- I’ve never been on tumblr…yep, that’s it. I don’t tumble…er, tumbl? Apparently I’m supposed to spend all my time there or something. Like I get my social justice warrior card removed if I don’t, or it’s the only place I could have possibly learned all the well-known terms I use, or something. I’m not exactly sure, but that’s it really. I don’t tumble.
- As a self-proclaimed social justice warrior, I don’t actually find it insulting when you call me a social justice warrior. Like, oh no, how could I possibly handle your accusation that I take injustice seriously? Who could ever do that? I should be ashamed of my humanism!
- Every time you say “political correctness,” I hear “treating others like humans.” So when you say “You’re being too PC,” I hear “You’re treating too many other people like humans.” And when you say “Society has become too PC,” I hear “Society has started treating too many other people like humans.” And when you say “Stop being so PC,” I hear “Stop treating so many other people like humans.”
- I don’t think that we, as 7 billion human beings, can only accomplish one task. So often people say things like “why are you worried about trans issues when there are people starving in Africa?” I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was either or. Are you gonna start holding a gun to people’s heads like “Stop helping all those trans people or the Africans are gonna get it”? Or am I allowed to care about both? Again, there are 7 billion of us. You’d think with those numbers we could deal with multiple issues.
- I’m not a hippie, nor am I an emotional wreck. I have my issues, but I tend to be a fairly levelheaded and logical person. In fact, I’m accused of being overly logical more often than I’m accused of being overly emotional. So can you stop picturing me as a weeping heap in the corner? I’m trying to make the world a better place, not create my own in-door lake!
- I don’t want to put trigger warnings on everything. I also don’t have much respect for people who say things like “If they put a trigger warning on that when I was a kid, I never would have watched/read it.” There were trigger warnings on things when you were a kid (at least, there were if you were a kid in the 80’s and later). We just called them ratings! We still have them. They say things like “Warning: graphic content.” I don’t know about you, but that never stopped me from watching anything. In fact, it made me want to watch a lot. And listen to certain bands. Why on Earth would trigger warnings on books be any different? Are we going to set up a series of tests where you have to follow the clues until you find the key attached to the outside of the Eiffel Tower before you can read the book or something? Of course not. If you let a warning on a book prevent you from reading it, isn’t that decision on you? Maybe you don’t want to have a panic attack. Personally, having had those in the past, I can’t fault anyone for trying to avoid them. Or maybe you’re just scared. Whatever your reason for not reading a book, that’s your decision. I won’t blame you for it. But if you’re going to regret not reading the book, read the damn book! That said, I don’t want trigger warnings in my University classroom. I don’t want my professors to feel like they can’t bring up something. The problem is, they already feel this way. Why should my professor lose his job because one student complained to the dean about a slight they think he made about their religion? One of my professors had that happen. Trigger warnings don’t cause that phenomenon, treating schools like businesses does. I’m not a bloody product for your consumption! Stupid society…
- It’s really hard not to hate some people. I don’t like hating, because I don’t want to waste my energy on people who don’t matter. But some people…it’s like they’re trying to be social pariah. Like, seriously. MRAs? Let’s insult as many people as possible and see how long it takes everybody to realise we’re nothing more than a hate group. Women are clearly in control of everything. They control men with their bodies! Men who get raped clearly need to be mocked. LGBT people are delusional. Only straight white cis men who hate women as much as the MRAs deserve respect. Anti-choice (Pro-life) activists? Let’s tell people who have had abortions how they are murderers who deserve to be burned and then lie to them so they abide by our personal beliefs. Donald Trump? Just…seriously? Trump? Why? Why would you do that to yourselves?
