing you have a Plan B for any problem can often reduce the brain’s physical response to stress.
That's what a Good Job does - resilience. It creates opportunities for a Plan B. If my glasses break, I can drop everything and get them fixed without running out of money or losing my job. If I get cancer, all I have to worry about is nausea and hair loss - I'm not going to lose my home or my job. It's less scary, less stressful, and ultimately means that there's less yelling in your life. And, politically, I want that for everyone. I've had a glimpse of it, and I want to share it. But my city seems to be run by people who are angry and yelly and stressed and scared, and yet want the opposite of this situation that creates resilience. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense.
11. I realize I have no right, authority, or credibility to go swooping in and saying "You voted wrong! I know better than you!" But what I'm saying here is my truth as I have lived and experienced it, as I have observed in those around me and those I admire from afar. Rudeness and anger and fear and yelling decrease as empowerment and agency and respect and social credibility and resilience increase, and all these things increase with good employment conditions.
12. Growing up, I'd probably yell at someone every other day. Now, I can't even think of the last time I yelled at anyone. I like this, and I want everyone else to have it too. But the people who look to me like they need it the most don't want anyone to have it.
I don't know what to do with this.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Analogy for "Don't let it bother you"
I've repeatedly found myself in situations where someone tells me, in response to whatever is bothering me, "Don't let it bother you." As though I can just not let it bother me. As though I somehow had that ability but it never occurred to me to exercise it.
I've heard this from enough different people - and heard enough people state firsthand that they simply don't let something bother them - that I'm beginning to suspect there are people who have this ability, who can just...not let something bother them. But the fact remains that I don't have this ability, and if you want me to not let something bother me you're going to have to give me a step-by-step procedure. (I've been mentioning the need for a procedure for a couple of years so far, but no one has yet provided me with one.)
Here's an analogy: "Build a bridge!"
Suppose someone told me to build a bridge, by which they mean an actual proper bridge that cars and trucks and people can safely use, and by which they mean I should actually build it myself rather than commissioning or convincing professional bridge-builders to do it.
I know what a bridge is. I know what they look like, I've seen them before, I've even had the odd glimpse of a bridge in the process of being built. I know the benefits of a bridge. I've used them before. I'm well aware that it's far more difficult to cross a river or a ravine without a bridge. I know that if you have an expanse to cross, the presence of a bridge will make it far easier for everyone involved.
But I still have no idea how to go about building a bridge.
If you wanted to resolve this situation and get an actual real bridge built by me personally, there would simply be no point in nagging me to build a bridge, or convincing me of the benefits of a bridge. I already know that. What I'd need is basic, step-by-step instructions on how to build a bridge.
What do you do first? IRL I have no idea, but for the sake of argument let's say you start by putting up pillars. Okay, but how do you put up pillars? Where do you get the pillars from and/or how do you make them? Let's say the first step in putting up pillars is digging a hole to put them in. How big a hole? What do I dig it with? Where do I acquire the digging device and how do I operate it?
You'd have to go through this for every single step of the bridge-building process, or else the bridge isn't going to get built. If you leave me to figure it out myself, it's just going to make a mess and wreck stuff and inconvenience people.
Similarly, if you want me to not let something bother me, you're going to have to tell me how step by step. It's simply not going to work otherwise.
I've heard this from enough different people - and heard enough people state firsthand that they simply don't let something bother them - that I'm beginning to suspect there are people who have this ability, who can just...not let something bother them. But the fact remains that I don't have this ability, and if you want me to not let something bother me you're going to have to give me a step-by-step procedure. (I've been mentioning the need for a procedure for a couple of years so far, but no one has yet provided me with one.)
Here's an analogy: "Build a bridge!"
Suppose someone told me to build a bridge, by which they mean an actual proper bridge that cars and trucks and people can safely use, and by which they mean I should actually build it myself rather than commissioning or convincing professional bridge-builders to do it.
