Senior Catholic officials said that students at Catholic universities should know what to expect, and that those who disagree with the policies can choose to go elsewhere. ‘No one would go to a Jewish barbecue and expect pork chops to be served.’
— Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges (via sliu)
(via sliu)
“But dear God. We should not be putting civil rights issues to a popular vote that is subject to the sentiments and passions of the day. No minority should have their rights subject to the passions and sentiments of the majority. This is a fundamental bedrock of what our nation stands for. And I get very concerned that we have created in our state— and we refuse to address it, to call it like it is— that we’ve created a second-class citizenship in our state. That’s what we have in America right now, we have two classes of citizens. Jackie Robinson said the right of every American to first class citizenship is the most important issue of our time. Let’s stop the rouse: we have two types of citizens right now in our state… .I read the Fourteenth Amendment clearly. It talks about equal protection under the laws. And that was never something that should go out to a popular vote whether blacks, women, or other minorities should have equal, first, class citizens… .And so, to me, this is infuriating, that we are still in the 21st century, and we haven’t created equality under the law. And so, I will be, fundamentally in the fiber of my being, in support of equal citizenship for all people in this country.”
Paper Tigers
Here was a drunk white lady speaking what so many others over the years must have been insufficiently drunk to tell me. It was the key to many things that had, and had not, happened. I understood this encounter better after learning about LEAP, and visiting Asian Playboy’s boot camp. If you are a woman who isn’t beautiful, it is a social reality that you will have to work twice as hard to hold anyone’s attention. You can either linger on the unfairness of this or you can get with the program. If you are an Asian person who holds himself proudly aloof, nobody will respect that, or find it intriguing, or wonder if that challenging façade hides someone worth getting to know. They will simply write you off as someone not worth the trouble of talking to.
Having glimpsed just how unacceptable the world judges my demeanor, could I too strive to make up for my shortcomings? Practice a shit-eating grin until it becomes natural? Love the world twice as hard?
I see the appeal of getting with the program. But this is not my choice. Striving to meet others’ expectations may be a necessary cost of assimilation, but I am not going to do it.
Often I think my defiance is just delusional, self-glorifying bullshit that artists have always told themselves to compensate for their poverty and powerlessness. But sometimes I think it’s the only thing that has preserved me intact, and that what has been preserved is not just haughty caprice but in fact the meaning of my life. So this is what I told Mao: In lieu of loving the world twice as hard, I care, in the end, about expressing my obdurate singularity at any cost. I love this hard and unyielding part of myself more than any other reward the world has to offer a newly brightened and ingratiating demeanor, and I will bear any costs associated with it.
The first step toward self-reform is to admit your deficiencies. Though my early adulthood has been a protracted education in them, I do not admit mine. I’m fine. It’s the rest of you who have a problem. Fuck all y’all.
Reading this may be the single most important thing I do this year.
