this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Hi we can fight about other things too? like I'm also fucking super concerned about how religious institutions are infiltrating our government and other positions of power and how there are still so many mass shootings, and the opioid crisis, and mental health is still abysmal, and dental insurance is a joke even though bad teeth hurt your health.. oh and earth is basically fucking melting and people STILL deny global warming. Look see a person can be aware and care about a lot and consider all the things important! You're making the same type of argument that would come up with ANY progressive outcry of injustice, same fucking arguments happened with police brutality against people of color. Lawmakers don't have to focus on just ONE FUCKING THING and progress doesn't have to either.
And fuck this shit people still die from being LGBTQA. Fuck off with "you're too small to matter enough to protect" bullshit. I get it if you feel like it has too much media attention it's mostly because it became profitable to talk about it. That's capitalism at work but don't lessen and downplay a legitimate fight for equality because of that.
It's not a fight for equality. Nobody wants equality because equal for us sucks every ass. It's a fight to be at the front of the line for the money fountain, and every feel good story about an eleventy thousand dollar hormone treatment that got approved could have been a fucking well in a reservation that would have given clean water to hundreds of native people. I'm glad Suzy doesn't have to be Kevin any more, but Kevin still would have had food, water, and a place to sleep. Some of us don't even have that. So yeah, until all of us have the basic shit covered, I'm going to mad about the overexposure of a niche group who cry about their wants instead of recognizing all the need around them.
This is a terrible take. Given the high rate of suicide among trans individuals who have no social or medical support, this is a public health issue and not just a race to the "money fountain". Should we also cut funding for all mental health causes because the Flint water crisis isn't yet taken care of? Not every trans individual is even asking for or wants to transition surgically. And when they do, most are paying out if their own pocket. And even those that get any public funding represent a literal drop in the ocean. Are you also mad at women who get attention and funding for breast reconstruction surgery after cancer?
By your logic no other social issue should be dealt with or funded if we don't solve world hunger first. It's not marginalised communities that are standing between people in need and resources, and it's frankly not constructive to be mad at those marginalised communities for getting the attention they do. Better to use that energy to go after those who hoard resources and have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
LGBTQIA are getting a lot more screen time because a small group of powerful people decided we're a good scapegoat to distract everyone else (including you) from the real reason the issues you so vehemently abhor are even happening in the first place. Maybe you should direct your ire at them, it's a hell of a lot more constructive.
Also what's this about "you people"? I'm not American. In fact I come from a former colony of a European country that's still getting royally fucked over decades after independence, and the majority of the population lives in abject poverty. Don't lecture me about who's getting enough attention. Most of the people in your country have barely even heard of the place I'm from, let alone give even an iota of a shit about the plight of the people there. And you don't hear me ranting that native americans are getting more "attention" and "resources" compared to my people who are dying of rampant AIDs, violent conflict, and fucking disease and starvation. We all deserve equality and justice - focus your efforts on tearing down the causes, not other groups fighting for themselves against the same fucking oppressors.
Imagine having the independence to fuck up your own country as you like lmao you're talking about comparing a genocide to intermittent cultural oppression like they're even remotely similar. I'm sorry the Europeons came to your country and made things worse for your people. Mine never left and have only recently agreed to stop sending us to mandatory death camps dressed up as houses of God. Do your people still have concentration camps? Mine are called reservations.
If you think a lot of African countries are truly independent and not still being fucked every day by the same imperialists that put them in that situation in the first place, you have a lot to learn. Your people aren't the only ones who suffered from genocide and literal slavery courtesy the same breed of colonialists you talk about. Again if you have an issue with the status quo take it up with your oppressors rather than shitting on other oppressed peoples. And while you've turned this into an oppression dick measuring contest you, have yet to tell me how the lack of attention to your cause is specifically the LGBT community's fault as you've alluded to time and again
Because the lgbt community is fighting for wants instead of raising awareness about needs. Let's talk about drag queen story hour. Do we need protests and media coverage for drag queen story hour to keep going when a rez in the state doesn't have its own water supply? Apparently so, because that's what's on the news. When I say "genocide" what I'm talking about is the 112 million people who lived on this land, of whom there are 7 million descendants today. That's almost 95% decline. And that's with explosive growth in the last 2 generations. My people were very nearly eradicated entirely, while lgbtqia+ have enjoyed varying levels of acceptance since written history began.
