Comments | shangy_feminism: The Conversation Grinds To A Halt

alexandraerin in shangy_feminism

The Conversation Grinds To A Halt

Feb 17, 2009 16:12

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 ( Read more... )

murder victims, domestic violence, violence against women, shakesville

Comments 4

leana106 February 18 2009, 13:31:37 UTC

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 ( ... )

bluestareyed February 18 2009, 18:30:25 UTC

I think that while the privileged group is not owed an education on privilege and how it doesn't make you a bad person just for having it, that some of us who do understand it need to just bite the bullet and do the education. It still doesn't give them a right to demand explanations and education from someone not inclined to give it, but without someone to explain this, as you said, the dialog goes nowhere.

For the most part, I try to talk to the people I'm close to about privilege, and I can understand why so many people just leave them to their own devices. Even with someone to explain the principles of it, a good deal of people simply refuse to see privilege and the talk of it as anything more than a blame game where they can't win.

In the end, I'm not sure dialog with those people is the point in most of these situations.

eatenbykraken February 19 2009, 01:59:29 UTC

put it way better than I can. Privileged people are absolutely not owed an education, but that formula neglects the fact that without one, they stay privileged and ignorant. And by "they" I mean "we," because I certainly have several kinds of privilege that I try to keep in check ( ... )

eatenbykraken February 19 2009, 02:01:23 UTC

sorry, that HTML was supposed to read bluestareyed.