I made, what is now in hindsight, an incredibly idiotic sttatement about a gay man in a movie being portrayed as just a man who happened to be gay, as opposed to being a caricature of a gay man.

I thought it was well-meaning, but a friend immediately called me on it.

She- rather charitably- said that it was a hetero-normative statement, because what I may view as a caricature can and likely is a very realistic portrayal of some gay men.

That made so much sense that I was pissed at myself for even thinking along those lines. I didn't even argue the point or try to defend myself. My mind sat in that stench of that for a minute though, because that't very likely not the only blind spot I have, and not just for that community.

I'd say I'm well meaning, but still have some catching up to do. I could be alone in that, but my guess is that a lot of us still have serious blind spots on issues where we're the outsider. "Pause" is some shit that's common and culturally overt, and I think I'd probably have been more bullish in attacking it a few months ago. But I'm realizing that there's probably a lot of things that people do that they don't realize is some measure of aggression/ignorance.

Some do, and don't care, and that's an issue. But for those of us who do care, some of this corrective energy be better directed inward.

"Pause" is definitely some shit that needs to go though.