- Yes, I’m biased. I realise this. There is no way around it. We’re all biased. But at least I’m aware of my bias. I’m aware that, as an atheist, I have a bias against theists. I’m aware that, as a feminist, I have a bias against non-feminists. I’m aware that, as a member of the LGBT community, straight cis people are just fucking annoying. Um…I mean…cis straight people confuse me. Seriously, how can anyone fit so nicely into a box? Doesn’t it get crowded in there? I realise that, as a mentally ill person, I hate your brains! They work so nicely. You can go out and network without having a panic attack. Do tests make you want to throw up? Because tests make me want to throw up and I really wish they didn’t. Can I have your brains? Then again, I like how I think. I like me quite a lot actually. I think I’ll keep my brain. What was I saying? Oh yeah…I’m biased. And that’s actually a good thing when kept in check. After all, I wouldn’t have any reason to want to make the world a better place without my bias.
- I have privilege. And yes, I check it. I don’t just tell you to check yours because you have more than me. We all have to check our privilege. After all, I’m white, educated, and middle class. I live in one of the richest countries in the world. I speak English.
- I’m not always sure what to do or say when it comes to social justice issues. That’s why I listen to the people in the group. I don’t know what racism is! Not really. I’m white. I’ve never had to experience it. So if a black person says “that’s racist” I sit up and listen. They obviously know better than I do, and who am I to say their experience doesn’t matter. Likewise, I want people to listen to me when I say something is transphobic. Unless you’re trans, how do you know if what you said is transphobic or not? Dialogue makes progress possible, but dialogue doesn’t work one way. We need to let others talk, and we need to listen to what they say. And we need to be open minded about what we hear. That doesn’t mean we agree with everything we’re told, but it does mean we’re willing to consider it.
January 25, 2016
Confessions of a Social Justice Warrior
37 responses to “Confessions of a Social Justice Warrior”
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hessianwithteeth 
January 31st, 2016 at 1:03 pm
I love your honesty and it’s brave to put yourself out there like that.
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January 28th, 2016 at 5:14 am
Yay for all of this. I especially like #4. Sure, there are other fish to fry. But we have ample cooks.
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January 26th, 2016 at 9:21 am
I don’t mind trigger warnings, when it’s about something clearly upsetting. If someone is telling a personal story of something genuinely awful that happened, I think it’s just courteous to add a warning, so that those people who can’t deal with that sort of thing have a chance to opt out of reading it.
And I don’t mind a gentle reminder if I forgot to add that to something I wrote.
Even in a classroom, I think warnings might be appropriate. Something like this included in a syllabus is fine, I think: “Warning, this class will include discussions about rape, and some of the assigned reading materials include graphic accounts of violent attacks.”
But we can’t expect everybody to label every little thing that somebody might find triggering. “Trigger warning: cauliflower”, “Trigger warning: butterflies”. If you have something unusual that triggers you, I don’t think it’s fair to expect the whole internet to anticipate that. Just as if you have an unusual allergy, you can’t expect every restaurant to change its menu to accommodate.
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January 26th, 2016 at 1:05 pm
The concept of “trigger warnings” has potential for harm. As is often the case, the origin, putting things such as ratings on movies/games/music/books to help parents understand age appropriateness was good. Expanding it to “prevent” exposure to anything deemed “harmful” seems a bad idea.
Let us go with the example of rape given. Rape is terrible. But it exists in the world, has always existed, and probably always will. To give that trigger warning is saying “OK, this class will expose you to a terrible thing which really does exist, but we are concerned that you are a mental marshmallow who will disintegrate if even exposed to the concept. If you agree with that assessment, don’t take this class which you need or which interests you”. A person who hears that warning has to decide if they want to be a “mental marshmallow” who will have no mental resiliency at all if they ever experience rape first hand. or to take the class, with the implication they are a sicko who can “handle the concept of rape” which “normal” people are “not supposed to be able to”.
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January 27th, 2016 at 9:15 am
I’m having a hard time with your “mental marshmallow” label. How can that possibly apply to someone who has been through something horrible, and needs to limit their exposure to reminders of that experience as part of their recovery?
