privilege as a meme

even dingholes need love

one of the things that gets so tiring abt this to me is the way it immediately becomes a meta discourse, like its never "you are wrong, privilege caller-outer, and heres why i disagree," its always "stop participating in callout culture its ruining the discourse" or whatever

i believe thats whats known as "derailing"

also idk, its twitter! block at will, if people are "calling you out" and you dont think their claims have any merit. no one has to be all things to all factions of the left

OTM, but part of the problem is that a lot of left wing journalists are appalled by the suggestion that they might not speak for everyone on the left.

is that really a "problem"

maybe it is

Well it is if their response to criticism is to get all hurt about it instead of questioning their position.

if there is any value in privilege checking at all it is to stop people from thinking their own perspectives have universal validity

i think in the end, privilege discourse slots into my view of the unescapable solipsism of the human experience. that universalization from one's own experience onto others is difficult, and maybe inherently a fiction. that increasingly, as i get older, the only appropriate response is empathy. i know that's weird - to respond to the experiential silo with a tendency that maybe itself presumes the possibility of authentic connection; but i think there's probably a way to reconcile the two, a path that i dont have the energy to draw out right now.

in sum: empathy, peace god snapbacks & tattoos. bless

http://media.kickz.com/en/media/images/p/250/k1x-world_peace_snapback_cap-bone-1.jpg

It just took me 2 minutes of that song to figure out what snapbacks were. I was assuming they were, like, snappy come-backs?

left politics in the past has been such a minefield of egos and personality cults, i really wish that people of good will would think about that when engaged in politics now and try to adopt a conciliatory approach, including recognizing that being called on your privilege is generally not a witch hunt but an invitation to think about how we go forward

but i have responded to "japanese people are sooo racist" sorts of stories with "you know, maybe you're just actually noticing it more, because, well?"

tbh my fellow white folks' "japanese people are sooo racist" stories, as a class, are likely to get me into super angry check-your-privilege-mate mode, because white people in japan get treated significantly better than other foreigners.

aaaanyway for me "checking your privilege" is at its core a process of recognising that all individuals' positions/experiences/expectations are affected by their social and economic backgrounds, and that's… kind of always important? obviously people on the left use it as a blunt object against other people on the left but, newsflash, people on the left have always dumbed down concepts and used them as a blunt object against other people on the left.

when adam delved and eve span one of them was probably accusing the other of bad faith

i know, 'twas ever thus, it's disspiriting tho. i think the onus is on the non-egomaniacs to work right around anybody who's in it for the sectarianism tbh - you're either a broad coalition or you're fucked

xp-to-self (also the whole "japanese people are soooo racist" story is, as a story, usually pretty racist)

hah csm, i was trying to make the same point in the race/racism thread

See i retead treeship's post of 20:40 local time (sorry no c&p on phone lol) and imo it could as easily apply to ppl itt on either side of the debate, so if the outcome is 'fuck those ppl' fine, but fuck em all

i took lessons in tone at a prestigious public school, i don't think you guys have what it takes to shake me out of my complacency. this evening a friend&i were reflecting on our privilege, he said "i feel invincible" and i just nodded.

One of my best friends from college, a very liberal white private school dude, told me a story early on in our friendship about how he got into trouble at his boarding school for a map of the lunchroom he and his friends made where they called the table where all of the black kids sat "Africa", using as a defense that they had called their own table "Nerdville". I was pretty appalled and told him so and he didn't really get it.

but he was being self-deprecating, because white people are smart!

amazing

It struck me last night after I left the thread that I was getting too caught up in the context of Twitter arguments and that I feel much more relaxed and optimistic if I take a longer term view. 25 years ago something similar happened around political correctness: important progressive work (with a minority of zealots) which required a period of tension, especially across generational lines, before settling into a new norm for younger people. Many concepts and linguistic terms that were then considered, by some, alienating or academic are now firmly established in mainstream discourse. So I guess the point is not whether some middle-aged commentators are persuaded to change but what younger people, who may be observing these angry exchanges without joining in, or just absorbing these ideas by osmosis, integrate into their everyday thinking. One thing that really bugs me is when older writers I respect talk of privilege and intersectionality as if they're difficult or pedantic concepts when in fact they're very simple to take on board. So the current tension, even though it's become the big media narrative around CYP, will hopefully feel irrelevant 10 or 20 years from now. It's in my personality to get dismayed by bitter infighting on the left so maybe it's a better idea to just step back and accept it as a necessary part of the process.

aaaanyway for me "checking your privilege" is at its core a process of recognising that all individuals' positions/experiences/expectations are affected by their social and economic backgrounds

DING DING DING.

w/r/t the story of DJP's friend in japan, i think one of the reasons i intuitively "got" the concept of privilege (i can't even remember where i first read it, it just seemed an obvious word and idea for things i already knew) is because i felt both obviously privileged in some ways (gender, class) and obviously non-privileged in others (sexuality, race) so the fact that privilege isn't a blunt black-or-white thing, that it's a complex set of privileges that in any given situation can cut a number of ways, seemed self-evident and not offensive.

i think what frustrates me more than seeing middle class str8 white men not getting it is seeing feminists argue about it. when i see white feminists resistant to privilege talk i'm like...but you KNOW what privilege is, you may not use that word but you know how male privilege works structurally, so why is it so hard to extend that to class and race?

middle class str8 white men actually most underprivileged group in modern western society imo

SIKE

lol i just assumed that was a darraghmac post

Check yr middle class privilege

Also fyi uk ppl thumbing their noses at occupied nationalities nagl imo but you're one of five ppl on ilx who gets to define privilege or else spittlerage tantrum so i mean pinch of salt, pinch of salt

Occupy darraghmac now in it's 15th month, media awareness still at an all-time low, with occasional spikes.

The problem with being a living example of liminality (I feel that way about myself and I see it in most people I know) is that 'the intersection' seems so fucking obvious, and people who don't/won't see it just seem completely oblivious, and proud of themselves for that.

One thing that really bugs me is when older writers I respect talk of privilege and intersectionality as if they're difficult or pedantic concepts when in fact they're very simple to take on board.

OTM

i think what frustrates me more than seeing middle class str8 white men not getting it is seeing feminists argue about it. when i see white feminists resistant to privilege talk i'm like...but you KNOW what privilege is, you may not use that word but you know how male privilege works structurally, so why is it so hard to extend that to class and race?

Also OTM, but there's a long history of this sort of protectionist shit, sadly.

if people recognized and acknowleged their own privilege so easily, well, this thread wd be a lot shorter, yes?

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5148/ii94.jpg

okay lol

technologist privilege

lool

hahahah

ftr nothing hugo schwyzer says ever matters

But this is fun. Oh is it EVER fun.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/07/male-feminist-hugo-schwyzers-early-retirement.html

doesn't even mention that he's a rapist who blamed his victim

Someone's back! SORT of.

man this is getting uncomfortable

Honestly unsure if it's really him or someone's just hacked in.

for a hack it seems strangely self-consistent

i buy it - it's dark and specific enough that i really doubt it's the hairpin equivalent of the SYRIAN ELECTRONIC ARMY or whatever (though i'm sure the "i was hacked!" excuse is just around the corner/whenever the seroquel kicks in)

We have a winner

Hugo Schwyzer = Gaius Baltar

lol

haha

wasn't hacked, this is the most obvious Next Step for any manipulative asshole who's ever lived, isn't it?

self-hating/self-serving twitter confessionals during a manic break? I dunno if that's generally applicable.

how familiar r u with hugo