As long as i'm busy putting my foot in, I might as well not stop now.
Again: this is about me not getting it, and me asking the questions I'm not finding answers to elsewhere. An extended back-and-forth with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
fifi_bonsai has brought me about one tiny step forward in my own understanding, but it's also served to bring to the fore another question that's getting me in this whole "how to discuss racism" thing.
The "tone" argument (derailing what a person is trying to say by saying you don't like the tone of how they're saying it, in sum) gets pulled out a lot in these conversations, and most of the time I get why and it makes sense.
Sometimes, though, at least in my view (which may be worthless), it gets used in other ways, absolutely putting out-of-bounds any conversation about attitude and respect--any conversation at all. What's crystallized for me at this point is this: I would never let a white woman, or for that matter a man (of any color), speak to me the way Fifi has spoken to me over the past couple of weeks, without either calling her on it or walking away or both. That I eventually got my eyes opened to one area of racist blindness on my part (incidentally, not through anything she said to me, but through something she said to someone else in a comment string) is secondary to the fact that neither I nor anyone I know in my "real life" world would just stand there quietly and let themselves be spoken to with that level of scorn or invective.
And yet, when I finally began giving back in kind (okay, even before that, but it got so much worse when I got pissed off), I stepped immediately into puddles of my own skeevy racism bingo spots that made me as uncomfortable as they did other readers--and still didn't address what was really the issue, which was that (in my perception of the dynamic) someone was addressing me in a way I would normally not accept, but that because I am from a privileged group and she is not, and the subject at hand is racism, I need to accept it anyway. (The subtext I hear is "Oh fine, now you exercise your privilege because you don't think a POC has a right to talk to you that way." No, I don't let anyone talk to me that way, and it's gotten me in trouble and almost lost me jobs when I've called White Men Of Power on it.) (Come to think of it, it did cost me one job.)
So, my question: Is there any acceptable way for a white woman to become angry with a woman of color, and express it, in a respectful way, in an online discussion where racism is in any way part of the subject matter? And hopefully the extension question: How can women of different skin colors learn to express their mutual anger with one another, in a healthy way that derails no one and moves towards greater understanding and work to end oppression in all its forms?
Because the thing is, although white women seem to be the only non-POC folks taking part in this whole thing (am I wrong? Have any white guys stuck it out? Oh, please, I hope I'm wrong...), what no one, including the white women, is talking about is how our dynamic of communication, boundaries, respect, anger, etc. works in these conversations. Not because the conversation should be about us, because of course we're operating from a position of privilege that women of color do not share and that would be inappropriate, but because until we know what we naturally do, how can we change and grow if we don't know where we started?
(By the way...the poem White Women's Tears, at community.livejournal.com/50books_poc/17
At least in my circles of white women, tone is everything. What we say to each other tends to be deeply encoded with the tone around everything we say. The right thing said in the wrong tone is a deliberate or accidental insult; the wrong thing said in the right tone is forgivable. Anger expressed woman against woman is rare, because we were all taught since infancy that Nice Girls Don't Get Mad, so even if we'd managed to keep ourselves from being institutionally declawed and defanged we hid our teeth and claws far under the surface so no one would ever see them and embark on a campaign of proper socialization with us and take them away. So if they come out, they mean business, and most women I know have pity on the woman who clearly has neither teeth nor claws when we're angry with her, and take it just easy enough on her to not leave too many scars. (Caveat: I hope this doesn't seem to speak for all white women. It doesn't. It speaks for the ones I know, as far as I know them, and could be wrong even in that context.) I don't know a single white woman who doesn't have fairly severe anger expression issues--not just around issues of color, but in every aspect of life. (And if any white women are reading this who actually have a healthy integrated approach to your anger, please speak up, because everyone I know is kind of a mess!) (I mean that in a loving and respectful way.) And somehow, rather than learning how to express our anger better, we've gotten pretty good at pre-emptive anger-avoidance, trying to defuse things before they hit actual anger, which can be healthy...but when they can't be defused, we're up a creek.