Nothing about labeling something with a warning “prevents exposure”. If a TV show starts out with “this show contains scenes of graphic violence, viewer discretion is advised,” is that stopping the average person from watching? Not at all! But it does let people who have had genuine trauma in their lives manage their own exposure, rather than just having it decided for them by people who use terms like “mental marshmallow”. If we can put ratings on movies, if we can put warnings on TV shows, we can do the same for things like college courses and blog posts.
“… who will have no mental resiliency at all if they ever experience rape first hand” – that assumes that none of the people considering the class have already been raped! The person sitting next to you in that class might be a rape survivor, a veteran with PTSD, a survivor of child abuse. You can’t know. The best we can do is to provide information up front, and then trust people to use that information in the way that’s best for them.
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January 27th, 2016 at 12:24 pm
Parents have the responsibility to limit input to their children to what they are prepared to handle, and the corresponding responsibility to teach them how to handle the various stresses of life. And a big part of that education is how to stop looking/listening to things which the person does not want to see or hear. It is not the world’s responsibility to compensate for incompetent parenting, and I posit that if a kid cannot control their own input by the time they get into college, then their parents did not do their job. This is what I am talking about with the “mental marshmallow” description.
Of course, there are people who have undergone severe trauma, and it sounds like a good idea to attempt to prevent anything which can cause them more trauma. And in this case, it might be reasonable for the world to help a person who was not brought up with coping mechanisms adequate to deal with the trauma. The problem is, how is attempting to limit exposure an effective methodology? Completely external, and impossible to enforce universally. Wouldn’t it be more effective to help the person develop their own coping strategies?
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January 27th, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Yes, but a college professor or blogger is not the right person to be imposing specific “coping strategies” on anybody. The person who needs to develop coping strategies should be working with their doctors, or counselors, or therapists, as to what an “effective methodology” for them is. The rest of us can help them with this by giving warnings about potentially upsetting content, so that traumatized people are able to make their own decisions about what they are ready for, instead of being ambushed by it.
Giving a warning isn’t the same as deciding to limit anybody’s exposure, it’s giving them a tool they can use for their own mental health.
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January 27th, 2016 at 2:54 pm
Exactly right, a college professor or blogger should not be involved in imposing “coping strategies” on anyone, or for that matter, imposing anything except for information. They should not have to worry whether those coming to them for the information have adequate coping strategies.
Going back to the college course which would expose the students to “graphic rape” elements. The two most likely scenarios are that the rape elements are critical to the course, in which case the course description should be plenty of warning, without additional mention. Or, the professor is putting it in there for “shock value”, in which case one wonders both why they fell the necessity for that and if they care at all about their student’s well being; they might tend to resist the warning as it would mitigate their goal, shock,
The problem with warnings is, as it tends to be with many things, a little bit might be good, but a lot is not necessarily good. Re my “weed whacker” which has a warning on it “Caution, not to be used for haircuts”.
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January 26th, 2016 at 8:42 am
” LGBT people are delusional. Only straight white cis men who hate women as much as the MRAs deserve respect” – I’m always amused when white is placed here. Is white being a requiement for homophobia? If you’re black and homophobic, is it okay?
The problem with the contemporary ‘social justice’ movement is the same problem with leftwingers/rightwingers., It’s about an image and a common enemy. You do it here. You attack the Straight White Cis Male. This is a perfect way to avoid talking about ideas.
If you think social justice is serious, talk about the harmful ideas. Don’t go off about those rotten white straight cis male. Collectivism kills.
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January 26th, 2016 at 12:41 pm
Could it be that the comment was positing a “typical” viewpoint which deserves ridicule?
The viewpoint of (some of) those who are not white is that white people are the cause of their problems. The viewpoint of (some) women is that men are the cause of their problem. The viewpoint of (some) people who are not cis is that cis people are the cause of their problems. And the viewpoint of (some) people who are not straight is that straight people are the cause of their problems. And there is at least a grain of truth behind those viewpoints. SOME people who are white, male, straight and/or cis do have a degree of responsibility for problems of those who are different from them. The problem is, that blaming your problems on someone else is a guaranteed way to not solve your problems (at best, you can replace the problems with other problems).
