Posted by Matou on Tue 9 Dec 03, 12:17 AM to Matou's blog.
I doubt that Ms blackowner dreamed that her weblog would initiate the furore that has actually transpired.
Regrettably, it shows that she is not in touch with the atmosphere regarding racial issues in our green and pleasant land a little surprising considering her 15 years here. Perhaps also surprising is that I have drawn great comfort from some of the replies that have arisen.
How does one draw comfort from such a morass of negativity? It's quite simple really
It seems that most people don't seem to care whether one chooses to prefer one race/ethnicity over another. That's a positive thing. That's preference when it starts becoming exclusive, verging on obsession, people start getting twitchy. I have a weakness for petite Asian women, particularly Chinese and Japanese yet, as most people on this list are aware, my chosen submissive is far from petite and definitely not Asian and I wouldn't trade her for the world, or all the petite Asian women in it. It certainly doesn't make me racist in my opinion.
People are almost universally against racism oh, yes definitely a positive thing. Cerrynn and I have been privileged to meet a large number of people in the Scene and to date we have never encountered any form of racism or prejudice based on colour, creed or nationality. It is a moot point whether a similar sample of vanilla people would produce the same result personally, I doubt it. To our delight we have also found an amazing ignorance (in the sense of ignoring it) of height, weight, hair colour (or presence) or appearance in general. Maybe cerrynn and I are just lucky with our friends or maybe we choose our friends carefully maybe both. Several people commented on the fact that what is in the headspace is what matters, not what the head (or anything else) looks like. I guess that cerrynn and I are walking examples of that principle. Would I want a petite Asian version of cerrynn? No, I wouldn't because what makes the Matou & cerrynn{M} relationship what it is are the differences as much as the similarities. Well, I know what I mean. And I think cerrynn does too.
Many people are defending the right to free speech, the express right to voice one's opinion. Most definitely a good thing. Something we treasure in this country and we are more tolerant of it than pretty much anywhere in the world.
But here is where I start to choke a bit. I will defend anyone's right to voice his or her opinion. Equally, I will defend the right to challenge someone's opinion. But and it is a BIG 'but', disinformation really sticks in my craw. When people throw out sweeping statements of supposed fact which do not have the slightest connection to the real world, I get irritated. Then I get annoyed. Then I get off my ass and write a weblog. Unfortunately several of you smart alecks got there first and stole my thunder yes, I do mean you BV and Mr Lingus, you too. Excellent weblogs saying all the things (more or less) that I wanted to say and in a considered and well-written fashion. More so than *this* weblog written with one or two glasses of a rather passable Cotes du Rhones more than is probably good for my grammar. Actually there has been rather a lot of good and different weblogs on this topic.
As I write this, I note that blackowner has apparently disappeared from Informed Consent. I feel a touch of sadness at that realisation. Was this an opportunity to educate that we of the UK BDSM community have lost because we were too harsh or judgemental? Was this purely someone's fantasy that we have destroyed?
Or was this really someone without sufficient intelligence to realise that the science of genetics does not depend on which state of the US in which you were born?
Either way, do we of the community not have a duty to educate rather than castigate?
Matou
P.S. Having said all that stuff about educating, yes I do understand what Flogging a dead horse means!
Edited Tue 9 Dec 03, 3:20 AM by Matou