So asking white women (who grew up with the same approach to tone and anger as I did) to completely factor out "tone" from any conversation of substance is essentially taking away 90% of our ability to communicate, to understand what is being said and to respond--no, worse, even, because the 90% is still there, it just now is no longer supposed to be relevant to the conversation, and it means something completely different to the other conversational participants. It's being tossed into a brand-new dialect without a dictionary, depending only on those who are willing to translate for us to figure out what the hell is exactly going on. It's bloody hard. (No, I'm not looking for cookies. Hard doesn't need cookies. I'm just saying that "tone" is far more and goes far deeper than a tactic to derail a conversation; it's part of all our conversations.) (and I'm really not complaining either--just kind of going, "oh, so that's why it's so hard!" Like I said, hard is part of it, and I'm cool with that.)
I ran into this a couple of weeks ago; it's amazing. Following is a small excerpt from Audre Lord's essay on anger ( www.drama21c.net/feminism/articles/usean
Most women have not developed tools for facing anger constructively. CR groups in the past, largely white, dealt with how to express anger, usually at the world of men. And these groups were made up of white women who shared the terms of their oppressions...There was work on expressing anger, but very little on anger directed against each other. No tools were developed to deal with other women's anger except to avoid it, deflect it, or flee from it under a blanket of guilt.
I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees. If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you...The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying.
I have been reading and re-reading this essay, especially this section, since discovering it, and it's hugely powerful. And I think at last I feel like I'm coming to the core of what's been bothering me since my first post-Racefailonset-post: All women (in Western culture at least, but it may go farther) share a lot of the same oppressions. Women of color have oppressions that I don't. Different women of color experience different kinds and levels of oppression from one another. And we are angry about it. But we don't have the language to talk to each other, to understand each other, to even hear the meaning and content behind one another's words. Lord encourages women to hold onto their anger, to use their anger, to let it empower and not destroy us. It's easy to be angry at some common foe; how do we deal with our anger amongst ourselves?
Then there's intersectionality. And intersectionality is where my own anger and other women's anger don't always mesh.
When someone refers to me as a "nice white lady up on my pedestal of privilege" or assumes that any response to an oppression I might perceive around me is "more white women's tears," that is offensive and hurtful. To imply that I as a white woman, simply because I'm white, have absolutely no concept or experience of oppression, that is silencing and hurtful. (And untrue.) Intersectionality works both ways, and negating my experience (especially if you don't even know my experience) doesn't serve anyone. Women of color have all my oppressions plus a whole mess more--but that doesn't mean I don't have any.
It's one thing if I barge into a conversation about race and try to derail it into being about me--that's unacceptable. That's white women's tears. That's just plain suckage. But to translate that to say that I don't under any circumstances have anything to cry about, or worse, that any tears I might cry are inherently oppressive and hurtful to others, is not okay. Especially if you do it in my house.
And yes, I'm angry. If in my anger I say things that aren't okay, that are hurtful, I should be called on them. Same goes for anyone who speaks to me, in anger or otherwise. None of that negates the realness of anyone's anger.
I'm really, really interested in getting feedback on this from folks. I own that I have my issues, and if they were all filed neatly in one folder and titled "racist skeevage" it would be really easy to examine them all and ditch them. But they're all mixed up with the other folders, some with names like "if it comes from a man it's probably less true than if it comes from a woman," and "why the hell do I still link my life with this impossibly misogynistic church" or "automatic assumptions about women who drive late model SUVs" and God knows how many others. I'm as befrigged as the next person. And I appreciate that different women will have different experiences and approaches--so obviously this isn't a one-size fits all kind of question. Please, I'm really hungry for help here.
However.
This time I'm going to call it on "respectful" speech. Outright expressions of scorn, insult, denigration, belligerence, I'm going to delete or ban without responding. Anger is cool; "Awww, wookit da iddy biddy white lady cryin'" is not. Not because I think anyone has a "right" or "doesn't have a right" to express themselves any way they choose, not because "my privilege" allows me to walk away from these conversations, but because this is my house. Please feel free to go flame me elsewhere if you wish; here I'd really like to hear what people think.
And if I'm loaded up with manure in other parts of this post (and yes, please call me on it), still, what I would really love to get is some insight into that central question: when women of various colors are angry with each other, what do we do with that? How can we use it?
peace,
J
- Mood:
discontent
Comments
I don't EVER say to anyone that my oppression trumps theirs. Or that they need to validate my oppression. I know my oppression, it is mine and I use it to give myself *more* empathy for other people, not less.
