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Post by HeightismAOS on Oct 25, 2017 18:22:55 GMT
From 6:45-7:10: "It's interesting. You can discriminate against short people in this country and pretty much get away with it. You can't talk about people being fat, there's ageism discrimination..."
He didn't get to say much else before the others started talking about other stuff (they even brought up things like how the biggest bullies tend to be the most insecure, which is flat-out wrong), but I still think this deserves its own post. It's very rare I see someone with the brains or balls to bother bringing this up, even in some corner of the Internet let alone in the mainstream.
When this whole incident happened involving Bob Corker, the users on /r/short actually convinced themselves that most people in society find this offensive, which is funny because the one thing even the biggest Trump hater has in common with Trump is how they love to insult short men. Like Lewis said, people get away with height discrimination. How the /r/short userbase convinces themselves otherwise but Matt Lewis doesn't is hilarious.
Anyway, as we all know here, people actually do care about height discrimination but only against women (the Wendy Williams/Ariana Grande situation). Same reason why being fat is a social issue but not heightism. Obviously Lewis couldn't say "short men" instead of "short people" because the idea of male problems is offensive to this society, but whatever. It speaks of how deprived we are of any social support when this one occurrence seemed like striking oil when I first saw it. After all, even our fellow short people deny height prejudice more than Matt Lewis does.
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Post by Heightism Report on Oct 26, 2017 3:13:53 GMT
This is a Gold Star find and your analysis is Gold Star worthy as well!
Wow, man. Lewis was making a serious attempt to shed some light on the issue, and Anderson Cooper forcibly interrupted him and changed the subject. This was an example of a guest on a show going "off topic" and the host corralling the guest by steering the dialogue back to the main talking point. Heightism can never be the focal point of the discussion. We're not one of the pet causes, so this is what we can expect on the rare occasion when the issue is discussed. That's absurd when you consider that heightism was literally the issue in this case, yet, only one guest even cared to touch the issue at-all.
The whole trope about bullies always being insecure, etc. has been ludicrous from day-one. It's blatantly obvious to anyone who has attended a high school, a college, a corporate board meeting, served in the military etc., that the more "praiseworthy" qualities that someone possesses, the more likely they are to lack empathy and to flaunt their "superiority" by bragging, bullying, etc. This whole "bullies are insecure" belief system was created to protect those who get rewarded the most for their physical appearance. R/tall likes to believe that all bullies are "angry short guys," which is ludicrous because they also believe that short men aren't real men. Which is it? Are we unmasculine to the degree of not being able to protect ourselves, or, are we super-charged anger machines who kick everyone's ass for no reason?
As far as r/short believing that the whole world finds this offensive, all they need to do is look at the way Anderson Cooper handled this situation. The role he plays is as the voice of equality and fairness, and he wouldn't even allow a guest to finish one sentence that spoke of heightism. Last year, someone said something rude about Amy Schumer's body, and it was social justice central for three weeks based on that comment alone, but heightism can't even get three seconds of air time without the subject being changed, a comedian being asked to speak about the issue, Randy Newman being played, and the blame being shifted onto short men.(For those who are new to learning about heightism, I'm not speaking in hyperbole; Everything I have mentioned is what happens literally 100% of the times heightism is discussed in the media.) R/short clings to convenient fictions with an absolute death grip, and will crawl, kicking and screaming away from every serious heightism discussion. For those of us who have seen the light, we're fully aware that reality has left an extremely tender spot in their soul, and they prefer to lug around a mountain of cognitive dissonance than to see things for what they are. Society has certainly done a number on them, and they choose the absolute worst way to deal with those wounds, which is deciding to attack those of us who address heightism. I don't generally enjoy the whiners and sad sacks among our ranks, but at a bare minimum, at least they don't actively work toward discrediting our efforts.
It is completely beyond belief that the fact that fat shaming is taken seriously and heightism isn't doesn't turn-on more lightbulbs in people. That's an absolutely roaring double standard with loud bells, laser lights, and 100,000 screaming jackals drawing attention to hypocrisy, but people cling to their belief systems by shielding themselves from facts just like r/short does. This is a substantial reason why our progress is moving at a snail's pace.
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Post by luro2020 on Oct 28, 2017 19:31:59 GMT
Wow, I'm not surprised but it's a good example of how people know what they're doing when they change the topic. The question is what can we do to prevent this if it's so easy. These arguments always get steered to the "we're all in this together" fake ass sympathy plea, and no one can get a word in about serious heightism. I knew how extreme derailing was to our attempts, but this really hits home! I noticed immediately how the guy who changed the subject tied in other forms of discrimination to throw off the conversation, and people are damn good at it because it's so easy. How are we supposed to get our word in when we are vastly outnumbered to those who can derail us so easily by bringing up irrelevant discrimination?
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Post by Heightism Report on Oct 30, 2017 0:29:08 GMT
Wow, I'm not surprised but it's a good example of how people know what they're doing when they change the topic. The question is what can we do to prevent this if it's so easy. These arguments always get steered to the "we're all in this together" fake ass sympathy plea, and no one can get a word in about serious heightism. I knew how extreme derailing was to our attempts, but this really hits home! I noticed immediately how the guy who changed the subject tied in other forms of discrimination to throw off the conversation, and people are damn good at it because it's so easy. How are we supposed to get our word in when we are vastly outnumbered to those who can derail us so easily by bringing up irrelevant discrimination? ABSOLUTELY! You are dead-on about how they always re-direct the conversation to being about the notion that "we're all in this together." One of the many places I see this tactic used is in the posts I've made about short kids who commit suicide because of the bullying they've received on account of their height. People will always say "this is not a heightism issue, it's a bullying issue." How is it not a heightism issue if the bullying occurred explicitly because of the kid's height? Also, the fact that the kid is short makes him what bullies see as an "easy target," so it's delusional to think that heightism does not play a part in these incidents. They want to flaunt this "all in this together" stuff because it's a way for them to include themselves as a means to regain control of the conversation. Those of us who post here know that their motivation to do this comes from the indoctrinated habit of shutting short men down when they try to lead a conversation, whether the topic is heightism or anything else. You're also very astute in noticing that we are against insurmountable odds due to how easy it is for these people to derail the conversation by bringing-up forms of discrimination that aren't relevant to the conversation. However, I hate that I have to beat the same drum that we've all beaten since day one, but we're never going to get our word in until enough short people are onboard to help us develop a collective voice. So, until short people decide they've had enough, conversations will continue to be derailed, evidence will continue to be ignored, and our issues will be conflated with other issues to either trivialize our efforts(such as when people equate height with hair color or having a big nose) or to put the focus back on society's pet causes.
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Post by HeightismAOS on Jan 21, 2018 13:43:02 GMT
Hey guys, just wanted to update this because the original YouTube video got removed. Here's a new working link: streamable.com/nyjy4
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