Penny Arcade and 'The Mike Problem'

[JackSlack]

The charts? Yes.

[Elomin Sha]

My bullshit meter agrees too.

[Trisha Lynn]

This is so fascinating to watch & read on my phone. I wish I had access to a computer so I could read & respond better.

I'm gonna go off on a tangent about privilege for a bit. I was raised in a suburb in Southern California. Most of my peers were middle class white folks in advanced education classes, so I can't understand what it's like to grow up "white trash" like Jerry did. However, Jerry has also never had a guy tell him that he thought all Asian chicks were hot & wouldn't I like to have sex with him? That's what privilege is, to me.

[King Kool]

Ditto, I have a serious question that I want you to consider.

We all know the unfortunate tendency of those who were bullied to, in some way, turn into bullies in later life. It might be the most common thread between everyone in the 'geek' spectrum.

Responding sarcastically and aggressively to something you think is obvious is how Gabe got into the first Twitter mess from a few months ago.

After you nearly took my head off earlier in this thread, it took some discipline to not return the same in kind. What stopped me was the knowledge that I still could be wrong, and maybe I HAD stepped over some boundary I didn't notice. I gave you the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming you were stupid.

It is possible that, if Gabe hadn't been dismissive of a different point of view, and if someone calmly explained it instead of people losing their minds over it, this whole thing might not have happened.

What is the operational difference between his sarcastic and aggressive response and your last post?

[Wraith]

As a white person, I'm treated better. Everyone should be treated that way, but they aren't. That makes it a privilege: something I'm getting that others aren't, for no reasons other than my being white.

Do you believe that everyone has the inherent right to live without being raped? Does that mean that if they ARE raped, they no longer have that right? Of course not.

Human rights are human rights. Having them denied or violated does not make them any less so. A privilege isn’t just something people have that others don’t, it’s something granted to certain people that not everyone is entitled to.

It would be silly to say "women have always had the right to vote". No they haven't. Sure, they should have, but they didn't.

There is a difference between legal rights and human rights. Legal rights are things you can do within the law. Human rights are granted by virtue of being born. They are inherent, intrinsic, and inalienable. Legal rights are granted by the government.

Voting would indeed be an example of privilege. People do not inherently have the right to have a say in a decision. The thing is, the people who say “check your privilege” are rarely if ever ever “you only think that way because you get to legally do something that I don’t.”

I don't like it when people take my words and attach negative connotation that was never there. I don't like it when they do it to me, I don't like it when they do it to other people (like Mike), it's just a really disingenuous, unfair thing to do.

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?

Sure. No problem.

When I hear some say “you’ll never understand because you’re a spoiled white boy living in a cis-hetero-patriarchy that was built for people like you. You need to check your fucking privilege!”

I feel pretty confident that they’re marginalizing whatever that person has gone through because they’re a white, cis hetero male. For all they know, white, cis hetero male could have been born into a poor welfare family with a drunken father who physically, emotionally and sexually abused him. He could have joined the military to escape that life, wound up in combat and watched his friends and brothers get blown to pieces; had to wipe parts of his best friend’s brains off his sleeve. He could have come home to find his town and everyone left that he cared about destroyed by natural disasters. He could have gotten hooked on booze or drugs to forget the nightmare his life has been. When you engage a stranger, knowing nothing about them other than the fact that they’re white, you know nothing about them, and to assume that they haven’t lived through some shit just because they disagree with you is an asshole thing to do.

Conversely, when someone takes the time to explain the difference between privileges and rights three times, and then asks Please, tell me; what exactly does he enjoy that other people are not inherently entitled to as members of the human race? I’m pretty confident that they’re trying to point out that the person they’re talking to is thinking of rights, not privileges; and thus, responding as if they said “please tell me, what could a gay person have possibly lived through that this straight white male never did?” Is a cheap, disingenuous, unfair attempt to leverage people’s sympathy as way to “win.”

Understand the difference?

This is what I often refer to as “the oppression Olympics.”

Unless the words are "Check your privilege", apparently.

