privilege as a meme

post yr privilege fb macros here

he wasn't a single parent but I don't really want to get into the argument, I just don't think a hardship is invalidated by a harder hardship

obv there are positions of privilege based on sexuality, gender, race, social class, and beyond, but it then seems hard to accept that the word is used sort of on a sliding scale by someone who faces oppression due to one of those statuses, or two of them, or whatever. i mean, when does one person safely know that they are speaking from a position of complete lack of privilege? even among the same race or sexuality somebody would probably say "well wtf would you know", wouldn't they? it seems like a quest for authenticity of oppression, not sure where that line of thinking ends.

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

like this column i think is pretty emblematic of popular privilege discourse 2013 http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-thing-will-you-stop-turning-it-into-a-self+fulfilling-prophecy

its quite good at what it does imho and could be useful if it reached the right eyeballs in helping people understand where feminism is coming from, but on the other hand its pretty rote and doesnt particularly radiate passion for the subject matter, and this sort of thing just always rings a little hollow:

It's not easy to swallow your own privilege—to admit that you're a Fleetch—but once you do, it's addictive. It feels good to open up to perspectives that are foreign to you, accept your complicity in this shitty system, and work on making the world better for everyone instead of just defending your territory. It's something I had to do as a privileged white woman, and something I still have to work on every day, because it's right.

like every day you work on it really like a half an hour before you blog or what, theres a sense that having discovered this magic key to understanding everything you better genuflect in its presence holding your vile animal impulses deep within

I mean tbf, people do the same thing to working moms who blog about trying to balance career and parenting -- inevitably someone drops "first world problems" shtick which is the same thing.

i mean i guess in brief if you're using sociologically meaningful language that actually applies to people from communities that face unique categories of oppression, the way some people use otherkin notions to explore trans/queer identity, it's one thing. but if you're using it because you think you're a purple pony inside and why won't society stop oppressing you for being a purple pony in the body of a straight white dude, you are first against the wall. to an extent.

― hoospanic GANGSTER musician (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 2:49 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah whatever the value of the term, seeing it hijacked by deviantart brony types is pretty nauseating

sometimes its useful to remember that suffering is universal

maybe when there's loads of aging bronies still desperate for a unicornotomy we can take them serious

ha that shit is so far out

reminds me of a recent letter to dan savage scolding him for saying that being polyamorous was not a "sexuality" on par with being gay. it was an... arrangement. or a hobby. or a kink. or a need. or some other thing, he said (i forget). hoo boy were people pissed! mr "monogamy is a myth" himself! everything has to be at the level of fundaments of identity. in this way i think this intersects with american language of the rights of the self in constitutional-legal term but i haven't thought that through yet really

There was a thing maybe posted in some ILX thread about the "privilege" enjoyed by primary vs. non-primary partners (sorry if this is the incorrect term) in various kinds of polyamorous relationships. I thought this was kind of a narcissistic usage -- being a "non-primary partner" is not a trait, it's just a status in a particular arrangement.

i prefer bottom bitch

"speaking as a side piece..."

remember college when people used "privilege" as a verb all the time? I don't think I've heard that in a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pevbj2ubH50

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 8:00 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

very quotatious post

also yes i feel like a heretic for hating the tone of jezebel but i hate the tone of jezebel so fucking much

yeah for sure many seek to silence rather than engage via the #privilege tag

don't out me for that i would be shunned and would have to be like 'check your jezebel-liking privilege'

haha

i like lindy west tho i can for sure see why she might grate

i like privilege as a concept insofar as it makes people self-reflect on their own circumstances, and if it makes people think more about the experiences of others, especially those of a different race/gender - i hope that ultimately it leads to empathy, which i think is what will save us all

generally i think anything that makes people self-reflect / become more self-aware is a good thing

that should be jezebel's marketing campaign

to the extent that I sometimes don't like the jezebel tone it just seems symptomatic of the larger annoyingness of that Bloggin' TM voice that I think there's a thread about.

mirrors are cool too

leave brony alone

Hah I actually used the phrase 'unexamined privilege' this morning but it was aimed at people handwaving away the reasons why people might hate Thatcher and if you can't use it THEN the word might as well be retired immediately.

she had these tweet earlier that made me think abt starting this thread

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest 1h
Not everything is fodder for your little academic thought experiments. Have some fucking perspective.

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest 1h
So tired of this internet attitude: "I'm just a liberal white guy THINKIN' about stuff! Come on, girls, you should think harder & be nicer."

cause the top one could be applied to her way of thinking about things too, theres a lot of academic influenced discourse on popular blogs these days, i tihnk they kind of fuction as a bridge for an academic approach to reach a mass audience, where in traditional media there was a fire wall there where it was understood that you abandon academia when yo graduate because academic writing is obvs the worst writing in the world

I kinda feel that people should embrace and generalize privilege more. Maybe not take it for granted but realize that working regular hours and having electricty and clean water and whatnot are, indeeed, privileges, but also privileges that we should try to make as universal as possible. Also, civility, and not shooting people too much and whatnot.

one universal constant about privilege is that people HATE being called out on it

i like privilege as a concept insofar as it makes people self-reflect on their own circumstances, and if it makes people think more about the experiences of others, especially those of a different race/gender - i hope that ultimately it leads to empathy, which i think is what will save us all

generally i think anything that makes people self-reflect / become more self-aware is a good thing

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:16 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that for sure is the ideal outcome, but i think to some extent it can me undermined via attachment to the concept of privilege itself, like once i was talking to this girl a party about the problems of the world and she finally was just all trust me ive studied this a lot and its all the patriarchy, and i was like you are going to be very disappointed when the patriarchy is finally smashed

it is a privilege that our lord god suffers us to persist -- that we are not swept from the face of creation -- think abt it

yeah it's useful as a tool of awareness for sure. I haven't personally been involved in any conversations where I've seen it used to shut down a speaker.

