ID: Is this a pigeon meme where the person is tagged “cis society”, the butterfly in their hand is tagged “trans people having a backbone about anything at all”, and they are asking “is this destroying my free speech?”
ID: Is this a pigeon meme where the person is tagged “cis society”, the butterfly in their hand is tagged “trans people having a backbone about anything at all”, and they are asking “is this destroying my free speech?”
I think that privileged works better. It feels like oppressor implies an active role, while privileged is passive. To be harmful, those of the privileged group need to do nothing but exist. Whereas members of an oppressor class would need to enforce the oppression.
Since MLK saw the moderate liberal as a bigger obstacle than the Klansman, I think privileged is the ticket.
It also makes sense as an ally has to take an active role to be an ally, not just passively not participate.
It’s such a funny thing. The other user asked if it was a direct quote from Friere, and I was so sure that it was. But when I went looking for the exact quote I found the part of the book where it was from, it is definitely not an exact quote. Friere’s formulation is much better, but it is definitely not a direct quote that changes one word.
These ideas I try to bring up I think are worth discussing! But I undermined my own premise which isn’t a great way to start a good faith discussion.
I’m still not crazy about the " privilege " formulation demonstrated in the meme and elsewhere, and I still believe Pedagogy of the Oppressed served as inspiration for the “privilege” quote, but its much harder to make a criticism of it. Like you said there’s sort of interesting ways that “privilege” informs the formula vs “oppressor”. Some of my discomfort with “priveledge” as the subject may be that I’m just not as knowledgeable about it, having never, for example, read a book about it, and being a person of relative privilege myself, have to work hard to make sure that my understanding goes deeper than just intellectual.
The way it is phrased, “to the privileged, equality feels like oppression” is a little open ended to interpretation for my liking, but maybe that’s what makes it an interesting topic for discussion. For as much as the word privilege has entered our vernacular, especially when discussing oppression and oppressive dynamics, it isn’t clear what it means. I have theories but unless i describe them, they arent self apparent. I think right wingers are able to stir up a lot of confusion among people in the middle, who are likely victims of a dozen different kinds of oppression themselves, by highlighting the shortcomings in corporate liberal “identity politics”, such as DEI as we experience now. While diversity, equity and inclusion are fine and important ideals for a society to strive for, the corporate face of it never sat right with me. And now the only semblances of workplace protections for people who are the subject and victims of institutional racism, has been pushed out of the airlock along with the safety of millions of others