Intersectionality is a big issue. So for instance, women and black people are oppressed, but black women more than white women or black men. A poor black lesbian in a wheelchair is really screwed.
However, it's also important to remember that oppression is a sword without a hilt: it always does damage to the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Not as much, not the same kind, but some. It's corrosive. It corrupts. And it is absolutely vital to know, not just your enemy's weaknesses, but when it's gone far enough that he is no longer quite sane. That changes his actions, and if you want to outmaneuver him, then you need to have some idea what he's done to himself so that you can fight him more effectively.
Take sexism for example. The more your enemy abuses and denigrates women, the more he buys into machismo ... the easier it gets to bait him into aggressive moves where you have laid a trap accordingly. Racism? Will incline your enemy to overlook people of color, so if want spies, recruit from there. And so on.
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Thoughts
Date: 2025-06-29 01:09 am (UTC)However, it's also important to remember that oppression is a sword without a hilt: it always does damage to the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Not as much, not the same kind, but some. It's corrosive. It corrupts. And it is absolutely vital to know, not just your enemy's weaknesses, but when it's gone far enough that he is no longer quite sane. That changes his actions, and if you want to outmaneuver him, then you need to have some idea what he's done to himself so that you can fight him more effectively.
Take sexism for example. The more your enemy abuses and denigrates women, the more he buys into machismo ... the easier it gets to bait him into aggressive moves where you have laid a trap accordingly. Racism? Will incline your enemy to overlook people of color, so if want spies, recruit from there. And so on.