privilege as a meme

x-posts and BOOM, NV brings up exactly the sense of class passing that I was wondering about. Glad you said that.

more xp I mean, when Branwell says this: "I am willing to give more marginalised people the benefit of the doubt way more than I am willing to give more privileged people the benefit of the doubt that their experiences are, indeed, what they say they are." I appreciate its clarity and honesty, and respect that, but I think the content is destructive bullshit. I become unknowable (because I am apparently totally known and understood by folks who don't need to talk to me), which, because I like to think of myself a a bunch of different things, many fluid, is going to put me in a fight or ignore you stance. Which lex don't care about, but maybe lex should. You'll never know!

And I do think you're right; that "passing" in some areas counts in the "ways-in-which-you-are-treated-by-others" areas of identity way more than "being".

which in turn unavoidably affects your own self-perception/self-definition - your own sense of being

i feel like in the UK your ability to "pass" in various areas counts for more than what you actually are

I think about this a lot wrt my privilege - I can pass for middle class because I went to public school and talk proper, so maybe it doesn't matter that if I called my dad he couldn't stop it all? Which is small beans in the scheme of things I know, I mean SWM probably makes up for any class deficiencies anyway.

xposts obv

x-post to Lex, you are shitting kidding me with that question!

Anyway, I am off to eat lunch and go shopping in my dreadfully un-normal SOUTH LONDON shops, hope that this discussion stays as interesting, DL, Lex and NV!

x-post I'll think about that feedback loop until I get back. Because being treated my whole life as "queer" whether I was identifying as heterosexual or not probably did affect my identity in ways I haven't done parsing yet.

please no more x-posts, I'm hungry

Just as a minor aside, literally nobody on this board has ever even hinted that the race thread should be "declared us-only" so can we stop making stuff up?

I've said this again and again, but the freedom to discuss oppression ~impassionately~ and *not* get angry, and the ability to walk away from an argument - that is often, in itself, an exercise of privilege.

yeah, this common tendency to shut down discussion the moment anyone gets 'angry' (which generally means showing any sentiment whatsoever) seems almost entirely the realm of people who can treat the topic as a kind of abstract parlor game, as opposed to something that has a bearing on the participants in the discussion and is WORTH being angry about.

NV, the descriptor you are looking for is LIMINALITY.

I also want in on the table-pounding and single malt, dammit!

you know in part i think i got the sense of isolation from Hardy and The French Lieutenant's Woman and other literary versions of the prole educated beyond their useful station but at some point you think "i can be a person who is taken seriously in my job and still be honest with my friends and accepted by them"

those of you from different walks of life wd be amazed how many times i still come across people who make snap judgements about my intelligence based on me failing to rein in my accent or tastes or opinions tho

can i say i recognize these issues are SMALL POTATOES and treat them as such in the big intersectional scheme of things, mainly noting them out of interest tho i get much more angry when i see fellow working class people running into the shifting barriers of "know thy place"

xp I think that's simplistic. I'm not aware of anyone who treats this stuff as an "abstract parlor game". Often "shutting down discussion" (which is apparently what we must call withdrawing from an argument, whatever the reason) is done because someone is angry, upset or confused and will continue to think about the issues but outside the context of a Twitter dust-up.

mm, sometimes people walk away from arguments because the argument is painful to have due to being too close to their experience. We have the freedom to walk away from internet arguments in a way we don't have the freedom to walk away from our own lives (even though it can be hugely difficult to exercise that freedom).

it is very hard for any of us to tell whether someone else is engaging in an "abstract parlour game", or to evaluate the various ways in which another person is privileged or marginalised as a prelude to working out how much benefit of the doubt to give them -- unfortunately it is also very difficult to exist on the internet constantly extending good faith to other people!

I wasn't really specifically talking about the internecine conflicts of left twitter there. More a wider kind of political discussion where you have the generally rather privileged person, who's probably identifying as a leftist, playing the role of the annoying philosophy undergrad, devil's advocating here and trying to pick holes in arguments there because they have no particular stake in the discussion, then feeling happy to be dismissive when their interlocutor, who does have stakes, gets annoyed or angry. A role perhaps which perhaps reaches its contemporary apotheosis in the rational atheist superbro. Left twitter stuff is obviously more complex than that but I think there are still elements of that kind of attitude around.