I know what a bridge is. I know what they look like, I've seen them before, I've even had the odd glimpse of a bridge in the process of being built. I know the benefits of a bridge. I've used them before. I'm well aware that it's far more difficult to cross a river or a ravine without a bridge. I know that if you have an expanse to cross, the presence of a bridge will make it far easier for everyone involved.
But I still have no idea how to go about building a bridge.
If you wanted to resolve this situation and get an actual real bridge built by me personally, there would simply be no point in nagging me to build a bridge, or convincing me of the benefits of a bridge. I already know that. What I'd need is basic, step-by-step instructions on how to build a bridge.
What do you do first? IRL I have no idea, but for the sake of argument let's say you start by putting up pillars. Okay, but how do you put up pillars? Where do you get the pillars from and/or how do you make them? Let's say the first step in putting up pillars is digging a hole to put them in. How big a hole? What do I dig it with? Where do I acquire the digging device and how do I operate it?
You'd have to go through this for every single step of the bridge-building process, or else the bridge isn't going to get built. If you leave me to figure it out myself, it's just going to make a mess and wreck stuff and inconvenience people.
Similarly, if you want me to not let something bother me, you're going to have to tell me how step by step. It's simply not going to work otherwise.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
How to get Rogers to realize that there's a network problem in your neighbourhood
My internet's been down for nearly three days with some complicated problem that's maybe three levels more complicated than I can understand. (They were pulling wires out of my walls and testing them, then had to get the supers to let them pull wires out of the building's walls, then had to escalate it one level above that.) The techs who helped me were awesome - communicative, respectful of my need to have my internet service work, accepted my troubleshooting and explained what they were doing when it got above the level I can understand, didn't make me uncomfortable even though I had a cumulative total of three strange men who were bigger than me in my apartment - and made the process as painless as possible. They were carrying extra modems with them, and were fully prepared to just replace my modem on the spot if that ended up being a problem! I'm not happy about 3 days without internet, but I'm very satisfied with the service I received.
But here I just want to share one thing the tech told me, because if everyone knows this it will make life easier for all of us: Rogers only knows there's an outage in a given area if a lot of people call them!
If only one or two people call, they have to start by treating it as an individualized problem, which means walking people through troubleshooting over the phone, and if that doesn't work sending techs to individual households to check the modems and the cabling. They can only start treating it as a macro problem if they get a large number of calls all from the same area or if, as in my case, the techs are dispatched to an individual household and spend an hour painstakingly confirming every single thing that could possibly be causing the problem within the household.
So it turns out our natural reaction - "Meh, I don't want to wait on hold for ages! I'm sure they already know about this, I'll just patiently do something else until they fix it." - are counterproductive, and we need to call in when we're experiencing a network problem.
But here I just want to share one thing the tech told me, because if everyone knows this it will make life easier for all of us: Rogers only knows there's an outage in a given area if a lot of people call them!
If only one or two people call, they have to start by treating it as an individualized problem, which means walking people through troubleshooting over the phone, and if that doesn't work sending techs to individual households to check the modems and the cabling. They can only start treating it as a macro problem if they get a large number of calls all from the same area or if, as in my case, the techs are dispatched to an individual household and spend an hour painstakingly confirming every single thing that could possibly be causing the problem within the household.
So it turns out our natural reaction - "Meh, I don't want to wait on hold for ages! I'm sure they already know about this, I'll just patiently do something else until they fix it." - are counterproductive, and we need to call in when we're experiencing a network problem.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Teach me how to disinfect (or psychologically decontaminate) apples
I'm on the subway juggling my purse, book, and a number of shopping bags, one of which contains a gorgeous batch of farm-fresh Cortland apples (my very favourite!) from the very last farmer's market day of the year.
The train pulls into my stop, I stand up, and somehow a few of the apples spill out of my bag and start rolling around the subway floor.
Three or four extremely friendly, helpful, and well-intentioned people swoop into action, gather up all the dropped apples, and quickly put them back into my bag before the doors close.
So now my bag of the very last of the very best apples of the year contains some apples that have been on the floor of the subway. I don't want to eat the subway floor apples, but I don't even know which ones they are! (And they've probably all touched now!)
