Holy ****, are you serious? I'm not really a fan of Raven Simone but wow, Oprah, what a way to be a complete asshat. I always found her kind of pretentious but what a way to **** on someone's identity. Wow.
This reminds me of an issue that I encountered with some coworkers a few weeks ago, except instead of race it was gender. I brought this up in the multiple identities thread or whatever but I'm kind of androgynous and it's really upsetting for me when women try to push on what they perceive as "women's issues" without acknowledging my own experiences. My whole experience with life is completely different than what most people face because of a unique set of qualities I've had in my upbringing (parents being flexible with my identity, not being diagnosed with autism until 19, fighting people who tried to put me down since day one... ect.) as well as my personality (I've always been extremely competitive and bold).
When people expect people to embrace their identity in a way that they approach it, it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. These women actually get offended for me when the guys at work make jokes about how I'm masculine or actually a dude and things like that. It's just so awkward, they claim to be supportive and yet they turn around and expect you to be the way that they WANT you to be. The dudes are chill about it though and I haven't had a single problem about it. I'm still nervous about bringing up my identity with these women because they'll claim some ******** about how I don't understand myself or how I should be like this or that (they tried doing that with the gay guy). I came to terms with my gender identity years before I even met these women - back when I was like 16 or 17 (I just didn't call it anything back then). It's like you're not allowed you embrace yourself. The dudes get it though, and I've even told them about this stuff and they all know and they're all so great about it. It's so nice to feel welcome, I only wish that the people who claimed to be my allies and use my name to further their supposed causes would understand it as well.
It's hard to talk about because people tend to be really stuck up on social justice ******** (which is why I tend to avoid those topics these days on PC, seriously, these people are so ****ing ignorant of anything outside of their own world) but yeah, I figured I could bring it up with you since you're pretty cool about that stuff. Thanks for being really awesome.
P.S. I think Limerent was referencing that Oprah thing in his post when he called it "political correctness gone wild" or whatever.