privilege as a meme

also i guess i tend to blame "capitalism" -- a self-perpetuating system fueled by its own inertia that causes insecurity and distrust -- rather than capitalists, although the koch brothers certainly know what they are doing when they try to split the working class.

also i feel that there is a kind of false binary here, class politics or identity politics. obviously, different groups have different concerns due to the different kinds of oppression/challenges they face. but do all of these identity groups have contradicting interests? i don't think so. not necessarily.

they are not, and their belief that they are is what causes them to be so attached to them.

dont feel like googlin rn cos lazy, but isnt there research to suggest that people's happiness is in part tied to how well we think we are doing relative to our peers/society? the psychic salve of white supremacy is a real benefit for those who can partake in it. so the advancement of peoples once considered beneath them is a threat to their sense of status and place in the world.

Seems like unions discriminating to hog the good paying jobs is evidence of the divisive nature of dog-eat-dog capitalism rather than a failure of any class solidarity.

― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, May 5, 2015 10:39 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

race was divisive long before capitalism iirc

what about the fantasy of the fantasy of capitalism being the sole route of all evil? obviously systems of oppression have existed before capitalism. the capitalist structure may not be to blame for the entirety of power imbalance and exploitation, but certainly is built on systems and processes that helpperpetuate those imbalances. if u are looking for an all or nothing single solution good luck

xpost mbison, interesting, but how much of a miserable fuck do you have to be to derive your sense of self-worth in your race? how privileged can you be if that's what you cling to?

i think this kind of resentment, borne of self-hatred, is something the right wing exploits and fuels. i don't think it has a real material basis and if it's revealed for what it is i think people might have a better chance of moving past it, or being shamed out of it because it sounds pathetic.

treeship how many white ppl do you know

it's no gawker post

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 5:13 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there have definitely been better gawker posts

white working class men do materially benefit from white supremacy and patriarchy, though—they don't have to compete equally with people of color or women in the workplace, and they benefit from the unpaid reproductive labor (giving birth and raising children, housework, etc) that women are expected to perform under patriarchy

what about the fantasy of the fantasy of capitalism being the sole route of all evil? obviously systems of oppression have existed before capitalism. the capitalist structure may not be to blame for the entirety of power imbalance and exploitation, but certainly is built on systems and processes that helpperpetuate those imbalances. if u are looking for an all or nothing single solution good luck

― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, May 5, 2015 11:13 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm arguing against all or nothing solutions

FWIW i am not anti-capitalist but that's an argument for another day?

white working class men do materially benefit from white supremacy and patriarchy, though—they don't have to compete equally with people of color or women in the workplace, and they benefit from the unpaid reproductive labor (giving birth and raising children, housework, etc) that women are expected to perform under patriarchy

― 1staethyr, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 11:30 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^what i'm saying

None of the intersectional privilege theory ppl I know ignore class fwiw.

― oppet, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 6:07 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ehh, i have definitely seen some do so, i think you take this a step too far. but for the most part, i think people have a weird POV of how class & race for example intersect.

current afropessimist lit argues (and forgive me if I convey this poorly) argues that there is a difference between class conflict and race, which is not a conflict in the sense of being conceivably "solvable" in the current paradigm. Race is instead an antagonism—quoting frank wilderson here: "To put a finer point on it, structures of ontological suffering stand in antagonistic, rather than conflictual, relation to one another (despite the fact that antagonists themselves may not be aware of the ontological position from which they speak)."

Think of it in terms of philosophy, how western civilization is built on the idea of a 'slave class'—the creation of surplus labor—and how today's prison industrial complex essential provides free surplus labor. the afropessimist argument suggests that there is literally no resolution within a current system; that race is not a conflict which can be resolved gradually but through what fanon called the 'end of the world' or the end of the current system.

im not sure i can adequately explain the theoretical grounding for this frankly, i'm somewhat new to studying it, but in essence it repositions the "class structure" as classical marxism conveys it to suggest that as long as society prioritizes whiteness, that blackness is what they call the "state of social death"—that the rational logic of succeeding within the system forces people to "above all, don't be black"—all class conflicts are built on top of this racial antagonism

xp mbison, i know lots and lots of white people.

a lot of them are racist. not always maliciously, but sometimes they'll have weird, essentializing/reifying attitudes about race that make me uncomfortable. it is impossible to live in this society and not have to reckon actively with questions of racial difference, confront prejudices, whatever. at the end of this process, though, i don't think most people i know come away feeling happy that so much of the black experience in this country is still marked by discrimination, poverty, and even -- as ta nehisi coates put it recently -- plunder. it's a national disgrace.

