Happy Thanksgiving to all the U.S. noders!

On a different note ....

Here's my 2 cents for the day: either you want to be an ally to a marginalized group, or you don't. 

If you do, there's a whole world of information out there you can use to educate yourself. We're not living in 1980 anymore; many resources are just a Google search away. It's not up to any given member of the marginalized group to educate you. 

If you decide the problems of the marginalized group in question are no big deal to you, or that thinking about them too hard makes you feel uncomfortable, or that the social injustices they face pale in comparison to some other issue and you don't want to spend your time worrying about what you think of as being lesser problems, that's also your choice! We all have to prioritize our time and energy

But if you don't take the basic steps of educating yourself about issues like racism, classism, sexism, ablism, homophobia and privilege, you are likely to eventually do or say something that will come off as not very cool, and someone may then call you out on it. Heck, even if you do take those basic steps, you're likely to get it wrong someday and stick your foot right down your throat in a conversation. One of the challenges for people who do have privilege isn't knowing the right answers, it's being aware of that a particular question or problem exists.

And when someone calls you out, you have a few choices in your response.You can shrug and let it go, because hey, you chose to remain ignorant and you knew this was bound to happen, right? Or you can take a step back and politely say "Whoops, sorry, I will try to do better next time" and follow up with some attempt at self-education. Or you can start thrashing around insisting you aren't a bigot and demanding a retraction

Educating yourself is a whole lot more graceful than that last choice.