You seem to think a lot in the "us vs. them" mentality; Whether it concern race or sexual preference/orientation. It's people who think like this that give more concern for cases like Trayvon Martin over cases like Edward Snowden.
I don’t really think in an “us vs. them” mentality. Rather, I think in terms of scale and time. On a macro scale, I look at larger social dynamics and histories of colonization, oppression, and power structures. On a micro level, I look at the reality of the daily lives of different people, including myself. Then I connect them together and see what has led to what.
Social dynamics are much more complicated than what we think them to be. Each “side” (and there are an infinite number of “sides”) will always think in the way its been taught and socialized to think. I don’t judge people for the way that they’ve been taught, but I also don’t silence my own dissatisfactions, especially when assessing how I’ve come to them. And I too, of course, am a reflection of my own learning, whether that be normative (Roman Catholicism, the US Navy), radical (queer theory, performance art, etc), or otherwise.
When I make blanket statements about white people or straight people, I don’t necessarily intend to call out every single person of that group. Rather, they’re observations of specific people in that group that act in a way that’s indicative of their social normativity. They are observations of learned and embodied behavior in function. When I talk about “them” (whomever “them” is at the time), I am assessing my place in history and in social power dynamics. And when I express my dissatisfactions, they are usually because I know of other ways of existing that are more akin to my own ideals or vision of a future.
Furthermore, I reserve my right to choose what to believe and what to listen to or care about. I don’t expect everyone to feel passionate about what I do, nor do I care to care about what everyone else cares about. I choose what is closest to me and what resonates with my own search for knowledge. I care about the Trayvon Martin case because as a person of color, I can identify with the rife conflicts that the case brought up about racism, police state, and the prison industrial complex. I make my work about race and gender and power dynamics, and I find what’s happened with that case to be reflective of the social condition of America in a way that both challenges and increases my own knowledge base about these things I care about. I have little interest in the Edward Snowden case because espionage and national security issues do not affect me on a deeply personal level, nor do I have the background knowledge, nor the time or patience to research, to really and fully investigate and involve myself in those conflicts.
So I would like to correct you in your assumption about me. I don’t think in terms of “us vs. them,” but rather “us + them + me + history + society + shit I care about”
And if you don’t believe me, you really don’t know me at all.