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unspeakablehorrorOne thing that's interesting are the implicit assumptions people make about me. One thing about not telling other people personal information about yourself is that people will try to fill in the blanks. And while I haven't actually yet had people make *explicit* assumptions about my identity, there are things I can infer by the way people treat me, and the way they treat other people of various identities that are known to them.
I think more people in general should really try to think about identities that are marginalized in, hmmm, different ways than they are, and try to think harder about what people of these identities are saying. Not just in a 'my friend is 'X' identity and so their perspective is the right way to think about 'X' always' or 'I'll listen to 'X' identity voices and decide which ones I agree with' or 'I obviously understand because I'm 'Y' identity which is also marginalized' but from a perspective of understanding that...we have to try to get a bigger picture than just what our friends say or what fits into our own limited perspective of the world.
I don't think social justice can be a one-way street where privileged people graciously redress the issues of the oppressed. And I think that more people need to be willing to grapple with the complicated ways that they as an individual can be both oppressed and privileged by the structures of society. And how the understanding they wish to have from others may not be understanding they have been extending to others who may be oppressed differently than they are. Because that kind of unequal expectation will never be justice either, but merely an attempt to adjust which faces the boot comes down hardest on. And the unwillingness to understand the oppression of others is a way in which one helps to solidify the unwillingness of others to understand their own oppression.
I think more people in general should really try to think about identities that are marginalized in, hmmm, different ways than they are, and try to think harder about what people of these identities are saying. Not just in a 'my friend is 'X' identity and so their perspective is the right way to think about 'X' always' or 'I'll listen to 'X' identity voices and decide which ones I agree with' or 'I obviously understand because I'm 'Y' identity which is also marginalized' but from a perspective of understanding that...we have to try to get a bigger picture than just what our friends say or what fits into our own limited perspective of the world.
I don't think social justice can be a one-way street where privileged people graciously redress the issues of the oppressed. And I think that more people need to be willing to grapple with the complicated ways that they as an individual can be both oppressed and privileged by the structures of society. And how the understanding they wish to have from others may not be understanding they have been extending to others who may be oppressed differently than they are. Because that kind of unequal expectation will never be justice either, but merely an attempt to adjust which faces the boot comes down hardest on. And the unwillingness to understand the oppression of others is a way in which one helps to solidify the unwillingness of others to understand their own oppression.
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Date: 2023-01-12 04:14 am (UTC)