question for _________

[k0ala]

And I'm from Texas, I know what it's like to have all of the people I work with be good ol' boys, who think it's ok to make racist jokes around me because I'm white, who think it's ok to make Muslim jokes because I must be Christian, (because I'm white), etc.

I moved away, because I couldn't find enough people who could ever think outside of what the angry man on the radio told them. I've heard I would have done alright in Austin, though.

[Surf314]

I think this is a good conversation but there are two things we need to keep in mind - 1) emotions like anger aren't going to help and will lead is in wrong directions; 2) some people have open and deep emotional wounds from traumatic experiences related to this topic. Everyone should try to keep that in mind and edit themselves as necessary.

My problem with the statement "check your privilege" is that it seems to be trying to fix a problem with another problem. It seems to have turned into just another harmful oversimplification of issues. In googling I found some assumptions on privilege that I found deeply insulting and widely missed the mark.

I do think rummy brings up a good point in that a lot of the statement is geared towards trying to make people more aware of systemic issues. D.C. just decriminalized marijuana and one of the big reasons was that 90% of possession charges were against black people. In Florida they tried to crack down on people wearing seatbelts so they made it a primary offense (meaning you could get stopped for it and no other reason). They had to reverse the law because it was disproportionately used against black people as an excuse to stop and question. These are examples of unintentional yet clearly systemic problems that us white folks don't have to deal with.

However, there is a huge degree of variance among the classes. My gay friend grew up with supportive parents and had it better than his boyfriend who has extremely antigay parents. His boyfriend has to hide who he is even in his 20s because he doesn't want to lose his family. My dad grew up in a primarily minority school where he was often the target of bullying. I have a puerto rican friend who had to be let out of school 15 minutes early growing up so he could get home safely because of how he looked. One of my best friends in elementary school was black and I never knew he was different until later. I wasn't aware of him being treated poorly because of his race, I'm sure he had to deal with stuff but not nearly as much as other kids in worse environments. Check your privilege seems to imply some smooth, common experience among people in a given class. I think we should be aware of systemic problems but also recognize that there is a ton of variance and each persons situation is unique.

I really love the song I linked because, while it's done in kind of an abrasive manner, I think really well illustrates a good point. You can have really shitty experiences and life individually and still have advantages your peers don't have because of what you look like and your sexual orientation. It's hard to tell a person that has had a shitty go of it "look at all the advantages you have" but at the same time you can't forget that a different person would be much worse off in the exact same situation because of how they look or who they love.

[Chooly]

Now, since this topic broke ground I've been thinking about it a lot. Just to try and wrap my understanding around it.
All I really get out of this, and what is now the biggest problem is for me, is that I have not seen the kind of intolerance that would make something like this meaningful to me.

What I've also come appreciate is that that very thing is due to privilege, and I understand it to be that way now, where as I wouldn't have before.

In that regards, it did it's job.

Now, if I were approached to check my privilege in an aggressive attempt at psudo-activism, like (I'm assuming) Karth has, I don't know that I would have come to this conclusion in the same way. We can hopefully all agree that presentation is key, and also subjective. Coming to this topic from a neutral forum has actually led me to understand something I had never considered before, but to be put on the defensive immediately creates resistance to new ideas and concepts.

[cbre88x]

A mostly civil discussion. It's like brb;u is growing up..finally.

[Sogo]

My view on this is that it's effectively a fairly standoffish way of saying "take a moment to consider that your experiences are not all-encompassing, and that other people will have different experiences than you, and in some situations their experiences are more valid than yours."

Although, I haven't seen it used in a manner where the speaker is not directing at least some measure of hostility at the target, which is what I assume is happening Karth. Granted, my observations come mostly from the tumblr SJW crowd so they may be skewed towards the irrational "Kill all white/cis/thin/whatever group I percieve to be the source of all my misfortunes" side of things.

[rumbot]

The Eminent, Hari Kondabolu: Hari Kondabolu- 2042 & the White Minority

[rumbot]

My problem with the statement "check your privilege" is that it seems to be trying to fix a problem with another problem.

We all like memes, right?

And the cool thing about memes is you get to watch, in near-real-time, thanks to THE INTERNET, you get to watch the competitive marketplace of ideas unfold in near-real-time.

So, the whole "privilege checklist" idea starts when Peggy McIntosh, in the late 80s, writes a paper about "The Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege." I had to read it in college, and then after college.

But, with THE INTERNET, it's taken off. It's got it's own mention in KNM, Urban Dictonary, etc.

