Because there are some other burdens I don’t have to bear.
Really, I’m a tremendously privileged person. I just wish everyone in the world could have it as easy as I do.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Ramble/Rant/Rage: Dear Cis People
http://youtu.be/2WYzzbx3IE8
Published on Jul 17, 2012 by GenderQueer Atheist
Don’t ASSUME you know who we are; LEARN who we are! I hope this will be my only video, directed at cis people. My focus is on GenderQueers. If you want to know something, ask. But look up stuff yourself. You’re on the interwebs; use your search engines. Spellings of 2 names mentioned: Laci Green & Zinnia Jones. Start typing.
PS: this ought to really help you understand what it’s like to be a marginalized person with very limited resources and tremendous responsibilities. The article pertains specifically to a person with Lupus, but see it as a metaphor, will you? Remember how low-income I am, and that I also have disabilities. It’s why I can’t devote my energy into educating you, when you can be an ally all by yourself, without much effort: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-the…
Intersex Protest Forced Genital Surgery
http://youtu.be/M3IjSYdLGvg
GenderQueer Atheist Reader
http://paper.li/AndyTehNerd/1334406724
GenderQueer Atheists on FaceBook
http://www.facebook.com/groups/257889894257845/
GenderQueer Atheists YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/GenderQueerAtheists
GenderQueer Atheists on Atheist Nexus
http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/genderqueer-atheists
The link is to Natalie Reed. Zinnia Jones is right here on this network: look to the right sidebar.
Fuck it, that’s heartbreaking. I second PZ on this, I am way, WAY too privileged to “get” this to this extent. I can only hope my trans siblings get a break from this utter bullshit now and again.
Louis
The most frustrating part is that there’s no way to make people like that guy understand what horrible, terrible people they’re being. They ride high on the back of privilege, armed with a sense of superiority, and gleefully strike out at anyone they perceive below them, and they see this as the right and natural thing to do. Any attempt to knock them down just rolls off. I’m really, really sick of dealing with people like him, and watching other people deal with people like him, and I don’t understand how so many are able to deal with it for so long.
Then again, some people aren’t able.
From experience, I find that standing up to such privileged morons usually ends like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OV9gLtBcAE
I remember one guy here made jibes about transwomen being murdered, only to later start sobbing about how we were bullying him.
…in fact the same basic principle applies to most of the people who accuse FTB of bullying.
Hyperdeath:
I missed that. Fortunately.
I can’t view your video link at work, so I don’t know what it’s about, but I mostly agree with Mak. Tremendously privileged people who have been inculcated with that level of entitlement and not encouraged to have any empathy are usually lost causes. It’s not impossible for them to change, but it’s not the way to bet, either, because society rewards them for not changing.
It’s Cartman from South Park trying to pick a fistfight with Kyle, getting lightly papped in the face, and then wailing. Which is a pretty damn good visualization of it.
I don’t think that privileged is the right word/theory here. This isn’t about someone not having certain experiences that open one up to be accepting to a certain world view. This is not that. This is about someone who believes that everybody must act think and be a certain way that caters to their own whims and desires, and to not make them feel uncomfortable in any way shape or form. Hell, it’s that they feel uncomfortable with someone who is different in the first place.
It’s about a conformation-based hierarchical worldview. And it’s something we should be aware of, regardless of where it comes from, as it can come from anywhere. There’s an issue with some feminists who have this sort of hierarchical worldview who tend to come down on transsexual folks with both feet because of it, as an example.
But that is, often, caused by privilege.
(And in this case, the man in question is undoubtedly privileged.)
Karmakin: What Aleph Squared said. You’ve described privilege and, more broadly, kyriarchy.
And what do you think allows them to do this and get away with it, and even be rewarded for it? Privilege.
Everyone could have it easy if some (most) people weren’t so determined to make sure they don’t.
@karmakin #9
I think (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that PZ is also acknowledging his cis-privilege in this context because he’s glad that he doesn’t have to deal with people who are disgusted by his very existence in this sense. Sure, people are angry with PZ all the time for his atheism and his opinions and his style – but those things are not visible on his body, and therefore he’s not judged for them by people passing him on the street.