Nope. Still hate it. Which is why I don't do it. Pointing out that people are using the word "privilege" to describe right that everyone has is not attaching unfair negative connotations to that phrase, nor is describing how it is used every time I've previously seen it.

You've been presented twice now, with a person saying explaining that their impression of something is different to your, and both times you have insisted that your experience trumps theirs, and your impression is the correct one.

Takes two to tango, doesn't it? Isn't that what the people presenting me with their impressions are doing, by implying that the impression I've gotten from seeing the word is incorrect?

Of course I believe my impression is correct. If you don’t believe your impression is correct, then it’s not really your impression, is it? That’s what makes it your impression - that it’s what you believe is correct!

You obviously have no intention of trying to see things from another's point of view, or trying to understand why someone might disagree. So I'm done with you.

I could say the exact same thing about you. I’ve given as much ground as you have, yet somehow, because I’m just stubborn and not listening because I didn’t change my mind and agree with you. That’s rather hypocritical.

I'm a biologist at heart and to me the only thing that determines gender/sex (don't really know which I mean here) is XX or XY.

Sex. Most people these days use gender & sex interchangeably, but a year or two ago, Fayili made a point of insisting there was a difference, so I studied up on it, and found she was quite correct.

SEX is a biological classification. Male and female and man and woman are sexes. Sex determination is based on chromosomal pairings and internal reproductive organs. It does not take into account psychology or brain chemistry. There have been less than a dozen cases where these factors did not result in the standard determinations via scientific classifications; due to certain rare mutations, such as a mutated CBX2 gene overrides the SRY component, essentially resulting in a “dud” y chromosome.

GENDER, on the other hand, refers to masculine and feminine. They are societal constructs. Concepts such as “what is manly” or “what is a man/woman’s place.” It absolutely take psychology into consideration.

And if we're really going to get into this? The definition of privilege is "A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to one person or group of people." I think that fits what we were saying pretty well.

Special being the keyword. Implying that they are not the basic rights which are inherently, inalienable granted to humanity.

The topic of conversation for this thread WAS, again, how Mike's saying they shouldn't have pulled the dickwolves shirts, and how that made a lot of rape survivors, female-bodied people, and female-identifying people feel unsafe, and whether this was reason to no longer support PA. The previous "blowups" informed decision for some people on this matter.

The topic was Mike and whether or not we should go to PAX. Central to that discussion - and brought up in the original post as half of the argument for their being a problem with Mike was - as the original post called it “the cis blowup.”

What strange and funny rights these are, to be consistently and systematically denied to me through no fault of my own, at the whim of the greater culture, and not assured to me by anyone!

Actually, most of those things - particularly anything having to do with you not being physically attacked - are assured to you by the law. “But the law fails! I’ve gotten attacked, gay men get attacked every day!” Yes, indeed the law does fail to prevent people from getting attacked. But if something stops being a right because at times it gets illegally violated, then straight men don’t have a right to walk through the park with their spouse without getting attacked, either.

Bottom line, you can scoff at the idea of it being a right all you want, but if it’s not a basic right, then you don’t get to make the argument that you’re inherently entitled to it, which rather significantly weakens pretty much every gay rights argument ever.

Guess we should start referring to it as “the fight for gay privilege” eh? Because you don’t get to refer to something as a “right” when you’re fighting for it, and the say “it’s a privilege, not a right” when you want to leverage sympathy in order to win an argument.

I am glad Wraith you were here to let me know that it is not that I am not simply being denied a privilege; instead, my rights are constantly being violated.

...did you not already know that?

Honestly?

You’re really telling me that at no point did you think that gay men being attacked for their sexuality were having their rights violated? Really? Because that seems kind of obvious to me.

That makes me feel so much better and completely erases the practical effects of those violations! I am glad you're here to set me straight (pun definitely intended).

Wasn’t trying to make you feel better. I’m sorry you went through some dark times that you shouldn’t have been subjected to; but this conversation isn’t about you.

Who shall I petition to ensure that my rights are afforded to me and have my profound sense of unease removed from me? The United Nations? Or does culture at large have a P.O. Box?

