Racism and Misogyny intersect rather explosively in /r/ShitRedditSays (np.reddit.com)
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102 ups - 49 downs = 53 votes
97 comments submitted at 21:22:10 on Mar 14, 2014 by ValedictorianBaller
Racism and Misogyny intersect rather explosively in /r/ShitRedditSays (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
102 ups - 49 downs = 53 votes
97 comments submitted at 21:22:10 on Mar 14, 2014 by ValedictorianBaller
Who is less privileged, barrack obama (dat black) or queen elizabeth of england (dat woman) ?
Annnnd this is why privilege is a really really really stupid metric. SJW love to marginalize easy targets, but when you take their methods and apply it to real people who have clear minority status yet are blatantly privileged, it shows that they just use that argument to be assholes to people.
privilege isn't a metric, there's no points to add up and come to a conclusion about
You have no idea how the word privilege is used by the femhub, do you? :p
I don't fault you, but you should be careful, wielding that logic around like that. That shit is dangerous.
No kidding. Tumblrinas, for one, love adding up their points Oppression Olympics-style. And perversion of intersectionality by the social justice warriors means that ratings have to be established so that we know precisely who has the least privilege and, thus, most "power" in their little progressive stack games.
No, I don't think that's how it works. And that's coming from someone who actually agrees with most of what they have to say.
They don't bother comparing whether white women or minority men have more privilege because there's no point to that. People who mock the concept of privilege do that. That's why the phrase SAWCSM exists, as the embodiment of all the privileges that they can mock without excluding anyone. Incidents like this are rare and controversial, which is why it ended up on SRD in the first place.
But that's horseshit though.
Cause there are more aspects to 'privilege' than just race and gender. Is a rich black guy less privileged than a poor white woman? What about a straight rich black guy compared to a gay rich white guy?
The entire problem with the phrase SAWCSM is that by 'mocking' those privileges, they are excluding a large group of people. Many of whom neither deserve to be mocked, nor are actually better off in comparison to others without one or two of those 'privileges.' It basically says "Everyone except SAWCSMs deserves respect and civility. But the SAWCSM? Fuck that guy."
The rich black man has risen above his oppressive white neighbours, and deserves his wealth. The poor white woman is reaping the fruits of her race's oppressive nature, and deserves to be poor.
/s, if you weren't in the loop on this one.
Yeah, there's more than just race and gender. "SAWCSM" actually has six different qualifiers (you can count yourself if you don't believe me). And yeah, SJWs do care about classism, believe it or not :O
> SJWs do care about classism, believe it or not :O
Are you sure about that?
I'll go with not. If they did, I would be 100% immune from their vitriol, and yet I'm le whitey cis scum male and thus should... let me see if I remember it correctly
"Fucking misogynist die in a fire"
Tell me more about how they care so much about class. Go ahead, I'll be holding my breat.
So they think that everybody who isn't a 'sawcsm' doesn't have privilege and therefore has the same (?) status in this kind of ranking.
What about in disagreements between white women and women of colour and, say, black men and black women. To me, they do seem to have a protocol on who has the privilege, and therefore more right to be listened to, there. Trans people I think have very little privilege in this protocol and so have much more leeway and right to be listened to.
How does that stuff work?
No, they don't. There are different types of privileges, and you can't and they don't try to compare them into some kind of Oppression Olympics (that would go against their inclusivity). So if a white cis woman tried to claim her 'oppressed status' as a woman to argue that trans women should be banned or that racial profiling is totally cool, she would be mocked for her unchecked cis- and white-privilege, and her gender disprivilege wouldn't even be a factor here. See how that works?
In rare cases where they may potentially come into conflict, such as the linked thread, there's controversy and sweet, buttery popcorn for SRD, but that doesn't come up often.
If everyone who isn't SAWCSM is non-privileged or oppressed on some way but in ways that can't be compared or contrasted, then it's a useless term that provides little to no insight on the nature, scope, or source of privilege.
And what's your point? I literally just said it's not supposed to do that.
My point is simply pointing out or admitting privilege does nothing.
Where privilege is a thing and is deemed problematic you have to understand its cause and scope as well as effects if you want to have any kind of solution to it.
So pretty much everyone is privileged in some way. Well, alright; now what?
It matters if their privilege is affecting their viewpoint and preventing them from empathizing with others, it's not something that just exists in a vacuum. If a black man says that women belong in the kitchen, he needs to chek his male privilege. If a white woman says that black men are criminals, she needs to check her white privilege. If a poor lesbian trans woman of color makes fun of autistic people on the internet, she needs to check her able-bodied privilege. It's not just something you add up to give yourself immunity for saying bad things, it doesn't excuse you if you say something shitty.
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Interesting. I don't know but I think this kind of clash of privilege drama does sort of come up a lot but it's usually trans drama. The community seems split about the amount of sensitivity there should be about trans issues.
