It seems you've seen fit to give me a choice between either being ready for our game today or addressing your argument...

I'm tempted to be all pissy, write my essay-length response, come to the game unprepared, tell everyone that it's your fault, and then dock you experience points. I'd probably find time in there somewhere to insult your shoes.

But... I will not stoop to that level of immaturity. Instead I will only address a single point, and then move on to completing my responsibilities.

I think that is probably true in the sense that, as you claim, "gay men aren't men" and "black men aren't men." You haven't convinced me, though, that white men aren't men.

Please. Anyone who self-defines as "white man" is also failing to lay proper claim to the title of "man."

"White men" aren't men anymore than "gay men" are men. They're walking political platforms. Anyone who describes themself as a "white man" has the same sort of issue to prove as someone who describes themself as a "gay man..." namely, that they want to separate themselves from the majority (not, in this case, by "being" white... but by vocally claiming the importance, significance and specialness of being white, which is something that the majority does not feel the need to do) while still laying claim to their position within that majority.

"Gay men" and "black men" are self-righteous, whining misfits with a limited understanding of the appropriate use of language. "White men" are also self-righteous, whining misfits with a limited understanding of the appropriate use of language. They're probably members of the Klan to boot.

The long and the short of it is that anyone who says that they are a "white man" is probably using the adjective "white" as a way to identify a political position rather than as a descriptive, neutral clarification of which subset of "man" they belong to. Whether that is right or wrong, it isn't fundamentally different from the way that gay men self-describe or from the way black men self-describe.

Oh, and this:

And, if you would object to that, I think it follows that you'd have to object to adjectives on the whole for their ability to represent difference within a larger group. Red flowers, blue flowers, those aren't actually flowers? Only "flowers" are flowers.

Snarky, snarky, snarky. Color in this context is not being used in the same sense as "gayness" or "whiteness" or "blackness." I don't object to people describing a given plant as a "red flower..." But to describe that same plant as a "carnation flower" is either redundant, or it implies some sort of philosophical agenda (which is, admittedly, totally inexplicable in this particular instance. Still, it would make me wonder.).

Hey, I understand that I might have a handful of readers who found this page through links on my friend's sites. If you don't know me and you're reading, I invite you to take a look at my disclaimer page. I then invite you to return to that disclaimer page every time you start to feel yourself getting angry about my morally abhorrent opinions.