Facebook thread, the woman I got into a debate with hasn't responded yet.

giegerwasright · 2013-08-28T06:36:34+00:00

Notice that coworker's friend immediately conflated you with "rich white men"? Yeah. That's the same thing as conflating all black people as crack smoking heroin dealing white women raping carelessly reproducing crips, isn't it? Oh. But the latter isn't OK because that's racist. Exactly.

Oppression Olympics.

bebopsruin · 2013-08-28T01:12:35+00:00

To give a bit of context:

A coworker of mine (orange) posted this article, we chatted about it at work today. I posted my responses (blue) on his wall. One of his friends (grey) started in with the rhetoric, so I responded with my experiences + what I know. It's been a few hours and still no response from her.... we'll see where this goes.

bebopsruin · 2013-08-28T04:42:45+00:00

How is a conversation on race, a men's rights issue?

nwz123 · 2013-08-28T16:46:16+00:00

It seems that you don't understand the basic argument behind 'appropriation', so I'll paint it over in terms that you would understand. Here's how it works.

Group A has some particular thing about them (a way of being, some sort of cultural ethos, style maybe, whatever), group B comes along and copies group A. Group B has also had a historical advantage of some kind over group A. When group A does X (we'll call it that for the sake of argument), they're labeled with negative stereotypes that are attributable to the entire group itself. When group B does it, however, they access the positives without the negative stigma that comes with actually being group A.

For example, as it pertains to the MHRM, the idea of 'women being as equal or better than men.' The reality is that, at the end of the day, it's always going to be 'women and children first into lifeboats' - the 'equality' that's espoused by that idea isn't actually equality since women aren't exposed to the same things that, say, men are (again, lifeboats). In this sense, group A (men) are having some part of their identity being appropriated here: the idea of a fully autonomous, functional adult with rights and responsibilities. When it comes to the benefits, group B (women) are accessing it just as much as group A (men) is, but aren't having to pay the same costs in order to do so. And this is a specific issue that I know the MHRM brings up again again again: namely the cost of certain 'rights', and who has to bear the burden/responsibility of them in our society. So we see that this sort of thing exists for issues of gender....why is it so difficult to believe that it exists for race, too?

That said, I agree with you on a number of points as well: for example, that the author refers to white folks as one big monolith (they aren't). Black folks aren't that way, either. No one is, really. But that doesn't mean that the article isn't pointing to something that's real. And I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of treating the realities of race (and the history of racism) as they do in the left, where they construct this one, malevolent, all-encompassing 'boogie-man' to blame for everything. This approach not only dehumanizes an entire group of people because they're seen as the 'bad guys', but it seems to almost want to rearrange/reconstruct (instead of abolish) said hierarchy, but I can write for days on that. The bottom line here is that we here in the MRHM know that nothing is ever one-sided. It seems you treat the argument in the article in the same way one might treat arguments made here: reject them without actually engaging them.

Edit: and FFS, can we stop using the term 'privilege' so fucking stupidly? Privilege is not about relative advantage...it's about an absolute advantage ABOVE and BEYOND the norm. Discrimination? Sucks ass. But someone not being discriminated against isn't 'privilege'; it's the fucking NORM. They don't have some invisible 'privilege' barrier that shields them from said form of discrimination; they simply aren't being targeted (because, you know, that's the whole point of 'targeting'). They might have a relative advantage compared to, say, the person being discriminated against, but so what? That 'lack' doesn't come to shape the realities behind said instances of discrimination. Know what does? Active choices. The person (or group, or ideology, even) doing the discrimination is responsible for it, not the nameless, disconnected random individual who doesn't even realize said instance of discrimination is taken place.

If someone isn't being discriminated against in one way, chances are they're getting it some other. That's life. A good example of privilege in our modern times would be, say, wealth and connections. Of course the argument is that the history of racism and institutionalized (structural) oppression lead to the development of said wealth network, but that's another story entirely (again, I could write for days on that subject). Privilege exists within historical, geographical, and cultural contexts, and I can't imagine, for the life of me, how simply being born male AND white in north america affords you special privileges. It might make it easier to access that 'norm' to which all equal societies strive towards, but that's something different entirely. And while I do argue that whites experience less forms of discrimination than, say, non-whites, that doesn't mean that they're immune to the effects of discrimination: gender, sexual orientation, gender orientation, nationality, religion, class, etc. There are a whole host of other vectors through which discrimination can take place. Modern society has a long way to go, and furthering incorrect uses of terminology doesn't help.

corpseflower · 2013-08-28T18:10:38+00:00

She never will, dude. Shes got nothing and she knows it.

2013-08-28T09:39:48+00:00

Honestly, if you're linking jezebel you've already lost.

bebopsruin · 2013-08-28T15:50:01+00:00

TL;DR?

WhatIsTheWorldComing · 2013-08-28T10:28:09+00:00

Can we move this somewhere else?

Title	Facebook thread, the woman I got into a debate with hasn't responded yet.
Author	bebopsruin
Upvotes	12
Comments	19
Date	August 28, 2013 1:11 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1l88vc/facebook_thread_the_woman_i_got_into_a_debate/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/facebook-thread-the-woman-i-got-into-a-debate-with.1165309 https://theredarchive.com/post/1165309

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