So I've been following along as best as I've been able...
Which feels like I'm just skimming the surface - I missed the original exchanges entirely, and I've barely read a handful of the reaction posts.

Every time I feel I'm ready to say something (for me, a long and slow procedure - I process big thoughts, but I do it slowly), I end up reading something else that gives me pause. By the time I'm done examining that thought, something else pops up.

So, just a few mostly-incoherent thoughts that have been running through my head:

I'm privileged, in ways I don't even realize. I'm working on figuring out my own unexamined privileges (to quote Bayleaf on LJ, "Holy shit, this means me" ). I don't think I will ever be done with this. I don't expect or deserve cookies for realizing this and trying to fix it.

I've not been contributing (as I don't to almost any argument, online or off) not because I don't have a position, but because A) I can't cope with conflict - I freeze up (and yes, isn't it nice for me that I have the option of not being involved if I don't want to), and B) as I said above, I'm a slow thinker on things - by the time I know what I want to say, the conversation's been over for two days.

What I have seen has made me furious and heartsick. It also makes me feel painfully powerless, because there doesn't seem to be anything I can DO. At the same time, I know this is not true. I've done some small things, both now and in the past. I will try to do them in the future. I know I don't do as much as I could.

There's this fucking mountain and this big-assed rock to roll up it, and while mine is by no means the strongest shoulder, I am trying to push. I don't expect or deserve cookies for that, either.

And on that subject: if you see me fuck up, whether it be real life or fiction or whatever, please tell me. I do have the tendency to come to the conclusion that my shit don't stink, and look at how wonderful and sparkly I am, wonderful enlightened person that I am. I'm trying to become automatically suspicious of myself if I get to pleased with myself on the subject, but I'll take what help I can get.

I want to read more stories that make/allow me to see from different cultures and histories, instead of stories where all the Important Characters come from some white enclave in the stars.

(In the event someone doesn't know what I'm talking about here, see this post by popelizbet on LJ, and start following links.)