How to compliment a woman

[Bramblethorn]

I did listen to that. In fact, I recognized that it wasn't the same and I actually offered an even closer scenario than the one you offered. I don't know how that can be misconstrued as me not being unwilling or not listening to that.

By the time you offered that scenario, several of us had already made the point that female reactions to this stuff are influenced by a great big societal context. Offering a parallel that doesn't match that context implies that you hadn't understood or hadn't accepted that point; asserting that a woman saying "fuck off" is as bad as misogyny goes along with that, because misogyny isn't just one guy being a jerk, it's an entire culture of belief and behaviour that regularly kills women. If I missed something and you've retracted that particular statement, please let me know.

I'll re-pose the new scenario, in case you didn't see it:

A white woman is assaulted by a black man as in the pmann scenario. Now, whenever black men approach her with panhandling, she tells them to fuck off because a black man was the one that assaulted her. Is it okay for her to have a negative reaction every time a black man engages this white woman?

Let's expand that a bit. Except maybe on Fox, nobody's ever just a "black man". People are short or tall or medium, fat or thin, they usually wear some kind of clothes. For the sake of argument let's suppose this guy was black, tall, overweight, wearing a beanie and a cross, about 25.

If she ends up having a negative reaction specifically to "black men" and not "men wearing crosses" or "men wearing beanies" or what-have you, then I think it's worth at least asking why that particular attribute has become the focus of her reaction.

One possible answer is that she's grown up in a society that conditions people to view black males as thugs, perps, threats. Even if a black guy is shot dead while minding his own business, the coverage will rake through his past looking for that time when he smoked pot, concentrating on the most thuggish photo they can find, etc etc. Once you're primed with the idea that black people = threat, confirmation bias tends to kick in and influence what you make of the things you see, especially if those same attitudes limit your chances for positive interaction with black people.

So it's quite possible that her reaction is influenced by an environment of racism, yeah. Racism is sneaky that way.

Asking whether it's "okay" - well, that's a very ambiguous question. The answer depends on whether we're talking about the big social context that leads up to her reacting in that particular way, or just asking "does the way she acts at this moment make her a bad person?" I don't think the latter is a terribly useful question; it's like highlighting a single word from a novel and asking "is this word well-written?"

So from what I gather, the fear of something happening is greater than the ACTUAL occurrence of an event, such as the robbery of a woman?

And the scenario is an actual scenario that happened to a friend of my family's. Not with a woman, but with a white male. He and his mother were robbed at gunpoint by a black male and his mother was shot and killed for like $20. He was forever fearful and resentful of black men.

Had I proposed this theory outside of this thread, I guaranfuckingtee you that everyone would be screaming about "how dare he hold an entire race of people accountable for what one thug did to his mother". And I believe SD would have been the loudest voice of that bunch saying he is a racist bastard. He was prejudiced. He wasn't before the incident. But that incident changed him. I can't begin to imagine what the event was like.

I understand this might be a sensitive topic, so please don't feel obliged to answer if this is uncomfortable, but I'm curious to know how that affected his relationship with pre-existing black friends. Did the fearfulness and resentment affect those relationships too, or was he able to overcome them with people he already knew and trusted?

 

[Bramblethorn]

You say things like cisfemale. That's such a weird thing to say. You were born with a vagina and boobs and ovaries so you identify as a female.

Um, no. It's common for people born with a vagina and ovaries to identify as female, but by no means automatic. I have two close friends who break that rule. (And nobody is born with boobs per se; they develop in puberty.)

Using "cis" for cisgender people is no more "PC" than using "trans" for transgender people.

A parallel: a lot of people over here use "Australian" to mean "white". To them, if you're not white, you might be Asian Australian or African Australian or whatever, but never just "Australian". Even if you ask "are you Aboriginal?" - you know, the people who've been living in this continent 40,000 years longer than everybody else - they'll say "no, I'm Australian!"

It's kinda obnoxious to non-white people; it marginalises them as somehow less "Aussie" than white folk, even if their ancestors were here before Captain Cook. So if I'm in a discussion where I need to distinguish between those different groups, I'm going to use a qualifier for everybody; if you're "Asian-Australian", then I'm "Anglo-Australian".

Marginalisation kills trans people. It feeds transphobia which leads to discrimination, homelessness, and violence. Even without malicious intent, people who forget the existence of trans people tend to design systems that don't work well for them. As a really simple RL example, I know transgender guys who have difficulty getting basic healthcare because things like claims systems aren't programmed to deal with the possibility of somebody whose documentation says "M" needing a pap smear.