In terms of how people talk to me: this is about friendship I'd think. If you're friends with someone, you keep the tone "civil" (unless you're fighting). There are valid reasons to loose your cool in an argument, but eventually, you need to apologize if you do that (as long as the issue gets resolved) IF you want to stay friends. If not, you can be as biting as you are comfortable with. Racism is a life and death issue for POC (actually, for all of us, since we are responsible for each other as human beings), so it really gets at the emotional core of a person. So... "toning things down" isn't really something someone can do, unless they are oppressing their own inner self. (Something which POC have to learn, in order to NOT BE KILLED in our society, I'll add. And which sucks, obviously, hence the anger at being told to tone it down...)
Online, I'm guessing, none of the combatants in this racefail have much interest in being friends. So tone isn't all that important. They're pissed and they don't have to tone it down b/c they are not your friend. (That's just a guess, I haven't gone and read any of these...)
(These thoughts are just skimming the surface of my own beliefs about race and racism. But hardcore, I believe we have a duty, as people, to combat racism -- all isms -- and that to not listen to POC when they lodge a complaint, whether it is justified or not, is to fail at that effort.)
This is how I fight with people I love: get it all out. Then sit on it. Things are gonna be said that make each side mad. If you love each other, you'll sit on it and let the anger dissolve, eventually. You each try to see the points the other side made. Then apologies will be made (and then ummm... makeup sex? LOL) But you can't control what the other side is feeling or how they respond, only your side.
I think friends don't have as much a chance to get over arguments as lovers do! And the internet hasn't really helped with that situation.
(your first response makes me want to delete the whole post, because I know you're right...GOD, I hope I wasn't saying that my oppression trumps anyone else's, because I know it doesn't, not by a long shot...tell me now, does that look like it's what I'm saying?)
OTOH, you have to be where you are! And you are wanting to heal your wounds and learn about this issue. And to do that, you have to be honest.
To answer your first question: we have to (try to) love all people, even the bitchy ones :D Even if we end up walking away and not being friends in the long run, all people (even those with true anger issues and even those who scare us for whatever reason) are people who deserve our love, for our sake and theirs. Mostly ours ;D
Have you done any reading on colonialism and/or Orientalism? I think that's pretty helpful, in this issue (seeing HOW oppression makes people get seemingly irrationally angry, after the fact). Edward Said wrote a wonderful book called Orientalism. I don't agree with everything he wrote, but reading it is an exercise is good! (It's also a good exercise in understanding how we can say, "Yes, you're angry" AND say, "Yes, I don't know how to fix that because I have no power to go back and fix history." Said doesn't quite get to that point, but if you read it and are able to say those two things back to the text, you're getting there yourself, which is NO small feat!)
I was lucky to study Orientalism in grad school, it was personally edifying, in many ways :D
I don't know what to do with my anger. There seems to be no socially acceptable place for a woman who looks white to be angry. The reasons for my anger are not something I need to put on people who never did me any harm, though.
Do you realize that when POCs speak up against racism and white privilege, that is what they are doing as well? That perhaps to you your words are not inflammatory or hurtful, but to POC, even if you are not addressing us directly, the unexamined thought processes that leads to stuff like "wild/angry POC orc horde" is something non-white people deal with a lot. We don't want people to speak to/about us that way either, and yet we're supposed to watch our tone and be extremely polite until the clueless person finally (if ever it happens) gets it? The anger you have at how fifi_bonsai replied to you might give you an insight as to the anger POCs feel about, say, being dismissed as "emotional" by Patricia Wrede and many others. In other words, in this situation, you are the white man in power and the POCs are you, who got fired for standing up for yourself.
I don't let anyone talk to me that way, and it's gotten me in trouble and almost lost me jobs when I've called White Men Of Power on it.
Were you polite to them? Did said men think you were being polite? (Did they think you were out of line for speaking up?) Would you agree if other white men (or women) told you you were in the right, but the most important thing is that you are not angry at these men of power?
Is there any acceptable way for a white woman to become angry with a woman of color, and express it, in a respectful way, in an online discussion where racism is in any way part of the subject matter?
I would look very, very hard at *why* you/the white person are/is angry.
That's white women's tears.
Why do you get to decide what counts as derailing or offensive to POCs?
To imply that I as a white woman, simply because I'm white, have absolutely no concept or experience of oppression, that is silencing and hurtful.
