The biggest problem, in my mind, with the "not all Christians are like that!" (replace Christians with white people, men, straight, cis, etc. as necessary) isn't that it's often the case of a Christian (or whatever) demanding that their feelings be considered too. They do, in fact, have a right to have their feelings considered, as much as anyone else's.
The problem is that the claim is insulting. It's implying that the people complaining have not noticed that the majority of Christians, of white people, of straight cis males, and so on, are decent people who have maybe some failings but overall, don't want to hurt anyone and would love for everyone on the planet to be happy and healthy.
When I bitch about Christians, I kinda take it for granted that the audience knows a whole lot of decent Christians, and that they know I know a whole lot of decent Christians. That I am either using handwavy shorthand for "the icky Christians," which we all acknowledge as existing even if we don't agree on which ones those are, or that I'm talking about a systemic unrecognized problem in almost all Christian communities, which they'd work to fix if they understood it was there at all.
I may get upset at how much they don't acknowledge it even when it's pointed out directly, but I don't get upset that they haven't fixed a problem they can't perceive.
The harping on "all Christians aren't like that!" implies that non-Christians who grumble about Christian behavior are stupid and unobservant and horrifically bigoted--instead of allowing that they know perfectly well that the majority aren't like that, and they kinda assumed their audience would understand which subset of Christians was actually the target of the rant.
When the Creepy Guy at the bus stop winks at me and tries to pinch my ass, and I angrily mutter "men!" to the other passengers, I'm not inviting a lecture about how most men don't do that. I'm saying, that's a man thing (no woman at a bus stop has ever tried to pinch my ass), and I wish the men who did that, wouldn't. When I bitch about Christians, I expect the readers to know I don't mean "all Christians do this" but "the Christians who do this, get away with it because they're Christians."
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chiming
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Date: 2011-07-27 11:00 pm (UTC)From:The biggest problem, in my mind, with the "not all Christians are like that!" (replace Christians with white people, men, straight, cis, etc. as necessary) isn't that it's often the case of a Christian (or whatever) demanding that their feelings be considered too. They do, in fact, have a right to have their feelings considered, as much as anyone else's.
The problem is that the claim is insulting. It's implying that the people complaining have not noticed that the majority of Christians, of white people, of straight cis males, and so on, are decent people who have maybe some failings but overall, don't want to hurt anyone and would love for everyone on the planet to be happy and healthy.
When I bitch about Christians, I kinda take it for granted that the audience knows a whole lot of decent Christians, and that they know I know a whole lot of decent Christians. That I am either using handwavy shorthand for "the icky Christians," which we all acknowledge as existing even if we don't agree on which ones those are, or that I'm talking about a systemic unrecognized problem in almost all Christian communities, which they'd work to fix if they understood it was there at all.
I may get upset at how much they don't acknowledge it even when it's pointed out directly, but I don't get upset that they haven't fixed a problem they can't perceive.
The harping on "all Christians aren't like that!" implies that non-Christians who grumble about Christian behavior are stupid and unobservant and horrifically bigoted--instead of allowing that they know perfectly well that the majority aren't like that, and they kinda assumed their audience would understand which subset of Christians was actually the target of the rant.
When the Creepy Guy at the bus stop winks at me and tries to pinch my ass, and I angrily mutter "men!" to the other passengers, I'm not inviting a lecture about how most men don't do that. I'm saying, that's a man thing (no woman at a bus stop has ever tried to pinch my ass), and I wish the men who did that, wouldn't. When I bitch about Christians, I expect the readers to know I don't mean "all Christians do this" but "the Christians who do this, get away with it because they're Christians."