Anyone else hate some "Social justice warriors"?
Where I live there is quite a few of them and most of them really irritate me normally what happens when I talk to them is
1. They know I have aspergers and treat me like I am completely self-unaware and that I need complete sheltering from the "Big bad world" and baby me
2. some of the radical feminists/Transgender extremists seem to love to make people (Including me) feel bad for being born white and male
Of course I am not talking about all activists but the extreme cult-like hardcore Tumblr ones
auntblabby
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Your experience of feeling hated for being born white and male is the way other people feel for being hated because they were born black, female, transgender, autistic, crippled, french etc. All of its wrong and very silly because none of choose to be born how we are do we. It matters that we all understand which things about us give us privileges over others who dont share those traits, and that we can learn to understand that people who are different from us have a different experience in the world from the word go, but thats sometimes a difficult message to get across to people with privileged traits without them feeling attacked.
Being a white male gives you privileges that you wont even be aware of (because thats how privilege works). but there'll be other things about you that dont (for example being NT gives privileges over spectrum people, being rich privileges over being poor etc). So there is an option for empathising with each others oppression experiences to help us understand each other and communicate better. Maybe you could try pointing that out when you feel attacked by the radical people around you?
Being a white male gives you privileges that you wont even be aware of (because thats how privilege works). but there'll be other things about you that dont (for example being NT gives privileges over spectrum people, being rich privileges over being poor etc). So there is an option for empathising with each others oppression experiences to help us understand each other and communicate better. Maybe you could try pointing that out when you feel attacked by the radical people around you?
I do understand your point but "Privilege" is truly the worst way to explain that some people are born more fortunate than others it's sort of like a "Screw you for being born to a race which almost dominated the world for a long time" I personally think explaining that some are born more fortunate than others is a better example and making people feel like they have to be obligated to treat people better based on there birth status is a guaranteed way to piss people off.
Also where I live trying to get radicals to calm down is like trying to put out a fire by feeding it,normally they will feel 'Threatened" and will try and find an excuse to call you a misogyny'st or a racist for trying to shut them down
I'm one of those SJW, and you can get them off your back by stating that you are disabled and that there is no hierarchy of oppression (an Audre Lorde quote). If angry women of color feel that you are privileged, tell them that ablism is just as bad as racism and sexism and affects people just as deeply, and hand them a neurotypical privilege checklist. Everyone has privilege and faces oppression in some way - and we're all fighting to get rid of this hierarchy.
Last edited by EsotericResearch on 27 May 2014, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I agree that the word privilege is an appalling word choice that gets everyones backs up, but its just a word and it means just the same thing as being born more fortunate than others. Its a description of fact not a blaming word thats supposed to make people feel guilty. And trying to calm down radicals, or shut them down, also gets peoples backs up because its dismissing the validity of what theyre trying to tell you. Sadly when there is so much ignorance and unthinking prejudice its necessary to be "radical" to break through that. People calm down and stop pushing when they feel theyve been heard and understood. Feeling threatened by people pointing out that being born a white male gives you certain advantages in life isnt hearing and understanding so they'll keep pointing it out to you. Its not an advantage because white males "nearly ruled the world once" (and the world was ruled by black people long before the white skin colour appeared), its an advantage because white males rule and dominate the agenda of the western societys we're living in now. That adversely affects women and people of colour which is why not understanding that fact gets people accused of misogyny or racism. It also adversely affects lots of other groups like poor people, disabled and non-NT people, gay people, people of different faiths etc, so collectively there are more of us who are non-privileged in some way, including white males, than there are people who are privileged in the way most of us understand that word.
I have a white male son and I know that in the present time its a group that feel like they get a lot of undeserved stick and negative messages about themselves. But this is not any different than other groups have felt and feel about having their birth characteristics used "against" them so it gets peoples backs up when its complained about. And the obligation to treat less fortunate people better and more compassionately etc is a human obligation, its something we should all be doing regardless of what group we're in. Because all of us are more fortunate by circumstances of birth than someone else, just as we are all less fortunate by circumstances of birth than someone else.
For example, the transgendered people you know are privileged/ more fortunate because they live in a country where they can be open about who they are rather than in one where they would be murdered for that openness. The radical feminists you know are privileged to be in a country where education for women is the norm not something illegal that can get females shot. And if theyre white people theyre all more privileged then your black countrymen and women. But these same people are less privileged in your society than cisgendered people and men. And you as a white male are more privileged than the radicals that are bothering you, but you're also less privileged than those same people if they are NT people, or from richer familys than you. Its all far more complicated than pointing fingers at each other for stuff none of us have any control over. The thing we have control over is being aware of how different groups are treated and experience life, and being understanding and decent to each other on the basis that underneath it all we are all equal worth human beings.
In the USA, Asians as a racial group are the most educated , and highest earning people, not "whites". [see source 1]
My boss is Asian, all but one of the supervisors and upper-level managers in my technology area are Asian. My Chinese-American co-worker told me that he went to a large math conference, and everyone there was Asian.
