privilege as a meme

Great story about the post office. That guy sounds like a real pice of work. Actually feel a book or documentary on the incident would be worth making but I suppose an article will have to do for now.

How to tell when someone has not read beyond the first three paragraphs of a piece. *sees screen name* Never mind, what was I expecting.

That's so good, I like that article! My littlest brother is totally that guy and I know other ones too even without the wealth inequality of the author.

yeah i have friends like that who think (1) that they have unlocked the secret to day-to-day life and (2) when they do it it is scandalizingly charming in the same way a rude joke

The most polite phrasing of their worldview is "It can't hurt to ask."

i hate the degradation of the term 'lifehack' into 'oblivious dickhead behavior'

Yeah, reading the article, I just thought "this is my brother" (this is people I went to school with, people I've worked with - and therefore, probably in ways I'm not even aware of it, *myself*!) all over. That whole "Oh, but bending the rules, just this once, just for little me" (and the false humility often gets trotted out as often as the entitlement) followed in quick succession by "ha ha, I can't believe everyone doesn't do this! The FULES! I am so clever and smart and funny and this is why I have nice things."

So my reaction is totally a wince, but also a recognition.

I do however think you should use the heck out of what ppl are willing to do for you when it's punching up. Like most things.

punching up?

directing your taking-advantage-of upward, rather than downward

the powerful rather than etc

that was one of jesus's parables iirc

It's not always easy for people to work out when they're punching up which I think is where a lot of this stems from - people thinking they're gaming corporations or institutions when they're just making things harder for service staff and other customers (though I am sure this does not apply to in orbit).

yah it seems like an awful complicated equation
much easier not to use ppl at all

otm

this stuff's supposed to be abt bending the rules of technology to get what you want

not bending people

"It can't hurt to ask" is fine where "no" is an acceptable response.

yeah, disgusted lol at "social hacking"

I think anyone who has working in retail/service knows it's not just white men who do this kind of thing

but yeah, the businessman/suburban dude dropping into a city p.o. with the "Can't you people see that I can't stand in line with you all day. I have actual things to do!" attitude is something I've seen before.

Yeah, I don't know that "punching up" is applicable in this specific kind of behaviour as discussed in the linked article.

Because it's not actually the *asking* that is where the privilege is located. It's the sense of entitlement behind the asking, and also the knowledge that in cases of "rule-bending" there will be no serious *consequences* beyond just a "no". Bluffing his way into a private party and essentially stealing a game of ping-pong (which, presumably they would have had to pay for, had the party not been in process) did not result in arrest for trespassing or prosecution for theft, and he never felt any danger that it would, it was just "japes and a fun life-hack". That assumption of "can't hurt to ask" where many, many people do experience problems, for even asking, that's exactly what privilege is in this case.

i long for the days when "life hack" meant cutting a juice bottle in half and using it as a desk tidy.

"Handle so, dass du die Menschheit sowohl in deiner Person, als in der Person eines jeden anderen jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als Mittel brauchst."

It's the kind of thing my brother used to do in NYC, and he used to rope me in as his companion in "put on a suit and see where we can bluff our way into" which was fun and games and a bit of a thrill. But then his behaviour started to cross some lines.

I remember one night he wanted to catch a taxi from his midtown workplace to his home uptown. He had tried to get cash out of a machine but I can't remember if his card was denied or the machine was broken - this was the 90s so there was no paying by card, and I had lived in NYC about a year, but even at that point I knew you could not pay for a taxi with a cheque. Still, he insisted on getting the cab even though neither of us had any cash, maintaining it would be fine. We got to our destination, my brother pulled out his chequebook, and the cab driver did not think this was fine, in fact he understandably freaked out and called the cops.

The cop came over, and my brother gave him this spiel carefully mentioning about how he had taken his sister to dinner at (expensive club) then gone back to his office at (investment bank) and couldn't get any more cash, oh, what a spot of bother. And I was shitting bricks, thinking we were both going to get arrested, when, to my surprise, the cop looked at the taxi meter, pulled out his own wallet and said "OK, tell ya what, I'll pay the cash fare, you write the cheque to me, everything will be fine."