Privilege can blind people to the challenges that less privileged groups face because they are protected from those challenges. Privilege can give people the social “authority” to pass judgment on less privileged groups, because they are “normal”, and others are not.
People get so confused. It’s transFATS that are bad for you, not people.
Possibly, and if you’re going to accept micro-privilege* as a valid theory (I feel like most people don’t however..I’m mixed on the issue) then that is true, however I’ve seen the same behavior coming from an anti-privilege point of view as well, so I’m simply not sure that just labeling it as privilege and calling it a day is the best thing.
I think privilege is a valid and important term for describing behavior and attitudes, but I think that overusing it actually serves to dilute the effectiveness of its use.
*Micro-privilege is the concept that while there are macro privileges for being white, male, CIS, etc. there are also micro-privileges in smaller groups that we should also be aware of as well. An example would be that a workgroup with mostly women would have the women having some level of privilege over the men in that circumstance, even though in the rest of society it’s vice versa.
I’m glad I’m a cis guy. That kind of thing fills me with the desire to whack people upside the head with a molotov cocktail, and I wasn’t even the target.
@Mythbri #14 Yeah I’m not really talking about what PZ said and how he used the term, which I agree with (and feel the same way), I’m talking about the comments describing how the asshole became an asshole.
In short, now that it just come to me, I do not believe for a second that you NEED to have power in order to worship overt power dynamics in society.
…
…That definition implies to me that “micro-privilege” as a concept is a direct attack upon the (demonstrated, researched) concept of micro-aggressions. Men feeling creeped out when they’re NOT in a comfortable majority isn’t due to any sort of wonderful power that WOMEN have. (In fact the members of the underprivileged group generally would rather not have that effect at all – see tokenism, always having to speak for ‘their kind’ and so on.)
what does a cis-guy, in a cis-environment, doing cis-normativity-enforcing things have to do with this (probably completely BS) concept of micro-privilege? this is just standard privilege + maintenance of hierarchy.
and in the context of PZ’s post, it’s obvious he’s referring to his privilege of not being spit on and called disgusting by random passersby
What does this have to do with it? The privilege we’re discussing, whether with regards to PZ or the guy in Natalie Reed’s post, is due to being white, male, cis*, etc….which you label macro. What does micro have to do with that?
@karmakin #18
Of course you don’t. There are plenty of examples of this. In a patriarchal structure, men generally have more societal power than women. And yet there are women that uphold this power imbalance in the hope of being rewarded for doing so. They help police the women who aren’t following the “rules” – like criticizing women for being insufficiently feminine, in myriad ways (being too loud, too assertive, less focused on their appearance, not valuing male approval, etc.). It’s completely possible – and, sadly, more common than I’d like – for less privileged people to reinforce rigid societal hierarchy.
Which is the result of having unchallenged and/or clueless privilege.
Like I said, I don’t exactly buy into the concept of micro-privilege myself, or at the very least I think that it’s potentially way overused as a blanket excuse for majoritarian behavior, but I do think at the least there are some areas where it might be good to keep in mind, especially when macro versions of those privilege do not exist. (The big one I think is in-group/out-group privilege)
The reason I mentioned it is because I don’t buy that privilege is the only reason why someone would act that way. Micro-privilege MIGHT be an explanation for it, but again, I don’t buy it.
@Myth: That’s my entire concern in a nutshell, and I think that simply blaming it on privilege undermines it.
I have no flaming clue what that means.
again: how does being cis, acting out cisness in a cis-normative space, and enforcing cis-superiority have anything to do with this micro-privilege bullshit?
But it’s pretty clearly the case NOW.
What the hell does this have to do with how a cis man thinks he’s entitled to be really horrible to a trans woman? Your concern is noted, I guess?
oh, and this is not something anyone here claimed, so what’s your point again?
But in this instance privilege *is* an extremely plausible reason. Why do you dispute this?
