welcome to downtown coolsville

Last night Amy and I went out to dinner with her mum, her ex-stepfather, and her stepbrothers. It was going quite well overall- there was wine and pasta and at one point the stepbrothers were yelling about their sister, who lives in Ottawa and seems to be universally hated, and it's always interesting to get a sudden window into other people's family drama- and then I had a conversation I've had more times than is strictly necessary. Which is to say, at all.

One of her stepbrothers was cold, and asked if anyone had a jacket he could borrow. I wasn't cold, and he looked kind of sad and puppylike, so I gave him mine. It's a green jacket with a yellow smiley face button on the lapel. He noticed it after a few minutes and asked- slurring a little because we were most of the way through a bottle at that point- what it was.

"It's a smiley face button," I said.

He shook his head. "It should be an anti-immigration button," he said.

Please note: we were not talking about immigration. We had not been talking about immigration the whole evening. As I recall, the last thing this gentleman and I had actually spoken about was his partner, Steven, and how they might be breaking up soon. So I suppose immigration was just on his mind, and he wanted to have a good long gumflap about how much he didn't like it. Or something.

I said, "My mother's an immigrant."

Now, in this conversation, saying that a person close to you (a family member or spouse for preference, although sometimes a close friend or coworker is good enough) is an immigrant has one of two results. Either 1) the person gets very embarrassed and backtracks, often naming all the perfectly lovely people they know who are immigrants, or 2) they ask where exactly the person is from. Which this gentleman did.

"The UK," I replied.

The gentleman made a face I've seen a fair few times during this conversation. When I tell people that my mother is an immigrant, they tend to assume I mean that she is not white, because that is the picture they have filed inside their head under "immigrant." An immigrant is a person of colour, or at least a delightfully "ethnic" shade of white. (Like a kooky Greek, maybe, or a fiery Italian.) The face is a sort of relieved grimace, an oh-thank-God-I-thought-you-might-be-one-of-them expression.

"Oh, well, that's different," he said. "That's not the kind of immigration I was talking about."

You always know the kind of immigration they're talking about. Always. But I bit anyway.

"What kind of immigration were you talking about?" I asked.

He waved his hands expressively. "You know," he said. "Terrorists!"

I shut the conversation down after that.

Dear world in general:

Roman Polanski's talent as a filmmaker does not change the fact that he drugged and raped a thirteen year old girl, Jesus fucking Christ what is WRONG with you.

Kill yourselves,
Ish

It is not okay to disregard a girl's thoughts, opinions, or art just because...

... she slept with someone.
... she slept with a lot of someones.
... she slept with someone you want to sleep with and IT'S NOT FAIR.
... she wears "slutty" clothes (what does that word even mean)?
... she likes boys.
... she likes girls.
... she likes boys and girls.
... she looks "girlish."
... she looks "boyish."
... she doesn't look the way you want her to look.
... she doesn't say what you want her to say.
... she's cis.
... she's trans.
... she's not the same race as you.
... she has tattoos.
... she has a handbag and a tiny dog.
... she's thin.
... she's fat.
... she knows someone famous.
... she might have fucked someone famous.
... she has a blog in which she occasionally mentions someone famous.
... she has or has had an eating disorder.
... she's an immigrant.
... she works in an industry you personally consider degrading (the fashion industry, the porn industry, the sex industry, whatever).
... she's a virgin.
... she's not a virgin.
... she's religious.
... she's not religious.
... she had an abortion.
... she has kids.
... she's young.
... she's old.
... she did something at some point in her life that you wouldn't have done, or would have done differently, or would have been smarter about, et cetera ad infinitum.

Can we as a species move the fuck on from this bullshit notion that men are people and women are types? That only the "right" kind of girl (and what's "right" for a girl changes all the time anyway) deserves our time and attention and respect, and all other kinds are disposable? That a girl is only as good as her stereotype, or her reputation, or the length of her skirt, or the colour of her skin, or what her job is, or what she looks like, or how much boys like her, or how closed she keeps her mouth, or how closed she keeps her legs?

Can we fucking evolve, please?

Hey, guys! Wanna see the transphobic shit that was printed in the Chronicle Herald?

( Heck yes you do! )

He was specifically asked by one of the panelists not to write about the speakers, and, if he did so, to change the names. And then to not only ignore their express wishes, but to spew bigoted garbage like that? I call bullshit.

So I wrote him a ( letter. )

You can yell at email Duffy at pduffy@herald.ca, and the Chronicle Herald at letters@herald.ca.

Dude lives in Halifax, for fuck's sake. The whole queer community there is gonna be on him like a ton of (immaculately groomed) bricks.

ETA: Duffy just emailed me back.

( His reply, under the cut. )

Oh, not Herald Policy? That makes it okay, then!

Way to not address... well, fucking ANYTHING, ya douchetool.