![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
symbioidljMan, people are assholes. I mean, I sure as fuck can be one at times. But this is about those other assholes, not auto-anal-reflection.
At work, now, I've dealt with a few things. One is the sexist bullshit of my boss, who "jokes" about things. He doesn't say it around women, and doesn't harrass them, but it's just bullshit. I do realize he's old-fashioned, and older, grew up in rural wisonsin, so I don't blame him. He's a product of his environment. I'm not saying that as an excuse, but at points, people have to recognize that fact.
I realized that when I realized my father is the product of his environment. Born in 1938 in Oklahoma, he went to school in, that's right: pre-integration south. I always tried to change him when I was a kid if he used the word "nigger", and still frown upon it. He's learned to not say it much. But I don't push him the way I used to...I think he's mellowed with age. He never was a hardcore racist, but it was there underneath. More than most people, but not as bad as a lot of people. My point being, he's grown up for 63 years with it. 20 of those years in that same environment. Brown vs BOE Topeka was only four years old by the time he left.
But this isn't about him or my boss. And in the same way I can say they are a product of their environment, I guess I could say that about this coming up part. Except I feel no excuse for Linda. Del, I can kinda see it, but still not with her life issues. You'll see.
Linda, my boss's wife, had said a few things. The first is about a co-worker of mine who worked only for a brief period and quit. At the time, my boss was a complete asshole, and everyone had to deal with him yelling all the time. (My boss ended up having sleep apnea, and the PAP machine has changed him drastically for the better since then) One guy had to take medication for anxiety. Not SSRI's. Not even Benzodiazapenes(at least I don't think they were)... Vials of clearish brown liquid. Injections. For Anxiety. That's fucking hardcore. The guy tried real real real hard. I could just see him breaking up every day further and further.
So Linda, this year, a good four years later, says something about this guy, and how he was just a lazy welfare cheat and how he only wanted to work for 3 months so he could go back on welfare/state aid. That he wasn't trying to work.
I got pissed, because she has never met the guy. She never saw him. I probably wouldn't have realized the extent had I not seen his medication. I told her this, and she tried to sound sympathetic but then still tried to excuse her stupid ass judgements(I need to try to stop being so judgemental myself)... But........ That just pissed me off. Even after someone directly tells her that this guy needed to inject drugs for anxiety, and the seriousness of his condition that's implicated by that fact... She still tries to ignore it, and blame him. grr.
What pisses me off about that is that she's a Methodist, and pretends to be this big ol' liberal christian who's tolerant of people and all this shit. But then this sort of stuff happens.
And then, she also, the other day, while looking at applications, saw that this one guy was a stay at home father, while his wife worked. Now, Madison is a hip town, that should be no problem. But then she makes a quip while reading this application. "I wonder what's wrong with this guy..." and proceeds to tell us about the fact he stayed at home while his wife worked. Jackie, our secretary, said "what's wrong with that?" And Linda was like "oh.. nothing, nothing... I mean, it's just not normal."(ie: not traditional. heaven forbid somebody should switch gender roles in this fucking asshole conservative society) Isn't one of the problems that men aren't being involved in their family life? Isn't that why the government rips on single-parent families? Blah blah.
Then Friday, Del, my co-worker, who has a son with Down's syndrome, said that "I think some of these people should be institutionalized. I'm sorry, but it's not fair to kids in school to be forced to sit down with someone in a wheelchair and have to watch someone spitting food all over the place."
WHAT! I can't believe I just heard that coming from you. YOU. Of all people. Who has a child with a disability. And suddenly, somehow, YOU'RE inconvenienced at someone with a massive physical handicap? I guess it's all a matter of degrees.
Seriously, so if a baby spits up food, that's not inconvenienced? Oh, I suppose that's OK, because it's a baby, but fuck it if someone has a physical problem, and they can't help it, just as much as the baby can't help it.
The reason I can give Del the product of her environment is because, again, she's older and grew up in rural wisconsin... But the strike against her is that she has had to live with someone with a handicap. Just because he's physically fit(the kid has massive muscles from working on their farm), doesn't excuse the fact that he's still disabled(sorry "Differently abled"... I fucking hate that politcally correct term), and that you should have learned a little something about sensitivity to needs of all sorts of people.
She's even involved in Special Olympics, and talks about the drama there. Maybe the drama is due to her own lack of compassion at any child who is physically disabled, or isn't disabled in the same way as her child.
I dunno, but no excuse.
Just bullshit.
At work, now, I've dealt with a few things. One is the sexist bullshit of my boss, who "jokes" about things. He doesn't say it around women, and doesn't harrass them, but it's just bullshit. I do realize he's old-fashioned, and older, grew up in rural wisonsin, so I don't blame him. He's a product of his environment. I'm not saying that as an excuse, but at points, people have to recognize that fact.
I realized that when I realized my father is the product of his environment. Born in 1938 in Oklahoma, he went to school in, that's right: pre-integration south. I always tried to change him when I was a kid if he used the word "nigger", and still frown upon it. He's learned to not say it much. But I don't push him the way I used to...I think he's mellowed with age. He never was a hardcore racist, but it was there underneath. More than most people, but not as bad as a lot of people. My point being, he's grown up for 63 years with it. 20 of those years in that same environment. Brown vs BOE Topeka was only four years old by the time he left.