And this privilege is what you are calling MACRO pivilege: cis privilege, male privilege, etc.
seriously, privilege came up in two contexts here: by PZ, stating that he’s got it, because random people on the street don’t spit on him and tell him he’s disgusting; and by commenters who were discussing whether confronting the douchecake would even make a dent, since his privilege and entitlement might well thoroughly insulate him sufficiently to make him inaccessible to any argument for how vile he’s being.
what does any of this have to do with the random shit you’re bringing up, karmakin? where’s the “micro-privilege”? where’s the inaccurate use of privilege? what is your goddamn point, and what does it have to do with anything anyone said?
…what does in-group/out-group have to do with any sort of privilege? Much less simply being in the majority in a temporary situation like a room, workgroup or discussion? Not every form of discomfort or advantage in a social situation is due to privilege, or even to anyone’s inconsiderate behavior.
It doesn’t. That’s the point. I’m not saying that it’s valid here. I’m saying that if you’re going to think that hierarchy and superiority stems from privilege, then you need to look at something like micro-privilege to explain certain situations, like the one that Mythbri put forward above.
I don’t think that’s the case, and generally while privilege IS a problem, it’s not the whole problem, the other side of the problem, being the hierarchy and desire for strict social order. Tearing down privilege might help one see why said strict social order is wrong and hurtful, being privileged is not necessary for one to support social structures which actually would end up directly hurting them.
Most of us are privileged in this way. Most of us here, more than likely are CIS. Yet none of us would say such a thing. It wouldn’t even CROSS OUR MINDS to even think such a thing. Why are we different?
you mean feminists with cis-privilege?
Thanks for derailing the thread with your wanking, Karmakin.
Seriously, if that was supposed to be an example of micro-privilege, then there’s a whole lot of ignorance going on. Cis women kicking trans women out of women’s circles ain’t a women’s privilege (lol) problem or a feminist privilege (double lol) problem, it’s a cis privilege problem.
And this has absolutely fucking nothing to do with a cis man treating a trans woman like shit. Concern. Noted.
This confuses me. Is one really separate from the other? A desire for hierarchy and strict social order is the result of having privilege, or being brainwashed by it into thinking one deserves a lower status.
I don’t understand how this is separate or different from privilege.
Here’s what I am saying. This statement right here actually means TWO things.
First, it’s a statement about feminists who are CIS, and as such don’t have the experience of being a transsexual. Like most of us, I’m guessing. It doesn’t mean that we are bad people, or that we’re out to hurt non-CIS individuals. We haven’t walked in their shoes, we don’t go through what they go through, so we are privileged in that way. This is how PZ used the term. I agree with this.
Second, it’s a statement about feminists who think that they are superior to non-CIS individuals, and act as such. It’s usually part of a larger worldview as well, where people should act in certain ways in order to “fit in” with the rest of society, and if they don’t they should be punished for it. This is how most of the people in the comments are using the term.
What I’m saying is that using these two definitions interchangeably, as we do, is very confusing for people. I also think in the end it downplays the very real role that the desire for hierarchy has in terms of creating these situations, as well as being a block against fighting against it in our own communities, but whatever.
Personally, I like Privileged for lack of experience and Patriarchal/Hierarchical for the social ordering stuff, but that’s just me.
karmakin – as usual, your comments are giving me secondhand embarrassment dude.
“But no, it’s not about privilege, it’s about [textbook description of privilege. I believe that [bizarre nonsense] is at the root of it, but I kinda sorta do don’t believe in [bizarre nonsense] that I just invented”
That’s what you sound like. Let me break it down really simply here:
cis man attacks trans woman.
Cis man is exercising the societal approval of his status as notWoman notTrans to do this.
That is privilege.
Now please stop with the “Think about the poor menz in a big group of women!” crap. a) it’s an irrelevant derail and b) in my experience , in that dynamic, men are seen as even more precious, and are often given seniority over more qualified women.
do you often bring up complete fucking non-sequiturs and red herrings into conversations, then?
what is this shit? who said this? why are you arguing with things no one claimed!?
again, no one claimed this. what the fuck are you doing? do you need more coffee?
yes, that was the context in which people brought up privilege.
no one disputed this. are you claiming the guy who spit on Natalie was closet-trans? because otherwise, you’re once again rambling about shit that’s completely nothing to do with the current conversation.
