The above photo, saved from a posting of a friend of mine at a band's website, was captioned "idealistic." I see elitism in th above picture. I think it should be caption "misguided". Here's why:
Question: Do you agree that there are "ugly" people
Answer: Idealism aside (e.g. everyone is beautiful in their own way, a fact that may be true, but), the fact is there are people who are widely considered unattractive by a large number of people. So, for clarification, when I say ugly I don't mean "ugly" in the sense of "truly ugly" or "ugly i the eyes of god." what i mean is, people who have physical traits that makes them unattractive to the general population, exceptions aside. Defined like that, as a social phenomenon, its hard to deny the existence of ugly people.
Question: Do you agree that ugly people can't help it?
Answer: By and large this is undeniable. I mean, its true that some people's weight may technically be a self inflicted condition, but nobody want to be obese. And as for all the other things that go into it - symmetry, distance of the eyes from each other, hair line, height, breast size, build, cheek bones . . . these are all genetics.
Question: Do you agree that ugly people face real disadvantages in life?
Answer: This one is hard to deny. Taller men get earn more money than shorter men. Thinner women get more opportunities than thicker ones. Good looking people get more free drinks, faster taxis, out of tickets, and most obviously, more opportunities to date good looking people. Studies show that people are far more sympathetic to and trusting of good looking people than ugly people.
Question: Can you tell an ugly person when you see one?
Answer: Honestly, sometimes I can't. Particularly when it comes to people of my own sex, sometimes I can't tell where somebody stands on the attractiveness scale. Even when it comes to people of the opposite sex, I sometimes don't know if what makes somebody unattractive to me a matter of personal taste. However, there are certainly people I can say without a doubt are unattractive people.
Question: If you had an undeniably ugly child, would you tell them?
Answer: This is where people think I'm nuts. they say no child is ugly. But if we define ugly as a social phenomenon, its undeniable that some children are ugly at least with regards to their peers. if ugliness is an undeniable phenomenon, and there are some people you can tell are ugly upon casual observation, than there must be a point where you can look at a child and say - they're going to be ugly. In fact, people do it to other people's children all the time. So if there came a point where you could look at your own kid and say to yourself, "they sure arn't a looker," don't you owe it to them to tell them?
let me illustrate why
Question: Do you agree that a black child in Jim Crow south faced real disadvantages in life?
Answer: Only a pitiful racist would answer no. Less opportunities wee available for black children, and people were openly hostile to them.
Question: If you had a black child, would you tell them that they were being treated the way they were because they were black?
Answer: It would be ridiculous not to.
Question: So what's the difference?
Answer: Although the practical difference is enormous, the rhetorical difference is nil. Just as ugliness is described above as a social phenomenon based on a physical condition (rather than merely a physical condition), Blackness in this context is less about the color of a person's skin than about the social phenomenon of being an obvious member of a persecuted class. And just a black child is a member of a disadvantaged class by birth, a child with obvious asymetrical features or a poor build has done nothing to invite the disadvantages associated with being ugly. And just as for the black person, there is no denying that the ugly person is disadvantaged (although not nearly to the same degree).
My point is, if there are people who are objectively ugly and there is nothing they can do about it, the disadvantages of being ugly must be done away with. However, this can never happen so long people remain in denial about their ugliness. A person needs to be able to say, "I am ugly, and that doesn't make me a bad person. I deserve to be treated the same as everyone else." Until that happens, the lot of the ugly person will never improve.
Imagine, if you will, a black woman looking into a mirror and seeing a white woman, with a caption reading idealistic. The racism would be obvious: the implication is that it is better to be a white woman than to be a black woman. Perhaps that is true, as the world we live in is far from color blind. But it would be "idealistic" for that black woman to look in the mirror and see herself - but with all of the opportunities and privileges of the white woman.
Thus, th caption of the above picture should be MISGUIDED. It misguided for a heavy woman to look in the mirror and see a pretty woman as her ideal. She should see herself. And she see that self in a world that loves her as much as anyone else.
Friends, I am an ugly person. By looks perhaps, but certainly by spirit. When I look in the mirror I like who I see. Of course, I am weak from time to time. I sometimes wish that I was a little bit taller, or had better jawline, or whatever. But I know, those insecurities are not a result of my flaws, but a result of a flaw in the world: elitism. I want no part of it, and I'd like to expose it wherever I see it.
And I see elitism in the above picture.
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