if people do feel that way -- that they are OK as long as someone else has it worse -- why do they think that? is it an essential part of human nature to be status conscious in that way? could there be a way of conceptualizing ourselves and our relation to the social in non-hierarchical terms? obv idk, but that's the kind of question that seems interesting and possibly productive to me.

nb I believe Wilkerson would actually resist the current "intellectual protocols aligned with structural positionality...—that is to say...the academy's ensembles of questions are fixated on specific and "unique" experiences of the myriad identities that make up those structural positions. This would be fine if the work led us back to a critique of the paradigm; but most of it does not....[etc etc] This is how left-leaning scholars help civil society recuperate and maintain stability. But this stability is a state of emergency for Indians and Blacks."

IDK it's a very interesting book, plus its about movies

ugh that should say "Wilderson"—sorry dumb autocorrect

white working class men do materially benefit from white supremacy and patriarchy, though—they don't have to compete equally with people of color or women in the workplace, and they benefit from the unpaid reproductive labor (giving birth and raising children, housework, etc) that women are expected to perform under patriarchy

― 1staethyr, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 11:30 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess, but don't they suffer because their partner will resent them? they get the better end of a shitty deal, no question, and i can see how framing it in any term other than oppressor/oppressed can be seen to minimize the oppression women suffer under patriarchy.

no question about it: working class men oppress women under patriarchy, and they do it for what they think are their interests.

what i am saying is that maybe there is a larger interest in breaking down these hierarchies and maybe thinking about things that way will be more constructive. who is happier: someone who is sexist and fearful of women (like an MRA) or someone who isn't burdened by prejudice?

apropo of nothing maybe, i think there's a convincing argument to be made—probably not by me, but silvia federici for instance has delineated some of it—that the rise of capitalism was dependent on the subjugation of women and people of color, and that modern western conceptions of gender and race were forged in and as justifications for early capitalism. which imo makes any denunciation of "identity politics" in favor of "pure" class politics questionable

yes. that is what i (hope i was?) conveying

any denunciation of "identity politics" in favor of "pure" class politics questionable

this would be dumb. of course it's questionable. all of this stuff is linked together.

my position is basically the same as federici's fwiw.

modern conceptions of gender and race definitely have a historical basis because there is no other possible basis. but that's exactly why they can be resisted and overcome.

ok have to sign off for the night. c yall

you're ignoring my post, or maybe i'm not explaining it well but: race can't be simply 'overcome' w/in the current system. i mean at least according to the afropessimists. who ... i think might be right.

who is happier: someone who is sexist and fearful of women (like an MRA) or someone who isn't burdened by prejudice?

i mean, yes, sure, a bigot is probably "unhappier" in some existential or deep-down-in-their-heart-of-hearts way than a non-bigot is. and i get that this is a well-intentioned call for empathy and a loving nature toward "the oppressor". but do you get that this is essentially calling for priority of white men's feelings over the actual material well-being of everyone else? and that when this type of argument comes up over and over again in conversations about oppression it begins to seem like the people making it just don't want to deal with oppression?

but do you get that this is essentially calling for priority of white men's feelings over the actual material well-being of everyone else?

i don't really think that's what i am calling for at al. this is what i said:

I understand -- really understand -- how some voices aren't heard. I understand how obscene it sounds to say that a middle class cit het white male who is college educated is "also oppressed" if you are dealing with much more serious stuff than that. The system doesn't oppress everyone equally -- not even close -- and that is why so many fucked over right wingers still feel invested in it. They're afraid of falling further.

also i don't even care about empathy for the oppressor. fuck racists and sexists. who cares. all i am saying is that they are deluded.

but how much of a miserable fuck do you have to be to derive your sense of self-worth in your race

speaking as someone who has felt bad about their race their whole life: fuck you*

*not really, i know you're a good person but think about how that sounds for a minute

i am 37 years old. i have maybe 3-4 vivid memories of being 6 years old, one of which is of an entire busload of children chanting "go back to iran" at me and my sister and the bus driver laughing

i'm not sure what i wouldn't give to derive some sense of self-worth in my race, and i certainly don't feel like a better or stronger person for not deriving any of my self-worth from my race

i know this is quite tangential to what you're talking about treeship, but that post and the "how privileged can you be" part really made me see red for a second. blame the six year old in me. :-(

sorry, the late great. that's not what i meant.