That’s because we’re actively challenging our privilege. I assure you that before I knew what that was and that I had it and that it needed fighting, I committed plenty of aggressive things towards disprivileged people, even if I haven’t literally spit on any.
However, there’s absolutely privilege involved in specifically what this guy did: he knew he wasn’t going to get punished for it. There was no cost to him for harming another person, because he belonged to a severely privileged group (for comparison, imagine a poor cis black woman spitting on a trans white guy. likely? no (or at least, significantly less so), because a poor black woman doesn’t have the privilege to know she wasn’t going to get punished, even if she does have cis-privilege over the trans guy and even if she’d have acted to maintain a form of hierarchy if she’d done so.
you have an adorably naive understanding of people. Some people may be so deeply empathetic that they would be incapable of even having thoughts about so nastily enforcing hierarchy. Most people however aren’t so special. Give us any out-group target and promise no harm (and even reward) for attacking them, and it’ll happen.
Oh, and while I’m at it, what’s with the ‘CIS’? It’s a prefix, not an acronym.
@karmakin #32
The problem is that in the scenario that I detailed in my comment at #23, the women who are policing other women and upholding the patriarchy aren’t being rewarded with privilege. Privilege, in this context, is based on immutable attributes. It cannot be bestowed upon someone without those attributes. Those women are “rewarded” by being shielded from the societal consequences that the rule-breaking women face. That’s it, in a nutshell. It’s all about protection, although these patriarchy-upholding women are just as vulnerable to the consequences as the rule-breaking women. They just believe that they’re not. That is their reward.
Jadehawk: Yes, it is.
Check. Your. Privilege.
No Light:
You too, huh?
my privilege about what?
Oh okay, I’m glad you get to decide how the words are defined and used for us, especially in a way that completely negates how privilege affects discriminatory behavior. Whatever makes you comfy, I guess?
About not understanding about the two different uses of the term privilege when it’s been laid out.
What?
That’s not a privilege.
What does this even mean.
Privilege is a term applied to human beings.
Patriarchy is a term applied to societies.
Patriarchy can be the cause of privilege (is, in many/most cases), but trying to redefine patriarchy to cover half of the semantic field of privilege is fallacious: people do not have patriarchy, they have privilege.
How on earth is that a privilege?
My trust in *your* understanding of the term privilege is diminishing rapidly.
again, since you didn’t bother reading it the first time I wrote it:
there were 2 ways (now there’s a third) in which “privilege” was being used in this conversation.
1)by PZ, to say he’s got it.
2)by commenters, in a discussion of how hard it would be to get douchecake to see how vile he is, given the insulating/entitling effects of privilege
and now, after you derailed the conversation:
3)the way the privilege plays into his action.
That people are saying that the mere having of privilege caused (proximally or ultimately) this guy to go and spit on a trans woman; that’s not actually being said, by anyone. Why are you claiming otherwise? (meaning, cite where you see people do this)
@Mak: When you’re trying to irrationally defend the “in-group” against the “out-group” it is.
@Aleph: That’s why I used patriarchal.
Fuck. The movement is in much worse shape than I thought. The pro-hierarchical comments in this thread are pretty damn thick. People seem AWFULLY willing to protect hierarchy by hiding it behind privilege.
I’m the one who doesn’t understand how privilege is being used in this thread?
also, what privilege is supposedly causing this misunderstanding?
Oh really?
Who’s the “in-group” and “out-group”?
@karmakin #52
???????
What are you saying here? That people here are in favor of ranking other people based on societal constructs and/or immutable attributes? Privilege and hierarchy/patriarchy/kyriarchy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they’re intrinsically related concepts.
Patriarchal is still a term referring to societies, not humans. You are still trying to redefine half the semantic field of privilege to be something else, for no good reason that I can see.