How can I disinfect apples that have been on the subway floor so they're safe to eat and not at all psychologically yucky?
The train pulls into my stop, I stand up, and somehow a few of the apples spill out of my bag and start rolling around the subway floor.
Three or four extremely friendly, helpful, and well-intentioned people swoop into action, gather up all the dropped apples, and quickly put them back into my bag before the doors close.
So now my bag of the very last of the very best apples of the year contains some apples that have been on the floor of the subway. I don't want to eat the subway floor apples, but I don't even know which ones they are! (And they've probably all touched now!)
How can I disinfect apples that have been on the subway floor so they're safe to eat and not at all psychologically yucky?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
My political strategy oracle lives on
I've blogged before about this weird pattern of my blog posts becoming political strategy.
That pattern seems to be continuing.
Yesterday, I told you to tell Rob Ford what we need from our city.
This morning, Rob Ford said:
(I'm not sure what's up with the emphasis on calling - surely it's quicker, easier, more effective, and more informative for everyone involved to do this by email - but the gist is the same.)
Now if only I could influence actual policy rather than just strategy...
That pattern seems to be continuing.
Yesterday, I told you to tell Rob Ford what we need from our city.
This morning, Rob Ford said:
If people didn’t vote for me, I have to convince them to vote for me next time. If they want to call me and talk to me they’re more than welcome to, and I’ll try to respond to all the calls.
(I'm not sure what's up with the emphasis on calling - surely it's quicker, easier, more effective, and more informative for everyone involved to do this by email - but the gist is the same.)
Now if only I could influence actual policy rather than just strategy...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
So what now?
In the wake of last night's election results, here's the plan:
1. Everyone tell Rob Ford what we need from our city. Mr. Ford has a reputation for being very good at constituency work. We are all now his constituency. Let's all email him and tell him in specific terms what we need, whether it's a crosstown LRT or better pest control in TCHC buildings or longer library hours. He has built the indisputably positive part of his reputation on it, so let's make use of that for the greater good of our city.
2. Rely on your councillor. We all have a city councillor, directly elected to represent our ward. Many of them are newly-elected, an number of them have strong mandates. They each have a vote on council equal to Mr. Ford's. Let's make it clear to them what we need, and that we need them to stand up for and defend us.
3. Don't allow others to define the narrative. If politicos and media are telling us something that doesn't reflect our reality, don't blindly accept it or assume they must be right and your situation must be a fluke. Express your truth as unmitigated truth, speak up when someone is lying to you about your truth, and don't let anyone tell you differently.
We are more than these election results (especially as presented in the media) make us out to be - more complex and more nuanced, with a broader and more long-term point of view than they're giving us credit for. All we have to do is be the fuck out if it. Remember the #MyToronto hashtag? We just have to live it every day. #OurToronto
1. Everyone tell Rob Ford what we need from our city. Mr. Ford has a reputation for being very good at constituency work. We are all now his constituency. Let's all email him and tell him in specific terms what we need, whether it's a crosstown LRT or better pest control in TCHC buildings or longer library hours. He has built the indisputably positive part of his reputation on it, so let's make use of that for the greater good of our city.
2. Rely on your councillor. We all have a city councillor, directly elected to represent our ward. Many of them are newly-elected, an number of them have strong mandates. They each have a vote on council equal to Mr. Ford's. Let's make it clear to them what we need, and that we need them to stand up for and defend us.
3. Don't allow others to define the narrative. If politicos and media are telling us something that doesn't reflect our reality, don't blindly accept it or assume they must be right and your situation must be a fluke. Express your truth as unmitigated truth, speak up when someone is lying to you about your truth, and don't let anyone tell you differently.
We are more than these election results (especially as presented in the media) make us out to be - more complex and more nuanced, with a broader and more long-term point of view than they're giving us credit for. All we have to do is be the fuck out if it. Remember the #MyToronto hashtag? We just have to live it every day. #OurToronto
How accurate are voter turnout numbers?
This should be a tweet, but I couldn't get it down to 140. Real blog posts coming later.
