My rule of thumb (and it's mine - so not right, not wrong) is this:
If I think a person is mad-dogging someone. I tend to engage the person being looked at. If they don't want to talk that's fine and I'll go quiet. If a person is actually insulting/threatening a person, I speak up. If there is an act of violence, I assess. I am not a fighter and 5'2. I am not going to put myself where I become the victim to violence, but I will call for help and do what I can.
Is this right for everyone? No. It's not.
I can't just judge a look because I don't know what the person is thinking. What if the person is the ex of the other and the relationship is being rubbed in their face? What if they said something insulting?
What I am saying is that all the corruption and all the violation of civil rights comes down to 'not me' and good people doing nothing. I am not in a large demographic that is targeted beyond my gender which is bad enough. However, just because I'm not in that demographic doesn't mean I don't use my voice to help them. Not to start 'that argument' but there is white privilege and there is hetero privilege. If you don't believe in either, maybe you don't live in the US. I have never heard something stupid referred to as 'that's so hetero'. So while I cannot change the course of this overnight, I can use what voice I have to speak for those that cannot. People will listen more to me because I was born with blue eyes, pale skin and blonde hair. So when I talk, I make it a point that my words are to empower those that are being pushed down by the rights I received (and they did not) merely because of birth.
IF we all started just being good to each other, there would be so much more grace and love around us. You get what you sow. I say hi to everyone on a bus I sit by. I respect if they want their silence, but what if they hadn't talked to someone and they just need a hello or a smile? Is that too much time to take from my iphone game or the music in my ears? If they want to engage in conversation, I'll respect that too. We might learn that we are not an island in a sea of people, but we are social beings in a society of strangers that need not be so strange to us.
If more people spoke up because it's wrong to deny civil rights to a part of the population based on things they have no control over, maybe there wouldn't be hate crimes. Maybe people would not be afraid to admit who they are inside and allow it to reflect on the outside.
TL;DR - Make love not war -- Also No, I am never going to stand by and agree with someone that we should do nothing because it 'doesn't concern us'. If it involves another person being hurt or repressed; it damn well SHOULD concern us. If it doesn't, it might soon also be us.
Steps off her soapbox - sorry
The quote about good people doing nothing is still dependent on evil being present.
If you aren't sure, you need to step back. Does the couple need you to defend them against something? Have they noticed at all? Do they care? Or are you about to white knight for them on something they have no need of?
Because if you are wrong, you about about to become the micro-aggression. Or the aggression.
If there is a problem, be the good citizen. Talk with, or sit by or stand with someone being harassed.
Based on the description, @meg you would be the person staring at someone else, judging without knowing, planning to act.
There are suggestions for how to handle actual harassment. Hopefully there are some out there on how to unobtrusively check in on a situation. Or be ready to make that person who was doing puzzles in their head comfortable and allowed to be on public transport too.
"I have never heard something stupid referred to as 'that's so hetero'."
You don't know many old queens (like myself) then. Believe me ... we have as many words and occassions to call out stupid straight behaviour as they do. If not more.
"I can use what voice I have to speak for those that cannot."
This is a good sentiment. But be sure you know what you're doing. Most gay people are quite good at speaking for themselves. One of my biggest pet peeves is straight people telling me whether I should be offended by someone else's behaviour. I once told a male, straight friend of mine who was arguing with me about gay rights and other gay social justice stuff and telling me that I ought to be offended by so and so's behaviour and I wasn't being a very good gay person because I wasn't offended. My response: "Do you take dick up your ass? No? Than fuck off and don't tell me how to be gay."
Now putting the shade aside a bit, in this particular situation there was no ability to know what this guy was thinking and the couple involved (whom you should not engage in a 'loving' manner and 'white knight' it) didn't appear offended. I'm gay and I'm offended by people being any more intimate in public than a peck on the cheek or holding hands. But then I'm a prude queen. So doing nothing is absolutely the right response. Know what fights to fight and if its not your actual fight, than be DOUBLY sure before getting involved.
But I still think and will die on the hill that good people shouldn't do nothing. Understandable, yes. I am not saying @Arkandel is a bad person. But doing nothing is not good.
Edit to emphasize: I do think you are a good person, Ark, and respect you a lot.
Thanks! But I didn't take it the wrong way.
If I thought there was something to do something about I would have. But I didn't know it was the case (and still don't). It's not privilege that stopped me, as far as I can be a judge of my own actions, it's that I didn't want to bitch some guy out over some sort of narrative I had made up in my own head if I was wrong.