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January 26th, 2016 at 12:45 pm
What I questioned was, why are White Straight Cis Male are always singled out in social justice discussion? Blame the crackers all you want for slavery but Mauritania only outlawed it around 1981.
Basically my problem is with this technique of creating an enemy. Creating an enemy is an emotional appeal and it’s no different than racists or any war-mongering. No matter how righteous the cause, creating a faceless enemy to fight is fruitless.
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January 26th, 2016 at 1:24 pm
As I said, they are singled out because since they are/were “in charge”, then any problems that exist must be their fault.
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January 26th, 2016 at 1:25 pm
Actually, creating a “faceless enemy” is one of the best tactics there is to advance your agenda.
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January 27th, 2016 at 12:10 am
The reason white is placed there is because those of us who are white have a lot of power that those who are not white don’t have. Homophobia is homophobia, but it’s easy not to think about your bigotry when you never face any yourself. Black men still face racism. And I will “go off” on those straight cis white men. They are the ones in positions of power. They are the ones who cling to the status quo. Obviously every individual straight cis white man does hold that power, but as a group they sure as hell do. You’re right, collectivism does kill. The collective that is the straight cis white men has killed billions.
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January 27th, 2016 at 2:05 am
Killed billions you say? Now I feel bad, like I’m not holding up my end of the collective. I must have missed the memo that we had such a momentous task.
Seriously, you really think “straight white cis males” have “killed billions”? I guess Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot are pikers then. Certainly males are a bit more in tune with mass killing than women, but I don’t see whiteness or straightness or cisness being a factor. It just was that used to be the “norm” so yeah, when you looked at those who used to be in power, that is what you often saw. They did not do evil because they were white or straight or cis, but because they were greedy twits who had no care for anything except their own profit. Oh and news flash, we got non-white, non-straight, non-cis and even non-males today who live down to the same standards.
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January 27th, 2016 at 7:00 pm
Since when does one group killing a lot of people mean that nobody else has killed anybody. Mao was one man, and he’s kind of dead. Again, no individual white cis straight man has this much power, and most straight white cis men are fine, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a systemic problem. There are a lot of systemic problems, but power matters. White men have the power, especially when they are straight and cis. In fact, the power can be broken down further. White people have privilege over people of colour, men have power over women, cis people have power over trans people, and straight people have power over queer people. If you add all that up, what do you have? A straight, cis, white man. That is the person who has the most power as part of their group, and that is the person who has the most power within our culture. That’s why they are the focus. Is tat really that difficult for you to understand?
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January 27th, 2016 at 9:47 pm
1) straight white cis males are not as much in power as they used to be and they were not and are not in power primarily because they are straight white cis males but because in the past, that was what was perceived by most as being “optimal”. That perception is changing and the balance of power is trailing along behind. Check out the current U.S. President…
2) straight white cis males are not evil because they are white or straight or cis or male or any combination thereof. Those that are evil occasionally are evil because that is their intrinsic nature, but most that are evil are evil because power corrupts and the more power there is, the quicker and further the corruption goes.
Could it be your statement is racist, heterophobic, gender-identficationist and sexist? 🙂 Why not add “old” and “rich” to the statement, since those aspects also imply power?
I wonder if there is a description which would refer just to the people you want to refer to without tarnishing whole classes of people.
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January 28th, 2016 at 1:13 am
Withteeth here,
So reading your comment I don’t really see your complaint. Unless you think that Hessian thinks that this power is implicit to white men?
Well of course it’s not it’s a mostly product of colonialism white men since the 16-17 hundreds have largely controlled trade and commerce around the world. Not completely for sure, but in no small part. This control and the military occupations that where also an important component of this trade domination has lead to white men being the most privledged group in the world. If in history this had been black women or green aliens we’d be talking about them instead.