There are privilege checklists for being white, or male, straight, or CIS Programmers, or other types of humans. Scalzi calls a specific version of intersectionality to be easy-mode.

Now, with any political movement, or framework, can it be 'misused' or 'abused?'

Sure. Likely. Probably.

But that's been known and studied too, it's know as the Overton Window, defined as "Overton described a spectrum from “more free” to “less free” with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable."

People telling you to "check your privilege" isn't anything that any person on the margins never felt before. It's just now, there's sufficient political movement, and space, for them to vocalize the fact that they are people too and they don't like how you are acting toward them.

[StolenToast]

Best brand of peanut butter?

[rumbot]

TJ's makes fine.

Whole foods makes fine.

#teamchuncky

[KarthXLR]

Peanut Butter is overrated. Jam is where it's at.

[Surf314]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=5854.msg277753#msg277753 date=1397591172]
My problem with the statement "check your privilege" is that it seems to be trying to fix a problem with another problem.

We all like memes, right?

And the cool thing about memes is you get to watch, in near-real-time, thanks to THE INTERNET, you get to watch the competitive marketplace of ideas unfold in near-real-time.

So, the whole "privilege checklist" idea starts when Peggy McIntosh, in the late 80s, writes a paper about "The Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege." I had to read it in college, and then after college.

But, with THE INTERNET, it's taken off. It's got it's own mention in KNM, Urban Dictonary, etc.

There are privilege checklists for being white, or male, straight, or CIS Programmers, or other types of humans. Scalzi calls a specific version of intersectionality to be easy-mode.

Now, with any political movement, or framework, can it be 'misused' or 'abused?'

Sure. Likely. Probably.

But that's been known and studied too, it's know as the Overton Window, defined as "Overton described a spectrum from “more free” to “less free” with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable."

People telling you to "check your privilege" isn't anything that any person on the margins never felt before. It's just now, there's sufficient political movement, and space, for them to vocalize the fact that they are people too and they don't like how you are acting toward them.
[/quote]

I still don't like it because of the clunkiness of it. It doesn't account for individual's experiences. I know people that are in the most privileged class that have had terrible lives and I know people in less privileged classes that lucked out and got great parents and great communities to grow up in. I know there is always a backdrop of bad shit for certain groups. Most of my friends growing up were minorities and I've had them express fear at being in certain places at certain times. But I also know exactly why "check your privilege" would be extremely insulting if just thrown out against someone you know nothing about. Also I've been looking through those checklists and I agree with them as a basis for challenging thinking or starting conversation and they are probably all true on average, but if anyone takes them for being literal in every person's case I'm sure I can find many counter-examples facing individuals.

I don't think its particularly healthy either to give people at the margins this idea that being in a certain group is amazing for everyone in that group. I think it just further builds that wall against treating each other as individuals and wanting to know more about each other. Assumptions are dangerous. Anyone who really knows me will know why if someone said "check your privilege" to me it would really hurt. There are a lot of things you wouldn't ever know about me if you just assumed that my life has been a cakewalk.

Actually I'll just let Eddie Murphy make my point for me:
http://www.snotr.com/video/422/Eddie_Mur...undercover

[rumbot]

I still don't like it because of the clunkiness of it.

Well, that's the crux of the biscuit, isn't it.

That somehow, we, as white and heterosexual and testicular persons, have the right to tell other types of people that, while we may agree that they have a legit beef, they really aren't expressing that beef in the right way for our ears.

"They" ought to express their concern in ways that best fit "our" ears. They ought to be more politically correct in how they exercise their right to free speech (yes the PC-plague certainly does cut both ways).

To exacerbate the allegation that some think I spend my energy here just to crown myself as a "know it all,"* there is also a term for those that can alternate between the language of the margins, and the language of the majority. It's called code-switching, and NPR even has a beat dedicated to it.

One of my favourite books related to code-switching is Lubrano's Limbo, where he talks about the distance he felt as a second-generation son of an Italian bricklayer when he decided to pursue a journalism degree at Columbia. He's white, hetero, and male, and his dad is white, hetero, and male, and yet Lubrano's desire to pursue the American Dream created a distance, a rift, between him and his family.

To end on a passionate note, here's Nina Simone from 1956 singing Mississippi Goddam. The interested listener should attend to how she uses the chorus: "too slow." Fucking brilliant commentary on how authority can enforce a one-way street when it comes to tone-policing and political-correctness.

http://youtu.be/fVQjGGJVSXc


*itself an act that can sometimes try to prevent the speech of people who might be passionate, experienced, or educated from expressing themselves.

