The Conversation Grinds To A Halt

[alexandraerin]

Melissa McEwan has a post up on Shakesville that goes more into detail on the subject I was talking about in the comments of the previous post about the domestic violence murder in Buffalo.

The whole post is worth reading, but I'd like to excerpt the end:

Patriarchal religion of any stripe is merely a symptom of that global menace. And using it

Comments

[leana106]

So... acknowledging that the whole world's got bigger problems to worry about than how privileged folks feel when called on their privilege... what are some ways of educating about and illustrating the concept of privilege without provoking this sort of reaction?

Honestly, I have no idea. It's really hard for people to see their privilege especially if they feel that their situation reflective of that. For example, I can't tell you how many times I've heard straight white protestant men deny that they have privilege because they personally don't oppress any one, their boss is some minority, they're not rich and stepping on the common people's back, etc. The only way I think that they'd get understand that is if it was possible to physically change them into a disenfranchised person so that they could experience it for themselves. Maybe personal testimony would work just as well, depending on the person, so that it's not abstract?

My personal lightbulb moment was when we had to list out all of the privileged categories we belonged to (we had a list to follow) and I realized that for even for being in a few non-privileged groups, I belonged to just as many privileged groups and that each were going to have a different effect on how I was perceived and treated by others. But I was already receptive to that idea because I was trying to match up some experiences I had and if I hadn't been receptive, it would've just been a waste of time like it was for so many others.