It's not all about you. M'kay?
The next time you get the urge to share "that one time that you almost kinda sorta *knew* what it was like" to live in said marginalized person's shoes... censor yourself.
There are all kinds of ways that people can be discriminated against: Fatphobia, transphobia, homophobia, racism, shadeism, misogyny, age-related, ableism, right handed bias, religious intolerance, height discrimination, lookism, classism... the list goes on for days.
Most folks would insist that they fit in at least one or two of the categories of discriminated populations, some people could fit in many more than a handful. Even if you are practically a card carrying member of one population that is routinely mistreated, your street cred does not carry over into another group in which you are not a part of. Let me repeat this: Your marginalization is not a 2-for-1 deal.
For example: An obese man knows what it's like to be a obese man operating in society. However, since he does not have the experience of an obese woman operating in the same society, he will not be able to empathize with said obese woman on an existential level. Sure he can sympathize because they both share in the attribute of their large size, but he cannot empathize with her on being a woman, much less, a large woman.
You feel me?
Whenever you try to make your form of oppression relevant in a situation that does not involve you, what ends up happening is that the people who, for once, had the floor are now silenced yet again, as you stampede your way into the spotlight. Privileged people tend to do this all. the. time. I will admit that I've done it in the past, although I continue to strive for heightened awareness in that aspect. Actually, I will share an incident that I should have and could have known better than to do what I did... but still did it anyway.
In a Saturday seminar class called "Queer Theory" taught by one of my most favorite lecturers, Dr. David Tripp, the floor was opened up to discussion, and somehow, I thought it would be an appropriate time to whine about how products geared for women are routinely priced higher than the comparable gender neutral (aka male oriented) products. I, a straight ciswoman, took time away from the other sexual minorities in the class, for what should have been time for them to speak about their experiences unhindered by extraneous rhetoric. The second the words left my mouth, I knew I just did what the title of this post is saying not to do.
I am a woman. A black woman. Who is straight. Who also has no business dominating a discussion created for those who do not and cannot live in this heteronormative world as a straight person. I learned a very big lesson that day. Yes, I have and do experience episodes of discrimination because of my black woman-ness, but I also experience the insidious privilege of being a straight woman who is married and has no social penalty for discussing it openly. I don't have to think twice about that stuff. But a lot of other people out there do.
So, at the end of all this, what I'm saying is, the next time you want to play Oppression Olympics... stop. Take a look at your audience, and then look back at yourself. Would you be depriving other individuals from benefiting in that space if you shared your personal story? Do your personal anecdotes add any value to the discussion, or is it dimply a derailment? We all have the itch to add a personal trinket to highly charged discussions from time to time, but it takes a lot of self control to check that privilege. We could all stand to exercise that kind of control a little more often.
perhaps google could work out an edit feature for the less articulate of us. Anyhow...
ReplyDeletedecent post. A lot of what you're saying is resonating, except I have to disagree on this bit:
"Even if you are practically a card carrying member of one population that is routinely mistreated, your street cred does not carry over into another group in which you are not a part of. Let me repeat this: Your marginalization is not a 2-for-1 deal."
I think I see what you're getting at, but almost immediately prior, you mentioned that the list of isms was literally endless. Here I agree. Therefore, isn't assuming that a person can only suffer the marginalization of a single label a perpetuation of the root problem in the first place? As a result, it is a little disconcerting to entertain the thought that obese men cannot have insight as to the obese woman's experience (or any woman's experience) and vice versa. This is not arguing that obese men can empathize to the greatest degree, but that a misalignment of empathy exists even among a closed group of obese women. Point being, that when all of the isms are taken into account, the delineations quickly become diluted to the point that each individual person, for any combination of isms/labels they might endure, either has an intelligent thought on a matter or they do not.
Additionally, people we don't perceive to be a part of a marginalized group shouldn't be kept from engaging. I understand this isn't what you're trying to say. I agree people should check their privilege with regard to those most affected, but balanced dialogue should be protected at all cost. You sort of made it sound like you were out of line for speaking at all during the class because your straightness made you less legitimate to engage the topic. I would argue the listen/talk ratio should be carefully balanced according to an individual level of self-awareness that one cannot assume applies to some abstractly homogenized group of oppressed peoples. It would be to assume from the outset that all women feel oppressed by virtue of being a female, or all homosexuals by virtue of their sexual orientation and through our perception of these characteristics assume that they have actually considered the issue fully for themselves. I think a strong argument can be made that this is not the case.
NewDiction,
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying. And I agree that people who aren't in a perceived marginalized group should be aloud to speak from their lived perspective.
What I was getting at with the "2-for-1" deal is that being discriminated against for my ethnic background does not give me the "credentials" to start waxing poetic about being, I dunno... deaf when I am actually not. I can certainly learn about deafness, study it, and be able to teach about it in great detail. But if I haven't lived in this world as a deaf person, I have no business telling actual deaf people "what I would do if I was in your shoes". Why? Because I don't have advice rooted in existential experience. This is the point I was trying to make.