WHY I BOTHER: you're wrong & it matters.

Every time I scroll down a social media timeline I'm confronted with completely ignorant things. 

I'm AMAZED at the bigotry & I often wonder how I used to enjoy the company of half the people I grew up around/went to school with. all of this willful ignorance has me genuinely distraught. from the gender binary ignorance, homophobia, sexism, slut shaming, to the overt racism, the mentality of my peers is beyond disappointing. A lot of the ignorance is due to genuinely not knowing any better. we learn things from our parents; if you don't have parents that encourage you to get out & learn about those different from you, then you won't understand how to reflect on perspectives that differ from yours. We also have a Euro-centric and Patriarchal school curriculum (History is always told from the perspective of the victors) that contributes to the ignorance by excluding minority voices in most all subjects.  however, neither of these serve as an excuse to choose to remain ignorant and fail to cognitively supersede those who've raised you. 

My best friend always asks me: "Why do you waste time responding to ignorance?" 

and for the longest time I was unable to articulate my feelings into words; truly, I didn't know exactly why I felt compelled to present different perspectives to these people beyond the hope that even if they don't analyze what I've said that at least the idea resonates. I grew up with them; everyone knows I was driving a Lexus at 16 and that I hail from vastly different socioeconomic conditions than they did, and for a lot of people, that discredits anything I say to them. It doesn't matter that those experiences that they think they know about are only a small portion of my overall childhood, that I examine the world through a sociological context and that I consider empathy to be my greatest characteristic; all they understand is their firm believe that I don't understand. Today I have discovered the words explaining why it matters:

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. "Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.” - Audre Lorde

My entire life I've had an impeccable sense of self and an innate clairvoyance. At the age of five, I would remind my mother that "my First Amendment guarantees my freedom of speech." Whenever she would ask me a question I knew I couldn't answer without consequence, I would invoke my fifth amendment. I was socialized to stand up for what I believed in. you cannot change a system if you're complacent in it. When you allow people to say things that you KNOW are offensive, you're condoning their thoughts and reinforcing their beliefs and resulting behaviors. 

Be more than pretty.