That's not anything that needs a label. It's a fact. It is called being a girl. If you are born with a vagina, you are a female.

A great deal of law, psychology, and medicine would disagree with you on that.

 

[NightL]

I do not agree that we should not judge. Judgement is different than prejudice. In fact, every scenario that has been presented demonstrates a woman being judgmental in her environment. It is an efficient skill used in many of the "caring" professions that have just been mentioned.

While conversations across time zones cause issues when sleep is needed and much passes, but my use of the word "judgement" was in reference to the following quote and that many here are indeed professionals in the health, education and care sectors.

It's easy for people to sit and type from a fucking computer screen about the world's injustices, but it's hard to get off our fat arses and do something about it. I actually go out and do shit about it.

I don't think you should judge on what you don't know about people and their lives beyond here.

Many here get off their fat arses daily and "do shit about it" as they are trained to do for their professions.

I have no issue that extensive volunteer work will provide a platform of experience to speak from, I just had an issue that the comment was appearing dismissive of the input from others. I found it judgemental.

 

[GiggLeGasm]

Night -

I was not speaking toward any single person when I made my comments. The tone of this thread has shifted. Instead of discussing interpersonal communication, we've begun discussing things like prejudice, social justice, harassment..
I was suggesting that judgement is appropriate in these situations, and perhaps even necessary.

Please do not feel as if I have intentionally verbalized fault with anything you have written.

 

[Lord Pmann]

1. By the time you offered that scenario, several of us had already made the point that female reactions to this stuff are influenced by a great big societal context. Offering a parallel that doesn't match that context implies that you hadn't understood or hadn't accepted that point; asserting that a woman saying "fuck off" is as bad as misogyny goes along with that, because misogyny isn't just one guy being a jerk, it's an entire culture of belief and behaviour that regularly kills women. If I missed something and you've retracted that particular statement, please let me know.

2. Let's expand that a bit. Except maybe on Fox, nobody's ever just a "black man". People are short or tall or medium, fat or thin, they usually wear some kind of clothes. For the sake of argument let's suppose this guy was black, tall, overweight, wearing a beanie and a cross, about 25.

If she ends up having a negative reaction specifically to "black men" and not "men wearing crosses" or "men wearing beanies" or what-have you, then I think it's worth at least asking why that particular attribute has become the focus of her reaction.

One possible answer is that she's grown up in a society that conditions people to view black males as thugs, perps, threats. Even if a black guy is shot dead while minding his own business, the coverage will rake through his past looking for that time when he smoked pot, concentrating on the most thuggish photo they can find, etc etc. Once you're primed with the idea that black people = threat, confirmation bias tends to kick in and influence what you make of the things you see, especially if those same attitudes limit your chances for positive interaction with black people.

So it's quite possible that her reaction is influenced by an environment of racism, yeah. Racism is sneaky that way.

Asking whether it's "okay" - well, that's a very ambiguous question. The answer depends on whether we're talking about the big social context that leads up to her reacting in that particular way, or just asking "does the way she acts at this moment make her a bad person?" I don't think the latter is a terribly useful question; it's like highlighting a single word from a novel and asking "is this word well-written?"



3. I understand this might be a sensitive topic, so please don't feel obliged to answer if this is uncomfortable, but I'm curious to know how that affected his relationship with pre-existing black friends. Did the fearfulness and resentment affect those relationships too, or was he able to overcome them with people he already knew and trusted?

1. I didn't retract the statement, because that would be a lie. My comment/the surrounding context is not simply the saying of "fuck off". My comment was on people like SD, who have a huge chip on their shoulder. The stick up her arse has a stick up it's arse. The kind of man-hating that she has in general is as bad as misogyny. The kind of man-hating where "fuck yous" are celebrated as empowering is dangerous to society as well.

2. Well that's a really silly comparison. For one, there are no statistics showing that men wearing crosses are more likely to commit crime on women. There are statistics that show interracial crimes are more likely to occur where the white person is the victim. Before you scream bigot, it's a fact. It's not a good fact. Or one that anyone likes. But it's the truth.

I'm going to have to call bullshit on your "which picture are they going to use" thing. You're in Australia so I'm going to assume, if you're born and raised there, your exposure to race relations in the media are limited. In the last three years, there have been two shootings in my state of a black teen. The coverage showed both pics. In nearly everything you saw, it showed both, unless it was a specific show with an agenda (non news show, but a talk show). I'm struggling if you think that's really how things are portrayed.

