It’s not a contest. It’s not about doing the math and pronouncing someone a winner and someone else a loser in the privilege vs oppression lottery. People face different circumstances owing to their intersecting privileges and oppression. To reduce it to person A with privilege B and oppression C has it better/worse than person X with privilege Y and oppression Z is nonsense, and especially ignorant if the person you’re saying has it worse is part of a group you also belong to.
Any white person saying a rich black person has it easier than a poor queer white person with a disability needs to realize this is a way of minimizing their white privilege. Same with men coming up with examples in which a woman might have circumstances that result in a more favorable circumstance than a man facing various other oppressions despite his male privilege.
Nobody is claiming white privilege or male privilege wipes the slate clean of any and all other oppression. The race of the people in the first example and the gender in the second are irrelevant, and only included to try to argue that white or male privilege aren’t such a big deal, because whataboutism.
We spend a lot of time talking about how to target government programs on this forum. I’m saying class should play a huge role in how we target these programs. The big self reinforcing reason why institutional racism happens in this country is because it works . For the people on the front lines carrying it out it fucking works. They don’t do it out of malice, they do it because they have numbers to hit for a job they’d like to keep so they can pay a mortgage. Then they become racist so that they can sleep at night, because when the job is bashing minorities being racist makes the whole thing a lot easier to take.
One of the most effective things I think we could do to eliminate the problems in this country would be to 1) do our very best to actually eliminate poverty and 2) change how we measure success. We need to spend way less on cops and way more on education and mental health. We need to systematically address poverty rather than punishing people for being poor. And we need to do all of that without talking about race, because the majority of the people we’re trying to help are white, and if they think that we’re trying to uplift minorities without helping them any they are going to vote for the person promising to help them. Drowning people will use the person trying to rescue them as a life preserver to the point where they drown that person.
You’re not going to magically make a bunch of desperate people woke and enlightened until you remove their desperation. It’s fucking primal down there. They are not interested in talking about anything other than how you’re going to help them get clear of the systematic oppression they live with every single day… and saying ‘but someone else has it worse’ is going to make them want to bash your head in and take your stuff.
I want to be clear I’m at least partially talking about how to make left wing stuff into good politics. I think the way internet liberals act woke is terrible terrible politics.
And I understand white privilege and intersectionality on a pretty deep level. I’ve lived in majority minority impoverished communities most of my life. Most of my friends growing up were not white. I’ve also got a massive amount of first hand experience with real poverty. I’ve also had the opportunity to talk to plenty of better off black people in college and in the workplace…
Look I’ve experienced like 5 different gradients of privilege in my life from the very bottom (but still white) to where I’m at now where I’m in the top 5% more or less… and to say I see it everywhere I look is putting it mildly.
I’ve also had more than enough experiences with law enforcement to feel real dread every time I so much as see them. I’m not saying I’ve had the black experience, because obviously I haven’t, but I’ve had enough of a taste to have at least as much perspective on it as anyone else on this forum (who didn’t grow up poor and black ldo).
Even for a white guy (actually mixed race which is a weird topic for someone as white as I am) I am very privileged. My mom comes from privilege. She fucked around her whole life and inherited a million dollars when she turned 50.
I basically won the genetic and literal lottery. I have so much and a huge part of my self hatred is how I deserve and appreciate none of it. This is a weird topic for me To talk about because of this.
I have never experienced real prejudice but I grew up “different” with red hair, and was treated differently because of it. Lol thats about the best I can do.
Despite all of my safety nets I still almost ended up a washout. That’s what most middle/upper middle class whites dont understand about their privilege. Just because you’re not fantastically wealthy doesnt mean youre not reaping huge multigenerational rewards and have massive institutional safety nets in place to LET you fail safely.
The justice system is the most typical example of this. If youve ever had a brush with the law but got a slap on the wrist it’s because youre fucking white or had money for a good lawyer. I dont want to speak about my past in detail but I have definitely benefitted from this. Kids i know that dont come from much but have multiple dui’s/possession of substances and arent in prison dont get it’s because theyre white and have money.
I could go on for a while. I’m really the most shining example of privilege and one of the things that angers me the most about trump supporters and white people in general is they dont realize it and even claim the opposite.
ggoreo
ggoreo: