I'm not sure if you're familiar with Gawker, but I found THIS rather interesting - and perhaps slightly problematic. It's Gawker's Privilege Tournament, and I far from the first to talk about
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Privilege is an important conversation, but I think they can do better. I've participated in many an exercise that has been far more effective that this - primarily because they did, in fact, deal with intersectionality. (Thank you for bringing that up, btw.)
Identity is complex, as is presentation! We all identify as many things and this seems to not only force us to compete against each other, but also ourselves. For example, I'll admit to being white and cisgendered, but I'm also short, over-weight, and over-educated and under-employed. Polyamorous was not a category, but I'm that, too.
I look at it all very differently, myself. Cody just got back from this really amazing conference of "Rebellious Nurses" (http://rebelnursing.org/) that was all about social justice and how to best create safe and healthy spaces for all to grow and thrive. They talked about this issue in terms of medicine, but I really believe that if we create a system that empowers some of the most marginalized of people (say, an HIV positive, trans-person, sex worker recently immigrated from Indonesia), we can help empower everyone.
Identity is complex, as is presentation! We all identify as many things and this seems to not only force us to compete against each other, but also ourselves. For example, I'll admit to being white and cisgendered, but I'm also short, over-weight, and over-educated and under-employed. Polyamorous was not a category, but I'm that, too.
I look at it all very differently, myself. Cody just got back from this really amazing conference of "Rebellious Nurses" (http://rebelnursing.org/) that was all about social justice and how to best create safe and healthy spaces for all to grow and thrive. They talked about this issue in terms of medicine, but I really believe that if we create a system that empowers some of the most marginalized of people (say, an HIV positive, trans-person, sex worker recently immigrated from Indonesia), we can help empower everyone.
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