3. I don't really know how many black friends he had before that. He lived in a very small town and worked for himself doing small construction jobs around the town. And when I say town, maybe a couple thousand people. So, I wouldn't have expected him to have had a lot of black friends before that. Maybe he did, I don't know. But, I would've been surprised if he actually had black people in his everyday life to call friends. The place he lived was a redneck haven.

 

[Lord Pmann]

Um, no. It's common for people born with a vagina and ovaries to identify as female, but by no means automatic. I have two close friends who break that rule. (And nobody is born with boobs per se; they develop in puberty.)

Using "cis" for cisgender people is no more "PC" than using "trans" for transgender people.

A parallel: a lot of people over here use "Australian" to mean "white". To them, if you're not white, you might be Asian Australian or African Australian or whatever, but never just "Australian". Even if you ask "are you Aboriginal?" - you know, the people who've been living in this continent 40,000 years longer than everybody else - they'll say "no, I'm Australian!"

It's kinda obnoxious to non-white people; it marginalises them as somehow less "Aussie" than white folk, even if their ancestors were here before Captain Cook. So if I'm in a discussion where I need to distinguish between those different groups, I'm going to use a qualifier for everybody; if you're "Asian-Australian", then I'm "Anglo-Australian".

Marginalisation kills trans people. It feeds transphobia which leads to discrimination, homelessness, and violence. Even without malicious intent, people who forget the existence of trans people tend to design systems that don't work well for them. As a really simple RL example, I know transgender guys who have difficulty getting basic healthcare because things like claims systems aren't programmed to deal with the possibility of somebody whose documentation says "M" needing a pap smear.



A great deal of law, psychology, and medicine would disagree with you on that.

I don't even know what to say to this.

If people want to identify as whatever, feel free. But you'll have to excuse those of us who call people with female parts, simply female.

My main point was that it sounds overly PC to refer to yourself as cisfemale. It's cisretarded.

 

[GiggLeGasm]

Just to set everyones mind at ease, transgender males and females have limited need for pap smears.

and.. I know that I work for a very large healthcare enterprise.. but
we do allow for more than male or female when completing documentation. If the available 6 or 7 options are not enough, we are allowed to enter "other" as the sex.

The times, they are a' changin - but change isn't so bad

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just to set everyones mind at ease, transgender males and females have limited need for pap smears.

and.. I know that I work for a very large healthcare enterprise.. but
we do allow for more than male or female when completing documentation. If the available 6 or 7 options are not enough, we are allowed to enter "other" as the sex.

Transgender men who still have their cervices - which is most - are advised to have the same pap screening as cis women. Trans male friend of mine in healthcare mentions that testosterone may actually increase risk levels of cervical cancer. Unfortunately a lot don't get the screening they ought, for a variety of reasons.

http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1452342-0

If your system copes with trans patients, I'm glad to hear it. Unfortunately it's far from universal. Certainly a friend of mine had trouble with a system designed on the assumption that legally-male people would never need pap smears etc.

Trans awareness is also a real issue with things like prison systems - c.f. the current "Jane Doe" case in CT, where a sixteen-year-old trans girl has been held in boys' facilities and in solitary for months because the CT prison system can't figure out a humane way to deal with her.

 

[NightL]

1. I didn't retract the statement, because that would be a lie. My comment/the surrounding context is not simply the saying of "fuck off". My comment was on people like SD, who have a huge chip on their shoulder. The stick up her arse has a stick up it's arse. The kind of man-hating that she has in general is as bad as misogyny. The kind of man-hating where "fuck yous" are celebrated as empowering is dangerous to society as well.

I don't believe satindesire is the equivalent of a misogynist in the slightest. I don't believe she is a party to "The kind of man hating..." I am not threatened in any way by "people like SD", I welcome their strength of commentary. I believe society as a whole benefits immensely by those who are willing to speak up loud for equality, respect and the right for anyone to go about their lives without hinder from intimidation and fear of assault.

I can not see, in any way, anything that satindesire has said that could possibly be seen as dangerous to society, quite the opposite. Where exactly is the threat? How has anything she said this time or previously that promotes denial of rights for men or attack on the male dignity. I have never witnessed a tarnishing of 'all males' from satindesire.

