londonbones:

STFU, Conservatives: Are we really having the “don’t you mean SOME ____ people” argument again, Tumblr?

stfuconservatives:

bcarpizo:

stfuconservatives:

w/r/t The Arkh Project: it is, in fact, significant that a straight white cis person tried to shut down the Arkh Project. It’s not just “some bigot.” The game will feature non-straight, non-white, non-cis people. Specifically. So someone to whom the game will not cater specifically tried to shut…

Cool, yeah, I know how physically difficult it can be to type “some” sometimes.

My bad for not being able to inherently read your mind. lmfao. Just being a liberal doesn’t entitle you to a benefit of the doubt. I’m not going to assume you DON’T mean ALL of a certain group just because you’re liberal, and liberals hate bigots…

Just think, if someone from the left wing made a similar mistake, we’d be all over that too.

We don’t say SOME because it allows ignorant people the ability to mentally remove themselves from the issue. If we or anyone else were to say “some white people oppress non-white people” you would be able to think “Oh well I know that I’m not oppressing anybody! They must not be talking about me!” When the reality is you probably don’t even realize the myriad of ways your day-to-day is perpetuating oppression against others. 

But here’s the key, and I think it’s the one most people miss, privilege and being a member of an oppressive group doesn’t make you an inherently bad person. Usually it only makes you an ignorant person, and that you can improve upon. Recognize your privilege: see where you’ve been given an opportunity others might not have had, notice and think about the things you’re lucky enough to not have to notice or think about on a constant basis. Take that consideration and (hopefully) new found knowledge and work towards a better future for everyone.

It’s also important to remember that your actions, however positive, don’t void your “oppressive privileged group” member card but really that’s something you just have to get over. Society is bigger than you, me and tumblr, it takes a whole lot of people a whole lot of time to change and improve society. It’s not impossible but it is daunting and it isn’t helped by removing yourself from the inequalities by saying “well don’t you mean SOME ____ people?”

-Joe

First of all, you state that in our day-to-day lives we oppress people who are less privileged than us without naming any specific examples. Second of all, you say that people who are members of an “oppressive” group are usually ignorant. That it’s self is an unwarranted generalization based on what race, ability, gender or sex a person is which is bigotry. I don’t care what you say, it’s never okay to make assumptions of people based on race. I’d like you to consider how white tourists/activists who’ve been killed by racist black Africans because they were white despite the fact that in South Africa black people have been treated as second class citizens for decades. Generalizations based on things I previously described fuel bigotry regardless of how privileged the target is and bigotry only leads to cruelty and violence. Making sweeping generalizations about people is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem.   

Hello. By your icon I see that you’re white. Me too. How’s that for common ground! Here’s a specific example: each and every single day you are free to go through your day without thinking about, acknowledging, or understanding racism because you’re not subject to it. White people benefit continually from a racist society: higher wages, better education, being considered normal in a society where people of color are othered, and never having to think about how their whiteness will change how others interact with them. This is called white privilege. Because white privilege is so insidious, it can be hard to see white privilege if you’re white, even when someone points it out to you, and often white people like you and me will react negatively to the idea that we could be oppressing people because it’s hard to stomach — and because part of white power is a societally ingrained ignorance and reluctance to acknowledge white power. But the fact remains that we benefit from our privilege.

I’d like you to consider that in pretty much the entire world, including Africa, white people have subjugated, colonized, and culturally dominated people of color by poisoning the environment, slaughtering them, and enslaving them. Anger and backlash against systematic, institutionalized rape, murder, and slavery is usually called self-defense, and even though the loss of life is tragic, it isn’t racism.

Telling privileged people that they are privileged is not cruel, RACISM is cruel. The worst thing that happens to MOST privileged people when they’re called on their privilege is a lot of embarrassment. I think that’s worth opening a few eyes. And honestly, privileged people can stand being generalized for a few minutes on tumblr. It wouldn’t hurt them to know what it’s like on the other side every minute of every day.