Also how racism work depends a bit of definition, so when you hear people say, “You can’t be racist to white people.” You can safely assume they mean the following.
Racism is the systemic prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race or ethnicity based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
Now the main difference between this one and many common dictionary definitions is the systemic bit. Such that one group needs to have the means and in fact does enforce racist ideas in some manners, and research is very clear that if your white or at least pass for white you have an easier time getting employment, housing, loans, you’ll be approached more, and people simply don’t assume as much about white people as they do with people of visible minorities. Sure there are exceptions, but the over whelming majority of studies have been consistent in these findings.
Sure some people are bigoted towards white people, yep I’ll grant that every time, but society isn’t not racist toward white people in the least. White people don’t suffer systemic oppression, and are not consider inferior and white people control nearly all the media in North America. (Feel free to replace white with male, straight, and cisgender these all interact to different levels but are still are largely true.)
Moving on. Cursing straight cis white men rarely ever actually harms them, which I can happily attest to, it hardly fucking matters when people try to demon other like me because we hold most of the power, so sure maybe it’s not the best practice, but I’m not at all convinced it’s a real issue because I fail to see actual harm being done.
That bring me to a question to you, where did Hessian actually “tarnish” strait white cis men, because I couldn’t find it in a second reading. all she did say was cis people are annoying, and in more eloquent phrasing then me that MRA’s are d-bags. I know brain in a Jar thinks she did, but I think they might have been reading a bit to much into the snarky comments.
Withteeth
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January 28th, 2016 at 1:36 pm
“straight white cis males killed billions” puts a touch of green on their image, no?
I’m sorry, but you can’t dismiss racism against white people because it is less common. You either treat every person as an individual, or you assign a set of non-universal characteristics universially to a class of people in word and/or deed, which ipso facto makes you some kind of “ist”. White is considered a race, so if you say anything about or do anything to a white person because they are white, then you can be labeled a racist. If that has happened even once (and it has), then racism against whites exist.
Note that I am not personally insulted by this set of “isms” even though they apply to me. I just find it interesting that a case cold be made that a claimed “social justice warrior” does not think whites or straights or cisses or males deserve any.
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January 29th, 2016 at 1:49 am
No no it’s not because it’s less common it’s because it isn’t systematic, those are not synonyms for one another. In both Canada and the US there is systematic pressure which favor white people, men, straight folk, and a special degree of bigotry and hate directed at trans* people.
You don’t worry about the welfare of the rich and politically powerful, so why would you worry about the welfare of the most powerful members of our society. They can already take care of themselves. That of course doesn’t mean a straight white cis man can’t be poor, or suffer from a disability or mental illness. Due to that it’s fair to say we out to fight for justice of them, but SJW already do that.
When white men complain about how social justice excludes them they ignore that they generally already have the privileges that these other groups are striving for. It’s often little more then complaining because they’re not the center of attention as is normal. It’s understanding power dynamics and how having power make it more likely for you to succeed, and less likely for external forces to negatively affect you. For example is very rare for a white person to suffer real life effecting consequence from bigotry. And ya it’s bad when it happens, but even when it does it’s still only likely to be a one off thing. However being Black in the US for example means your going to get pulled over by the cops more often, your more likely to be arrested, your less likely to get a job. Those thing quickly pile up. This is what we mean when there a systemic problems. The death by a thousand cuts. So ya we should fight all bigotry, but bigotry is not the same thing as systemic racism.
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January 29th, 2016 at 3:46 pm
The systematic pressure you describe has indeed been the norm in the past, because it was perceived as being optimal for the system (a society of humans in a bounded environment). As that society changes due to technology, population, environment, globalization and knowledge, the perception of what is optimal for the system is changing the systematic pressure (reducing the pressure on groups which suffer the pressure, and, through backlash, starting to put pressure on groups which used to be favored). Being intrinsic to the system, the pressure itself is not evil, but certainly can be (and has been) misused to evil ends. Often by those favored, and evil as that is to those impacted, it is possible to comprehend that a human (like any animal) will try to “protect its own”. Sad that the intelligence theorized for humans is often inadequate to prevent unnecessary expression of this tendency.
