Ranting, Wherein Advice is Hidden

The Importance of Imparting Information vs. Willful Perpetuation of Ignorance

AND TO TOP YOUR ASSHOLE TANK OFF, YOU SEND THIS PERSON, WHO TOOK THE TIME AND EFFORT TO ASK YOU ABOUT IT, IN AN ATTEMPT TO LEARN, TO DISPELL BIGOTRY AND HATE MONGERING, YOU SEND THEM OFF WITH THESE WORDS?!

'So take your ignorance away from me, and I wish you the best of luck .'

I hear and see and rejoice in the global effort to educate ourselves on the threat of terrorism. I see also the efforts of Muslims trying to fight both extremism and the negative news and media perception that it gives their religion.

And apparently, Tumblr user, absolutely none of this has affected you, the spread of information in the name of peace and understanding, and your shortfallings has left you unprepared to respond.

So I will.

I'm a woman. Who's never tried to belittle or mock or forcibly remove another woman's headcovering.

Who proudly acknowledges her heritage, and embraces the blending of cultures and the spread of a great country that made me possible.

Who gladly accepts the responsibility of helping other people to understand that feminists don't have to hate men.

But when you drag my country, my heritage, and my WHOLE COUNTRY'S effort to bring enlightenment and an age of peace forth backwards screaming and kicking into this kind of baiting, hateful, and downright warmongering behavior, I will call you out on it.

We are not perfect. But by God we are at least attempting to understand. We are attempting to help.
We are TRYING!

Which is more than you can claim,you hate mongering Tumblr user.

At least, we try to answer people who come asking questions about other living, breathing people. Who whether or not they align with us intellectually, religiously, or racially, deserve to live in the world with us, who deserve the same respect we demand of those who do align.

The willfully hateful way this Tumblr sent off someone like me. Someone trying. Someone making effort to understand. To help bring about change, to make a better world for all of us, regardless of our differences hurts me.

It hurts me because now a bright light in the world has been doused. And that person, the possibilities and effort of that person to enlighten themselves, is now probably as crushed as my mind is at how terribly you treated them.

Information is a two way road. One has to go forward and meet another coming to interact, to learn, to care. And while it is the Americans responsibility to learn and differentiate between those who mean us harm and those who wish to bear the proud name of our country, to stand beside us in war and sickness, and to share times of great wealth and plenty, it is also the responsibility of those who wish to be seen and known as good to let that information be known.

Alone, we cannot build a world that has a unified acceptance of everyone.

Alone, the 'White Feminists (trademark emblem)' cannot make a better world.

Alone, the warriors cannot share their stories and empty their souls of horror, to rebuild anew their minds and being a better world.

Alone, American people who do not think 'terrorist' and 'Muslim' synonymous cannot build a better world.

Alone, a mother cannot raise her children to be more educated about the others in the world they live in, and the better world that will be theirs to make.

We have to have your help. The help of the ones who wish to live in our shared better worlds.

The help of women who gather to watch their children together and to teach each other the politenesses and intricacies of good manners and proper etiquette in their cultures as their children romp together, already living in the better world their mothers are creating as they laugh and gossip together over their heads.

We need warriors who will come together and share those stories, met with a darkness and horror that understands, and together unburdened of their untold stories, begin to rebuild their minds together, each step forward doubly precious, because of the cost that made it necessary is known, and shared by the others taking that forward step to healing with them.

We need people intent on building a world where no child is mocked for their accent, their color, their appearance.

And when we get together, when we stand tall before our children, shoulders touching, at a threat that blackens our horizon, that casts a pall over their future, then, then we will have a world that we can be proud to pass on to those children. Who watched as we made it. Who will know their responsibilities, and when they pass on the world to their children, they will have made it better yet.

If you cannot put aside what makes us different for the sake of the hopeful world I described with me, please.

Please don't have children, don't participate in attempts to inform, to spread the freedom of knowledge.

Please don't pay attention to the revolution of determined young people intent on the beauty of children who never get shamed for who they are.

Please. Please blind yourself to us and fade with the old world we are trying to leave behind in memory. Stand in that world as monuments and heralds of what we came from, to remind us of what we will become if we do not try.