My sister and I both received voter registration cards at our parents' address. Neither of us has lived there in years. I've never even been eligible to vote municipally there (i.e. there were no municipal elections between my 18th birthday and the day I moved out).
Therefore, official statistics show voter turnout at my parents' address as 50%. In reality it was 100% - both my parents voted, and my sister and I both voted in our respective cities.
In addition to the voter card I received at my parents' address, I also received one at my own address and used it to vote here in Toronto. Therefore, official statistics show my own personal voter turnout as 50%, whereas in reality it was 100%.
This causes me to question whether low voter turnout numbers are really as low as they seem.
My sister and I both received voter registration cards at our parents' address. Neither of us has lived there in years. I've never even been eligible to vote municipally there (i.e. there were no municipal elections between my 18th birthday and the day I moved out).
Therefore, official statistics show voter turnout at my parents' address as 50%. In reality it was 100% - both my parents voted, and my sister and I both voted in our respective cities.
In addition to the voter card I received at my parents' address, I also received one at my own address and used it to vote here in Toronto. Therefore, official statistics show my own personal voter turnout as 50%, whereas in reality it was 100%.
This causes me to question whether low voter turnout numbers are really as low as they seem.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Voted
You know how movies set in New York City are disproportionately set in that tiny window of fall when there's a perfect ratio of colourful leaves on the trees to colourful leaves on the ground, and they can dress the characters in skirts or dresses or scarves or coats or boots or any combination thereof in that flawless balance that works so well fashion-wise but is hardly ever appropriate to the weather in real life? That's what my city looked like as I headed out to work this morning. The fog was lifting, my ipod was playing U2, all the usual characters were out and about, and life was beautiful.
My walk to the voting station this evening took me on a route I haven't taken since I moved, up the street I used to live on and along a street where I haven't had any reason to go in years. My ipod was playing Aerosmith and the golden afternoon sun was just starting to turn into a sunset. Some things had changed in that part of the neighbourhood, but all the changes were for the better. Some buildings were new and some had been renovated. That one Halloween decoration that utterly freaks me out isn't there any more. There were more people, and they were more diverse. It makes me feel good about my city.
My new driver's licence arrived today, just in time for me to use it as ID to vote. A sign? The line was long but moving well, and people were relaxed and groovy. I saw a lot of newbies without existing registration cards. The kid who gave me my ballot was an earnest Justin Suarez doppelgänger, explaining municipal ballots to me as though I've never voted municipally before. I let him. A mildly suspicious-looking man sat right next to me at the voting table rather than choosing a distant, unoccupied table. I pulled the cardboard thing over my ballot and voted away. I saw a few cute doggies that made me squee, but I didn't get a chance to pet any of them. (For those of you just turning in, when I get to pet a doggie on the way to vote, the election always turns out well.) But I feel good about how I voted. Really, disproportionately good.
May the rest of my beautiful city do the same.
My walk to the voting station this evening took me on a route I haven't taken since I moved, up the street I used to live on and along a street where I haven't had any reason to go in years. My ipod was playing Aerosmith and the golden afternoon sun was just starting to turn into a sunset. Some things had changed in that part of the neighbourhood, but all the changes were for the better. Some buildings were new and some had been renovated. That one Halloween decoration that utterly freaks me out isn't there any more. There were more people, and they were more diverse. It makes me feel good about my city.
My new driver's licence arrived today, just in time for me to use it as ID to vote. A sign? The line was long but moving well, and people were relaxed and groovy. I saw a lot of newbies without existing registration cards. The kid who gave me my ballot was an earnest Justin Suarez doppelgänger, explaining municipal ballots to me as though I've never voted municipally before. I let him. A mildly suspicious-looking man sat right next to me at the voting table rather than choosing a distant, unoccupied table. I pulled the cardboard thing over my ballot and voted away. I saw a few cute doggies that made me squee, but I didn't get a chance to pet any of them. (For those of you just turning in, when I get to pet a doggie on the way to vote, the election always turns out well.) But I feel good about how I voted. Really, disproportionately good.