Good question. Personally, I’ve taken to writing articles and thought experiments on the internet. I doubt it will have any great effect in the grand scheme of things, but but the only way to influence culture is to start by using your own voice, and then hope enough other voices do the same. That’s how you build cultural influence. Cultural influence is what changes culture.

Once upon a time, me and rocket would have faced the same dangers that you do walking down the street with your spouse. The cheerios commercial controversy illustrated that even to this day, there are an awful lot of people not comfortable with the idea of interracial marriage. Still, I usually feel safe, because enough black voices joined together that influence was gathered and culture was eventually changed. But make no mistake - when my people fought for equality, we weren’t fighting for privilege. We were legal protection of our human rights

[AlexanderDitto]

If you can't tell the difference between responding to a complaint that someone felt something you said was hurtful by ridiculing rape survivors, and my responding sarcastically to Wraith's entirely meaningless syntactic argument, you are painting with so broad a brush that I cannot imagine we could ever have a meaningful discourse about these issues.

You're casting Wraith as the victim here. Really? Really?

I also find it somewhat amusing that you accuse me of attacking you or being violent to you in some way ("lopping off your head") whenever I respond to your posts. I had no idea I was such a powerful typist! I will stop immediately to spare you further injury. Honestly I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. Heaven knows I've been down this road before and it hasn't gotten me anywhere. The best thing for me to do when somebody says something so flagrantly naïve as to deny the existance of heterosexual privilege (oh, sorry, I mean "the systematic, cultural denial of some of my human rights because I'm gay, which heterosexual people do not suffer", because that makes it much clearer I guess?) is to just let it slide.

[King Kool]

I didn't even MENTION Wraith! Casting him as victim? What are you talking about?

I'm not saying I can't tell the difference. I want you to elucidate what you think the primary difference is. I want to understand the way you're looking at this.

[AlexanderDitto]

Nope! Not doing this anymore. After all, doing so might inadvertantly mame you.

[King Kool]

I believe it's "maim." But alright.

[mariomario42]

This thread has gone bonkers.

Is it just the twitter thing from a while ago and the saying that the dickwolves shirts shouldn't have been pulled as the problem?

If that's what this PAX drama/anger I've been slightly reading into the last couple days has been about, I think people need to step back and reevaluate some things.

[ex-Lurker]

So this thread is apparently a thing.
I would just like to note that this discussion is rapidly approaching the terrible level of a typical internet forum, so I would ask people to calm down before they post again, for the good of everyone.
People have different life experiences due to a variety of factors, meaning you're going to interpret thing differently, one of these things is the implications of a word.
People are different, please understand and accept that.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Agreed, reverse thrusters, null velocity, resume normal operations.

[ex-Lurker]

Ay ay Captain!
But more on topic, it feels like PA needs to heed some of the lessons they taught during Strip Search. (The twitter episode comes to mind)

[JayBlanc]

Re: Cis White Male Privilege.

I defer to Mister John Scalzi - Being a Straight White Male is western life's Easy Difficulty Setting.

[Mums]

I might regret jumping into this discussion...
Also, sorry if I might be putting words in anyones mouths but I will try to say how I think there might have been a missunderstanding in the intentions of what the other people were saying.

Firstly, it is a privilege for a white heterosexual male not having to fight for the basic rights. 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. It would be start to make sure that maybe homosexuals share this same privilege as white male heterosexuals but it would be better if we all could fight for it not to be viewed as a privilege but instead as something that is granted everyone. It should be the same crime to violate the rights of a person no matter whatever their origins/orientations and so forth may be. I think that is what wraith ment. Don't view something that should be granted all as a privilege but instead as something that should be granted all and not just those who are privileged.

[Duckay]

When I hear some say “you’ll never understand because you’re a spoiled white boy living in a cis-hetero-patriarchy that was built for people like you. You need to check your fucking privilege!”

Sure, I appreciate that. However, if I can draw your attention to a statement that I made earlier in this thread:

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.

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.