And you seem awfully willing to protect privilege by hiding it behind hierarchy.
These are two related, but distinct ideas. Why is that so hard?
what. how is discussing the symptom of hierarchy and a main stumbling block in reducing hierarchies protecting hierarchy?
this is nonsensical.
also, ingroup-outgroup dynamics are not privilege unless they’re based on a hierarchy. there’s no hierarchy here, so even if it were true that I’m arguing against your misunderstanding only out of ingroup-sensibility (for what ingroup? pharyngula?), that would not be caused by privilege.
@kamarkin:
Do you
(a) deny that the dude in question is privileged
(b) deny that having cis* privilege is a very likely cause for his ability to be so cruel
(c) deny that having said privilege will likely make it impossible or extremely difficult to convince him of the error of his actions.
If you do not deny any of these, then I don’t see how you could have any disagreement with how anyone in this whole discussion has been using the term privilege.
I wanna know why karmakin is even more concerned about our use of the word privilege than he is about the fact that cis people routinely treat trans people like shit and oh yeah, sometimes it kills them.
Yeah, I’m really sick of this phenomenon that whenever violence against and other abuses of trans* people come up, someone immediately begins to philosophize all over the thread about how “privilege” is being incorrectly used. Or some other word. Really, just anything except discussing the subject at hand.
I truly fail to see how talking about how we’ve got privilege, how it’s making it difficult to get douchecakes to stop being douchecakes, and how it’s contributing to douchecakes being confident in acting out against the less powerful in an oppressive manner is supportive of hierarchy. I also don’t understand how pointing any of these aspects of privilege means we don’t also agree that the guy is acting in a cis-supremacist mannner. no one here denied either the existence of that particular axis of oppression, nor claimed that it’s all about cis-privilege alone.
I have no flaming clue what this derail was about; at all.
Sigh.
At the risk of violating the “reset” rule: My understanding of Karmakin from having read many of his comments is that he has had some unpleasant experiences as a cis man in groups of feminists. From this, he has drawn the conclusion that privilege isn’t all that, sociologically speaking, and the unpleasantness he suffered is just as a big a problem on a wider scale as misogyny is. Therefore, he gets to redefine terms and derail threads.
It’s tiresome.
Anything to avoid contemplating how one’s privilege might possibly contribute to the oppression of other people, I guess. It’s an understandable reaction, ’cause who likes thinking about how something they didn’t choose to have might contribute to hurting people, but simply denying it and blaming the people who call it out isn’t going to help anything.
Being cissplained to in a topic about trans oppression sure is fun, though!
actually, I take it back. I think I figured out where the derail came from. If you assume that “privilege” is a word for a particular flavor of callous ignorance, then talking about an actively vile action as being in some way promoted by ignorance makes no sense. punishing a minority is a hierarchy-supporting action, not an ignorant action.
but that’s not what privilege actually is. it’s a benefit you get from society, which (among other things) leads to a particular kind of callous ignorance, and this is the context in which the word privilege is most commonly used. But it’s not the only correct context. Privilege is simply an unearned benefit; like being insulated from the (understanding of) consequences of one’s vile actions, for example.
This reminds me of far too many frustrating conversations I’ve had with cis friends who just can’t grasp why trans people might not think it’s super fun to go to a dive cowboy bar in the scary redneck part of town. My favorite is the ex-friend who called my partner “southphobic” because he was terrified of being trans or gay bashed in Mississippi. Of course, she also refused to make the slightest attempt in acknowledging my gender identity. Oh, how her hackles would raise if I tried explaining that she needed to reconsider how her cis privilege was coloring her viewpoint.
Clearly, the problem isn’t trans people being treated like shit and often living in terror (when they live at all). Nope, it’s the term “privilege.”
Waaaat.
Surely he should have thought of how fearing for his life affected your ex-friend’s feelings. SO inconsiderate, hmph!
I know this comment has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this blog entry, but I just checked my mail and the following turned up in the questionable box. It is good for a chuckle, if not a full-hearted belly-laugh.
