Scazli, Privilge, et al part the second

So the debate on white privilige Scalzi started marches on and, God willing, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not on the debate being over as much as people losing interest in the debate. After kindly getting several thousand hits from him and braving the comments section on Whatever and Kotaku I think we'll all be glad that this will soon blow over---though an argument ended is not the same as an argument won.

The majority of objections to the SWM thesis have validity until the first third of the Twentieth Century.

Being Irish may as well have been the same thing as being black. Class divisions may as well have been as insurmountable as the Berlin wall. If you were Jewish...yeah, that was a barrell of fun in and of itself. It bears repeating that "White" is not a perfect point of origin but exists (thankfully!) because enough discriminations within being "White" have subsided to the point where being white outweighs being English, German, whatever.

At this point in time enough discrimination has subsided to the point where we can tell where the margins were and we've realized discrimination is bad, but not the point where we understand that discrimination still is a fact of life for many, many people. Less amongst women, white women especially; less amongst black people but still lingering; a heck of a lot more towards people of different sexual orientation. We acknowledge discrimination is bad and have removed the painful edges but now have to contend with the chunky debris.

"Privilige" is not a fight of polar extremes but rather a mass of Venn diagram circles overlapping with each other to different extremes: white and black, man or woman. A hundred years ago there would have been slim, if any, overlap. Now there is more. There needs to be more.

The first part of the fight against privilige is the journey to understand that there have been many other experiences in parrallel to your own. The second part of the fight against privilige is the journey to understand that these experiences may be different than your own.


(+25 Paragon)