Very very few people I know automatically assume a white person is clueless just because they are white. Usually they have to say or do something first that causes us to think that.
So asking white women (who grew up with the same approach to tone and anger as I did) to completely factor out "tone" from any conversation of substance is essentially taking away 90% of our ability to communicate,
One doesn't have to factor out tone completely. One just has to privilege it less than fighting racism. If one cannot do that, then that's where the adage of "shut up and listen" might come in handy, until perhaps one can work through one's anger at POCs who are calling them out for problematic statements. If it matters more how one is called out than what it is one is being called out about...then it's safe to say our priorities are not the same (eg, how can a racist insult be less horrible than being called clueless? because that's what the tone argument comes down to).
Tone is everything too between how white people and non-white people interact. It's why it doesn't mean anything. If we're polite, it must mean we don't care that much, so it's not a big deal. If we're angry, we're too sensitive or biased or something. Appropriate expressions of anger, politeness, tone...these are all things decided by the privileged, and a lot of times "politeness" = not challenging that privilege, in which case there is never any tone that's polite enough, while one can be as rude as one likes if it's in keeping with the status quo (eg, what's going on in here, though credit where it's due, the mods are talking about it).
Edited at 2009-06-02 08:40 pm (UTC)
Well-worded!
(Edited for html fail on my part.)
Edited at 2009-06-02 09:00 pm (UTC)
(Actually, I didn't get fired, it was a contract job, but I got blacklisted from future incarnations of the job. Which were many.)
I just posted a quote from nextian (one of these days I really oughta learn html) about how the anger is not the argument, the argument is the argument. And maybe what I should have said to fifi from the beginning is simply "I'm sorry I hurt you. Please tell me what I said that made you so angry?" and maybe this could all have been avoided.
*****
"Were you polite to them? Did said men think you were being polite? (Did they think you were out of line for speaking up?) Would you agree if other white men (or women) told you you were in the right, but the most important thing is that you are not angry at these men of power?"
I wasn't going to go here, because I didn't want in any way to compare my experiences as a woman to anyone's experience as a POC, but since you bring it up...Yes, I was always polite. Invariably the man I would bring things up to would be taken aback, then in good cases he would hear and listen and we would have a good dialogue. In the not as good cases, he would disengage and I would find myself not getting hired again and hear murmurings about how I'm "difficult." (Actually, those murmurings were worse after similar encounters with rich white women.)
Your final question is most interesting: the most important thing was always, viewed from within or without, that I be able to approach and address the issue not without being angry, but without making the man feel threatened or attacked. The subtext: women who go on the offensive and express their anger irrationally and wildly are dismissed by the more powerful as not worthy of attention; women who can express the root cause of their anger and what it would take to address the injustice leading to it are able not only to be heard and respected, but maybe even actually GET some of what they are asking for.
Hmm. I need to think about this. Says a lot about my reactions to Fifi.
**********
"I would look very, very hard at *why* you/the white person are/is angry."
You know, I've asked this question several times, of several women of color. Every single one has given this exact answer. Not a single one has actually answered it.
*********
"That's white women's tears.
Why do you get to decide what counts as derailing or offensive to POCs?"
Er...I wasn't trying to decide anything, I was sort of summing what my understanding from 101 and other places was of the concept of white women's tears.
Maybe I'm being over-analytical about the concept of "derailment." For something to be derailed, it seems that it would have to already be on a track somewhere, right? So on an LJ of a white woman who's openly trying to deal with her own privilege and her anger as a white woman in a DEEPY misogynistic line of work, and who gets screwed up sometimes, to come in, engage her, and then cry "Derail! White women's tears!" seems a little unjust.
(TBC)
I'm glad you recognise there are differences, and with that said....
able to approach and address the issue not without being angry, but without making the man feel threatened or attacked.
