Every day, I am continually grateful that I'm married to a guy who doesn't assume he's automatically right about everything because he's white and straight and has a penis. THANK GOD. Because sweartochrist, I am so tired of encountering those types.

I just dealt with a guy who clearly had no understanding of the terms I was using in a conversation (ie, institutional racism, white privilege) continually take offense because he assumed I meant something completely else. So I pointed him to a clear, eloquent breakdown of the terms (Unpacking the White Knapsack).

And his response was "and by 'what I need to do about institutional racism;, I didn't mean what I need to read about it. I'm saying, suppose I knew as much about as - you, let's say. What do you expect me to do about it?" It was posed as a challenge. Probably the most logically-flawed challenge I've heard in a long time.

And it's like-- LOL. That's like a elementary schooler saying to a high school student "so, assume I know as much as you on this topic, even though I don't. How do I get a good score on the SAT?" or "I don't understand basic science and refuse to learn it. What steps do I take to build a rocketship?"

Don't insult me by asking me to assume you know as much as I do on a topic when you are showing in every possible way that you do not. I am not going to build my conversation with you on a foundation that's a flat-out falsehood. Why the hell would anybody think they deserve that kind of concession? Oh right, privilege.

No. You need to start with the basics. Read. Absorb. Learn the 101 terms. Figure out how these concepts work together. You can't do jack shit if you don't even understand the bare bones of a concept. And clear understanding won't happen overnight. It'll take even longer for us white people because we do not have the lived experience of being an institutionally-oppressed minority. There's a lot of shutting up and listening involved, which is way less macho and ~enlightened and satisfying than busting into a Facebook thread and blaming this country's racial divide partially on the black president not doing enough to mend it.

And hell, if you ever think you've learned everything, start all over again, 'cause bullshit. No one knows it all. Not me, not you, not anybody.

Seriously, he went on and on and on about how the problem with this country is that nobody tries to understand one another in good faith, all the while acting like it was beneath him to learn the meaning of a few widely-used terms so that we weren't talking past each other. Hint: pot, meet kettle.

He took offense to my casual and non-insulting use of "dude." At one point he tried to chide me for "admonishing" him, insisting he wasn't "that guy." I bet he owns a fedora. Fuck, I bet he has a whole closet full of fedoras. The fedora: official headgear of That Guy who insists he's not That Guy.

So I told the guy-- if you don't understand the rudimentary basics of the argument I am making, I am not going to continue conversing with you, because all you're doing is making wildly inaccurate interpretations of what I'm saying.

And then I got "okay, now that sounds distinctly less civil. Are you aware how you sound right now?"

Basically, "I'mma sit here and say all sorts of problematic and borderline-racist stuff, misinterpret you constantly, and then act like I'm default right because... well, because... but don't you dare act like I know less than you just because I willfully know less than you. OH AND PS, TONE ARGUMENT!"

I ain't got time for that.



ETA: You guys! After making like, five strawman arguments, he linked me to a page of logical fallacies. Seriously, he did that! And then he told me that the difference between us is that even with things getting heated, he was still willing to engage. What in the abusive logic hell? Okay, blocked. Dude's so far up his own ass he might find Narnia.