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wolven7Gnarls Barkley - [Going On]--- So. Evelyn-Evelyn. Kevin Smith. Privilege. Private Law. We've talked about this, before, haven't we? Weve discussed the problem, here? Let me say this as clearly as possible, one more time, then: People are shit.
People like to feel special about themselves, and this extends outward especially to victimhood. If you are a member of a group, then the chances are high that you will seek to make yourself and that group more important and special, for some reason or another. (Cake - [I Will Survive]). Human nature. We like to be special.
All of us are a part of some interlocking, overlapping groups of classes which mean that we will, by turns, find ourselves privileged and persecuted. Race, ethnicity, religion, hair colour, spelling choice, weight, fashion sense, cartoons we enjoy, sexual preference, gender differentiation, whatever. I am not a single thing. You are not a single thing. Your chosen and happenstance experiences, coupled with the facticity of your existence and the choices you make, regarding those traits, mean that you are a complex and unique individual, just like everyone else on this planet, and to tell someone that they Should Behave Some Way is to ignore the uniqueness of each human experience, and to perpetuate the kind of environment in which privilege finds a home.
The Dresden Dolls - [Modern Moonlight]--- And we all have our "triggers." We have the things that remind us of our trauma, and the way that White Male Privilge™ has done us wrong, and society has screwed us over. We're gay, or we've been raped, or we're black, or we're poor and struggling to support a family, or we're trans, or we're bi-polar, or we're pagan growing up in a strict Catholic family, or we are and have been all of these things, and we're trying desperately to find our place in the fucking world. It's hard. It's hard because, yes, society as it stands, does have privileges worked into its very fabric, so deep and so strong that those who benefit from them may not even realise it.
But that doesn't mean that people should feel guilty for being something.
It doesn't mean that I can't seek to understand or talk about something I'm not.
It doesn't mean that, being black, I have to be angry at the white man, or to demand reparations, or fight for Affirmative Action.
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - [Shoggoths Away]--- It doesn't mean that, being male, I can't aim to understand and empathize with the plight of women, in this society.
It doesn't mean that, being non-Christian, I can't understand the joy and redemptive value of the offer of Christ's love.
It doesn't mean that, being whatever it is that you are, you have to feel guilty for not being more oppressed.
Guilt solves nothing. Blame and finger-pointing gets no real change, in this world. If what we really want is a more just and equal universe, then what we need is more understanding, more even-tempers, and less reactionary "You Can't Talk The Plight Of Group Whatever Because You Aren't A Part of Them And You Can't Know!"
Louis Jordan - [Beans and Corn Bread]--- But if what we want is to feel special, to feel set apart because we are the sufferers of unique injustices, to be seen as different and better and more stoic because we have soldiered on, to continue to foster a society in which being different is an excuse to make Your Different the Better Different, then by all means: Continue in this vein.
Static-X - [Shadow Zone]--- And yes, there is empowerment in the reappropriation of terms, in the reclaimation of power, through owning your differences, through owning the things for which "Traditional" society shuns you, and building a new society based in the owning of these things. But when I own the fact that I'm a black, "Pagan," self-worshipping academic in an interracial relationship, that doesn't mean that I then get to say, "And Everyone Who Doesn't Love The Nature Of My Being, And My Particular Perspective Ought To Be Ashamed Of Themselves."
Android Lust - [Lover Thine]--- What I get to say, instead, is that privilege is a fact. Recognise it. Work to raise awareness of it and deconstruct it. But don't think that you're immune from it. If you stop and truly, honestly, examine your life, you will see privilege and favourable fate, somewhere. To ignore that fact is to make the fact of privilege stronger, not weaker.
Patsy Cline - [I Fall to Pieces]--- People are shit. They want to be special, and they want to be different, and as long as there are people, on this planet, there will be someone who is different and wants so badly for that different to be "Better," that they will persecute and hunt and exclude those who are not their kind of different. And becasue people don't want to be persecuted, hunted, or excluded, they will either conform to that existing different, or they will form enclaves of their own, special kind of different. And they will want that different to be "Better," and so on. We can recognise this for what it is, and seek to change it, and our behaviour, with it, or we can ignore the fact and continue to make it worse, by shouting about how it's so bad that people don't treat each other better, and how we should all try to be equal, and understanding, but don't you dare try to speak or write or think from someone else's perspective, because You're Not Them, and you're obviously succumbing to the blindspots in your own privilege, if you can't see how just being you is wrong.
Lisa Loeb - [Stay]--- Because that makes sense.
I eagerly await the deluge of comments and arguments between people who don't even know each other that inevitably follows when I make one of these posts.
Thom Yorke - [Skip Divided]--- Good night.
People like to feel special about themselves, and this extends outward especially to victimhood. If you are a member of a group, then the chances are high that you will seek to make yourself and that group more important and special, for some reason or another. (Cake - [I Will Survive]). Human nature. We like to be special.