There is absolutely bigotry against trans people, but it is hardly “special”. No bigotry is special; it is another stupid behavior which tends to be normal for humans. Bigotry is refusing to consider the point of view of anyone who disagrees, and is harmful not only because it can encourage harmful actions, but it prevents the people who allow themselves bigotry from considering input which might be helpful to them.
But “hate” for trans people? I’m sure there are some sickos out there who can manage hate, but I suspect the “systematic” pressure is towards “discomfort”. We have eons of experience with the “male” and “female” dichotomy as well as the mating instincts inherent in all animals. When a person blurs the impression between these binary states which we are bred and conditioned to consider opposites, we don’t understand how to act. We are digital devices exposed to an analog signal. Of course it will be uncomfortable. Of course we will strive to minimize the discomfort. Which increases the stress on the trans people, who are already stressed past a critical level by the genetic and/or upbringing variances which puts their mental concept of their gender at odds with their “plumbing”.
Yes, those in power don’t need my worry. Or yours. But a straight, white, cis, man is not necessarily in power, and such a person may (and a not insignificant number do) have problems dangerous to his existence. For you to say that such a person has “killed billions” and to imply that such a person does not need consideration because “his sort” have “all the power” is (or at least should be) a violation of your “SJW oath”. Today, it usually has no significant impact. Today, it is seldom a reduction of privilege. Today, it does not qualify as a revocation of social justice. But it is the START of a whole new oppression.
Let us consider the condition of Black people. Often today, a Black person will have “less power” than most White people. This is a two pronged direct result of the one time status of slavery. On the one hand, Black people were treated like animals, keeping them from the nutrition and education and social structure necessary to be able to compete on an even footing with White people. On the other hand, there was the concept that they were less than White people, and enough less that it was acceptable to treat them like animals. All of us, of both races, are still today paying the costs of those viewpoints.
And how did we get into this condition? Sometime, somewhere, some person or group said “You know, these creatures with the dark skin may look like us, but they obviously are not us.” And look at the all the agony which followed. Do you really want to be involved in starting a new oppression? Is there no other way to stamp out existing oppression?
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January 30th, 2016 at 2:16 pm
I’m not sure how to talk with you, equipped, honestly it doesn’t seem to matter how I try to explain things. You continually side step points hessian or I attempt to make, that you personalize the impersonal, and apparently miss careful caveats. In addition you attempt to talk about biological realities and dichotomies which, to be perfectly honest you can’t know with much certainty. We don’t know how humans have respond to gender and sex for eons, we know we are biologically largely the same as 10’000 years ago, but we have practically no access to those peoples cultures or practices. Further you imply all animals some how meet the same basic criteria, but equippedcat it is not anywhere near that simple, sex while often limited to male and female is not actually clear cut in humans and it is far less clear in many other animals some of which have more then two sexes, and how those sexes interact are often poorly understood. What you have relayed back to me is a common narrative which is used to simplify the reality of biology into something more palatable for the general public. Sure there is some true to it, but the kind of assumption it supports make the whole thing more damaging then I think it’s worth.
You also paint this overly rosy image as though simply because the world is changing and technology is altering how we interact means that preexisting power structure are being weakened, and certainly some are, but others are strengthened by those changes or can latch on and make the transition.
Further I made it clear that a white cis man, can for a few reasons have less power then normal, and I’m sure there are others (such as bad luck), but you seem to imply I’m unaware of that.
As a straight white cis man, I have n0 fear of actually becoming an oppressed group in north America, it’s so far off that I can’t even deem it a reasonable concern, I think your focus on it is laughable really, an honest waste of time, and not something I’ll bother concerning myself again because I don’t feel my privileges or rights are really under any kind of attack. Especially by helping others attain similar standing as I have.
