AlexanderDitto wrote: my responding sarcastically to Wraith's entirely meaningless syntactic argument
Nice try. You didn't "respond sarcastically to a meaningless argument."
You pulled a
textbook strawman. What I like to refer to as "the oppression straman." I see this little game every day. You take a logical argument, falsely claim it was an entirely
different argument, respond to said false argument (instead of the one I actually made) with righteous indignation and then leverage your personal adversities and the sympathy brought about by discussing them as a "get out of a logical argument free card."
It is cheap, it is dishonest, and it is manipulative.
You sir, are the very
model of the type of "oppression olympian" I have talked about in this this thread.
"I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them"
Not really terribly impressed by someone who has apparently decided that it's his job to explain to other people "how life works for them" based entirely on their ethnicity and sexual preference.
Mums wrote:Firstly, it is a privilege for a white heterosexual male not having to fight for the basic rights.
No, it's not. Not having to fight for basic rights is
itself a basic human right. And like I said, the denial of a human right does not make it cease to be a human right. A
privilege is something that people are not inherently entitled to.
Have you ever noticed that no one accuses China of having a horrible "privilege violations" record? They have the worst "
human rights violation" record. We do not call these thing privileges just because they are so often denied the people there.
Mums wrote: I just think that what Wraith is trying to say is that homosexual, bisexual, transpeople, and everyone else (sorry for the ignorance in the different names) shouldn't be fighting for having the privilege of not being denied their basic rights.
Well, no; not really. I mean, you're absolutely right that they should not have to fight for equal
protection of those rights; but my argument (at least on this particular subject) boils down to "people should stop referring to basic human rights as privileges." Simple as that, really.
Duckay wrote:Sure, I appreciate that. However, if I can draw your attention to a statement that I made earlier in this thread:
Duckay wrote:Are you confident that this is the meaning? Or is it really "because you have never experienced this, it isn't on your radar, whereas other people have to live with it everyday"? At the end of the day, you have experienced things I have not, I have experienced things that you have not, any given person in the thread may have experienced something else, and we are not doing each other any favours pretending that they are exactly the same.
And I responded to that. What I was responding to with the comment you just quoted, was
Duckay wrote:Maybe you can clear this up for me, then, because when people tell you what they mean, and you reply saying that you're "pretty confident" that they mean something else, that certainly feels like attaching negative connotations to other people's words to me. If that's not what you meant, can you please clarify?
So I clarified exactly why I said I felt confident of their meaning; as opposed to attaching unfair negative connotations to other people's words, which I also provided an example of.
You asked, I answered.
Duckay wrote:I realize in hindsight that I phrased that poorly, choosing snark over clarity. What I should have said instead of the first two sentences was, "When people in this thread, including myself, talk about privilege, what is meant is that it refers to things that because someone has never and will never experience due to circumstance, aren't on their radar, whereas other people have to live with it everyday". I continue to stand by the remainder of that quote.
I understand what you mean. I'm simply saying that's not privilege, and that considering the fact that using that word actually implies that people are
not inherently entitled to the things you're referring to is an incredibly ironic fail.
Duckay wrote:Whether you agree or not is not the issue. I would just like to know if you honestly believe that the quoted statement of yours is actually the same thing as what I was trying to get across, or if this was because of my poor communication.
No, I don't think it's the same as what you were saying. It was an example of the most common usage of the term.
JayBlanc wrote:But at the moment yes, Cis White Males do have a privileged position in western society.
Then I ask you - keeping in mind the difference between privileges and rights - what
privileges do Cis White Males enjoy that others do not?
JayBlanc wrote: So it's entirely wrong to rail against the label of "privilege". Saying "it shouldn't be like that" is not a reason to deny it is like that and ask people who have such privilege to be aware of it.
Except that I didn't say that the term shouldn't be used "because it shouldn't be like that."
Seriously, this is
not a complicate argument. I don't understand why I have to keep repeating this:
the reason privilege is the wrong label is because it's inaccurate. Privileges are things that people are NOT inherently entitled to.China doesn't have "a horrible privilege violations record." The have a horrible
human rights violations record, because the fact that these rights are so often denied poor Chinese workers does not mean they are no longer rights.
If being denied these things stops them from being rights, then why do we call it "the fight for gay rights?" Shouldn't it be "the fight for gay privilege?" Because according to you, the things they are fighting for are privileges.
JayBlanc wrote:This is actually the reason the term gets used at all.
Here's an example of an argument that demonstrates the concept of "privilege" making it hard for someone to understand something...
"Why do Women get to have Men Free Spaces, but Men can't have Men's Only Clubs?"
"Because Men Free Spaces are about safety, and that's because women are outstandingly more likely to be the victims of violent crimes at the hands of men than men are from women. There are plenty of spaces that are safe for men already!"
"Well okay, but the solution to that isn't Men Free Spaces, it's to stop men attacking women!"
"Yes. But till then we need to do something to make things safer for women!"
"But that's Discrimination!"
"Yes, because it's something women need right now and men don't!"
The root is a failure to understand that the action is to try and give Women some additional privileges to counter balance the existing privilege that men have. But if you don't want to accept that men have privilege, it looks like giving Women something Men don't have.
It's sexist, discriminatory bullshit is what that is.
"women are outstandingly more likely to be the victims of violent crimes at the hands of men than men are from women." Really? You realize that 40% of intimate partner violence are MEN, right? A 10% shift and men would be victims as often as women. The difference is that when women are the aggressors,
it is far more likely to be ignored.You realize this logic could
easily used to justify segregation? "Well, in this region, the overwhelming majority of gangs and violent crime are perpetrated by black men, so we don't allow them in this club."
You don't get to punish millions of people because they were born with the same genitals as people who have committed violent acts. You don't get to treat innocent people as potential violent offenders based solely on the circumstances of their birth.
You
are giving women something men don't have. You are very
blatantly justifying sexual discrimination.
Not that it matters, men still get turned away from soup kitchens hungry because it's a "woman only day." 12 year old boys are still forced to stay with their abusive fathers because they're not allowed to stay in shelters wit their mothers (and God help you if you bring up the idea of a shelter for battered men). Male victims of domestic violence who call DV hotlines are still redirected to hotlines set up
for men seeking guidance and support with rage issues because the DV hotlines only take female callers.
But hey, who cares, right? They're men! They don't have vaginas, so to hell with them!
Avistew wrote:If I say that a gay couple want the *bleep* to walk together hand in hand, what is the word for "*bleep*" since it's not "right" or "privilege"?
How about "a gay couple want
to be able to walk hand in hand." Just a matter of phrasing, really.