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What's wrong with this sentence?
A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a "banana-eating jungle monkey" has apologized, saying he's not a racist.
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I've been generally annoyed and disappointed by the recent RaceFail discussions in the F&SF community, mostly because there was such potential for really good, meaningful discussion that got lost underneath miles of anger and defensiveness, with some real stupidity thrown in for good measure. That said, of late I've been coming across more and more of the sorts of dialogue that I had originally hoped to find, and I'm absorbing it in small bits mostly because I like to process things for a while before I move on, and it's been very enlightening. I hope this is a sign we're collectively moving forward again.
Gender, gender-identity, sexuality, reproductive rights, and how all those translate into traditional vs. non-traditional structures of family (and by extension society itself) have always been at the forefront of issues I've spent a lot of time thinking about, because of who I am and my own personal experiences. While I've always tried to be similarly aware of, and working to overcome, the biases inherent in my own upbringing, I am finally feeling like there's opportunity to re-explore that aspect of my self in greater depth with new insight gained from an outside perspective without being made to feel automatically evil, wrong, and incapable of understanding. I don't think I am likely to directly comment on any of those discussions, but I'm lurking and learning and appreciating, and deeply grateful to all those who are willing to share their experiences, sometimes very painful ones, so openly.
This particular article, which I found last night while link-surfing, was really thought-provoking, and I think has a lot to say that's very directly relevant to the moronic statement that starts off this post.
A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a "banana-eating jungle monkey" has apologized, saying he's not a racist.
--
I've been generally annoyed and disappointed by the recent RaceFail discussions in the F&SF community, mostly because there was such potential for really good, meaningful discussion that got lost underneath miles of anger and defensiveness, with some real stupidity thrown in for good measure. That said, of late I've been coming across more and more of the sorts of dialogue that I had originally hoped to find, and I'm absorbing it in small bits mostly because I like to process things for a while before I move on, and it's been very enlightening. I hope this is a sign we're collectively moving forward again.
Gender, gender-identity, sexuality, reproductive rights, and how all those translate into traditional vs. non-traditional structures of family (and by extension society itself) have always been at the forefront of issues I've spent a lot of time thinking about, because of who I am and my own personal experiences. While I've always tried to be similarly aware of, and working to overcome, the biases inherent in my own upbringing, I am finally feeling like there's opportunity to re-explore that aspect of my self in greater depth with new insight gained from an outside perspective without being made to feel automatically evil, wrong, and incapable of understanding. I don't think I am likely to directly comment on any of those discussions, but I'm lurking and learning and appreciating, and deeply grateful to all those who are willing to share their experiences, sometimes very painful ones, so openly.
This particular article, which I found last night while link-surfing, was really thought-provoking, and I think has a lot to say that's very directly relevant to the moronic statement that starts off this post.