Also are there some times when they would come into conflict, not just when they were split about/reluctant to make the same generalising judgement about Indian men that seems to be ok about 'sawcsms'; like, if a poor Indian man insulted a white woman, would the woman have to check her white privilege or the man his male? or if a white tramp(hobo) is in a dispute with a rich Indian man and the Indian man insulted the hobo in a classist way, who's side would they be on.
Maybe you should get your ideas about the concept of privelege somewhere other than /r/TumblrInAction. It's a perfectly valid principle, regardless of how many teenagers on the Internet use it incorrectly.
It's barely coherent but elicits feelings making it popular. That's hardly valid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege(socialinequality)
Phrenology has a wikipedia entry too, but that doesn't make it valid.
Any actual argument about what the page says?
Well the fact that many "advantages" are determined by result and not treatment, which is just bad statistics to start with, or aren't actually advantages.
Further, the potential conflict of interest of people defining their own disadvantages and other's advantages while dismissing criticisms of said claims with "your privilege blinds you to the truth" or something to that effect, which is little more than "you have to accept Jesus in your heart to understand Christianity's truth".
It's an unfalsifiable line of reasoning, which is unfortunate given that there is a non-zero amount of disadvantage and advantage that occurs. It only serves to undermine effective reductions in real inequality.
Yes. Who decides what a position of power is? Who decides what constitutes privilege? How can one assume the privilege of another without knowing every aspect of a person's life? What about those who are in a position of power that doesn't have any actual power to combat inequality? Who decides what qualifies as inequality? What if someone in a position of power fights against inequality, but that equalization would lead to someone who is part of a minority group losing privilege? Is equality gained by everyone having privilege, or the absence of privilege? If there is an absence of privilege, wouldn't that mean there is no longer a position of power from whence to check privileges and combat any inequality that arises?
I get the underlying theme: those with the ability to make things better for people in a bad situation should do what they can be reasonably expected to do. But is a salon really a place for that battle? Do you truly agree that privilege is having a salon that caters to you specifically? I'm not really aware of such a thing as a salon artist not being able to cut someone's hair based upon their race, since that's kind of the point of going to a beauty school. And the framing doesn't seem to take into account something like earned privilege. Also, what about those who are deemed unprivileged; shouldn't they also be expected to fight for equality? The framing seems to place the burden unfairly on those with privilege, rather than the more rational and realistic idea of everyone who claims there is inequality fighting to get rid of it.
And, in usage, privilege seems to be exclusively used as an attack on others rather than a call to action, and it seems "position of power" has become "anyone who is even remotely better off than I am" to the point that even a lower class white person working 80 hour weeks is told they are privileged and have no say in inequality.
Honestly, it's a lot like moral relativism, which I absolutely hate. Just because my grandpa owns a house and is still working on a farm in his 80's doesn't really mean he's in a position of power simply due to there being starving children in Africa. He has no more power to change the world than they do, because he's still poor and just breaking even on the cost of running the farm. Sure, his farming contributes to the food supply, but he can't use that as a bargaining chip.
Sorry, I don't really care. If the majority of people misuse the term, and the majority of people are on YOUR side, and that majority are unwilling to listen to MY side (or reason, for that matter), it isn't my job to educate them - it's yours.
The people misusing the term aren't the majority, they're just the only ones you've decided to pay any attention to. Plenty of people use the term privelege correctly in academic contexts every day - but I'm betting you don't have that experience and 99% of the time you encounter it you're online.
People misinterpret Schrodingers Cat online all the time and say 'ooh, the cat's alive and dead at the same time, because science!', but I don't reject the actual thought experiment bcause of that. Thinking a concept is ridiculous because of people misrepresenting it is ridiculous. The misinterpretation is what's wrong, not the actual idea.
> Plenty of people use the term privelege correctly in academic contexts every day
I got a BA without once hearing the word privilege. I really don't think academics use the word much.
What did you get a BA in? It's not used in every academic field of course, but it is used in some of them.
mmm
It's used only in sociology and womens studies. It isn't used anywhere else.
So at first I thought you were being very rude and I had a very very nasty post written out.
Rereading it and after editing 3 times, I think you were actually trying to be nice.
So I'm going to try to return in kind.
If people are misusing the word to hurt people, people are going to remember that more than they will about two people talking about systematic problems and inequalities within a modeled system.
I'll let you lead us here - what IS the difference between privilege as a concept as it is used by teenagers on the internet and privilege as a concept as it is used within sociology?
One one hand, Obama has more power. On the other, the Queen was born into her position for life, and doesn't have elections to win.
> One one hand, Obama has more power. On the other, the Queen was born into her position for life, and doesn't have elections to win.
Ah but obama has to fight congress and the judicial branch.
Oh but the queen has no real power unlike obama.
Oh but the queen has social power, which can be much stronger than direct power and doesn't have to deal with balanced branches.
Oh but obama is in the US which is more influential.
I devised this thought experiment for a reason - it shows that privilege is a really really really bad way to judge someones character or value. It is a version of the old 'judging a book by its cover.'