On Privilege and Laci Green
In which I discuss the idea of Privilege and how the internet can take social justice to crazy extremes. Internet, I love you, but sometimes you are terrifying. Lacis Channel: www.youtube.com Lacis Tumblr: lacigreen.tumblr.com
26 Comments
*For the first sentence, I meant to type "then all other religions that do the same thing should be criticized" I can’t type 🙂
(…continued) Any way, sorry this got so long, but all I’m saying is that to my knowledge, if we took the most fundamentalist Christian teaching and compare to the most fundamentalist Muslim teaching, the Muslim teaching will put way more restrictions on women. I could be wrong based on my limited knowledge of Islam. What do you think? Were you just saying that Christianity has some sexism, or do you think it’s equal or greater than sexism in Islam? (Not saying two wrongs make a right, though)
(…continued) I will admit there is some misogyny in Christianity. Personally, I would interpret 1 Timothy 2:12 as applying only to St. Paul’s time period, but many Christians interpret this to be always and thus the Catholic church and some Protestant groups don’t allow women to be priests/pastors, but some Protestant groups do. I know abortion is a super controversial issue, which some Christians oppose, but no more than Muslims do I would guess. (continued…)
I agree that if Islam is criticized for doing something, than all other religions that do the same thing. Since I’m not Muslim, I don’t know all of Islam’s teachings regarding women, so there may be things I’ve missed. However, based on my limited knowledge, fundamentalist Islam gives women fewer rights than any religion I’m familiar with, at least the kind in Saudi Arabia where women must have "guardians" to go anywhere. Since you mentioned sexism within Christianity, (continued…)
Part of the problem is more that Catholicism’s sexism and Protestantism’s sexism is not called out, at least for me. I can’t help but call it Islamophobic when one treats Islam as one of the few religions that hates on women, though most of the largest religions do, in actuality.
Part of the problem is more that Catholicism’s sexism and Protestantism’s sexism is not called out, at least for me. I can’t help but call it Islamophobic when one treats Islam as one of the few religions that hates on women, though most of the largest religions do, in actuality.
*acknowledged
Yayy good video (: I’m glad you acknowledges privilege.
I also think that a community that is open, inclusive and protective of its members would be wonderful, though of course it’s not going to happen any time soon, at least not everywhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, for each of us, there is only one person’s behavior that we can control, and I like to think that I have been fairly conciliatory in my comments online, but there are probably times that I’ve messed up so I may need to change, too.
And there have been folks who’ve highlighted that such suffering occurs for WOC (women of color) and trans folks of color. I think the only thing that can reduce such threats right now is a vibrant online community that is open, inclusive and protective of its members. Absolute prevention of any behavior is a pipe dream, unfortunately.
And there have been folks who’ve highlighted that such suffering occurs for WOC (women of color) and trans folks of color. I think the only thing that can reduce such threats right now is a vibrant online community that is open, inclusive and protective of its members. Absolute prevention of any behavior is a pipe dream, unfortunately.
The LDS Church, Islam, or any other religion should either give women equal rights, or, if they don’t want to, then not be offended if people like Laci call them sexist. If any religion believes women don’t deserve equal rights as men, then shouldn’t they take it as a compliment if someone says they are chauvinist? Religious freedom is a fundamental human right, but part of that is the freedom to disagree with other religions.
Laci may be the beneficiary of white privilege in many circumstances, but she is definitely a victim here. If there are women belonging to racial minorities who deal with the same or even worse threats, well, maybe this is a good opportunity to highlight their suffering just as Laci’s situation is being highlighted. I don’t know how to actual prevent these sort of threats, though, unless vloggers go into hiding and their kids attend special high-security schools.
And your last sentence is the issue for me. He’s not connected to folks of color, which he doesn’t HAVE to be, but I think if he’s not, he’ll almost ALWAYS miss when people of color are targeted while being clued-in when similarly oriented white folks are targeted. He’s not a bad person. But that’s a function of white privilege, where it’s ok to really only connect to white people and expect POC to come on their knees to you when they want you to hear them out.
And your last sentence is the issue for me. He’s not connected to folks of color, which he doesn’t HAVE to be, but I think if he’s not, he’ll almost ALWAYS miss when people of color are targeted while being clued-in when similarly oriented white folks are targeted. He’s not a bad person. But that’s a function of white privilege, where it’s ok to really only connect to white people and expect POC to come on their knees to you when they want you to hear them out.
3 and 4) I agree that that is scary. I’m saying that happens systemically for women of color on tumblr over and over, WITHOUT a large response from folks like John Green nor vloggers such as yourself. That’s privilege for white women and oppression for women of color as there is a measurable power imbalance. People aren’t used to seeing whites like that because of the power imbalance. Threatening women of color with pics of their kids, and tumblr-verse is mum so no penalty for the threat.
You make a good point on number 2, though I am unnerved by the reminder that someone I could trust could be so cruel, though of course that capacity is in us all. On number 1, though you’re way off. Prejudice and oppression are quite different. Oppression has the active power imbalance to make it a system of privileges and legislated prejudices, unlike you holding an anti-man bias or me holding an anti-white bias.
3) What scares me is not that she got threats, it’s the extent these people went to. They knew where she lived and sent her pictures of her apartment to prove it.
4) The fact that you say I would "not last one day as a woman of color vlogger" proves my point about privilege. people aren’t used to seeing whites being threatened like that.
1) there is sexism against men and racism against whites. these prejudices are held by people who are in a group of people that is normally oppressed.
2) There were numerous threats, so the chances of it being a troll is extremely unlikely, but obviously we can’t prove who issued them.
It’s not that whites are inherently "more hateful," it’s that in our society whites have the power and often, people with power abuse it and believe the groups they belong to as being better. Our society is fucked up, and I acknowledge that.
It is not that we disagree. It is that you refuse to acknowledge the fact that privilege exists at all. You keep saying it shouldn’t/ doesn’t and I keep trying to explain to you that, while it is totally messed up, we do happen to live in a society where oppression and prejudice still run rampant. This is a fact you keep ignoring despite my pointing it out numerous times.
We just disagree, and it appears that nothing will come of our back and forth here. I see your post being exactly why I want the sides eliminated. Both sides continually view things from their bubble of one-sided information that only reinforces their perspective. My take is that people are people, and people have problems. So a group should address the whole, rather than fight each other or claim that the other side has more, which is a fight that will never end. Both sides are wrong.
Some isms do go both ways, but you cannot deny that, in our society, there are groups that are more oppressed. You can say that sexism against men is an issue, but the fact is, men have a much easier time getting a job, getting a loan, etc. The number of men-hating women is far fewer than the number of women-hating men.
"It also ignores that fact that some groups are more oppressed than others"
Both sides think they’re more oppressed than the other side. Which is why they must be eliminated. Sides only cause more conflict. Since it is in fact true that sexism goes both ways, it must then be treated as such for the benfit of all. All concerns must be heard and considered.
The problem with saying that everyone needs to defend the rights of every group does not take into account the fact that some people do not think certain groups are oppressed and therefor and all-or-nothing attitude makes these people unlikely to defend anyone’s rights. It also ignores that fact that some groups are more oppressed than others. For example, racism is (unfortunately) still a thing that exists, but it is far less common than homophobia.
To agree that everyone should be defended, is include the other side of the "ism" of which you left out. Therefore the word feminism doesn’t need to exist, nor should there be groups like the MRA. A group needs to equally support the rights of everyone, or no one at all. So a name given would have to be one that is inclusive of everyone. You can stop alot of the war between the sides, if the group was both sides in one; equally supporting the rights of both sexes.