"Stand tall, walk strong, keep your head raised" has been offered as a way to lessen your chance of falling victim to a bully or be targeted by predatory behaviour. If, however, it still happens I respect immensely the person who has the courage for a stern rebuke of "Fuck off". They owe the perpetrator of the harassment no more energy and time than the delivery of those two words. Those two words along with "Stand tall, walk strong, keep your head raised" may well give cause for a potential attacker to back off. Those two words in that context are not
"The kind of man-hating that she has" being delivered to all men. If those two words help ward of a potential escalation or perhaps attack, then they are empowering.

It was very wrong to have warped this discussion into "people like SD" and "man hating" and indeed "hatred of race". Blanket coverage has only been promoted by one person in this thread as in the use of name calling.

Society is not going to fall over because a woman said "fuck off" while being harassed. She is saying this to one person who is a dick-head not all males. I am glad to live in a society where dick-heads get the two words they deserve, irrespective of gender, race or religion.

Where is the threat in anything satindesire has argued for or promoted? How has anyone's rights been diminished? Where are the personal attacks from her? Where are the blanket statements of "all males"? How is society endangered?

 

[Que]

CIS gendering is (generally) whether you have XX or XY chromosomes. In other words the gender as you were born.

I am not sure what the term is for someone that is born with either gender ambiguity or misidentified as to gender, and found to be the opposite gender.

There are also inter-sexed persons that are born with either full or partial sets of both optional equipment packages.

A CIS gendered woman is one who was born a woman, presents as a woman and is comfortable with that gender..

A CIS gendered man is one born as a man, presents as a man and is comfortable with that gender.

 

[Doog_kuron]

Well...this has gone a little above my pay grade. Think this thread has ventured into very foreign relms. Seem to vaguely recall this thread was to do with passing a compliment without sounding like a leering, mac wearing heavy breather?

 

[Que]

So.... a woman or a man, basically and you ad the "cis" when you're trying to be politically correct?

I only use it when the context of the discussion might involve differentiating between a girl and a gurl for example.

I don't know that it is always pc to use. In some instances for example when talking about a transwoman (post op, an actual woman now in body and mind) as opposed to a transvestite - (dude in a dress who may or may not have gender diaspora, may or may not be simply fetishist) it might not be pc to point out that she was not cisgendered female to start. It isn't relevant if she looks/feels/lives as a woman.

Mostly it is used when discussing biology and when it is unclear that the transperson you are talking to is for example an m-to-f person or and f-to-m.

It is sort of all unclear because the whole social science on it is pretty new. a 100 years ago anyone not presenting in their cis gender was just a deviant.

 

[stickygirl]

My manager at my old place of employ was what you refer to as a "transwoman" and a friend is also, and both of those people simply refer to themselves as women. Why wouldn't I just follow their lead? That's what I do by the way. I also refer to myself as a woman, and I was born with all the right bits to do so.

Thank you for the clarification. It makes more sense now, though still seems absolutely ridiculous to me.

As with anything language, it's context. If you happen to be talking about harrassment of women with smart-ass comments on the street, then plain old women will do just fine. If you're talking about trans women being targeted specifically for their status then cis is appropriate. No knickers bunched here

I can post at last - after some technical issues

Please leave the word 'gurl' on your fav porn sites - not RL

 

[Que]

As with anything language, it's context. If you happen to be talking about harrassment of women with smart-ass comments on the street, then plain old women will do just fine. If you're talking about trans women being targeted specifically for their status then cis is appropriate. No knickers bunched here

I can post at last - after some technical issues

Please leave the word 'gurl' on your fav porn sites - not RL

You are encouraged to state your preferences, but I am sure you realize the trans spectrum is much broader than that.

I am not fond of the stereotype that gender expression play is a) necessarily sexually driven and b) pornographic or shameful.

 

[Que]

WAAAAIT.


What's the difference between a girl, a gurl and a gal?

(That sounds like some kind of knock knock joke but it's not)

Gurl can be the social equivalent of 'mah nigga' amongst primarily fetishists. There are some transvestites (usually straight, non-gender-diasporac) that use it as a friendly way of letting people know that they are not gendered in the way they appear.

Transwomen are not fond of it.

 

[Que]

Why can't people just be who they are and let other people do the same without all these fucking hang-ups and judgements. *sigh*

For some reason the world is a giant label maker machine. I wrote over 70,000 words on the subject and came no closer to finding a suitable label for myself.

 

[Que]

/threadjack.

Try this for a compliment:

"Love the shoes...I have a pair of heels that are quite similar."