Your strawman argument fails to demonstrate why this is any of the LGBT community’s fault or responsibility. You know why drag queen story hour is on the news? Nobody cared until bigots made it a big deal and pushed it to mainstream attention. Drag queen story hour has been going on for years, then the ‘phobes started showing up with guns. As if any of us wants to be in the news because we’re being threatened with violence. Christ.
Also where are you getting the 112 million native americans figure from? Most estimates in North America don’t break past 20 million pre-Columbus (and that includes Canada):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-American/Native-American-history
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171896/pre-colonization-population-americas/
Nobody can deny indigenous peoples have suffered from genocide and other injustices, but you do realise the LGBT community is no stranger to genocide and concentration camps, right? Are you unaware of what happened in Europe in the mid-20th century? And that’s only one example – LGBT individuals have been and are still being raped, imprisoned and murdered around the globe. Our saving grace is that we’ve been/are able to able to hide our identities, but a great personal cost.
Finally, the reason none the issues you bring up get any airtime is because the people responsible for picking what gets attention (hint: it's not the LGBT mafia) frankly don’t care. That’s not on us.
"The Native Population of the America's 1492" 2nd edition, University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. You wanna Cite an actual source or just use Wikipedia? Further, you got put in concentration camps once if you were stupid enough to admit to being gay. We got put onto reservations regardless of what we claimed to be, because we are all Indians. And we never got liberated. We're still in the camps. Drag queen story hour is an issue of years. The oppression of my people is an issue of CENTURIES. it's not even remotely similar.
That book refers to the population of ALL of the Americas, including central and south america. To say the native american population went from 112 million to 7 million is a LIE. The wiki page cites actual sources for the figures, or have you never used Wikipedia before?
And we're moving goalposts again I see. You didn't need to admit to being gay, you'd just have to be suspected of being gay to end up in a concentration camp. Today, LGBT people are still being killed, raped, imprisoned, beaten the world over. That's been happening for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, I mean it's in the fucking bible, qran, torah, etc for fuck's sake. And trust me they weren't stoning drag queens and twinks back then. Just because there's LGBT acceptance in -some places- now doesn't mean everything is peachy. So no, your problem isn't remotely similar, but if you want to play oppression Olympics against a group of people who have been persectured for literal millenia, AND STILL ARE, you don't have much of a leg to stand on. But this isn't about who's more or less oppressed. This is about you coming here and faulting the LGBT community for speaking for ourselves, as if it's somehow our fault everyone else is ignoring your people's problem. Take it up with the mainstream media dude, they and the people in power who maintain the status quo are your real enemies, not us.
You're complaining about someone getting to go to a buffet when you are starving while someone just flew halfway across a country on a private jet to eat a steak down the block from you.
If you want to complain about money not going to get everyone basic needs met, then team together with the people who more often than not are also struggling to get by and target who actually has the money and hoards it for power instead of using it to eliminate hunger from the world.
And how is this the fault of the LGBT community? Are the LGBT community specifically responsible for native americans not getting enough attention? You have yet to make an argument why the LGBT community itself deserves your ire. Have they somehow -tricked- people into getting more attention? I really struggle to understand why you've picked on this group in particular. Are black people being given too much attention too? Women? Elderly people with dementia?
Let's look at all those groups as a percentage of the population and you tell me who should recieve the attention. Women? Half the population? Black people? Maybe 20-30% of the population around me? Elderly people with dementia? Now we have a very tiny group, except literally anyone could become a part of this group eventually. Now the LGBTQIA+. Not even 1 in 10, and that's in our VERY accepting society with legally protected status. You don't even get rounded up in concentration camps. Not here anyways. But could rupaul spare a shout out for my people on the rez? Nah. Better talk about lizzo some more. She needs the exposure.
Ho boy where do I start? You are aware LGBT individuals are everywhere, right? Including on your reservation? In every country in the world, in every social class, race, religion, etc? We are children, siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, colleagues, friends, etc etc. HOW are you surprised the LGBT community gets this kind of representation? The vast majority of people know or know of someone who is LGBT in their social circle. Can the same be said for native americans? Don't assume I don't feel for your people, but conflating LGBT representation as somehow a specific injustice to native americans is incredibly flimsy logic.
