Living in the world we make.

karnythia posted about the Louisiana case I linked to below, wherein a JP not only had the temerity to deny a mixed-race couple a marriage license, but made no secret of the fact that this was why he did so. In fact, no only did he make no secret of this instance, but he volunteered the fact that he's done it before three other times. In his mind, it would be a far bigger deal for him to be inconsistent on this score... he's all about equality before the law.

karnythia was alerted to this news item by approximately 400 people, by her reckoning. I wasn't among them. I totally expected that she would have noticed and commented on it, anyway. Her response took me by surprise. In a nutshell: "People, this is not new information." She was surprised that anyone was surprised by it.

Obviously, I know that racism exists. I know it's spread wide and ground deep into the fabric of American society. I know that mixed-race couples are bound to be the targets of it... for being visible, for messing up the nice clear divisions between privileged and oppressed, for challenging the already flimsy pseudoscientific and pseudotheological excuses for separatism/supremacy, and for a host of other reasons both subtle and obvious and undoubtedly beyond my experience.

Because of an unrelated situation in New York, the media is calling interracial marriages "the last taboo". It isn't, of course, but it may be at the top of the list of things that an individual identified as liberal, progressive, and very anti-racist can show their ass on in front of a crowd of the same and expect to get more half-hearted nods, "Yeah, I know what you're saying.", or other non-responses than responses calling them out.

I know this from experience. I have had friends who said the same thing that the judge said: "I'm not racist. I'm just... thinking of the children." Or that used the fact that they have a personal preference for members of their own race and generalized that to somehow mean that there was nothing questionable about them being squicked by mixed-race couples. Or invoked "studies".

There have been "studies", you know?

"Yeah, I know what you're saying."

So given all this, why was I surprised to read the judge saying the same things I've heard other people say so blithely?

Well, because he's a judge. I wasn't shocked that people still think such a thing and I also wasn't shocked that an interracial couple experienced discrimination from a government official. I was shocked that he felt comfortable enough for the twain to meet, for him to discriminate so openly and then act like it would have been a greater miscarriage of justice if he stopped discriminating.

I figured he'd feel the need to hide it, to be subtle about it... and I thought that this was progress. Not the ultimate goal, not the end game, but a step in the right of direction. What people can't do openly, they can't do as effectively or as often as they might otherwise do.

But, reality check: if the kind of talk, the kind of attitude, that the judge is evincing passes unchallenged so often, then why would he be subtle? Why should he? When he says in the article that he's talked to people and they agree, I can picture it in my head because I've been present for those conversations. And while I wasn't nodding my head, I also didn't call out the speakers to anything like a sufficient degree. Because I knew the person speaking wasn't racist, you see, they were just speaking up for the children, or speaking about a personal preference. I didn't necessarily agree, but their intentions seemed okay then I didn't want to make too big a deal.

And of course that's bullshit. Because in the circles that I move in, arguing against someone else's relationship "for the sake of the children" or claiming that all relationships should conform to one's own ideal of a relationship for oneself is one of the things that gets called out the swiftest and the hardest... as long as we're talking about bits and chromosomes, not skin color or ethnicity.

And if a bunch of queer/trans/pagan/poly/what-the-fuck-ever folks can't be assed to call out this vile, pernicious and unquestionably racist attitude when we encounter it, then why should we be shocked when an undoubtedly less radically progressive judge in a southern state acts confused when people make a fuss over him expressing it?

Yes, it's another LJ post. Yes, it's 3:30.

My insomnia's always something that's waxed and waned, ebbed and... un-ebbed. The past two nights, inclusive of tonight, it seems to be stronger than my melatonin-enforced biorhythm. Suck. But oh well. I've got too many good things going on in my life and too many good things percolating in my brain to let this get me down. I've been through the cycle before. I'll go a few nights without any appreciable sleep and I'll be dead tired. When the worst part of it's over, I'll be able to get back on a 7-8 hour sleep schedule.

It's a bit of an irritating speed bump as I'm working on reclaiming my former title of "prolific author", but it's also a useful reality check. Melatonin supplements help me set and enforce a sleep schedule, but they don't alter the underlying causes of my insomnia. I'm still going to have problems from it from time to time.

I'm going to make a rare note about my personal life. Those of you who stalk me the most relentlessly are closest to me might have already noticed that I have somebody new in my life. Jack is a very sweet, very kind, somewhat shy Catholic boy. He's also approximately kinky as hell. We seem to be fairly compatible.

He's polyamorous, which is convenient. I don't cope well with the structure and expectations of a monogamous relationship. Forget "a room of her own", I have several universes of my own and I need the time to disappear into them.

He also lives halfway across the country, which is inconvenient... but I expect to travel quite a bit in the coming year anyway. Having a designated crash pad on the east coast could save me money in the long run.

Because I know it'll come up: no, me getting a life isn't the cause of my slowdown in productivity. In the first place, I don't have a life, I have an internet boyfriend. These things are like elemental opposites. In the second place, we haven't been e-together dot com all that long. This development hasn't hurt my buoyant good mood and growing optimism, though. I've missed having a man in my life for a number of years, and I've never had one of Jack's caliber.

Granted, it's possible that we'll meet up and discover that we have no chemistry with each other, that we've completely misjudged and misunderstood one another, that we really aren't as compatible as we seem to be. I doubt it. I'm keeping myself open to the possibility, but I doubt it will happen. I'll post more about him when I'm less sleep-deprived.