 

[Bramblethorn]

For the vast majority of this thread you've been referring to women as just that, women, but now all of a sudden they're ciswomen. Which is it and what's the difference? I'm confused and you're very inconsistent (not just you personally Bramblethorn) everyone who has used the term (and not used it). I just ask you now because I trust you to give a straight up answer without a bunch of emotion attached to it.

Sure!

"Trans" = somebody who identifies as the opposite gender to what they were assigned at birth: if the doc said "It's a boy!" and you identify as female, you're a trans woman.

"Cis" = somebody who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth: if the doc said "It's a girl!" and you identify as female, you're a cis woman.

"Woman" = (adult) people who identify as female, encompassing both trans and cis women.

When I am discussing stuff that's relevant to both cis and trans women, normally I'll just use "women". When I'm talking about a specific cis or trans woman, I will also just use "woman" unless their cis/trans status is somehow relevant; highlighting trans-ness just for the hell of it is bad manners and can cause serious harm.

(Sometimes it's complicated and I need to ask people their preferences. For instance, I have one friend who's trans male but passes as cis female at work, because his academic transcripts identify him as female and he doesn't feel safe coming out as transgender. So in a social context I'll acknowledge him as male, but if I interact with him professionally I need to use female identifiers. Fortunately he shifted to an all-purpose name years ago.)

When I'm discussing stuff where the distinction is relevant (e.g. legal, medical, social issues) I will use "trans women" and "cis women". I might use "cis and trans women" in a context where I was talking about both and needed to make it explicit to people who might otherwise be unsure whether I was being trans-inclusive.

What I don't do is use "women" without qualifier to mean specifically cis women - e.g. "this event is open to women and trans women", etc etc. That's insulting in the same sort of way as "I'm inviting all the cool people and also Bob".

I do occasionally get sloppy with language, and if you see me deviating from the above you're welcome to pull me up. But without wading back through all those posts again, I think I've been consistent with that throughout this thread. The original question was relevant to both cis and trans women so I just used "women".

As far as I can see, the first use of "cis" in this thread was from Satindesire, when she said:

I pass as white. So because of that, I have White Privilege. That means I need to listen to the lived experiences of minorities and do my part to make a difference to end racism... I am cisfemale. That means I have cisprivilege and need to listen to the lived experiences of transgender people and do my part to make a difference and end transphobia.

She's making a specific statement about not being trans (in a context of "some groups have privilege over others and here are a couple of examples") so her use of "cis" was courteous to trans people; replacing that with just "I am female" would have been exclusionary and rude. I then used "cis" following on from her post, in that specific context.

Hope that makes sense, happy to ramble on some more if it didn't

Footnotes:

* Both "trans" and "cis" come from Latin - e.g. "Transalpine Gaul" was the part of Gaul that lay across the Alps from Rome, and "Cisalpine Gaul" was the part that lay on the same side. They've also been used in the same sort of sense in organic chemistry for a long time. I only mention this because some people out there have come up with false etymologies for "cis" in an attempt to cast it as an insult.

* Trans-ness is not dependent on surgery. The stereotype is that trans people all get surgery and HRT to make them as indistinguishable as possible from cis people. The reality is that for a bunch of different reasons, most trans people never do 'complete' surgical transition and may have just 'top surgery' or no surgery at all, and some don't do the hormones either or go off them. Some countries require irreversible surgery before they'll permit a change of legal documentation, which is fucked up and harmful.

* There are also people who don't fit neatly into gender binaries - genderqueer, agender, etc. Sometimes they get lumped under "trans" and sometimes people use "trans*" with the * to make it explicit that they're including those categories. There are also cultures in Polynesia, Albania, India, Native America, and Aboriginal Australia (+ probably a lot of others) that have their own transgender/non-binary identities: hijra, sworn virgins, brotherboys/sistergirls, fa'afafine, twin-spirit, etc etc.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Doog_kuron]

Ya know, I think I'll just call everyone a human. Hey human how are you? Hey human thats a lovely pair of shoes you have. Surely no one can take offense at that? Maybe?

 

[Bramblethorn]

CIS gendering is (generally) whether you have XX or XY chromosomes. In other words the gender as you were born.

Being nitpicky, it's usually about what we guess their chromosomes to be. Most kids are not DNA-tested at birth; we can make an informed guess based on what the baby looks like, but sometimes body shape is deceptive. Conditions like congenital androgen insensitivity syndrome can result in a child who has XY chromosomes but appears "female" at birth; it often isn't detected until puberty when the child doesn't start menstruating. There's also "XX male" syndrome, which has similar effects in the other direction.

