AH HA. Niche obtained.

[recursiveparadox]

I finally found my niche. Angry trans girl. After all, I am pretty fucking pissed off when I write in here.

I'm not always pissed off though, it's just that blogging reminds me of all the stupid awful shit people do to trans women, among ten billion other marginalized minorities... arrrrgh fuck I want to BREAK THINGS NOW! ...oh, there it is. Angry again. See?

The fact is, I'm done letting people push me around with the word bitch. I'm going to wear it as a flag. A flag that says, "fuck you, misogyny. Fuck you, transphobia. Fuck you, homophobia. Fuck you, society. You calling me a bitch won't stop me now. It's my fucking word now."

And really, my posts had always had a slightly antagonistic nature to them. Privilege is stagnant. It's easy to just do nothing when you aren't directly affected by marginalization and bigotry. To sink into the mud and just shrug at the rest of us. So don't be surprised when you get the firm kick to the head to wake you the fuck up. And frankly, I won't be surprised if I get a few firm kicks myself, because I have various kinds of privilege myself. White privilege, abled privilege, etc. If I need to be drop kicked, I expect it to be done. No mercy, folks. Because I sure as hell won't give it. XD

So, new look and feel, new name for the blog and embracing the angry bitch in me. Overall a very very good beginning to August.

~RP

Comments

[veridiansage]

Well, if you request a lack of mercy...
White Privilege is something I find personally detestable.
It's racism, plain and simple.
The fact that it judges me based on What I am, rather than what I do or who I am is just icing on the cake.

It gives that special after school message to the kids: "Remember, if someone can be labeled as a part of some magical "majority" it's okay to do all those horrible things we aren't supposed to do to others to them."
Because, we all know, if you hate people because they are of Caucasian stock, it isn't racism, it's justice.

[recursiveparadox]

This makes me wish I put up my "For The Uninformed" post on privilege already.

But I can go over the concept in a slightly less detailed sense here. Privilege (white or otherwise) is actually a concept describing a sociological phenomenon wherein a dominant group is afforded power, advantages and protections that a marginalized non dominant group is denied.

It's based on the layman's definition of privilege (an advantage given that isn't given to others) and expanded on for the sociological version. White privilege is, quite simply, a set of benefits that are given to people that society recognizes or includes into the dominant group referred to as white.

Privilege isn't something you or I tried to get. It isn't even necessarily something you and I want. But it is something that society readily affords to us to use or not use as we see fit. And that choice is denied to marginalized groups (in this example, other people of color).

Unfortunately a very large number of activists forget (or feel it isn't their job) to explain what this concept means before they use it. Which means that a lot of widespread misconceptions (like that privilege justifies doing bad things to white people) are present.

In reality, what privilege means is that a given group or anyone placed into that group (there are some black people who appear "white" and therefore have white privilege until they say something. I have cis privilege until I mention I'm trans because of my physical structure is heavily feminized) are given certain things and another isn't, and that the people who have privilege need to be aware of what they are given and what the other group isn't, so they know what to address.

It's also important to know what one's privilege entails because it can lead to a lack of perspective. For instance, a white person would not have had the experiences that a member of the Rroma group might and ergo would not make the association between the g~ word and injury, harm, rape, loss of basic rights and mistreatment. A white person would not have the personal experience of the word being used to marginalize them, or of hearing the word and feeling pain from it. So that lack of perspective makes it hard to understand why a Rroma person would not want that word used.

That is white privilege. Nothing to feel guilty for, or to hate oneself for. Nothing you did wrong. And certainly not justification to hurt or throw aside your needs. It's just a sociological descriptor used to promote perspective in discourse.

[recursiveparadox]

Oh, I forgot to add, Privilege is an overlapping phenomenon. One can have privilege from say race, but be marginalized in another area. It's always important, when discussing privilege, to avoid the Oppression Olympics. After all a poverty stricken white person may in fact have it far worse than an affluent black person. White privilege doesn't just cancel out marginalization for other things. Nor does being oppressed for one's race cancel out things like cis privilege or class privilege if one is not trans or affluent.

That's why privilege as a term and concept should only be a tool for determining where one lacks perspective and what a marginalized group needs from society to no longer be marginalized. Makes more sense, now?