Isn't that a form of privilege too? Writing a story where you get to be the hero when there is no one in need of help? I don't want to be that guy either, especially at someone else's expense who might not deserve it - assuming I misread the situation.
@ThatGuyThere said in RL Anger:
why is his mental health any less valuable then the couples.
If you truly don't understand why speaking up (even without DIRECTLY SPEAKING TO THE MAN) because their mental health in /this exact situation/ is /yes more FRAGILE not VALUABLE/ then-- I sincerely can't add anything else to this conversation.
Does that mean you're going to shut up about "microaggressions" then?
(Hint: probably not.)
Does that mean you're going to shut up about "microaggressions" then?
I seriously don't know what that word means anymore.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
Does that mean you're going to shut up about "microaggressions" then?
I seriously don't know what that word means anymore.
They're micro-annoying. I had some young student try to explain to me how this microaggression was so violent it made him feel ill for a week. I think someone had given him a 'look' or something because of his pink hair.
I just looked at him (I'm about twice his age) and said, "Violent is when you're being beaten in an alley by a group of people calling you 'fucking queer' ... it is not in any way a 'look'". He actually had the balls to respond, "But my violence is just as valid as yours."
I wanted to throat punch him.
It is one of the downsides of being in academia today. Dealing with all of this microaggression, hurt feelings bullshit.
I just looked at him (I'm about twice his age) and said, "Violent is when you're being beaten in an alley by a group of people calling you 'fucking queer' ... it is not in any way a 'look'". He actually had the balls to respond, "But my violence is just as valid as yours."
It's not exactly the same per se but it made me feel just the way you did per se.
I wanted to throat punch him.
(snipped just because that core sentiment is so where I am right now with someone)
I empathize with this so much right now, there are simply no words. I sincerely wish I had them to offer.
The short form: over the course of my life, I've had someone attempt to strangle me. I've been raped twice, once violently. I've been stalked -- not online -- for several years by the person responsible for #1 and the violent take on #2.
I've been stalked online, too, but that is a much different animal; the physical threat level distinction is a big one. Emotional pain is pain. It's no less pain than physical pain. Threats of humiliation and exposure are very real and they are frightening and they are rightly impactful.
For someone without a comparison to make between that and the physical threat of, say, someone who has tried to actually kill you driving past your house every day for over a decade and calling to berate you for days and banging on your door whenever there's a new car in the driveway? It's different. It's all pain and it's all fear but it is a very different fucking fear when you know for damned certain that an irrational motherfucker is standing on the other side of and inch and a half of cheap wood door and hammering at it with his fists while he screams obscenities at you, threatening harm he's already tried once before that nearly killed you.
(And believe it or not, that isn't the shit far too personal and ugly to post here.)
Recently, someone I care about decided to pull the rough equivalent of what you're describing. It wasn't even accurate, but the hyperbole factor was over the top and the comparisons being made were... well, no, they just didn't track on any fucking level.
And he would not let this comparison go. Not for months. Not when asked to stop doing it, because it was bringing some incredibly ugly and uncomfortable shit to mind. Not when it was clearly explained why the logic didn't track. Not when told it was, actually, kicking my PTSD into high gear with full on flashbacks and nightmares, for over three months, until I had to actually draw a hard line and say if it continued I would not be speaking with them again. (For all that useless, brain-dead, soulless fuckheads like Tempest try to mock me for shit like this, thinking it's fucking cute or clever to do, it was the second time in 20 years something like this has ever occurred, and none of it had anything to do with something going on in any RP scene.)
He could not grasp why this comparison was not just inaccurate, but actively damaging, and not even conveying the point he was trying to convey in any effective way.
Scale is a thing, and it's fucking relevant. The dirty look or nasty comment someone slings around on facebook or in the hallway is, yes, still hositility/a threat/a cause of suffering, but holy fuck am I tired of people acting like it's on par with a violent, physical assault in terms of trauma.
@ThatGuyThere I'm a firm believer that I don't care what a person believes about anything, just about how they behave. If they want to believe bigoted things, I don't care one whit as long as they're not running around acting on those beliefs.
I have lots of beliefs that someone could say are <insert made-up negative adjective here>, and others have ones to which I object. But I can be civil, polite, even kind to people who are doing things I find morally objectionable because I'm not an animal running on instinct.
(Child molesters, however, can be drowned over the course of 3 weeks for all I care)
I behave this way towards others, and expect other people to behave this way towards me. Disagree with me, think me a bigot if you want, but treat me civilly and we'll be just fine.