But this isn't about him or my boss. And in the same way I can say they are a product of their environment, I guess I could say that about this coming up part. Except I feel no excuse for Linda. Del, I can kinda see it, but still not with her life issues. You'll see.
Linda, my boss's wife, had said a few things. The first is about a co-worker of mine who worked only for a brief period and quit. At the time, my boss was a complete asshole, and everyone had to deal with him yelling all the time. (My boss ended up having sleep apnea, and the PAP machine has changed him drastically for the better since then) One guy had to take medication for anxiety. Not SSRI's. Not even Benzodiazapenes(at least I don't think they were)... Vials of clearish brown liquid. Injections. For Anxiety. That's fucking hardcore. The guy tried real real real hard. I could just see him breaking up every day further and further.
So Linda, this year, a good four years later, says something about this guy, and how he was just a lazy welfare cheat and how he only wanted to work for 3 months so he could go back on welfare/state aid. That he wasn't trying to work.
I got pissed, because she has never met the guy. She never saw him. I probably wouldn't have realized the extent had I not seen his medication. I told her this, and she tried to sound sympathetic but then still tried to excuse her stupid ass judgements(I need to try to stop being so judgemental myself)... But........ That just pissed me off. Even after someone directly tells her that this guy needed to inject drugs for anxiety, and the seriousness of his condition that's implicated by that fact... She still tries to ignore it, and blame him. grr.
What pisses me off about that is that she's a Methodist, and pretends to be this big ol' liberal christian who's tolerant of people and all this shit. But then this sort of stuff happens.
And then, she also, the other day, while looking at applications, saw that this one guy was a stay at home father, while his wife worked. Now, Madison is a hip town, that should be no problem. But then she makes a quip while reading this application. "I wonder what's wrong with this guy..." and proceeds to tell us about the fact he stayed at home while his wife worked. Jackie, our secretary, said "what's wrong with that?" And Linda was like "oh.. nothing, nothing... I mean, it's just not normal."(ie: not traditional. heaven forbid somebody should switch gender roles in this fucking asshole conservative society) Isn't one of the problems that men aren't being involved in their family life? Isn't that why the government rips on single-parent families? Blah blah.
Then Friday, Del, my co-worker, who has a son with Down's syndrome, said that "I think some of these people should be institutionalized. I'm sorry, but it's not fair to kids in school to be forced to sit down with someone in a wheelchair and have to watch someone spitting food all over the place."
WHAT! I can't believe I just heard that coming from you. YOU. Of all people. Who has a child with a disability. And suddenly, somehow, YOU'RE inconvenienced at someone with a massive physical handicap? I guess it's all a matter of degrees.
Seriously, so if a baby spits up food, that's not inconvenienced? Oh, I suppose that's OK, because it's a baby, but fuck it if someone has a physical problem, and they can't help it, just as much as the baby can't help it.
The reason I can give Del the product of her environment is because, again, she's older and grew up in rural wisconsin... But the strike against her is that she has had to live with someone with a handicap. Just because he's physically fit(the kid has massive muscles from working on their farm), doesn't excuse the fact that he's still disabled(sorry "Differently abled"... I fucking hate that politcally correct term), and that you should have learned a little something about sensitivity to needs of all sorts of people.
She's even involved in Special Olympics, and talks about the drama there. Maybe the drama is due to her own lack of compassion at any child who is physically disabled, or isn't disabled in the same way as her child.
I dunno, but no excuse.
Just bullshit.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 11:08 am (UTC)She represses the hatred and resentment she feels toward her own child for creating so much burden and inconvenience in her life, and instead projects those negative emotions outward onto other people's disabled children.
But of course that obviously isn't appropriate either (I mean, look at your response to what she said), so she has to dress up her her anger and rage toward disabled kids with the claim that she's concerned over mainstreaming disabled children in schools not being fair to the other kids. Which is just a bullshit smokescreen, and I'm sure somewhere down deep she knows that, though she'd never admit it because that means facing up to her resentment of her own child (which she knows she's supposed to love).
You're probably right on about the Special Olympics / lack of compassion thing too. It's very typical of people who are going through this sort of denial of their real emotions to immerse themselves in activities which make them look the part, and seem to be committed to the role they know they're supposed to be playing. She probably gets involved with Special Olympics so everybody else can see what a great, concerned Down's Syndrome mother she is. The positive feedback from the other parents helps her convince herself that she's a good mother, and helps her avoid facing her real feelings toward her own child. She probably isn't even aware herself that she has those feelings, most of the time, if at all.
Obviously I don't know this woman at all, and I could be entirely off-base. But when I read your description I was like, whoa -- this is just fucking classic textbook stuff. I'll shut up now.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-28 11:38 am (UTC)The reason I say it's not always upbrining, is because I think there are two sides to the upbrining thing. Either you go with how you were braught up or you go totally opposite to it. I remember reading a story once about these twins who grew up w/ a dad that was always in jail, doing drugs, living off welfare, etc. One of the twins grew up just like his dad, the other went to college and was very successful, never got into trouble, or any of that. Someone asked them both why they thought they turned out the way they did and they both had the same answer. They said, "With a father and and upbringing like that, how else was I supposed to turn out?"
I think this rings true in a lot of cases.