May the rest of my beautiful city do the same.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Open Letter to Torontonians who are not planning to vote tomorrow
Dear fellow citizens who are planning not to vote:
I assume you're planning not to vote because none of the candidates whom the media has arbitrarily deemed viable strikes you as acceptable.
So here's what I want you to do: vote for someone interesting, regardless of whether you think they have a chance to win.
We are a diverse, complex, nuanced city with dozens and dozens of candidates for the position of mayor alone, and the media has not been reflecting this. That does us all a disservice, and is most likely ultimately the reasons why you aren't hearing of any candidates that sound acceptable.
To combat this, to show the media - and the world - that we're more complex and nuanced and interesting than they're treating us as, everyone needs to pick someone interesting and vote for them. It could be someone with a fantastic platform. It could be someone whose pluck and audacity in running for public office you admire. It could be the candidate who actually answers your questions on Twitter. It could be the candidate whose platform is of most benefit to you personally, without regard for the greater good of the city.
"But they have no chance of winning!" So? It's not like you were going to vote for one of the people who does have a chance of winning. Besides, there's no penalty for voting for someone who doesn't win.
"But there's so many candidates, I don't have time to figure out who's best!" You don't have to figure out who's best, you just have to figure out who's good. You already have a nose for who's bad (or you wouldn't be choosing not to vote), so pick someone who isn't bad, who you think is better than the people whom the media has deemed to have a chance at winning. If you don't vote, the best candidate definitely won't get your vote. If you do vote for someone who you think is good, the best candidate just might end up getting your vote.
"But I don't have a full sense of the issues, I can't make a fully informed choice." Because you're considering not voting, you're obviously savvy enough to determine when a platform is unacceptable. So read the platform of the candidate who interests you and make sure it's acceptable. By voting for someone whose platform you find acceptable, you're making the statement "See, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for."
To get you started, here's a Twitter list of all the non-frontrunner mayoral candidates who are on Twitter. And here's where to find all the candidates for all offices. Pick one who's interesting and has an acceptable platform, and vote for them. Help show the media and the world that there's far more to us than this false binary they've boxed us into.
I assume you're planning not to vote because none of the candidates whom the media has arbitrarily deemed viable strikes you as acceptable.
So here's what I want you to do: vote for someone interesting, regardless of whether you think they have a chance to win.
We are a diverse, complex, nuanced city with dozens and dozens of candidates for the position of mayor alone, and the media has not been reflecting this. That does us all a disservice, and is most likely ultimately the reasons why you aren't hearing of any candidates that sound acceptable.
To combat this, to show the media - and the world - that we're more complex and nuanced and interesting than they're treating us as, everyone needs to pick someone interesting and vote for them. It could be someone with a fantastic platform. It could be someone whose pluck and audacity in running for public office you admire. It could be the candidate who actually answers your questions on Twitter. It could be the candidate whose platform is of most benefit to you personally, without regard for the greater good of the city.
"But they have no chance of winning!" So? It's not like you were going to vote for one of the people who does have a chance of winning. Besides, there's no penalty for voting for someone who doesn't win.
"But there's so many candidates, I don't have time to figure out who's best!" You don't have to figure out who's best, you just have to figure out who's good. You already have a nose for who's bad (or you wouldn't be choosing not to vote), so pick someone who isn't bad, who you think is better than the people whom the media has deemed to have a chance at winning. If you don't vote, the best candidate definitely won't get your vote. If you do vote for someone who you think is good, the best candidate just might end up getting your vote.
"But I don't have a full sense of the issues, I can't make a fully informed choice." Because you're considering not voting, you're obviously savvy enough to determine when a platform is unacceptable. So read the platform of the candidate who interests you and make sure it's acceptable. By voting for someone whose platform you find acceptable, you're making the statement "See, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for."
To get you started, here's a Twitter list of all the non-frontrunner mayoral candidates who are on Twitter. And here's where to find all the candidates for all offices. Pick one who's interesting and has an acceptable platform, and vote for them. Help show the media and the world that there's far more to us than this false binary they've boxed us into.
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