i take your point about privilege being a passive attribute, thank you. However, I reject your assertion that group membership is more important than individual conduct. That's the very essence of privilege and disadvantaged status, and by allowing yourself to make judgments based on group identities, you are in fact supporting the very system we all agree should be overturned. (Ok, we as in folks reading this discussion, large but probable assumption there.) Yes, it's harder and requires more exposure, and yes I get the lure of the security of exclusionary spaces; shit I'm an initiate of a very not mainstream religion, some of whose tenets run very counter to the mainstream and could in theory be used as a way of taking my children, discriminating against me in employment and other financial matters. I understand the warmth and dropping of guard that comes from being in a gathering of my fellow initiates, where explanations aren't required.
But I'm looking at the bigger picture here, and that which fragments us leads to the construction of walled gardens filled with uses and thems, which strengthens the hand of those who would use our fears to control us. I am not equipped by experience to understand the lives of people who labor under different disadvantages than I do. It's my job as a conscious, thinking person to overcome my own ignorance so that I can act not only for my own self-interest, but in the interests of my community, which ultimately is everyone, even people I vehemently disagree with. Walls, no matter with what good intentions they are constructed, impede this quest for undrstanding. Are you tired of educating the public? So am I! Did you know that the unemployment rate among the blind is over 80%? Shall I write the thousands of words necessary to explain the interlocking systems of educational insufficiency, presumption of incompetence, religious misperceptions of role and technological development that bring this about? I'm damned tired of it myself, of educating, one person at a time so I can rent an office, or be understood to be a competent parent or even a sexually active adult. Do you really want to get into the business of comparing suffering? That's an unproductive road.
So I reject the characterization of my view as disingenuous. I believe that it is reflective of a sense of the universality of suffering, a sense that is decreased when we retreat to our safe spaces and wall ourselves off from the annoying and sometimes dangerous and nearly always disheartening work of educating one more ignorant person. As I said, I see the lure of this sense of security, but I think that in the end it makes the world darker and less safe.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 05:40 pm (UTC)But I'm looking at the bigger picture here, and that which fragments us leads to the construction of walled gardens filled with uses and thems, which strengthens the hand of those who would use our fears to control us. I am not equipped by experience to understand the lives of people who labor under different disadvantages than I do. It's my job as a conscious, thinking person to overcome my own ignorance so that I can act not only for my own self-interest, but in the interests of my community, which ultimately is everyone, even people I vehemently disagree with. Walls, no matter with what good intentions they are constructed, impede this quest for undrstanding. Are you tired of educating the public? So am I! Did you know that the unemployment rate among the blind is over 80%? Shall I write the thousands of words necessary to explain the interlocking systems of educational insufficiency, presumption of incompetence, religious misperceptions of role and technological development that bring this about? I'm damned tired of it myself, of educating, one person at a time so I can rent an office, or be understood to be a competent parent or even a sexually active adult. Do you really want to get into the business of comparing suffering? That's an unproductive road.
So I reject the characterization of my view as disingenuous. I believe that it is reflective of a sense of the universality of suffering, a sense that is decreased when we retreat to our safe spaces and wall ourselves off from the annoying and sometimes dangerous and nearly always disheartening work of educating one more ignorant person. As I said, I see the lure of this sense of security, but I think that in the end it makes the world darker and less safe.