And everything *was* fine. And, as I, frankly astonished, followed my brother back to his flat and asked him what he had just thought he was doing, he simply shrugged and said "I knew the minute the cop turned up, and the cop was white," (the taxi driver was not) "that there was nothing to worry about." That this was very specifically *not* a case of "can't hurt to ask" - this was his tacit understanding that the fact of being white, and the fact of being the class that worked in investment banks and went to posh Ivy League clubs for dinner meant that rules of not passing bad cheques and not getting into cabs you can't pay for and not arguing with cops just did not apply to him.

I always wanted a word for that attitude, that expectation, and "privilege" is a perfect fit. Expecting to jump the post office queue ~just because~ is a very minor step along that spectrum which also has crashing a ping-pong party on it, but this is the name for that thing.

Your brother understands cops' mentality very well.

yup. cops.

Cool bro story

arrest a poor person = very little chance of blowback
arrest a rich person = a good chance my ass is fucked, so why buy trouble?

great post branwell.

How to tell when someone has not read beyond the first three paragraphs of a piece. *sees screen name* Never mind, what was I expecting.

Keep fighting the good fight.

The twist is this, though:

Neither my brother nor I were, at that point, rich. Both of us were unemployed and mooching.

He didn't work at the investment bank; he had done some consulting work there and still knew the door codes. We didn't buy dinner at the posh club; we blagged our way in and cadged nibbles and put drinks on someone else's tab. We did not have the money to cover the cab fare; we blagged it, and were aided and abetted in that blagging by a cop.

"Rich" is this idea that people have money, and money can buy your way out of things. We did not have that. What we had was racial privilege and class privilege: we looked, and sounded like, and therefore passed for being a certain kind of people. Therefore others treated us as if we were. Had we tried those tricks while having a different colour skin or a different accent or different references we would not have got away with it. Had *I* tried those tricks without my brother being there, *I* would not have got away with it. Being "under the protection of an apparently powerful man" extends an aura, while at the same time making one aware that it is someone else's power, not your own. Being *aware* that all these things - race, class, gender - provided a kind of protective influence, that is not extended to most people, that is the quality that we are discussing here.

Not "understanding the mentality of cops".

But, what you are describing in your longest paragraph is "the mentality of cops", who are very sensitive to these sorts of markers because they act as some of the primary custodians of social privilege. We agree, but are using different language and employing perspectives on the same thing.

...that is the quality that we are discussing here. Not...

Interesting use of 'we'.

Did I say "we"? How silly of me! I'm totally by myself here and I've ~no idea~ how other words keep appearing on the thread!

Good night, Aimless.

Spelling it out, my point was that by directly quoting me in regard to what 'we' are not discussing, you quite clearly excluded me from 'we'. Except you left, and therefore cannot see my point now.

Oh yeah sorry to comment and leave for the day, I just meant that getting one over on the system, where that means a "system of oppression" instead of "the system that primarily serves me and people like me," is sort of appealing in what I guess isn't a very defensible way when I try to extrapolate.

"It can't hurt to ask" is fine where "no" is an acceptable response.

Yes, sort of, but everyone's threshold for saying no is different too, and sometimes ppl will try to accommodate a request when it's more trouble for them to do it than it is for you to NOT have it done for you. Learning to say no is a nice skill that it's helpful to have but not everyone feels equally free to use it--and there are some people who will ask and ask (and take and take) as long as no one says no to them and holds to it. In my mind, that's the genesis, and then add in the massive entitlement of wealth/class/race/sex privilege and you get that article.

The next level is when someone does say 'no' to them and they ask to speak to a manager/ threaten to call customer care and then stand there smirking as the one saying 'no' is overruled.

Being *aware* that all these things - race, class, gender - provided a kind of protective influence, that is not extended to most people, that is the quality that we are discussing here. Not "understanding the mentality of cops".

― The Manics: Very Welsh, Much Working Class, So cialist (Branwell Bell), Tuesday, December 24, 2013 8:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You do recognize that the fact that the protective influence you're (you indeed! note how your royal we is resoundingly unechoed in following comments) discussing here is made systematically problematic ~through its codification in the culture of policing~, right?

