@del_torro: Mark Waid is a hardcore liberal, nearly insane. he posted this "
My therapist says I’m still in the grieving stage about last week, and I don’t think he’s wrong. You may be in the same place. If so, be kind to yourself and don’t be afraid to ride it out. As long as you’re not harming yourself or others, you have the right to grieve however you need to. Grieve that this isn’t the country you thought it was. Grieve that there are so many people in this nation for whom bigotry and misogyny and xenophobia were not dealbreakers. Their message was clear, and they have to own it: if you’re not a straight white male, they don’t care about you. That’s incredibly disheartening. Like most of you, I too wanted to see a wave of blue crest over that map, not because I was particularly a fan of Clinton, but just to prove we’re not gullible enough to fall for a grifter who just pulled off the greatest long con in history and who ran on a platform of hate towards our fellow man.
For the last seven days, I’ve been having the same bad dream at night, which is unusual for me, as my unconscious never repeats dreams. But for the last seven nights, and I’ll spare you the boring details, I keep dreaming about being in places where I showed up prepared for work only to be told harshly that my work was wrong, all wrong, and that I hadn’t been paying attention. You don’t have to be Freud to crack that code; I feel helpless and directionless and I need to get something right. So.
My friend Humberto Ramos, born and raised in Mexico, went on record last week having made the very painful decision to stop doing conventions in red states because he doesn’t feel welcome there. He’s uncomfortable bringing his family to those places. Immediately he was beset with awful people, including some vile comics pros, telling him he was overreacting and/or that he was cheating the fans and/or he should grow up and/or what he SHOULD be doing is x, y, z. That infuriated me. I don’t care if it's someone I’ve known for 20 years or someone I don’t even know; no one has the right to tell ANYONE who’s Not Like Them how to process this, how to feel, how to cope with their very legitimate fears. Straight white men don’t get to lecture African-Americans. African-Americans don’t get to lecture LGBTQ+ folks. Latinos don’t get to lecture Muslims. And so forth and so on. That’s just basic human compassion and empathy, and anyone who’s ever been told by a stranger what they “should” do at a time of grief and fear ought to comprehend how repellent that behavior is.
As a straight white male, I carry with me a certain amount of privilege. That doesn’t mean I’m diving through a money bin. Privilege doesn’t mean I snap my fingers and women come running. What it means is that I was born with a pigment and a nationality that makes me safe from hate crimes, from bigotry, from the kind of fearmongering our President-elect spewed in all fifty states these last 16 months.
So I’ve decided to use that privilege on the convention trail. I respect and agree with my friend Humberto’s decision, but I’m in a different place, and after talking to my friends who are Not Like Me, I think it’s a better use of my privilege to go to shows everywhere and help create safe spaces, as many of you already do (and thank you). It is pretty literally the least I can do.
I’m not hard to find at shows. If you’re a fan or creator and are ever, ever made to feel uncomfortable on a convention floor, come find me. If it’s a fleeting thing, just come hang out. If, on the other hand, you can point out the aggressors, I will rain HELLFIRE on your behalf, I PROMISE you. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you that I’ll flip tables on bullies and creeps, and I'll have your back. And while I’ve never had to use it, I've got enough clout to have hatemongers flat-out thrown out of shows, and I am not above those sorts of nuclear options.
It’s very easy on social media to say you're an ally. Give me the chance to prove I'm yours and I won't let you down. It may not be much, but it’s a start, and I'm willing to listen if you think there's more I can do."
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