On a related note, does anyone on ilx say, "check your privilege?" I think I would need an explanation of what that means.

not enough room on this plane for yr privilege

i sort of feel like logic is the weapon we should use against prejudices, because they are all entirely illogical, but that is probably a particularly privileged way of looking at things since it betrays that it's the lack of logic that annoys me as much as the hatred, since i'm not a direct victim of the latter.

rationalists def need to check their privilege

i dont feel like ive ever had accusations of privilege used as a weapon against me but i have def, on the internet of course, seen people try to use it to carry more weight than its constructed for, theres tendency just to cut and paste privilege into any old argument, which is when i think we reach memehood

i dont really believe in 'logic' unless youre talking about like first order or symbolic logic or something

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

Isn't the idea that, being privileged, I'm listened to in ways that less privileged people are not? So, whatever the validity of what I say, I am obligated to abstain from speech if speaking right now would contribute to other voices being ignored?

It does seem to me that privilege is also frequently invoked as short-hand for a certain kind of invalidity, or just as an explanation for why a person has said something wrong. But the "right to speak" angle has some power, I think.

yeah i don't think logic is always the way to go, when you try to reason with forms of oppression that have well-rehearsed arguments you end up often as not engaging with people who are never gonna argue in good faith

it's like i've said before, people who complain about bad manners are as often as not using class/language to silence criticism

it's a great privilege indeed to speak against inequality and have your argument received on its merits, rather than its tone or its suspected motives

maybe i'm just getting on my hobby horse too much but i also like 'privilege' because it's meme-ifying right around the same time that everybody is realizing that the american dream is dead, there is no such thing as social mobility anymore

that is interesting

looking forward to that realisation sinking in over here

like... for so long the standard response to p much any questions of inequality / oppression has been, well, if u put ur head down and work hard like my father did, u can overcome it! in this land of opportunity, america

but like maybe the only real wealth engine out there that isn't lawyering/banking/medicine is like... tech startups, which tend to be dominated by people who had access to expensive computers + ungodly amounts of uninterrupted leisure time since they were small, aka privileged dudes

like on the other end of the ideological spectrum i think are randians and they should all be summarily shot and their bodies dumped into the atlantic

Isn't the idea that, being privileged, I'm listened to in ways that less privileged people are not? So, whatever the validity of what I say, I am obligated to abstain from speech if speaking right now would contribute to other voices being ignored?

this makes sense except, where does it stop? i mean given that a scale of who is less privileged would be almost endless... i don't mean to refute your point, just interested.

does privilege cut into notions of american individualism? does it actually remind people that yes, you only got where u are becaues u stood on the shoulders of giants?

not really specific to this thread, but since we discussed integrated schools, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.html.

IDK if there's a critical mass of people for a thread on school integration, but it's an issue I've followed a lot. Interested in that podcast for sure, particularly as I try to reckon with the fact that I attended an integrated middle school and a 90-95% african american high school but haven't prioritized school integration for my kids.

Is it easier to integrate virtual classrooms?

will be interested in your thoughts xp

found this completely maddening btw. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/parenting/children-screen-time-games-phones.html. i can see why people find the privilege self flagellation of, e.g. the integrated schools movement (above) a turn off, but the smugness with which she concedes that she has no idea what she's talking about because of privilege, and then proceeds to tell people what to do, is on another level.

Oh, I worked with that author once, and yeah, I can’t say I’m surprised she wrote that.

so is doordash good…or bad

It is new look carriage trade, so bad. Shop for your own damned groceries.

delivery is bad. got it.

I don't have a problem with delivery per se. I usually do pickup when ordering food because I have a car and it's often quicker, but different strokes. That said, if I needed to have food delivered, I'd rather just go through the restaurant directly than use an app like Doordash or Grubhub.

how many more times

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-prole-info-abolish-restaurants

Can I pay someone to read that for me?

food is bad

making the same dish over and over again increases the power of the simulacrum

delivery groceries are good when everyone in your household has covid and needs to eat

anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it

how many more times

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-prole-info-abolish-restaurants

― brimstead, Monday, 25 March 2024 15:02 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

can still have doordash without restaurants tho, needs a second "abolish grocery stores" article

anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it

It is new look carriage trade, so bad. Shop for your own damned groceries.

― steely flan (suzy), Monday, March 25, 2024 7:41 AM bookmarkflaglink

it's for food delivery, not merely groceries, and services like this were extremely important to my mother and I when she was home alone and couldn't leave dad in the house by himself, or when we were emotionally drained after a long day of caretaking and didn't have the energy to leave the house. I imagine there are plenty of others who use the service for similar reasons who also aren't rich.

I’m in an area where a lot of healthy, physically fit and wealthy people use our version of doordash, the rich lazy fuckers.

Anyone living with illness or a disability (or caring for others who might) isn’t catching wrath from me for using delivery services!

IDC if people use it or not as long as they tip well.

For groceries anyway. For restaurants that already have existing delivery though you're just putting money in the pocket of a big corp that could be split between you and the restaurant instead. I try to go direct for food delivery where possible.

replace this thread with claude.ai

Honestly pretty good https://t.co/GWJEESAbsC pic.twitter.com/hLzCG0NwPe

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 25, 2024

_anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it_


It is a wonderful idea … I have friends who attempted this… the place still exists but not quite the way they had envisioned

robots, obv