@dontpanda There is pretty much no feeling worse than feeling like you've been convicted of some kind of thought crime about which you have not taken, and would never take, action.
It's terrible. It's seriously fucking terrible.
There is no better way of telling someone their positive actions, or their resistance of negative (in someone else's perception) ones, matter worth a single damn.
And that is not a good message to send, ever. Among the well-intentioned, it creates a sense of helplessness; among the poorly-intentioned, a sense that since they've already been 'convicted', why bother resisting 'committing the crime' if you're going to endure the punishment anyway.
I got accused of a microaggression for using the word 'rape' inappropriately with someone. I said 'To me, being strip-searched feels a bit like rape.'.
Someone walking by had the nerve to stop, act indignant, and say 'Don't you know women are raped every day? Shame on you.'
So I kindly retorted: "Men are raped too. Quit being a sexist."
The best way to stop an accusation of a microaggression is to accuse the accuser of one as well.
@Admiral I decided I was tired of being accused of "mansplaining," so I demanded that the person not assume my gender, and decried the injustice of them doing so; it is assault and hate.
They fell all over themselves apologising and I never had to deal with their asinine complaints again.
@Admiral In fairness, the instance I'm bitching about, someone was equating being asked if they wanted to do something to rape.
I can see the parallel in your case as it, well, involves force (implied or otherwise) and they're not asking; consent is irrelevant.
That's where/how I found the thing I was dealing with so dramatically fucked up and inappropriate. It wasn't just a matter of scale, it's a matter of... wow, yeah, that's just not the same thing. It's another uncomfortable thing apparently (and unexpectedly), sure, no arguments there! ...but it is not the same thing as rendering someone's consent irrelevant by use of some kind of force (edit: and there are precisely ZERO consequences for saying 'nah'.). 
@surreality said in RL Anger:
Completely different issue, and I'm saying this as somebody who was wearing a DDD cup by age 13 and is now in her 40s and has experienced plenty of that. Socialization and culture can change, and that behavior is within the person's control. Physical things that someone cannot change or control about themselves are not in the same category by a considerable margin and should not be conflated.
Ugh, late, but so so so much this.
It's cultural. In some cultures, people go topless and breasts are not sexual. Now I get that in our culture they are and I don't even necessarily have issue with that (something is going to be fetishized, and fashion always has a role in this - see men's legs in some medieval stuff). And I even get that any extreme physical trait is going to draw some notice for that.
But people can absolutely learn to notice and not gawk. People do! We know it's polite not to stare. Just sometimes, people decide to forget.
@kitteh Yeahhhhh. Since I grew up with it, the general gawking thing didn't bother me because also, I'm like... 5ft tall•. My chest measurement and my height are currently, roughly, the same. I mean jeebus, that's just some silly shit right there and I would like to have a word with whoever thought this was a great design combo (outside of kinky fiction).
Gawking... I got used to it. And plenty of people couldn't help it and would feel bad. I crack jokes about it (politely and nothing super crude) sometimes to help people feel less self-conscious about that. Not if they're being a creeper, obviously, but if some poor soul just catches themselves staring in befuddlement and suddenly turns beet red, well, that's not exactly fun for them and they're not trying to be disrespectful or horrid, so putting people at ease is a thing.
People being jerks? Zero fucking tolerance. The difference tends to be super obvious.
• OK FINE, RIGHT NOW I'M A FRACTION OF AN INCH UNDER 5FT TALL, BOO.
@surreality I'm in a pretty similar boat. Short-stacked alliance!
I have zero issue with the guy who walks past and does an almost cartoon-comical 'woah' double-take, or just otherwise has an obvious moment of getting sidetracked by their dick in the middle of a normal conversation. That's a instinctive (if culturally trained) reaction, and, y'know, it's even a little flattering.
But it's how they act when they realize they're doing it. "Haha, ah, sorry, what was I saying?" vs. "I am tuning you out while I imagine doing something I saw on redtube last night with those" is pretty obvious.
Does that mean you're going to shut up about "microaggressions" then?
I seriously don't know what that word means anymore.
It means the same thing it has always meant: "microaggression (n): unimportance inflated into importance by people too sheltered to deserve continued life"
@ThatGuyThere said in RL Anger:
why is his mental health any less valuable then the couples.
If you truly don't understand why speaking up (even without DIRECTLY SPEAKING TO THE MAN) because their mental health in /this exact situation/ is /yes more FRAGILE not VALUABLE/ then-- I sincerely can't add anything else to this conversation.
Does that mean you're going to shut up about "microaggressions" then?
(Hint: probably not.)
