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truepennyThis is International Blog Against Racism Week. The community is ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ibarw, and is collecting links.
Racism, like all kinds of bigotry, is a blight on our species. It makes me angry and impatient that we haven't fixed it yet (yeah, like it's that simple, I know, I know)--and I'm someone privileged by the status quo. I don't want to be privileged, and I think it's important to understand that the opposite of privilege is not oppression. This is a frequently made and frequently unarticulated mistake that I think fuels a lot of the fear that keeps systemic, institutionalized racism operational, the belief that this is a zero-sum game. Which it isn't. The opposite of privilege--and the opposite of oppression--is equality.
ETA: I realized, thinking about it, that the above conceptualization is slightly wrong. Privilege and oppression are opposites, because they're a binary, and binary thinking--in this, as in a bunch of other kinds of bigotry: sexism, homophobia, religious jingoism, etc. etc.--is one of the underlying, ingrained fallacies that keeps the Us vs. Them mentality alive.
Equality is the third term, the term that explodes the false binary.
ibarw, and is collecting links.Racism, like all kinds of bigotry, is a blight on our species. It makes me angry and impatient that we haven't fixed it yet (yeah, like it's that simple, I know, I know)--and I'm someone privileged by the status quo. I don't want to be privileged, and I think it's important to understand that the opposite of privilege is not oppression. This is a frequently made and frequently unarticulated mistake that I think fuels a lot of the fear that keeps systemic, institutionalized racism operational, the belief that this is a zero-sum game. Which it isn't. The opposite of privilege--and the opposite of oppression--is equality.
ETA: I realized, thinking about it, that the above conceptualization is slightly wrong. Privilege and oppression are opposites, because they're a binary, and binary thinking--in this, as in a bunch of other kinds of bigotry: sexism, homophobia, religious jingoism, etc. etc.--is one of the underlying, ingrained fallacies that keeps the Us vs. Them mentality alive.
Equality is the third term, the term that explodes the false binary.
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Date: 2009-07-31 02:42 am (UTC)This assertion is wrong. (http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146#not_bad) One can understand privilege and be aware of it. I've never heard anyone talk about ending it. A lot of the time "ending" it would require a time machine and probably some kind of plot hole spackle.