privilege as a meme

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."

perfect, thank you for that

"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."

Ahhh truth.

btw if yall curious you can hear our whole conversation about the book here. she is a real honest to god badass.

well just see abt that *sharpens katana, adjusts fedora*

I don't think there's a one size fits all solution but yeah that's about right and I've probably dwelt too long itt on unrepresentative incidents. Enjoyed talking it through though.

that space for learning and making mistakes exists, the problem is people are awful about admitting when they make mistakes and accepting the reaction that mistake inspires. it takes a lot of strength to just apologize and not critique the critique for lack of courtesy, sympathy, etc. ani difranco's reaction to the whole plantation thing is a pretty classic example.

that space for learning and making mistakes exists

― da croupier, Friday, January 10, 2014 6:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what do you mean by this? my first thought was 'well The Whole Fuckin World is a place where privileged people get to make mistakes and not get called on it, these alternative/movement spaces I'm thinking of are really the outliers,' but I'm not sure that's what you mean.

along those same lines there seems to be a feeling amongst some that people will never learn via being confronted and they just instinctively double down on their views, but imo thats often just a temporary phenomenon, like people get weird and defensive and embarrassed but later then they adopt the opposing view as their own, i mean the vast majority of the time people just hold onto their own views but sometimes they come around even when it looks at first like they wont, like i wouldnt be surprised if ani defranco already has a diff pov on that whole fiasco than when she wrote her non appology

right i think people prefer to eat their crow privately

i just feel that, even in movement spaces, the problem is not that it isn't possible to learn and grow, but that people who "haven't learned about their internalized oppressiveness" tend to demand that everyone take on faith their inherent Goodness, never make them feel shame or embarrassment, and treat anything problematic-to-toxic they do or say should be treated like a typo.

crow eating is a personal journey