You are, of course, aware that in your society there rly isn't a stereotype of white women employees being threatening to their white male employers, yes? But that there is a stereotype that women of colour are, if you'll excuse me reflecting your previous terms back at you, angry and threatening like "wild animals". So, yes, that would contribute to a difference in perception from the person being called out about the supposed "tone" of the person calling them out no matter what the actual content of the calling out was.
but...and yes, of course I'll "excuse" it, but may I please humbly ask that the "wild animal" thing not be perpetuated? I have apologized in my previous thread for it, once the light bulb of DOH! was ignited, and though removing it outright would obliterate the whole conversation (though honestly if you or others suggested that I do so, I'd lock it), and recognizing now (yes, I know, DOH!) that it's a triggery stereotype for many POC I'd really love to not keep putting out there to hurt more people. (This is totally not about me not wanting to look bad, I already look bad, this is about not spreading the hurtstuff.) (I mean, yeah, I could go on for days about how for ME the image of all humanity and especially women as connecting to our wild instinctive animal-selves is a powerful and life-giving one, but in this instance what it means to me is exactly jack. It hurts others.)
So thank you. It's really humbling (root same as humiliating) when I realize that people whose journals I read regularly in order to learn more about how not to be a doof show up here and see exactly how much of a doof I am.
And you felt no anger or irritation or even exasperation at that? Wow.
I also wonder where that infinite patience is when talking with POCs who don't respond the way you'd like/expect... Why does it make you angry when talking to white men does not?* (It sounds to me like you're saying if a white man said to you what fifi_bonsai did, you would not have gotten upset, you'd have patiently explained why his words were misogynist? Or is telling someone to 'back off' not count as anger to you?)
*What spiralsheep said about how it's different. I happen to think being part of the unprivileged group (fighting misogyny, say) might give one a way to sympathize with POCs, even if they never fully understand the difference, but I may have to rethink this... (Not just because of your posts, but because a lot of the silencing tactics used on POCs are the same ones used on women, and in this case white women especially don't seem to realize this, or maybe they do and don't care as long as they don't get called clueless.)
You know, I've asked this question several times, of several women of color. Every single one has given this exact answer. Not a single one has actually answered it.
Well, okay. Yes, you have the right to be angry, frustrated, hurt, etc. You even have the right to get mad at POCs, as you did with fifi_bonsai. It's *why* you're mad part, though, that matters in these discussions of trying to combat one's own blindspots (when did you start getting mad, at whom, why tone is so important, why the POC hive mind is saying the same thing). What you are getting mad about can be very telling of your privilege. If you want to be mad at POCs about race and not get called out on it, I think you have to be very, very careful what it is you're mad about. I wouldn't say a white person could never get mad at a POC and be justified in their anger, but it's not something I've seen be okay yet; and the problem with this hypothetical is that someone will invariable say "but handyhunter/a poc said it was okay for white people to get angry with POCs in race discussions", which is another way to use "POCs don't have a hive mind, you know" as a way to support one's privilege. Other POCs may have different opinions.
I felt HUGE anger and irritation at those men, and those women. But I didn't express it. (See OP about my own stratum of white women and anger. Nice Girls Don't Get Mad.) I expressed reason, and logic, and "I" statements, and all the marginally acceptable things that really really bold Nice Girls might dare to exercise in challenging our Betters. And tried to make sure to listen to every damn thing they had to say, just in case actually they were right and I was wrong, because of course there are always two sides to everything, and making them feel Heard so that they might be more able to Hear me.
Holy. Shit.
This is Jeannie and Ferris, isn't it? (Okay, to anyone who hasn't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off this will make no sense. Go rent it. If for no other reason than to see Charlie Sheen at about age 16.) The scene near the end, where Jennifer Grey, after getting increasingly pathological throughout the film, was complaining to Charlie Sheen that the reason she was so pissed off at her brother was that he ditched school and never got caught, and she had to go. Charlie Sheen just calmly said to her, "You could ditch too." She said, "I'd get caught." At which point he looked at her and said, "Then your problem is you."
I'm pissed off at Fifi because she "gets to" let it all hang out, be angry at the people she's angry at whether it's appropriate or not, when my real problem is essentially, "why does she get to be angry with the people she's angry with when I can't?" That's essentially what it boils down to.
Shit.
And after her epiphany, Jennifer Grey got to make out with Charlie Sheen. I just get my farting husband over in the next room. (Okay, he's hot too, once the wind dies down. I shouldn't complain.)
Shit.
*********
finally--
"If it matters more how one is called out than what it is one is being called out about...then it's safe to say our priorities are not the same."