Like, "understanding the mentality of cops" is part and parcel of understanding how these things become our norms, if not among the most important part--most of our cultural institutions don't walk around with guns and a wall of silence prepared in case they kill you.

"today a young woman was shot by security guards at the MOMA for attempting to hang her own art"

"............guards said that her glinting smartphone resembled a weapon, and they acted in defense of their lives"

What ultimately exhausts me about discourse around privilege is that its endlessly recriminating, and in its well-meaning validation of anger as cleansing and worthwhile it feeds an ouroboros of outrage where calling out offenders of our identity politics is seen as an empowering end in itself. Now more than ever we're in an environment (cf #TwitterFeminism, any relevant Tumblr tag) where you can find your callouts back-patted, and that becomes dangerous when targeted expressions of anger are more prevalent and rewarded than attempts to get offenders beyond their own myopic beliefs and into a liberatory framework.

If we're building a real movement for social revolution (and if we're not, then why the fuck aren't we?), shouldn't we be working to follow the example of prison abolitionists in reintegrating offenders of our politics back into our fold with their lessons learned, rather than making their immolation by mob the most empowering act for oppressed internet identities imaginable? And if we were doing something like that, wouldn't it mean making room for mistakes and (sometimes slow!) learning by people who take wrong turns? No, we could never ask people who've had these sorts of mistakes made on their backs to tolerate them just a little longer--but maybe we could make room for an acceptable response that's more robust than self-replicating rage.

This is a well-made point. Roland Barthes said:

"Our modern "innocence" speaks of power as if it were a single thing: on one side those who have it, on the other those who do not. We have believed that power was an exemplarily political object; we believe now that power is also an ideological object, that it creeps in where we do not recognize it at first, into institutions, into teaching, but still that it is always one thing. And yet, what if power were plural, like demons? "My name is Legion," it could say; everywhere, on all sides, leaders, massive or minute organizations, pressure groups or oppression groups, everywhere "authorized" voices which authorize themselves to utter the discourse of all power: the discourse of arrogance. We discover then that power is present in the most delicate mechanisms of social exchange: not only in the State, in classes, in groups, but even in fashion, public opinion, entertainment, sports, news, family and private relations, and even in the liberating impulses which attempt to counteract it. I call the discourse of power any discourse which engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient."

damn hoos, bringing up arguments that happened itt like five years ago

do you think you're the first person to say "why don't we put down the identity politics and organize", do you not think maybe the current internet environment is a response to that being the status quo for years (and failng)?

people aren't that dumb, a lot of angry internet people went to college (or didn't, but) got a taste of what 'organizing' and anarchism and actions are like and realized that they can sort of suck and be more damaging and less helpful than every other option, that the larger a movement is the easier it is for the voices with the most privilege to move to the front and drown everyone else out. i agree that the state of like internet activism or w/e kind of sucks but that's only because it's gotten so big that individual voices are being covered up by memes.

and then the issue with this... condemning "internet activism" for essentially being limited to the internet and ignoring the possibility that these people actually do stuff irl, they go out and organize on their own terms and fight for change and that doesn't really get reflected on the internet cause the internet doesn't serve that function and it doesn't really allow for that type of organizing. but it makes communicating and spreading personal experiences easier, more than anything, and it works both ways to enable callouts and condemnation. two things that will always be v memetic and loud, afk or not.

and i feel like i've mentioned this before itt, but not everyone has your goals, not everyone is looking for full-on revolution and just cause that's what you think should be endgame, doesn't mean they have to agree -- many people are just looking for comfort, therapy, community, friendship. things that may come easier in a totally different world but who's going to hold their breath waiting? shit is tuff. there is no "we". there are people doing what they feel is best for them. it's a problem when people can't talk about marginalization (as in, the ways in which they personally feel marginalized) without being instantly linked and compared to organizing institutions they may want no part of

eternally disappointed every time these "why can't people just be nicer, allow mistakes and try to sweetly liberate everyone else" statements are made, acting like that subtext isn't present everywhere, brought up every day, and still deemed a bad route by a massive amount of people. unless you think those people are stupid and don't know what's right for them, why keep bringing it up -- why not wonder instead why it fails to catch on and why it fails so much when it does. a popular answer you might find everywhere around the internet is "i've tried being that person time and time again and it's always blown up in my face because the only people who are earnest in their desire to 'learn' or 'stop being complete shit' do it on their own and i have a life to live"

