a few non-exhaustive words about privilege

[sophiaserpentia]

A friend pointed me to this list of privilege the other day. Quoting bits which are relevant to frequent discussion in this journal:

privilege is consistently responding to disagreement, criticism, and concerns with condescension and hostility, then accusing the unprivileged of being irrational, inconsistent, duplicitous, guileful, and unappeasable

privilege is feeling entitled to the conformity in behaviours and attitudes of the unprivileged

privilege is not having to be self-conscious and self-critical

privilege is the habit of seeking power and influence over others

the privileged sees power over others as success

privilege is the ability to start, end, and avoid discussion with little consequence

privilege is shelter from direct consequences

privilege is feeling entitled to be better off than others

I want to add a few of my own:

Privilege means not having to wonder, ever, if people around you are regularly putting your needs ahead of theirs.

Privilege means being able to laugh at certain kinds of joke instead of being aware of your inferiority.

Privilege means not having to worry about the effects of your words or actions.

Edit. It was correctly pointed out that this list reflects the automatic assumption or perhaps assertion-by-default of privilege.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Agreed. If someone was to, say, make a joke about the size of my privates, I may get self conscious, but I wouldn't feel oppressed or discriminated against.

That line of humor does not reflect a pattern of oppression in our society anyway.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Nope, my own definition of oppression deals with patterns of power imbalance in social institutions and ideologies. I keep my eye on that at all times.

If my anger drives me to make statements that might upset people, i always feel bad afterwards. But i would never try to pass it off as humor.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

As one person said, much of what we see as racist/sexist humor was created by the people it targets (Such as the jews and their very long tradition of self deprecating humor).

It's one thing if Jews or Catholics tell one another self-deprecating jokes, but quite another if someone else tells the same jokes. For example, if *i* make a joke about the Catholic sex abuse scandal, it would mean something quite different from if you told it, even if it were the same exact joke. Humor is very contextual, and the same words can imply vastly different things depending on who is telling the joke.

[neitherday.livejournal.com]

We could argue about this all day long, but I don't think either of us are going to change our opinions on this matter. Which is why I've never understood the concept of debate in the first place (it usually just degenerates into a bunch of people yelling at each other and calling each other names as tempers flare and attitudes arise--especially online).

IMHO, the point of debates is more to influence neutral observers and not the person(s) one is actually debating with.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

The thing that I see happening is that many people feel that malice is inherent in humor. I don't agree with that, but a lot of people feel that way.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Some humor has malice, some does not. It's not always easy to tell the difference, especially if you're not the target of it.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I've been the target of racist jokes (Irish, Scottish, English, Mexican - due to my past marriage to someone who was ethnically Hispanic), religious jokes (pagan and Catholic), sexist jokes (as I was born female), gay jokes and trans jokes. Most of them were told by people who were of the same ethnicity, religion, etc. as the targets. My late father-in-law was 100% Mexican-American, and he collected what he called "beaner" jokes. He thought they were hysterical.

I do not agree with your contention, and it bothers me that you'd rather focus on the oppression or supposed malice than on the humor. It makes me wonder if you've ever laughed at yourself, or allowed yourself to be the target of a joke without feeling enraged or oppressed.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

What do you want me to say? Sometimes humor is malicious, sometimes it is not. Do you feel that humor is never malicious?

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Most humor, in order to be malicious, has to be intentionally so. I don't think the groups of people who make jokes you would consider malicious to be intrisincally malicious people. And I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt unless there is other overt evidence of malice.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I see your point. I tend to analyze based on action; to me, malice and hatred are descriptive of actions and motives, not perceived feelings. People are not always aware of their own motives or feelings, my theory being that we are in some ways blinkered from seeing our own participation in patterns of hate.

IMO telling someone that they "just can't take a joke" is evidence of malice; it is very belittling and means that the target's sensibilities are not worthy of consideration.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I tend to analyze based on motive, or idea. Action comes from motive and motive comes from ideas. If a person don't have the demonstrated intent to be malicious, it is important to give the benefit of the doubt.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

And I would agree with you that saying "you can't take a joke" is a slight indicator of malice. It's still only a slight one, however. Not all indicators have the same amount of strength. A person making an ethnic joke who gets embarrassed when challenged on it is not, IMO, the same as a person who publishes a book of ethnic jokes and says "They can't take a joke, can they? Humorless twits!" about people who object to one or two of the jokes in it, nor is it the same as a person who makes egregiously, overtly, and maliciously racist statements in addition to telling racist jokes.