My manager at my old place of employ was what you refer to as a "transwoman" and a friend is also, and both of those people simply refer to themselves as women. Why wouldn't I just follow their lead? That's what I do by the way. I also refer to myself as a woman, and I was born with all the right bits to do so.

Yep, this is exactly right. In most situations the appropriate way to refer to somebody who identifies as female is simply "a woman". "Cis"/"trans" only come into play when there's some specific reason to distinguish.

 

[stickygirl]

...so, not wishing to derail into trans-stuff, but thanks Brams

I've been following this at a distance and with some frustration in not being able to post since my initial one [url]http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=59492050&postcount=35[/URL]
- yes, that long ago so forgive me for my late response which goes back to the OPs questions.

I won't attempt to summarise what has been said on the original subject - it's all there in plain black and white ( no racism intended ). I do find it very troubling that there seems to be a huge disconnect between the way that the majority of women have supported the idea that public 'compliments' are frequently regarded as harrassment, but certain men are scrabbling around trying to justify it - as though they had a god-given right to 'compliment' women as and when they see fit. They don't. Rather than pull the racism rabbit out, why not consider a world where you were continually being complimented, cat-called or harrassed by gay men and see how that fits? Because it all comes down to sex, it has nothing to do with the style of a woman's Armani jeans, or her Hobbs dress - it has everything to do with whether you'd shag her or not. Lets not be coy - it is a sex site.

Who came up with that 'empowering' BS about telling a guy to fuck off?! There are far more empowering ways than talking like a guy - that is such a man's perspective. Maybe a gobby woman with plenty sass could carry it off, but I bet she knows she has back-up before she says it or maybe it was in such a public place she knows he can't retaliate and even then, she'll be sure to park her car in a well lit place and double-lock her front door for a few nights.

If SD puts her points forcefully it is because being nice, being subtle has been tried for centuries and it doesn't work. If you want change then, yes, you have to beat the drum to be heard, you have to be as aggressive as men to be taken seriously. Stonewall got nowhere until it became outspoken.

....
Finally, I firmly believe that people choose to be offended. We don't choose to be victimized or assaulted or any number of abuses that occur. But we can choose whether or not we are offended by another person's or groups' beliefs. There are many issues I've encountered that don't match my belief system, but I do not attack anyone just for disagreeing with me. If you're easily offended, I'd encourage you to try letting that go for a while.

Hmmm... I kinda know where you're coming from with this but in the UK you can be arrested for calling someone a nigger, a queer ( oddly not 'politician' ) etc. Telling someone to grow thicker skin and not be offended? Nah. It's a question of degree and context so I'm not having a pop at you, only discussing!

 

[unregistered]

 

[Bramblethorn]

1. I didn't retract the statement, because that would be a lie. My comment/the surrounding context is not simply the saying of "fuck off". My comment was on people like SD, who have a huge chip on their shoulder. The stick up her arse has a stick up it's arse. The kind of man-hating that she has in general is as bad as misogyny. The kind of man-hating where "fuck yous" are celebrated as empowering is dangerous to society as well.

2. Well that's a really silly comparison. For one, there are no statistics showing that men wearing crosses are more likely to commit crime on women. There are statistics that show interracial crimes are more likely to occur where the white person is the victim. Before you scream bigot, it's a fact. It's not a good fact. Or one that anyone likes. But it's the truth.

I'm going to have to call bullshit on your "which picture are they going to use" thing. You're in Australia so I'm going to assume, if you're born and raised there, your exposure to race relations in the media are limited. In the last three years, there have been two shootings in my state of a black teen. The coverage showed both pics. In nearly everything you saw, it showed both, unless it was a specific show with an agenda (non news show, but a talk show). I'm struggling if you think that's really how things are portrayed.

3. I don't really know how many black friends he had before that. He lived in a very small town and worked for himself doing small construction jobs around the town. And when I say town, maybe a couple thousand people. So, I wouldn't have expected him to have had a lot of black friends before that. Maybe he did, I don't know. But, I would've been surprised if he actually had black people in his everyday life to call friends. The place he lived was a redneck haven.

I disagree with most of this but I've run out of enthusiasm for discussing it further with you, so I'm going to leave it there except to comment on your assumptions about my background.

I was born in the USA, I'm a US national, I vote in US elections, I've lived and worked and LDRed there, I visit as often as I can (see the "location" note under my avatar), I have a lot of friends there, and I keep up with US current affairs through US sources. So not quite right there.

 

[unregistered]