And I can hear in the echo chamber the voices of my friends and people much smarter and more meaningfully politically accomplished than me saying that this line of thinking is ultimately only a defense of white men's feelings, that even an unconscious oppressor *should* feel obligated to act against the institutions from which he benefits while others are ground down, that there is no power per Barthes devoid of the historical context we inhabit and the social identities that history creates, that wheels within wheels do not negate the largest wheels at the outside. None of this escapes me. I'm just tired.

xp post-zachylon

eternally disappointed every time these "why can't people just be nicer, allow mistakes and try to sweetly liberate everyone else" statements are made, acting like that subtext isn't present everywhere, brought up every day, and still deemed a bad route by a massive amount of people. unless you think those people are stupid and don't know what's right for them, why keep bringing it up -- why not wonder instead why it fails to catch on and why it fails so much when it does. a popular answer you might find everywhere around the internet is "i've tried being that person time and time again and it's always blown up in my face because the only people who are earnest in their desire to 'learn' or 'stop being complete shit' do it on their own and i have a life to live"

― my whole family is catholic so look at the pickle i'm in (zachlyon), Wednesday, December 25, 2013 6:29 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is where i hope you notice my last couple sentences where i made a point of mentioning that no one deserves to have mistakes made on their own back again, that you'll recognize that i know that the oppressed never have a responsibility to educate their own oppressors, that as exhausted as i might be with a discourse among my friends internet and otherwise i could never be as exhausted as people whose primary encounters with this discourse are walking down the street at night where there might be men on stoops or parked cops. i hear what you're saying and i know it, and i hope you hear and know that at least in terms of this point you're responding to an argument that certainly exists, but which i'm thankfully steeped enough in this stuff not to have been stupid enough to make.

and i feel like i've mentioned this before itt, but not everyone has your goals, not everyone is looking for full-on revolution and just cause that's what you think should be endgame, doesn't mean they have to agree -- many people are just looking for comfort, therapy, community, friendship. things that may come easier in a totally different world but who's going to hold their breath waiting? shit is tuff. there is no "we". there are people doing what they feel is best for them. it's a problem when people can't talk about marginalization (as in, the ways in which they personally feel marginalized) without being instantly linked and compared to organizing institutions they may want no part of

this is well taken and i'll have to think about it further.

It took me a while to understand this stuff as "internet activism" or "tumblr politics" or whatever, because for the last three years this has just been the content of the daily conversations I've tried to navigate, and in a context where you're working with people on a campaign to pass a city council bill or hold onto a house or pressure a business, things like 'tone' go from the nature of a text comment to rippling reactions between people that are ostensibly friends, and it can get a kind of meaningfully painful that I wasn't previously familiar with.

i feel like i'm suzy'ing when i say stuff like that, i'm just trying to contextualize that the changes in 'internet discourse' or whatever have had a real and sometimes painful impact on my daily life

i know yr not stupid hoos i luv u hoos i just don't know why you make posts like that sometimes and i'm highly allergic to them

i should clarify that i do think the majority of the people in question would like to live in a vastly different world but they should never be condemned for not wanting to partake in the systems aiming to change "everything" ("capitalism"). it's not a mark against someone for fighting their fight in the bounds where they feel they have power or the possibility to make change, no matter how small. and it seems odd to alternately condemn people for limiting the scope of what they want to tear down and for not limiting their scope to "polite, forgiving attitude towards people who act like shit". it comes off "you're doing this wrong, you're letting capitalism win by playing within its bounds" vs "you're doing this wrong, you need to let people bloom within their own bounds". not aimed at you personally hoos

xp

i feel you