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I am feeling...irate. Really, explosively angry at the moment and it's a result of a tiny snowball that's been rolling along for a while, I think. Things inside and things close to home and things in the newspapers and over east all tumbling along and a couple of things tonight that added huge clumps of snow and suddenly the rage is huge, so this is going to be somewhat incoherent.
Dad really seems to think that Australia isn't racist, that we as a culture aren't racist. When John Howard stood up on TV and said "Australians aren't racist" Dad said: "I agree", sort of challengingly I thought, and I didn't say anything, but god, I disagree so strongly.
I'm still not sure about the sequence of events is re: the riots in Sydney, but mum and I were talking about a police officer on TV who said he'd never seen a mob turn on a woman like that, and we were trying to figure out which 'side' attacked her and so forth, because it had been really unclear. My back was to dad when he said, in a joking tone: "maybe she deserved it."
[Backstory here: a few days ago there was an ugly, ugly front page article in the west australian about women school leavers who had been raped or attempted-raped. And I'm using that phrasing deliberately because the attackers? barely mentioned. And the police? were saying women wearing short skirts were "a large part of the problem". Someone wrote into the paper saying: "you morons!! not their fault!" and someone else wrote back to that letter saying: "they were wearing short skirts, what do they expect?" I've just sent off a reply to the latter letter.]
So blaming the victim was a Hot Button for me. It always is, but he's said a similar thing about a murder victim when he was trying to back up an argument, and I hadn't said anything to him then, I don't often speak up against things that make me irate, but this time I was irate enough to say: "Don't you dare say things like that near me, (or to me)", (I can't remember my exact phrasing), but I glanced up to see mum smiling at him and I added: "Ever". And dad responded by saying: "Get off your high horse." (or equivalent) And I just... shut down, couldn't think clearly enough to reply to that. And I'm sitting here irate and almost shaking.
In other news, the weekend was fabulous: went to Scietech with mum which made me feel practically nostalgic, and there was DVD watching and snuggling and Slashmas and, lik 24 hours ago things were so wonderful and I'm nose-diving now and it's sucky. I just needed to vent it *somewhere*. Yay for LJ :)
Dad really seems to think that Australia isn't racist, that we as a culture aren't racist. When John Howard stood up on TV and said "Australians aren't racist" Dad said: "I agree", sort of challengingly I thought, and I didn't say anything, but god, I disagree so strongly.
I'm still not sure about the sequence of events is re: the riots in Sydney, but mum and I were talking about a police officer on TV who said he'd never seen a mob turn on a woman like that, and we were trying to figure out which 'side' attacked her and so forth, because it had been really unclear. My back was to dad when he said, in a joking tone: "maybe she deserved it."
[Backstory here: a few days ago there was an ugly, ugly front page article in the west australian about women school leavers who had been raped or attempted-raped. And I'm using that phrasing deliberately because the attackers? barely mentioned. And the police? were saying women wearing short skirts were "a large part of the problem". Someone wrote into the paper saying: "you morons!! not their fault!" and someone else wrote back to that letter saying: "they were wearing short skirts, what do they expect?" I've just sent off a reply to the latter letter.]
So blaming the victim was a Hot Button for me. It always is, but he's said a similar thing about a murder victim when he was trying to back up an argument, and I hadn't said anything to him then, I don't often speak up against things that make me irate, but this time I was irate enough to say: "Don't you dare say things like that near me, (or to me)", (I can't remember my exact phrasing), but I glanced up to see mum smiling at him and I added: "Ever". And dad responded by saying: "Get off your high horse." (or equivalent) And I just... shut down, couldn't think clearly enough to reply to that. And I'm sitting here irate and almost shaking.
In other news, the weekend was fabulous: went to Scietech with mum which made me feel practically nostalgic, and there was DVD watching and snuggling and Slashmas and, lik 24 hours ago things were so wonderful and I'm nose-diving now and it's sucky. I just needed to vent it *somewhere*. Yay for LJ :)
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