people should feel good about who they are, proud of their backgrounds, etc. i was talking about people who feel like their race is better than another person's race.

no problem, i know that's not what you meant. i need to think before i post.

dang yall

tomorrow i'm in this one

i got in a huge fight with my best friend a while back (we have since made up). we were talking about race and politics, and my friend, who is white, started arguing that people of color are complicit in their oppression because they persist in seeing themselves as "people of color". he continued to argue that if people of color were to adopt a post-racial mindset (which i suppose means a white mindset) many of their problems would disappear. i told him that i thought nothing was so emblematic of white privilege as the conceit that people need to get over race, and from there, well, shit went downhill really fast.

treetop, i think i had a PTSD rage flashback to that argument and confused what you were saying with what he was saying. i know that's not what you're saying.

whoops autocorrect lol

that sw article is a crummy intellectual genealogy in that you get no idea why people were arguing over or passionately attached to different ideas and what drove them and why they embraced some thoughts and shunned others.

http://cdn-img.easylogo.cn/gif/142/142028.gif

who is happier: someone who is sexist and fearful of women (like an MRA) or someone who isn't burdened by prejudice?
― Treeship, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 10:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You keep referencing this idea that people who engage in oppression must be unhappy, certainly more so than those who have embraced some egalitarian mindset. This feels like an opportunity cost kind of argument? To which I'd argue that they don't know what they're missing and can hardly be considered as suffering for their actions an beliefs

^^^this goes too far the other direction. Men for example do suffer bc of patriarchy ... In both ways that can be obvious to them (even if they don't see the entire structure of it) and ways which are not

They just benefit from it too

yeah that's a good way of phrasing it deej. it's not either/or, it's a trade off. by casting off sexism, men might have more to lose than just their chains, but they will also lose their chains...

This is a bell hooks line iirc

Lol no way

"As interest in feminist thinking and practice has waned, there has been even less focus on the plight of men than in the heyday of feminist movement. This lack of interest does not change the fact that only a feminist vision that embraces feminist masculinity, that loves boys and men and demands on their behalf every right that we desire for girls and women, can renew men in our society. Feminist thinking teaches us all, males especially, how to love justice and freedom in ways that foster and affirm life. Clearly we need new strategies, new theories, guides that will show us how to create a world where feminist masculinity thrives."--bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love

"What potentialities does this have? How can it most productively strive against its own reactionary marketing & outmoded* orthodoxies?

*They're outmoded. Deal."--imago, maleness

Patriarchy is perhaps the most ancient and base-level form of oppression. I think feminism has a lot to offer, particularly by painting a future that we are inevitably heading towards.

the only future we are inevitably heading towards is the heat death of the universe

Which is a future of post-material/post-identity egalitarianism, all particles/waveforms collapsing in on either other.

treetop

aw man, i thought i was going to find some substantive hoos post when i clicked this thread today

thx for bell hooks ref deej - very interesting piece, "Rather than bringing us great wisdom about the nature of men and love, reformist feminist focus on male power reinforced the notion that somehow males were powerful and had it all. Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men. It did not tell us the terrible terror that gnaws at the soul when one cannot love." < have not heard this expressed so much which surprises me bc bell hooks seems like such a huge influence on the contemporary sj movement

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/hurtful-things-said-to-people-with-chronic-pain/

innocent assumptions can do a lot of unintentional damage

lmfao

http://electricliterature.com/should-white-men-stop-writing-the-blunt-instrument-on-publishing-and-privilege/

I am a white, male poet—a white, male poet who is aware of his privilege and sensitive to inequalities facing women, POC, and LGBTQ individuals in and out of the writing community—but despite this awareness and sensitivity, I am still white and still male. Sometimes I feel like the time to write from my experience has passed, that the need for poems from a white, male perspective just isn’t there anymore, and that the torch has passed to writers of other communities whose voices have too long been silenced or suppressed. I feel terrible about feeling terrible about this, since I also know that for so long, white men made other people feel terrible about who they were. Sometimes I write from other perspectives via persona poems in order to understand and empathize with the so-called “other”; but I fear that this could be construed as yet another example of my privilege—that I am appropriating another person’s experience, violating that person by telling his or her story. It feels like a Catch-22. Write what you know and risk denying voices whose stories are more urgent; write to learn what you don’t know and risk colonizing someone else’s story. I genuinely am troubled by this. I want to listen but I also want to write—yet at times these impulses feel at odds with one another. How can I reconcile the two?