All of us are a part of some interlocking, overlapping groups of classes which mean that we will, by turns, find ourselves privileged and persecuted. Race, ethnicity, religion, hair colour, spelling choice, weight, fashion sense, cartoons we enjoy, sexual preference, gender differentiation, whatever. I am not a single thing. You are not a single thing. Your chosen and happenstance experiences, coupled with the facticity of your existence and the choices you make, regarding those traits, mean that you are a complex and unique individual, just like everyone else on this planet, and to tell someone that they Should Behave Some Way is to ignore the uniqueness of each human experience, and to perpetuate the kind of environment in which privilege finds a home.
The Dresden Dolls - [Modern Moonlight]--- And we all have our "triggers." We have the things that remind us of our trauma, and the way that White Male Privilge™ has done us wrong, and society has screwed us over. We're gay, or we've been raped, or we're black, or we're poor and struggling to support a family, or we're trans, or we're bi-polar, or we're pagan growing up in a strict Catholic family, or we are and have been all of these things, and we're trying desperately to find our place in the fucking world. It's hard. It's hard because, yes, society as it stands, does have privileges worked into its very fabric, so deep and so strong that those who benefit from them may not even realise it.
But that doesn't mean that people should feel guilty for being something.
It doesn't mean that I can't seek to understand or talk about something I'm not.
It doesn't mean that, being black, I have to be angry at the white man, or to demand reparations, or fight for Affirmative Action.
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - [Shoggoths Away]--- It doesn't mean that, being male, I can't aim to understand and empathize with the plight of women, in this society.
It doesn't mean that, being non-Christian, I can't understand the joy and redemptive value of the offer of Christ's love.
It doesn't mean that, being whatever it is that you are, you have to feel guilty for not being more oppressed.
Guilt solves nothing. Blame and finger-pointing gets no real change, in this world. If what we really want is a more just and equal universe, then what we need is more understanding, more even-tempers, and less reactionary "You Can't Talk The Plight Of Group Whatever Because You Aren't A Part of Them And You Can't Know!"
Louis Jordan - [Beans and Corn Bread]--- But if what we want is to feel special, to feel set apart because we are the sufferers of unique injustices, to be seen as different and better and more stoic because we have soldiered on, to continue to foster a society in which being different is an excuse to make Your Different the Better Different, then by all means: Continue in this vein.
Static-X - [Shadow Zone]--- And yes, there is empowerment in the reappropriation of terms, in the reclaimation of power, through owning your differences, through owning the things for which "Traditional" society shuns you, and building a new society based in the owning of these things. But when I own the fact that I'm a black, "Pagan," self-worshipping academic in an interracial relationship, that doesn't mean that I then get to say, "And Everyone Who Doesn't Love The Nature Of My Being, And My Particular Perspective Ought To Be Ashamed Of Themselves."
Android Lust - [Lover Thine]--- What I get to say, instead, is that privilege is a fact. Recognise it. Work to raise awareness of it and deconstruct it. But don't think that you're immune from it. If you stop and truly, honestly, examine your life, you will see privilege and favourable fate, somewhere. To ignore that fact is to make the fact of privilege stronger, not weaker.
Patsy Cline - [I Fall to Pieces]--- People are shit. They want to be special, and they want to be different, and as long as there are people, on this planet, there will be someone who is different and wants so badly for that different to be "Better," that they will persecute and hunt and exclude those who are not their kind of different. And becasue people don't want to be persecuted, hunted, or excluded, they will either conform to that existing different, or they will form enclaves of their own, special kind of different. And they will want that different to be "Better," and so on. We can recognise this for what it is, and seek to change it, and our behaviour, with it, or we can ignore the fact and continue to make it worse, by shouting about how it's so bad that people don't treat each other better, and how we should all try to be equal, and understanding, but don't you dare try to speak or write or think from someone else's perspective, because You're Not Them, and you're obviously succumbing to the blindspots in your own privilege, if you can't see how just being you is wrong.
Lisa Loeb - [Stay]--- Because that makes sense.
I eagerly await the deluge of comments and arguments between people who don't even know each other that inevitably follows when I make one of these posts.
Thom Yorke - [Skip Divided]--- Good night.
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Synchronous
Date: 2010-02-21 04:18 am (UTC)I managed to argue my client out of focusing on the negatives of school (he literally compared teachers in our country to the people who ran the "showers" in concentration camps) by a) getting him to recognize that blowback from people who started off disagreeing with his message would cause a lot of the rest of his message to fall on deaf ears, and b) getting him to focus, if he thinks the current system is so bad, on the positive: selling the system he would rather have in place.
It is strongly to his credit that he was willing to shift tactics so entirely (this required completely destroying the outline he had written for a book) in order to stay on message and be effective.
I think I'd disagree with the implication that your supporting statements prove your first statement, here. I don't believe that the wanting to be special, even the wanting to be "better" or even "better than," makes people shit. If you didn't intend those following lines to imply the first, and just meant them as individual statements, then I just disagree with the idea that people, as a whole collective, are shit.
Re: Synchronous
Date: 2010-02-21 04:36 am (UTC)Truth is, they're both, all the time.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 04:21 pm (UTC)Yes, completely. And yet the recognition of one's privilege is so damn uncomfortable (as well as foreign) for most people that they simply refuse to do it. That, and we're not taught how. E.g., this is America, these are our god-given rights, goddammit! The line between privilege and entitlement is a slippery one, and people don't want to give up what they feel they're entitled to... and so often, entitlement comes at the expense of someone else's rights or opportunities. From frat boys feeling entitled to getting As in college because they got As in high school (why yes, I've taught at undergraduate institutions, why do you ask?) to people who feel entitled to the bodies or labor of others, it is a massive problem in American society today, and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it.