Many Americans would say it is "un-American" to dismiss their success by calling it "privilege".
source 1: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/asianamericans-graphics/
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Of course they would but thats really missing the point. Privilege in this context isnt about "success" (however Americans define that culturally) its about the conditions that allow someone opportunities in life and about the acknowledgement of barriers in the way of others having those same opportunities. Its about the entirety of life experience, not about salarys, house size or where on the business ladder one is. A woman boss of a company is still a woman and therefore subject to the experience of being a woman in her society, and an out of work man is still a man with the gender privilege that affords, despite him not feeling at all "privileged" personally. The clumsyness of word language in explaining this universal social phenomena that affects us as humans shouldnt be the thing that people get stuck on and defensive about. As I said earlier, acknowledging inherent privilege isnt a blame or guilt thing, its just information that can help us all act better to each other. Be good if there was a better word for it though that didnt have the baggage of the western worlds word meaning for privilege.
Fogman
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1. They know I have aspergers and treat me like I am completely self-unaware and that I need complete sheltering from the "Big bad world" and baby me
2. some of the radical feminists/Transgender extremists seem to love to make people (Including me) feel bad for being born white and male
Of course I am not talking about all activists but the extreme cult-like hardcore Tumblr ones
After living in both 'The South' and the Social Justice wastelands of New England, I have to say that I find the bible belt in the south to be more open minded and tolerant, while the social justice type as*holes are either blind to their hypocracy or in complete denial. --I would invite them all to a feast in their honor in the manner that Vlad Dracula did, if I knew I could get away with it.
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Jacoby
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I haven't ran into any irl, perhaps I need to hang around college campuses more. If somebody were tell me I was privileged irl I'd probably laugh in their face. Anybody that would bring up privilege is ironically enough probably from a privileged educated background and that ain't where I come from. People that believe this stuff are compensating for their own shortcomings, it's pretty self-evident just by looking at some of them. Not a happy bunch. Them latching on to this Elliot Rodger's garbage is funny since his beliefs are basically just the inverse of their beliefs. What annoys me more than them are the white knight beta males that worship the ground these women stand on and parrot this stuff in hopes of god knows what. SJW do more damage to their cause than they help.
Kraichgauer
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Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
Being a white male gives you privileges that you wont even be aware of (because thats how privilege works). but there'll be other things about you that dont (for example being NT gives privileges over spectrum people, being rich privileges over being poor etc). So there is an option for empathising with each others oppression experiences to help us understand each other and communicate better. Maybe you could try pointing that out when you feel attacked by the radical people around you?
I do understand your point but "Privilege" is truly the worst way to explain that some people are born more fortunate than others it's sort of like a "Screw you for being born to a race which almost dominated the world for a long time" I personally think explaining that some are born more fortunate than others is a better example and making people feel like they have to be obligated to treat people better based on there birth status is a guaranteed way to piss people off.
Also where I live trying to get radicals to calm down is like trying to put out a fire by feeding it,normally they will feel 'Threatened" and will try and find an excuse to call you a misogyny'st or a racist for trying to shut them down
Where do you live?
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-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
Being a white male gives you privileges that you wont even be aware of (because thats how privilege works). but there'll be other things about you that dont (for example being NT gives privileges over spectrum people, being rich privileges over being poor etc). So there is an option for empathising with each others oppression experiences to help us understand each other and communicate better. Maybe you could try pointing that out when you feel attacked by the radical people around you?
I do understand your point but "Privilege" is truly the worst way to explain that some people are born more fortunate than others it's sort of like a "Screw you for being born to a race which almost dominated the world for a long time" I personally think explaining that some are born more fortunate than others is a better example and making people feel like they have to be obligated to treat people better based on there birth status is a guaranteed way to piss people off.
Also where I live trying to get radicals to calm down is like trying to put out a fire by feeding it,normally they will feel 'Threatened" and will try and find an excuse to call you a misogyny'st or a racist for trying to shut them down
Where do you live?
Kind of a creepy question but in the general Toronto area in Ontario
Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,449
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
Being a white male gives you privileges that you wont even be aware of (because thats how privilege works). but there'll be other things about you that dont (for example being NT gives privileges over spectrum people, being rich privileges over being poor etc). So there is an option for empathising with each others oppression experiences to help us understand each other and communicate better. Maybe you could try pointing that out when you feel attacked by the radical people around you?
I do understand your point but "Privilege" is truly the worst way to explain that some people are born more fortunate than others it's sort of like a "Screw you for being born to a race which almost dominated the world for a long time" I personally think explaining that some are born more fortunate than others is a better example and making people feel like they have to be obligated to treat people better based on there birth status is a guaranteed way to piss people off.
Also where I live trying to get radicals to calm down is like trying to put out a fire by feeding it,normally they will feel 'Threatened" and will try and find an excuse to call you a misogyny'st or a racist for trying to shut them down
Where do you live?
Kind of a creepy question but in the general Toronto area in Ontario
If my question sounded creepy, that was not my intent. You had mentioned your run ins with what you describe as social justice warriors where you live, and so I thought it a legitimate inquiry to ask where that was.
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-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
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