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.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

OK, I think I'm going to stop reading this thread...

[JayBlanc]

But at the moment yes, Cis White Males do have a privileged position in western society. 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.

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.

[DissonantNight]

Who wants to guess how long until we get to invoke Godwin's law on this thread?

[Mums]

I'm not sure if that was directed at me Jay.

I completly agree with you. I just wanted to say that the distinction for me is that the freedom to not be attacked, harrased and so on is a basic right and not a privilege. Where men are privileged is in the fact that they do enjoy these basic rights without having to fight for them. For me it's important to note that difference. I know that what I wrote is a bit scrambled. I don't deny that men generally have a much better situation then women, especially white heterosexual men.

[2stepz]

I just have one more comment to add. From an outsiders perspective (not a huge PA fan, not a rape victim, not trans) I'm actually a little bit proud of Mike.

Before you blow up, let me finish.

Mike had the guts to say what a lot of people were thinking. He may have been wrong, but he was in the majority for at least part of this kerfuffle. He made a mistake, and he made it very publicly. As a result, he drew attention to problems that most people would not have otherwise known about. His mistake, which he has admitted to, caused a light to be shown and a great many people to be exposed to and educated on a subject from which they could easily have hidden for years.

Mike made some mistakes and said some things he shouldn't have, and he did it in view of a large audience. The result is MANY people learned the lesson from his mistakes. In the large scheme of things, I'd call that a win for humanity.

Silver Linings, people... sometimes they're more valuable than the dark cloud.

[Duckay]

I just wanted to say that the distinction for me is that the freedom to not be attacked, harrased and so on is a basic right and not a privilege. Where men are privileged is in the fact that they do enjoy these basic rights without having to fight for them. For me it's important to note that difference.

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought to put it like that, but I think that's very apt. Thinking of it like that helps me get my head around the way the terminology is used. Thank you for that.

[empath]

Who wants to guess how long until we get to invoke Godwin's law on this thread?

(replace "term" for "word" but yeah; might wanna double-check the ACTUAL source of that, as opposed to the 'commonly believed meaning' ;^) )


But a big, disappointed sigh, because none of you seem to realise...

...Wraith's on your side.

Yes, he's argumentative; to be blunt - this is the guy you go to if you wanna polish your planned speech for a debate. He'll find every little loophole and flaw, and help you find them.

But he means no malice by it. Do not confuse criticism with hate.

The main issue here is: he doesn't suffer fools gladly; you know that 1% of a given movement who are WAY too worked up about it? The ones that are obsessive over the issue, and get - to be honest - beyond strident and veer into "hostile" and "offensive" and even sometimes "threatening"?

Yeah, HE doesn't turn a blind eye to them. He doesn't brush them under the rug, or ignore the tap-dancing one-elephant-band in the room.

...and if he - someone that supports your cause has issues with a small but VERY VOCAL minority that makes your cause look VERY bad, there's plenty of others out there that feel that way, too.

...so if YOU feel uncomfortable when he brings them up, is it really HIS fault?



Oh, and thank you Mums - I think you've managed to provide the linkage between what Wraith is saying, and what y'all seem think how he's wrong. (he's NOT, he just hasn't finished his syllogism)

[Duckay]

I just want to clarify here, although I have been debating the point (and sometimes not as well as I could have, but I hope on the whole not too badly), I hold no malice towards anyone in this thread. My intentions in debating some of these points was not to say that anyone participating in the thread is a terrible person or anything like that.

Just in case I gave anyone the wrong impression.

[Mums]

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought to put it like that, but I think that's very apt. Thinking of it like that helps me get my head around the way the terminology is used. Thank you for that.

Oh, and thank you Mums - I think you've managed to provide the linkage between what Wraith is saying, and what y'all seem think how he's wrong. (he's NOT, he just hasn't finished his syllogism)

I was hopeing that someone would get what I was trying to say even though I might not have been too clear about my message, at least not in my first post.

I've started to acknowledge a lot of disputes are often between people who are likeminded but communicate in different ways which makes for some unfortunate debate.