I try to be aware of my own privilege, and I try to point out when others are unconsciously acting on their own privileges... but I try to do it in a not-too-aggressive way because, again, it's an uncomfortable topic. And yet I feel obligated to at the very least poke at privilege when I see it, since people who are ignorant of their own privilege will generally continue to be that way unless they learn otherwise (go inertia!).
Your post just started a conversation about the relationship between privilege and complicity, and various kinds of identities constructed therein... I might get back to you once Pan and I hash this out...
no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 01:56 am (UTC)Basically, I remain hung up on the idea of how to deal with guilt at belonging to a category that traditionally has some privilege. How do you separate out what you're feeling as an individual, with your own life experiences, from what you're feeling because of your privilege, because of the unconscious assumptions that you and others make that automatically benefit you, even if in little ways?
He distinguished between "being" and "doing" identities. Some identities are born with us (ethnicity, sex, and so on), while others are accumulated through actions. So you're not born a murderer, but you can become one by killing someone, and that label will then stay with you for the rest of your life. You're born white, but you can become racist under certain circumstances--you "are" white but you "do" racism if you choose to act in certain ways.
I think the distinction between identities that we choose and identities that are more or less grafted onto our bodies is an interesting and useful one, but I'm still not entirely convinced that a lifetime of benevolent ignorance when you belong to a "being" category is enough to make you exempt from responsibility for owning your privilege. The example he gave was of a white guy who walked into a hotel, and the (racist) doorman held the door for him, but not for the black guy who walked in a few minutes later. The doorman is surely to be faulted for being racist, but is the white guy? I think that the white guy at some point will surely come face to face with his complicity in these kinds of situations (through sheer repetition if nothing else, no matter how ignorant he might be), but how guilty should he feel/be?
Just some thoughts that I managed to recall from our earlier conversation. This is something I think about all the time and I'm still working out how I feel about privilege and how to deal with it.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 02:15 am (UTC)I don't think it will Exempt, no, but it does mean that no one should be made to feel guilty for not knowing. If you are ignorant of the injustice of the situation, then you are, by definition, unaware that what you are Doing is potentially unjust.
I don't feel that the white person, in that situation, should feel guilty about it. If it's obviously a case of racism, then call the other person on it, but not out of some sense of guilt. Do it because it was a Racist, Dick Move.
For another example, I've had people try to "defend" me from what they perceived as racism, even going so far as to be angry with and try to punish the alleged racist, in question. Now, what they saw as racism, I saw as the order in which food was ordered/prepared, coupled with a rush, in a crowded restaurant.
Having worked in food service, I know what that can do to the servers and cooks, but due to what I perceived as guilt at having been served first, in a potentially racist situation, they leaped to my defense.
Sweet, and all, but awkward and somewhat embarrassing, and unnecessarily harsh to someone who didn't really do anything wrong. That, unfortunately, is the kind of thing I see as the product of guilt.
So I say, don't feel guilty about it, don't make Others feel guilty about it. Inform yourself and others, change it, try to grow, and move on. The world gets better, from there...
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 12:13 am (UTC)This inevitably creates massive backlash. My privilege does not negate my validity as a human being. If my perspective on someone else is flawed - even if because of my subconcious ethnocentrism - that does not mean I should be subject to ridicule and/or dismissal within a group context of discussion. Sometimes I've been able to reverse the accusation and point out the inherent romanticizing of privilege hunting.
Then there's the inevitable privilege hunting that happens in anonymous forums such as the internet wherein someone pulls the "privilege check!" card out and parades it about on someone they obviously know nothing about. Such as the couple of times I've been told I MUST be a rich WASP to have had the audacity to disagree with some sacrosanct romantic assessment of "other peoples"
This is why I have reversed my own opinion on the "culture appropriation" argument. Culture does not "belong" to a special group of people. Culture, regardless of where it originated or spread to, belongs to anyone and everyone who admires it and chooses to follow it. It evolves and morphs just as every other human endeavor and I will not follow the old guilty-white-liberal line of "you don't get to join because you can't understand" drawn in the historical sand. If I like a cultural thing, I can follow it respectfully without having have grown up with it, had it in my family etc etc
Nobody OWNS cultural mores. Thus there is no "stealing"
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 12:16 am (UTC)Dude, when you can't even mention wearing a long piece of cloth on your body without being taken to task for possibly "offending" different cultures (not that the person mentioning it knew much about the differences in sari wearing) I mean seriously.... give me a fucking break.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 06:55 am (UTC)There has to be a line at which culture is shared, so that it is appreciated, and understood that there is no single Arbiter of Culture, someone to say "It Is Okay That You Do This Thing." Even people Within the culture will disagree.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 06:53 am (UTC)The notion of privilege is so easily inverted to a blanket kind of a blame that it does no one any good, at all.