Using Rupaul as an example is a supremely poor choice given drag race has specifically given representation to native performers in the US and Canada, and created a platform for those performers to highlight issues their communities have faced:
https://dragsociety.com/blogs/the-tea/native-american-queens-who-rocked-rupauls-drag-race
And again why is it his or any other LGBT individual's responsibility to fight for your cause anymore than it should be anyone else's responsibility?
And you want to talk numbers, ok let's talk numbers. I'll use my country as an example. We're 32 million people, over 60% of that population lives in poverty. Not the deluxe American level of poverty, third world country levels of poverty. That's nearly 20 million people. Nearly half of those 32 million don't have access to clean water, that's over 16 million. Only one in five have access to adequate sanitation, that's 28 million people without adequate sanitation. How many native americans are there in the US? Around 7 million? That's a lot more people in a lot worse living conditions where I'm from than your entire population combined. Should I start complaining that you have more representation in famous movies than my people do? Should I concern troll about there being more native American millionaires than there are in my country? Should I expect native americans to fight for my people's cause too, to give us a shout-out? Using your logic I should go around dismissing any calls for justice for native american peoples simply by citing the fact that more than the equivalent of triple your entire population are living in abject poverty in my country.
Oh and another thing - this whole time you've been shitting in the LGBT community you've neglected the fact that the new pride flag was redesigned not only to give a specific shout out to trans individuals, but also people of colour AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, represented by the black and brown stripes:
https://dmh.lacounty.gov/blog/2022/06/a-brief-history-of-our-lgbtqia2-s-pride-flag/
But sure, it's the gays that are at fault for your community not getting enough airtime. Unbelievable.
Bud. If you think reservations are some kind of deluxe poverty, you don't understand what you're talking about. Black and brown stripes, because that's what my people and culture boils down to. Clean water isn't just some necessity we'd like to have, but it's literally sacred to us. Our rivers and lakes, poisoned as they are, are still holy to us. We are put on the least arable land possible by hundred year old treaties that are disrespected constantly. Our 7 million are what's left after 300 years of constant, targeted genocide. Best estimates put the pre colonial population at around 112 million. That's almost a 95% kill rate. And after all that, we still can't farm the land we are left with and cannot make our own water clean. I cannot get over "deluxe American poverty" like it even remotely applies to reservations. Has your little shithole ever had concentration camps?
Moving goalposts again. You complained the LGBT community and a specific prominent figure haven't given your cause any attention. You've conveniently ignored that part of my reply.
Are people on reservations today dying of starvation, rampant AIDs, dysentery, cholera, some warlord or child soldier gunning down their home? Seriously, I can keep that list going. And let's talk objective figures. You know what the life expectancy for native americans is? Just over 70. In my country it's just over 60. Listen, what your people went through and are going through is and was unjust, no one can deny it - but if you're going to argue that the level of injustice should dictate who gets more attention, well there's plenty of other populations way worse off than yours who are getting even less attention. If I were to follow your own argument - my people are suffering way worse, so your people are currently getting way more attention than they deserve. Do you not see how this is absurd?
Again your figure of 112 million is disingenuous as I stated in my above comment. Yes, my little shithole had concentration camps, many African countries did. You really need to pick up a few history books and do some reading. Some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrafal_concentration_camp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_concentration_camps_during_the_Mau_Mau_Uprising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_concentration_camps_in_Libya#/media/File:Karte_Libyen_italienische_Konzentrationslager.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_camps
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/german-concentration-camps-what-namibia-today-were-predecessors-nazis-extermination-camps
And you don't hold the monopoly on colonial genocide either. Some select examples:
https://www.genocidewatchblog.com/post/colonialism-and-genocide-in-portuguese-africa
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/imperialism-conquest-mass-murder
https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/gabinetpostal/lestat-lliure-del-congo-un-genocidi-a-lombra/?lang=en
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide
https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20150705-hollande-acknowledges-colonial-era-cameroon-massacres-critics-want-apology
You also conveniently forget millions of Africans were rounded up and sold like cattle to slavery. Only reason they kept any of us alive was to be used as slave labour and kept as property. Is it unfair that some groups get more attention than others? Sure. But it's not any given oppressed group's fault and blaming them for it is useless at best, and malicious at worst.