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Please click this link below and enter the required information so your email account will be free from internet activities as Microsoft and AOL with all internet bodies are putting head together to wipe away this activities
caused by fraudster.
CLICK HERE, LOGIN TO SECURE YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT
We are sorry for the trouble and wish to applogised to those whom have loss alot from it.
Regards,
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Interpol/Microsoft
Fraudulent Monitor Dept
How can anyone be stupid enough to fall for this junk? (No you don’t need to remind me of non-atheists. Especially Mormons. They have already demonstrated that they will believe anything.)
You know, there is an off-topic lounge here at Pharyngula.
@Daisycutter , I’m actually waiting for him to declare that the word ‘privilege’ triggers him.
Wait, sorry, I forgot, the word ‘trigger’ is karmakin’s trigger.
He explained that marginalised trauma victims asking that people warm for potentially triggering content triggers him. However, much like ‘privilege ‘ he’s redefined ‘triggered’ to mean something like “[karmakin] feels uncomfortable about (mostly)women talking about the really awful things that have happened to them, thus harshing his buzz’.
By his apparent definitions survivors of trauma with PTSD. have privilege over people who don’t want to warn for potentially upsetting content.
Oh fuck no. That’s a perfect example of what karmakin’s line of thinking leads to. It’s where a characteristic that can easily lead to your murder, is conflated with “likes wearing Stetsons”, because, apparently, any hobby, or profession, or hair colour is now a statistical outlier when compared with everyone else lumped together.
It’s a way of minimising the horrible experiences of trans women by saying “Yeah, I got laughed at for liking Britney Spears, I feel your pain”.
Nah, they just support and protect the PTSD-supremacist hierarchy.
Mak- Don’t know about you, but I’ve spent years dominating the poor, untraumatised non-PTSD outgroup by curling into a foetal position, and sobbing into my duvet.
FIFY
No Light, #69: Yeah, I’ve seen him complain about triggers as well.
And I agree with you on the absolute ridiculousness of “southphobic.”
Sally, may I present you with this shiny new internet?
Does it really make sense to use the same word to describe this sort of actively hostile attitude towards others, as is used to describe “not getting it” because of not having to deal with “it?”
(Especially when we turn around and castigate people for interpreting “you have privilege” as an attack on them.)
privilege is not an attitude. attitudes can be caused/influenced by privilege. and those attitudes can be both the more commonly discussed cluelessness, and more aggressive reactions.
what’s this supposed to be a criticism of? how is saying that a privilege one gets based on one’s place in a hierarchy/on an axis of oppression can lead to feeling permitted to be a vile asshole as well as being too insulated to understand that one is being a vile asshole enough to stop?
and how would saying that it’s “patriarchal” instead prevent people from feeling attacked, considering that the patriarchy (or, in this case, cis-supremacy) is the source of both systemic discrimination we all participate in, and such blatantly aggressive attacks, as well?
I’m still not sure how we’re blaming this entirely on privilege and ignoring/protecting/contributing to a hierarchy.
My original post was thus:
I specifically mentioned privilege AND a sense of superiority, and implied a sense of entitlement as well, so how is this simply conflating/blaming privilege while ignoring everything else? I can understand missing the entitlement bit because I suck at words, but the other bits? Ms. Daisy Cutter also mentioned entitlement and a lack of empathy on top of privilege. Then came crap about micro-privilege and accusations that we’re blaming this ALL on privilege while hurting the argument and supporting the patriarchy or something.
Jesus fuck, I’m just tired of dealing with shitheads like the guy in the OP and their open, smug bigotry and their complete lack of care for the harm that they do.
When you refer to
and say “that’s privilege,” this implies that, well, this is what “privilege” means, and by extension that you’re imputing this sort of mindset to a person who “doesn’t get it” because of not having to deal with it. Yet there are people who “don’t get it” and yet don’t have this sort of active hostility, so clearly privilege alone is not a sufficient criterion for it. Although I noted it, I’m less concerned by “making people feel attacked” than the active invitation to misunderstand.
