There's nothing to be gained by making oppression a pissing contest, but far too many people think that's the case. Instead of treating people individually, they stack suffering based on their demographics.
Last year, there was a situation we witnessed in which someone was told to shut up (not literally, but that was the impression I got) because they wanted to be consoled when someone who was more oppressed was complaining, even though the more oppressed person is a fucking arsehole who doesn't have much regard for others' feelings.
The complainer is the same person who told us that they "didn't want to be nice to their oppressor" when Yavari told them that everyone, regardless of their background, had potential to be a jerk.
Yavari never asked them to be nice to their oppressor, but they put words into his mouth. It's just a basic fucking fact that people can be jerks no matter their colour, gender or creed. Anything else is essentialist bullshit. Whatever genius said that "people of colour" are immune to being unpleasant needs to think again. Once you start making claims like this about groups of people, you stop seeing them as individuals. That's just a mirror image of what you see from "scientific" racists/xenophobes who think Mexicans or Romanians are stupid, lazy migrants, or Black people are stupid and jovial.
(Ironically, we ourselves would win, or come close to winning, Oppression Olympics, at least within the US context. But that's not how we move through the world.)
This is the kind of thing that exhausts me about social justice activism. Lefties should be better than that.
Last year, there was a situation we witnessed in which someone was told to shut up (not literally, but that was the impression I got) because they wanted to be consoled when someone who was more oppressed was complaining, even though the more oppressed person is a fucking arsehole who doesn't have much regard for others' feelings.
The complainer is the same person who told us that they "didn't want to be nice to their oppressor" when Yavari told them that everyone, regardless of their background, had potential to be a jerk.
Yavari never asked them to be nice to their oppressor, but they put words into his mouth. It's just a basic fucking fact that people can be jerks no matter their colour, gender or creed. Anything else is essentialist bullshit. Whatever genius said that "people of colour" are immune to being unpleasant needs to think again. Once you start making claims like this about groups of people, you stop seeing them as individuals. That's just a mirror image of what you see from "scientific" racists/xenophobes who think Mexicans or Romanians are stupid, lazy migrants, or Black people are stupid and jovial.
(Ironically, we ourselves would win, or come close to winning, Oppression Olympics, at least within the US context. But that's not how we move through the world.)
This is the kind of thing that exhausts me about social justice activism. Lefties should be better than that.
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