I suspect you might not believe me when I say this, but I honestly didn't understand the root of most of what Fifi was calling me out for through the stream of rhetoric and re-interpretation of my comments, so in that sense, yes, it matters how one is called out. And that's what I was trying to call her on--call me on what I SAID, not what you think I meant when I said it, or I can't own it, apologize for it, and grow from it. I felt really strawmanned in there, and I couldn't even find the real issue to address until she addressed YOU about it, in plain words, and then I could and did. And if that wasn't her priority in calling me out to begin with, then I guess our priorities were different after all.
And on a more basic, visceral level, it's like that video about "how to tell someone they're being racist"--yeah, of course, it's much easier to hear "that was racist" than "you're racist." And I know that I AM still working on my racism. But my racism (and yes, this is examined, not just trying to make myself feel good) is mostly about being a still-gaining-vision person of privilege who doesn't always recognize how what I say or do might be heard by POC and thus cause pain. It's not about the things I've recently been accused of thinking or feeling.
Getting called out on the "you think all POC are screaming infants throwing tantrums about not getting their toy" thing was a valid call (something I learned from you, not Fifi), but not because it's true, because it isn't--it's because some of the stuff I shot my mouth off about came out whingingly wrong and caused people to feel like I thought that about them. To the POC hearing it there may not be much difference between the two, but to the person doing the work it makes all the difference in the world.
Unfortunately, the way things are right now, with where you are in yr learning process, with the things you unintentionally say-- I could never relate to you in the way I related to her or to an anti-racist ally. This isn't about whether yr a good or a bad person, whether I like you or I don't like you, whether yr trying yr damndest and you'll try to do better (I believe you will). This just isn't a safe space for PoC's & Co's. Until it is, I can't speak to you as if it is.
Edited at 2009-06-02 11:09 pm (UTC)
These are the same thing to me.
To the POC hearing it there may not be much difference between the two, but to the person doing the work it makes all the difference in the world.
This is what "white women's tears" are about. You probably don't mean it this way, but what you are saying -- the effect of what you're saying -- is that it's more important for POCs to consider the feelings of the white woman (who has said or done something clueless and possibly hurtful to the POC) than the POCs own feelings, and if POCs don't watch their tone, then the white woman will stop working on being anti-racist.
I recognize from your comment that from the POC's perspective (be it the specific POC I was speaking with or other POC's who happened to come along and read) it may not make any difference at all.
I guess if it were me who'd been hurt by something someone else had said, for instance something that sounded like the person (man? we agree it's a flawed analogy, but it's all we've got right now) thought all women, and me included, were pushy harridans who would scream and rail at you until they got their way (and actually, yes, it's a stereotype I'm familiar with, if not specifically in the workplace), and we got into it and I called him on it and he actually listened to himself, it would make a difference to me to know whether he actually thought all women were pushy harridans or whether his privileged male habit led him to say stupid unexamined things that made it sound like he thought that.
Again, though, that's my perspective, and that damn Golden Rule thing (treat others as you'd like to be treated, regardless of whether you know for sure that's how they'd like to be treated) keeps getting in my way. The collection of mistakes I'm making is getting very lovely and shiny.
Anger will not make us friends. Anger will not fix things between us. Anger will shake you up, will dirty yr crisp white tone corset, it will make you trip in that maneuvering waltz you've mastered with yr friends. Anger will make you scrutinize and focus, if/when you've been taught to see everything (specially people and their flaws) like impressionistic watercolors. Anger will not save you. Anger will not mend bridges. Anger will burn them so that you have no choice but move forward. Anger will wake you up from yr lethargy. Anger will make you uncomfortable, with me, with you, because the corset isn't there so you have to work out yr spine. Anger will (hopefully) be part of yr growing pains.
This is more hard shit. There are no easy answers here. I'm afraid that in this case it's more failing. Oh, and it's thankless, because it's not about excelling. It's about mending yrself to how yr supposed to be in the first place, which explains the sorry dearth of cookies. Nobody gets cookies for doing what they're supposed to do.
Also, I was expecting what I got (lies: I was expecting amazingly horrible fail). That you weren't happy with yrself for saying those things was a very unexpected surprise.
Thank you for yr promise (what other people call "the apology").
P.S. From my pov, I was going "easy" on you because I like Dharma_Slut. Thank Z. for that.
I'm going to save your "anger" paragraph above.
I don't wear corsets. I'm strictly a Birkenstocks-and-boho type girl and my boobs cringe when even an underwire comes anywhere close.
But I do keep promises.