BY: BARRY T. MACINTYRE
I think I speak for everyone when I say, I’m pretty damn confused these days. What with the cultural appropriations, sexual orientalizations, racism, reverse-racism, assessibility issues — you name it. I’ll be talking to one of these young people and I don’t know if they’re a transgender, a cyst-gender or a digital native, for all I know! LGBTQ? — I mean, what are we talking about here? Sex or alphabet soup!?
And so I end up putting my foot in my mouth. That’s why I’ve come up with a proposal to solve the problem: labels! Everyone who’s got, like, you know, something funky going on just wears a label! It’s like the ingredients on the side of a food product: you write down what your deal is, stick that sucker on your back or chest or something, and then I don’t have to meet with Brenda in HR anymore.
Now I know that sounds a bit crass and I wish it could be more simple. I wish there was just some kind of blanket rule for these things so I knew what is and isn’t going to offend people. For example, I don’t understand why I can wear a cowboy hat to work, but I can’t wear an aboriginal headdress. Like if someone just said “no funny hats”, it would be simple, but according to Brenda these situations are much more “nuanced” and “complex”.
That’s why I suggest the label system. It saves you from having to explain your whole deal to me and it saves me from having to listen to you explain your deal. And from ending up in Brenda’s office again.
As long as you’re wearing your label, I can safely avoid stereotyping you. I just look at what’s written on it, make sure to avoid any of the things it tells me not to do, and we can go on with our day without having to address any uncomfortable or confusing topics! I can also stop reading those links from websites with names like “Femqueen” and “Yaaasplain” that my daughter keeps sending me.
To those of you who might be thinking this sounds like a crude system, I know what you’re thinking: is there an app for this? I know you kids are all about your high-tech solutions so, yes, I propose that there could also be an app where you just hold your phone up in front of someone’s face and it tells you what their thing is.
I don’t understand why these issues have to be such a big deal in the first place. I mean, it’s not actually illegal to call someone a “tranny” or wear a yarmulke as a joke, just like it’s not illegal to not hold the door open for someone or to ask a fat lady how many months pregnant she is as a goof. And if it not’s enforced by the law, why should I make a point of observing it?
I think this solution would be the best way to just, sort of, push these issues off to the side so we can go back to living like they don’t exist. I know I was a lot happier back when things were that way, and I can only imagine that absolutely everyone else was too.
