Stereotypes

I spent the ride into work pondering this Twitter exchange with Grayson Daughters. Grayson posted

Fair point. The events in Iran are horrible, and I’m personally hoping to see a “Tehran Spring” that leads to regime change without further loss of life. It’s got nothing to do with partisanship.

But I know that a lot of Twitterers normally sprinkle hashtags like ‘#tcot’ (Top Conservatives on Twitter) and ‘#tlot’ (Top Liberals On Twitter) into just about every post they make. Not sure if that’s a good habit, but it’s certainly not necessarily “R (Republican) opportunism.”

So I ran a quick search.twitter.com for ‘#tlot #iranelection’ and, as expected, found thousands of hits.

So I followed Grayson’s tweet with a question:

The reply was immediate:

Wow. That’s quite a reaction. Nothing about the question I asked. Just a quick dismissal of me as someone not worth listening to, for “obvious” reasons.

Now, I’ve met “Spacey Gracey” around town, and I’ve read/watched some of her work. I respect her craft, and probably agree with her politically more often than she might expect. And even when I disagree, I like listening to opposing viewpoints. Occasionally, I learn something. (Refusal to listen to opposing viewpoints can turn Twitter, or anything else, into a vast echo chamber, devoid of learning.)

I suspect from her public positions that Grayson voted for Obama last year. I didn’t… but I didn’t vote for McCain either. I’m completely disgusted with both major political parties, and think that the rabid partisanship of the post-2000 election is a major contributor to the problems our country faces now.

But, based on a single fact I pointed out — that liberals as well as conservatives are Twittering about the Iranian uprising — Grayson has apparently stereotyped me as a mouthbreathing Neanderthal whose biggest complaint about Sarah Palin is that her husband lets her wear shoes.

Her privilege. But not what I’d expect from someone who claims to be “an experienced and thoughtful writer.”