Ah, I see. I hate those people. No time for devil's advocates whatsoever. That wasn't who I had in mind.

it can take the form of a continuous sidetracking of what is at stake, attention to the insignificant or contingent in an argument, not dissimilar to grammar policing or the latter as a subset of this faux-academic pedantry maybe

Who did you have in mind, DL?

I was thinking of arguments about privilege where both parties were very much emotionally engaged and shaken up by it, which is why I was initially confused by Merdeyeux's generalisation.

Faux-academic pedantry is the bane of internet discourse and overwhelmingly popular with middle-class white men like this guy:

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9

im totally not in league with the politeness police i think calling people out and getting mad is fine like sometimes its maybe not the most useful approach but maybe sometimes it is and were all humans who want to express ourselves so its cool

buut "check your privilege" is just such an inherently comical overheated phrase, i mean people are going to make fun of it, even people who agree with you

i think this is where the teen discourse of tumblr really comes in, along with shit like "youre not allowed to..." and "this isnt for you..."

like on some level theyre understandable sentiments but they really do not come off like at all like the people using them think they do, they just end up sounding like some canned comeback "talk to the hand" "get a life"

which is why i think understanding the concepts of privilege and intersectionality are really good and can help make the world a better place, but attachment to the words and forms of its own little micro culture is just futile

Screw that. Privilege talk without marxism (academic or inherent) behind it is just another way to say "you smell".

― Three Word Username, Friday, January 10, 2014 4:46 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean lol come on

also people getting weirdly psyched about intersectionality and playing it like its some sort of trump card or something

its worth remembering i guess that tumblr is teens and also college is teens

http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person-shesaid/

The reasoning & conclusion are pretty basic but it's interesting getting there.

People in their late 20s/early 30s being all dismissive about "teens" and how dumb and ignorant they are, when actually, in your 40s, you see how dumb and ignorant your 20s/30s were, and teens are wiser than a lot of people give them credit for; that is also a thing. x-post

For many, many people, choosing how and who to have arguments with is a form for self care.

Because if you are impassioned about something that affects you, you will be told you are "angry".

And if you are angry, even righteously and totally legitimately, you will be told you are "crazy".

There is nothing so angry-making as being told you are angry when you are not. There is nothing so crazy-making as being told you are crazy when you are not.

So walking away from those arguments that you can see from experience are likely to go down that route (and double if the person is already complaining about "rudeness" or how you sound "like a teengirl" as an actual dismissive insult) is a completely legitimate and sometimes necessary form of self care.

teens are cool they just have a lot of teen culture specific rhetorical ticks that tend to not play real well when adopted by non teens is all

not sure that it's that dismissive of children to suggest that adult discourse maybe shouldn't cop so much of the rhetoric of children idk maybe I'll feel different when I'm 40

xp obv

its like teen clothing, youve got to move on and argue like an adult at some point

It cuts both ways. That's a cartoonishly one-sided view. OK, so one participant mustn't be called angry or crazy, or even rude or teen-like, because it's hurtful. What about the person they're calling out? Fuck their feelings, presumably because they've been designated the Privilege Monster.

Sorry, that was an xp to BB

unfairly dismissive of cartoons imo

Wow, DL, I am so not prepared to have a conversation with you about the terrible anguish of cis-het white dudes being told their behaviour is sometimes hurtful and oppressive to others. It's a shame, because this was such a good thread all afternoon.

(I'm waah btw)

That really is right back in a circle to "the terrible pain of being called a racist is so so sooo much worse than actually experiencing racism" logic which is not helpful and not productive, and to be honest, the kind of thing that I expected you to be smarter than.

Who said anything about "cis-het white dudes"? What happened to the complexity of privilege? And even if I were talking about CHWDs, you do realise some of them have mental health issues and might need some self-care too, right? It's convenient to assume that whoever you're calling out is a thick-skinned blowhard but that isn't always the case.

Well, you making comments about calling someone out means "assuming" people are "thick-skinned blowhards" is really projecting a lot, too, DL.

Calling someone out means saying that what they are doing is hurtful or unproductive. What motives or tone or "they think everyone is a blowhard" assumptions you want to assign to that call-out says more about you than it does the person doing the call-out.

that absolutely everyone in the world experiences pain and suffering as a baseline is the only reason we can communicate with each other at all, so i dont think its out of bounds to consider that it might hurt someone to call out their racism, it might be a necessary or deserved or even constructive pain, but it is pain, the thing we all try so hard to avoid, in recognizing that fact you are being a more humane person than the racist whos whole racism is designed to deny that basic empathy, its totally understandable to not be able to muster that all the time, but sometimes maybe if one can imo its more potent than just plain rage and desire for victory, its actually an example of what it might look like to treat each other better

Why is it that the path to everyone treating each better always has to be laid by the people who are most often treated the worst?