I’m also sure you keep pressing the whole issue “white men a responsible for billions of deaths” as though that implies we as white men are personally responsible, but not only did Hessian already point that out as not being the case in her comment, but is otherwise once again laughable. Those who honestly think so are tragically naive, or mentally unwell. The child is not responsible for the action of the parent. Just as a singular white man is not responsible for the actions of all those of the same or similar class.
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Sorry for being so dense. I understand the theory that it is ok to make blanket statements about some classes because they are not oppressed and there are “no consequences” to the people so referred to, whereas it is not ok to make blanket statements about classes which are oppressed because it just piles on more oppression. Understanding does not equal agreement. My view is if a class of people do not like blanket statements made about them, they should not make blanket statements about any other class. But, since I can’t seem to explain it the way I feel it, that is my problem, not yours.
I don’t intentionally sidestep points, but I might miss them or try (and fail) to address them. The length and diversity of some of these conversational segments encourages me to be scattered.
Caveats? Must have missed them too. Not being used to oppression, I don’t know how much it would help. If I was a Purple, and someone said “Oh, those Purples, they kick cats, except for those who treat cats nicely, of course”, I don’t have the experience to foresee if that makes the statement tolerable..
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January 27th, 2016 at 10:42 am
As always, I always hear it’s the ‘white people’ who are in power while I’m here, a nobody compared to Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West or Obama or Will Smith or the Arabs who rule the middle east.
You are still thinking in a collectivist way, so criticizing collectivism is ironic. We do not hold power as a group because where exactly do we view ourselves as a group?
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May 9th, 2016 at 8:44 pm
you have so much power that you don’t have to see yourselves as a group in order to survive.
if by Arabs you mean the Saudis, they have as much power as they do because America (dominated by white males) give them money for their oil- despite their absolutely terrible human rights record.
also none of the individual people you list hold as much power over another person as a single random cishet white male slave holder in the Old South did over his slaves
that’s the difference
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May 12th, 2016 at 5:07 pm
Yes, slavery was bad. Yes, some white people (men AND women) were in favor of that and had a lot of power over groups of black people. We (some white people and some black people) got rid of that horror. Every single one of those slave owners is dead, no? Slavery is not a viable concept in the U.S. now is it? Anyone who is engaging in any form of slavery is a criminal and reviled, right?
Bringing it up as a current example of power is kind of silly.
Get real. Power over people comes from money or force, not race or gender. The people who have money or the ability and willingness to use force are the people with power.
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May 14th, 2016 at 10:31 pm
But race and gender have something to say about how likely you are to access power, given that white men have for several centuries had most of the wealth and political power in the west. You can still see the effects of the collection of power in our society by looking at the demographics of the powerful.
And to be clear power is not some separate entity you can pull out, but a complex relationship that a person has with their environment.
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May 15th, 2016 at 1:11 am
At one point in time, race was a defining characteristic for who “deserved” power; a black man was not seen as deserving of power or even capable of having it. And at one point in time, gender was a defining characteristic for who “deserved” power. A woman was seen as a homemaker and mother, period. That is much less the case today. You are right in that some people of power today have that power in large part because their distant relatives had power because they were white men. One result of this power resulted in a significant advantage in their descendants gathering their own power. But many of these descendants are not in power because of THEIR OWN race or gender.
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May 23rd, 2016 at 12:12 am
To your last comment. Reeeeeally? Like if your talking women then that doesn’t go against my position at all, but if you mean because they where the children of rich white people I find such a claim dubious. If they where born into a rich family and ended up losing there power and money it’s likely do to bad luck, mismanagement or being disowned (perhaps do to sexual orientation or mix race relations).