This wasn’t my suggestion and I don’t see its relevance to my comments.
the relevance is that it was karmakin’s alternative suggestion.
so when you say “that’s modern-day journalism for you” when seeing the results of modern-day journalism, you take that literally, too?
seriously, the phrase “that’s X” often means “this is what X helps cause”.
no, because privilege is not “doesn’t get it”. privilege is a social benefit you get for being at the powerful end of an axis of oppression. It causes you to be someone who “doesn’t get it”, among other things. It causes other things, too, and saying two different things have a common cause is not the same as saying the different results are the same
well, apparently it’s too late on the misunderstanding front. again, “doesn’t get it” is not privilege, it’s what you get when you have privilege.
oh ffs.
FIFM
sounds like ol’ Karmakin is looking fer trouble, tryin’ to stir the pot. sounds like Karmakin is “WHITE” PRIVILEGED MALE. but, I could be wrong
If you get in a pissing contest with a skunk you can not win.
99% of white men can not admit to or even realize their privilege. Many immediately become angry at the mention of privilege. Some say they are not privileged but even if they were there would be no problem and and what is wrong with privilege.
The privilege is built into the society/culture.
“White” men and to a large degree white women too are the privileged people.
If a white guy and a black guy go into a wallmart at about the same time–which person will the security guy watch.
If same 2 guys apply for the same job with equal skills–which will be hired.
The privilege is real and a real problem except great maority of white folk can not see it. But colored folk see it.
Okay, now I follow.
I’m terribly, terribly sorry for the frustration and difficulty my ASD symptoms cause you.
Azkyroth – passive-aggressive accusations of ableism don’t eliminate your male privilege, but I know that you know that.
On the cis-trans plane of the kyriarchy trans women have it worse than anyone. But then, you know that too, and you presumably realise that karmakin’s nonsense is an absolute derail, and yet here we are.
As far as I’m aware, ASD does not cause amnesia, demands for all speech to be literal or otherwise annotated to indicate any form of nuance or inference. Nor does it feature a compulsion to take up a contrary position on social justice issues, or the use of a sudden enlightenment WRT said position, coupled with “But I’m disabled, GOTCHA!” as an end-run to shut down criticism.
And again, here we are and the meme of people with ASDs as rude, lacking any empathy, and totally self-absorbed , is perpetrated once more.
That shit rolls on down the kyriarchaL hill, and buries those of us who aren’t neurotypical either, but are lacking the more privileged aspects of sex/race/gender identity, to rise above that stereotype, and get to the surface in order to debunk the meme.
….what is it you think I said that this would be a response to?
As you might be aware, it can cause difficulty handling nuance and inference.
Of course not, and I didn’t do this.
Of course not. However, my confusion on that point was rectified, but accompanied by enough contempt for my having and expressing confusion to be mildly triggering given the extensive genuine bullying I’ve experienced in the past, and I was upset enough to fail to anticipate this sort of grossly uncharitable misreading before responding. I’ll try not to do that.
As a follow-up, I did gather that Karmakin was being obtuse, but he brought my attention back to something about the way the language he was addressing was used that struck me as contradictory, or at least counter-intuitive, and since I was thinking about it I verbalized it. This is something I often have to consciously remind myself not to do, because I have far less of the privilege of intuitively knowing when certain verbalizations are inappropriate (or intuitively understanding social expectations in general) than people who don’t have my condition, and I sometimes fail, like earlier. I occasionally find myself slipping into a sort of wishful thinking where I imagine I don’t have these problems and can just interact with people without having to approach it like you would a math assignment, and it’s painful and humiliating having that rug pulled out from under me. Being treated like a defective human being because of the way my difficulties manifest in social interactions with others is painful and makes me extremely self-conscious. (Well, okay, I guess in a sense I AM a “defective human being.”) That’s why I lashed out the way I did.
I want to be sorry you interpret it as
Azkyroth, since you’re making accusations now, you’d better back them up.
Where is this contempt? Quotes, please.
Where is this grossly uncharitable misreading? Quotes, please.
Where were you treated like a defective human being? Quotes, please.