I mean, it's a great-sounding argument that wholly relies on an unreal, possibly unattainable utopian starting point in order for it not to come across like you're saying that marginalized people bear the main responsibility for modifying the behaviors of the people marginalizing them.

People read "you are full of just plain rage and the desire for victory" all the time onto situations where the actual motive is "I just want this, one, tiny corner, to live my fucking life without this shit, again."

And once people have decided to monster you, they are going to read your actions as monstrous and your motivations as bad, no matter how polite, or how careful, or how humanely you try to frame your criticism. It's a mug's game.

x-post over DJP's great points.

Xp you assume that every callout is valid, every accusation is correct. Which is convenient but that's not always the case. Sorry BB I agree with many of your points but not that.

like you're saying that marginalized people bear the main responsibility for modifying the behaviors of the people marginalizing them.

― SHAUN (DJP), Friday, January 10, 2014 12:02 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that is often unfortunately the case, building your power on other peoples suffering is a powerful drug that leaves you unfeeling and sometimes you just need basic human dignity demonstrated to you, obvs thats not all that needs to happen, all sorts of more aggressive and self righteous actions have proved useful too

and also not everyone who disagrees with oppressing people is a member of the oppressed class

imo its not really an either or type situation, but just that keeping yr heart a little bit open helps to make you a smarter and altogether more tuned in person, then if totally necessary you can still kill a cop or w/e

Going down a bit of a cul-de-sac here. Enraging someone with nastiness/ignorance in order to dismiss them as hysterical is obviously a nasty and bullying behaviour, and an outpouring of anger/frustration is imo a legitimate response (within reason), but ultimately it isn't going to change anyone's future behaviour. Ignorant people maybe the problem but by definition they aren't going to provide the solution. Not saying that the oppressed are responsible for making things better - all decent people are.

Xp

Xp you assume that every callout is valid, every accusation is correct.

No. I am assuming I am talking about cases where the callout is valid/the accusation is correct.

You're absolutely right, DL. Not every callout is valid, and not even accusation is correct. And also, it's true, a really really really tiny percentage of women do actually make up false accusations about being raped, too! These things actually happening on the rare occasion does not make them something which should completely override the entire conversation.

And the tiny percentage of callouts that are completely invalid, compared to the huge number of massively problematic behaviour that goes unchallenged and uncalledout, I'm sorry, but my sympathy is with "being falsely accused of being racist, on the incredibly rare occasion that it happens, is something you will eventually learn to get over" when compared with a wider goal of "slowly, shifting society to be more just and more balanced."

I have, in my entire life, been falsely accused of racism, exactly twice, and I can remember each incident with stunning clarity - mostly because of its rareness. (I mean, really. Someone once called me racist because I didn't know if we had any R Kelly cassettes. Come on.) I have also been accused of racism many times, gone "wah, that's not fair" then the next day, or week, or year, realised, actually, that thing I was doing/saying, that was actually really quite racist. I did not die of being called out. It is a completely survivable thing, to be accused of racism! You might even learn something from it. (Especially if it's Dan doing it, ouch.)

For many, many people, choosing how and who to have arguments with is a form for self care.

this is a really valuable insight, thanks for this.

(I mean, really. Someone once called me racist because I didn't know if we had any R Kelly cassettes. Come on.)

look how many times can I say I'm sorry

not racist, homophobic (trapped in the closet)

With the notion of 'oh but isn't it shitty to be yelled at and called names by angry oppressed people' in mind--I had a chance to talk to the author of this awesome book recently and I said to her something like "there needs to be room in our movements (or societies or what have you) for people to learn about their internalized oppressiveness, and learning means making mistakes, and we should build space for them & not chase after people with pitchforks for making them."

With a little distance I can see how that point I was making isn't so far removed from "why are you making my life so hard, angry people, you're so mean to me for accidentally saying fucked up things."

Harsha super astutely came back at me with "Yes, we need to have room for people to make mistakes and learn, but we always have to keep in mind the people on whose backs those mistakes are made--we can't let forgiving one another's mistakes blind us to the pain caused by the mistake in the first place."