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May 23rd, 2016 at 12:31 am
I see how my statement is confusing. What I meant to say is that white males who are in power today often owe a lot of that power to the advantages they inherited from ancestors in the time when only white males were considered suitable to have power. And not as much due to their own race and gender. I base this on neither myself or anyone I know failing to obtain power because of their race or their gender. Which does not mean it never occurs, just that it appears to be less prevalent..
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May 24th, 2016 at 11:20 pm
Okay that makes a lot more sense, thanks for responding.
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January 26th, 2016 at 2:47 am
Life isnt simple is it? We live in a world of complexity. We cant know everthing, feel everything, be everything! But we can listen as you say to others, and I for one enjoyed your writing.
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January 25th, 2016 at 10:58 pm
if we turned off the media music that is pounded into our heads we would be more prone to prioritize issues and answer them the other issues are fringe and honesty if we were busy taking care of what was important we would see the others as non issues.. ref:#4
By the way #4 Africa right now China and India both are making very large investments into Africa and I am sure you have notice all the turmoil out of the region…there is a reason… this is the new frontier the next in line for industrialization and capitalism is on the march which will raise Africa out of poverty and into pollution!
While governments disguise the pollution fix for public consumption they never address the problem and merely turn it into a revenue stream! Silly people not watching how government does its thingy! ❤
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January 25th, 2016 at 8:44 pm
“Political Correctness” started out, as you say, “treating others like humans”. But as is usual with humans, “if a little bit is good, a lot must be better”. It has morphed from being about not insulting people about things they have no control over to an attempt to remove all negative input to people. Which is not only impossible, but actually can be harmful. It almost seems these days that to “offend” someone is the worst thing which can be done to them. Certainly, it appears that society goes much further and more ruthlessly to fix a claimed “offense” than an actual criminal act.
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January 25th, 2016 at 5:51 pm
Excellent point about trigger warnings and ratings. I do think that there can be a thing as too much PC, for instance when someone insists I can’t say I hate someone/something when they/it oh-so deserve it. Hate can make me stand up and take action. If we weren’t biased we’d do nothing and things would never change. It, like hate, can be a good thing or a bad thing.
This is to Allallt, I have no idea what your post was trying to say in the second paragraph.
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January 25th, 2016 at 5:33 pm
I take issue with (3). Being PC is great. Being ‘too PC’ is a reference to what is becoming called the ‘regressive left’. I think this term encapsulates a real problem with some people–who self-identify as, and even operate in ways superficially the same as, social justice warriors–of wanting to suppress speak and expression in the worries that is may insult someone. Calling sincere criticisms of the content of the Koran “Islamophobic”, or not being allowed to call out the hyper-sensitive feminism and false-victim feminism (as contrasted against real feminism that is interested in working towards equality).
It’s a surprisingly self-referential problem. People who claim to be Social Justice Warriors want to ban criticism of terrorism who claim to be Muslim and liars who claim to be feminists. It involves people who do not represent the group they claim to belong to all protecting each other. But, that is what ‘too PC’ is; the movement to suppress free speech to “protect” people who may actually be mature enough to stand up for themselves.
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January 25th, 2016 at 5:53 pm
That’s rarely what people are calling too PC. And there is also the issue of context. Saying that the Koran tells Muslims to stone women for disobeying their husbands, so the Koran is not a moral book is fine. But then you get people like Sam Harris who say that, since the Koran says immoral things, we should judge all Muslims by it and profile them. Calling that Islamophobia is not too PC. Calling that Islamophobia is calling a spade a spade. Too many people say that that is too PC, and that, because Sam Harris and his ilk can’t spew all the hatred they want against Muslims, somehow we’re unfairly protecting Muslims and shutting down all dialogue. Are there issues with people taking things too far? Of course. But that’s a problem that exists in every group. As I said in the post, I don’t want dialogue to be shut down. I don’t want people to be afraid of controversy. But I’m not okay with hatred. If you wouldn’t say it about a Christian, whose book is just as horrifying and whose fellows have committed no small amount of terrorism, then don’t say it about a Muslim. It’s that simple.
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