[K2]

Peanut Butter is overrated. Jam is where it's at.

Okay now you've gone too far.

[Surf314]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=5854.msg277779#msg277779 date=1397658387]
I still don't like it because of the clunkiness of it.

Well, that's the crux of the biscuit, isn't it.

That somehow, we, as white and heterosexual and testicular persons, have the right to tell other types of people that, while we may agree that they have a legit beef, they really aren't expressing that beef in the right way for our ears.

"They" ought to express their concern in ways that best fit "our" ears. They ought to be more politically correct in how they exercise their right to free speech (yes the PC-plague certainly does cut both ways).
[/quote]

There's a point where I start beating a dead horse, and while I've probably gone past that I want to just end with a couple of points.

I did some thinking about why the phrase bugs me so much and I realized is because it's basically incompatible with my way of thinking, a way of thinking I developed in a very particular environment growing up. I generally have to think of people as individuals and not groups. Groups have always bothered me and I try to avoid them. Group mentality is something I've always been a bit afraid of. I can handle anyone as an individual, but given a group I'm usually lost and make mistakes. I find it's very easy to get individuals to like me and groups to dislike me. This individual thinking has won me a lot of amazing friends from the so called margins. I treated these people as individuals and got to know their individual experiences. I never tried to camouflage myself as another race or group, like some white people I knew, but always presented myself as authentic. I think this earned me mutual respect and trust. I've hung out in predominantly poor black neighborhoods where I would have been in danger if I hadn't been there with someone well known in that community. I was always distinctly aware of how easy it was for people there to resent me because of the advantages of my birth and yet from what I could tell they didn't. I just followed my gut in these situations to be authentic, open, and not look down upon anyone or judge anyone (like I believe they were expecting). I took everyone for who they were. I have other experiences like this, where my personal way of connecting to the world clashed with how the world works. My first awareness of race came in elementary school when I was invited by my friend to his church. He knew my parents were agnostic and I was curious about church so he invited me. On the way his dad had made him prepare me for it - it was an all black baptist church and I was probably the only white person to ever attend. They all loved that I came and asked me to come back but I knew (even though I was a kid) that in a way I was intruding in something that maybe it was best I didn't intrude in.

So that's why it bugs me. Because it not only makes me think of myself as in a group but it also forces me to think of the person who is saying it as in a group. I don't want to think that way. I want to know the person for who they are I'd rather they didn't ask me to think of them as being in some oppressed group. I'd rather them tell me their experiences with oppression if they wanted me to know and when they were ready to.

And last point - I'm not telling anyone what they "ought to do" just expressing an opinion on it. People can do what they feel is best. I think the belief that opinion = some sort of passive aggressive oppression makes it tough to have meaningful dialogue.

[Chooly]

So that's why it bugs me. Because it not only makes me think of myself as in a group but it also forces me to think of the person who is saying it as in a group. I don't want to think that way. I want to know the person for who they are I'd rather they didn't ask me to think of them as being in some oppressed group. I'd rather them tell me their experiences with oppression if they wanted me to know and when they were ready to.

That's a very similar conclusion to mine, just much better worded.

[Didzo]

Part of me  is glad that meaningful discussion can happen online and that I don't have to spend time constructing a point when others have gone through the trouble already. But part of me still wants more butthurt and drama. /:

[Elder]

Part of me  is glad that meaningful discussion can happen online and that I don't have to spend time constructing a point when others have gone through the trouble already. But part of me still wants more butthurt and drama. /:

always dragging us down

[rumbot]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=5854.msg277779#msg277779 date=1397658387]
So that's why it bugs me. Because it not only makes me think of myself as in a group but it also forces me to think of the person who is saying it as in a group. I don't want to think that way.

That's a very similar conclusion to mine, just much better worded.
[/quote]



Yes.

YES.

From the White Privilege checklist, by Peggy McIntosh, 1988.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

People who have privilege have the freedom to be Individuals and not always the Cultural Ambassadors of their group.

It's never comfortable being the token.

[matter11]

Has anyone ever eaten guinea pigs or other rodents? What meat is it most comparable to?

[rumbot]

Russians make good rabbit dishes.  I kinda like that on occasion. like anything, tastes like chicken (dark meat).

My stepfather has had squirrel pie, given by surprise to him by his neighbor. He liked it. I'd never try it.