Fighting the slight chill. With FIRE. Or actually, with boiling water.

It's just gotten a bit cold this time of year, around +5*C or a little below, and the radiators haven't really started to kick in yet. My lame Ashkenazi Jew circulation can't handle this shit and I'm always moping around in my beautiful fingerless wool gloves and shearling slippers but my feet are frequently blocks of ice anyway, because we don't have the equivalent of cups of tea to wrap them around.

Or at least, we didn't. But at bexless's suggestion I have started filling my hot water bottle and putting it under my feet (all wrapped in a fleece blanket of course) while I sit at the computer snuggled into my pillows and blankets and cardigans and sweatpants and goatskin rugs. Bliss!

I feel sad and guilty that I haven't got to write the last few days. SAD. And GUILTY.

This accidentally turned into an abstract post on racism, dialogue and the Yuletide controversy

1. Thoughtless rudeness is still just as rude as a racist conspiracy; the intent is different but the effect is just as harmful, and when you're a minority watching the majority culture reproduce the patterns that marginalise you, it doesn't matter to you in practise if they're doing it on purpose or not.

2. The last thing that any discussion of prejudice or offense needs is for minorities to be told to watch their tone. (It's the most frequent and most offensive demand I've seen in all these debates as they keep coming up again and again, and a persistent attachment to it is pretty much a permanent loss of my respect.) Unfortunately, they hear that so often that they're all well aware of its necessity if they wish to be listened to, and if they ever neglect to be polite it's no doubt in momentary frustration and with the full knowledge that they're going to be ignored by the people who need to listen to them as a result of their temporariy satisfaction.

3. Usually there's no reason to think there is a conspiracy, because no conspiracy is necessary to plausibly explain the widespread thoughtless behaviour, alas: culture-centrism is built into all cultures. To put it another way, the most fundamental characteristic of culture is its ability to make itself seem natural, logical, unchangeable, and taken for granted by its members. This is why raising the consciousness of the majority is a lot of work for other people even when the majority are trying to work at it too: it's impossible for most people to train their brains to question things which seem fundamental.

4. Because of #3, to members of the majority who are trying, or who consider themselves to be trying, intent is the most important element in every interaction. For a member of the majority, trying is the big challenge. This position is exactly the opposite of the minority's (see #1) and leads to even more conflict.

5. I parsed Merryish's admittedly defensive and confrontational statement as meaning it was offensive that Mama Deb (seemed to) imply a racist conspiracy was at work and not - as I see a lot of people interpreting it - as meaning that the act of stating her discomfort was inherently offensive. It's an understandable mistake since the latter is the position that many people take, but there is in fact a difference. In effect, it's a comment about her tone, and not a direct demand that she shut up. (As to whether the OP actually implied a racist conspiracy was at work, I think going only from the original post that's debatable. It read that way at first glance, but another look showed me the other interpretation.)

6. In this particular drama, while the discussion of racism is still very much relevant, the fact that the sign-ups were open for two weeks (and that such information is of course readily available to any interested parties at the community) renders the initial suspicion of conspiracy ludicrous. The long period of sign-ups is obviously intended to accomodate people who might be busy or absent for part or, indeed, most of the period; it's not like it's a week-long process.