I’m going to take the Randi challenge Azkyroth, because I knew you’d skip straight over a key phrase, and go directly to “Poor me, I’m trying so hard, but you’re picking on meee”.
This is the one piece of my comment you apparently did not see:
So that would be ME. ME with my ASD who has the same fucking issues you do, who takes language literally, who finds verbal communication, with all it’s allusions and skirting around, to be excruciating. Who has both missed out on potentially brilliant. things, and ended up in very awkward situations, because I can’t read hints.
So spare me. The difference is that I do not expect NTs to cater specifically to my needs, to remember. who I am from brief comments, and to absolve me of busted and fucked up behaviour for simply dropping the A.bomb. I don’t want a pat on the head and a NoLightie Nibbly treat if I deserve to be told “You’ve totally misread that, and then constructed an argument based on something that isn’t even there”.
You’re not special, you don’t need your hand held. If you think someone might have said something horribly wrong, but you don’t know that for sure because you don’t understand? Then zip it, until it’s confirmed.
And for the love of Hello Kitty, PLEASE stop defending privileged wankers, based on the aforementioned. “Wow, if taken literally that could mean X, but my hunch is that I’m misunderstanding”.
If twenty-odd women are accusing someone of male privilege, then doing that makes it look like they have no idea what’s real, so they need you to teach them.
It’s our issue. The world cannot be changed to be 100% ASD friendly. Sometimes listening to/watching other people communicate is our best hope of getting it.
AlSo, as someone who is frequently silenced and marginalised by men with ASDs, and many NTs, who’ve bought into the “only happens to boys and men” myth, at least you have the privilege and luxury of being believed, when you disclose. I literally cannot use it as an excuse for acting like an arse, so I have to watch my step constantly.
SG, can you name anyone but me who you’ve asked to justify their perceptions of how someone else was talking to them with quotes? I perceived that, and as far as I can tell, for anyone but me that’s considered to be enough.
I didn’t not see it. I didn’t have anything to say about it.
As for the rest of your post, there is apparently nothing I can say that will cause you to stop attributing motivations to me that I do not hold. I will try to think about why others might perceive these motivations, insofar as I don’t have them.
I do note that members of no other marginalized group are expected, around here, to just put up with being marginalized and change themselves to fit the dominant culture.
I know you of old. You’ve been doing this for years.
Stop insinuating that you’re somehow being forced to change.
The only thing you need to change is your habit of going off half-cocked based on YOUR misreading, rather than asking for clarification, and then crying “ABLEISM!” when you get called on your crap.
The passive-aggressive “Oh I’m soooo sorry my disability offends you” and “You’re a horrible person if you find my unfounded accusations to be ridiculous, because ASD” are beyond bloody irritating.
Arsehole and autistic are not mutually exclusive categories. However, I’ve only ever encountered two people that act like absolute arses, and then gnash and wail about some neurotypical conspiracy to be cruel and demand the impossible of them.
I’m terrified of fucking up and breaking some unwritten rule, so socially awkward I can go months without speaking to anyone but my partner IRL. I don’t flail about claiming people are wrong or unfair, because I’ve mistaken one thing for another.
You and your counterpart are so astonishingly similar that I often wonder if you didn’t cleave from the same blastocyst.
I’m gay. I don’t demand that bloggers and commenters avoid any mention of opposite sex partners at all. I’d look like a weirdo if I randomly stated “Stop mentioning accidental pregnancy, you’re a homophobe!”.
I’m a chair user. I don’t demand that people never speak of walking or running, in order to not remind me of my disability. If I’m told “You’re walking a thin line” I don’t chuck a wobbly and accuse them of mocking me.
I’m poor as shit. I’m not insisting that people refrain from talking about shiny things. If someone mentions an iPad I’m not gonna comment “Do you find my poverty amusing?”
As for my womanhood, Jesus Hopping Christ, DO YOU EVEN GO HERE DUDE? Over a year has been spent, tears have keen shed, rifts have been created, and lives fucking ruined because women are being expected to act like being viewed as a silent sex-toilet is no big deal. For fuck’s sake.