Ohhhh, this is something that irks me! I hate, hate, haate when people turn oppression and discrimination into a game and being a minority into a competition, with the prize going to "Most Hated". This seriously...it makes my blood boil like nothing else. Like when I see a person who belongs to a minority, sit there and invalidate another minority's experience and trivialize it, based on the idea that they have more minority points than the other person, ughh I hate that. It's kinda like...you don't know that person's story, so who the fuck are you? I mean...I don't care WHO you are, I've seen transpeople do it to gay people, gay people do it to...BI people, whoever, like who the fuck are you to speak to that person's experience? And how do the trials YOU face somehow render someone else's any less important? Why do people do this, like turn discrimination into a competition, or something that's like...intellectual? Like some people think cause they belong to a certain group, like...they can sit back from the comfort of their couch, on their fancy laptop their daddy paid for and call themselves oppressed because they're sporting their "minority badge"...like, I'm sorry, but discrimination and oppression...these are real experiences, not just discussion topics that you can win at because you belong to more minorities than someone else. Like, do you know what this does? It trivializes the entire reality of oppression, and by extension, the individual experiences of millions of people who have to endure it. Discrimination is a something very real that affects very real human beings on an individual basis, and it's something *I* have experienced, as have, I'm sure, the majority of users on this site. And it can be for SO many things; sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, the color of your skin, whatever. How can anyone sit here and say that any individual experience is less important than another?? Sorry if this is rambly, but when I am passionate and pissed off about something, it sometimes comes out sporadic as I have trouble arranging my thoughts XD
I'm going to admit that gay people tend to be the worst perpetrators of this. We so often (especially my demographic; white, middle-class males) say how awfully oppressed we are, ignoring the plight of the many, many worse-off than us, still insisting we're the true victims of everything. Anyone guilty of oppression olympics obviously misses the point of civil rights campaigns; positive movement towards equality, not forcing others down for your own gain. We're all going to at one point want to be the most oppressed, but we need to swallow our need for the attention from others and work together as equals, with individual problems, but a united cause.
Exactly...like, this is something I never understood, cause liike...oppression, why would someone WANT that? I can't even comprehend that. I don't want to deal with it for ANYthing, for whatever the fuck I am, like...I just wish we could BE, and express ourselves, without it being about how much someone hates us. Or I wish like, or even like I wish I could walk out the door with my sister (she's gay) without having to be reminded that we're hated (this town is fucking scary, too, dude, no joke). So like...I guess for me, it's something that's so real and I can't understand WHY anyone would turn it into something intellectual or a competition, or why someone would try to earn themselves the badge of "most oppressed", like, why? It doesn't matter who or what you are, if you're Black, gay, trans*, bi, idgaf, you're a person with REAL experiences, speak to THAT, don't use who and what you are as a way of making others feel like their experiences are less important than yours. Maybe if we could all ban together and stand up for one another we could make discrimination go away...oh, but that wouldn't work for some because they'd lose their favorite game, and that's playing "who's the biggest fucking victim" when in reality we should just see we're ALL the fucking victims of the same hate from the same source. Also, I wouldn't say it's necessarily mainly gay males who are responsible for this...I don't like to paint with such a broad brush like that, ya know?
I was trying to emphasise the male, white and middle-class part part, but I clearly neglected to make it obvious. Being still very privileged, some of us in that position have not only the entitled righteousness of privilege, but the added benefit of being able to exercise said privilege with the ability to also play the victim. It's an attitude that I've noticed in a great many people, who simply adore being the victim, while still having the luxuries of middle-class, white, first-world fortunes.
Ohh, yeahh, but still. Even White, middle class, gay males, it's the same story, to me. Like, I know tons who fit that type, who don't play the victim or feed into the "oppression olympics" who, nonetheless, constitute a visible minority and ARE victimized because of this. I mean, I understand what you're saying, and I *know* the type you're talking about aaall too well (the best represented within the LGBT community, yet the whiniest), but still. I dunno if this is controversial or if people on here are going to hate on me for this...but, yah, I've had a lot of different experiences and seen the world from different perspectives, and liike, I guess, to me, the one thing that is universal throughout it all is that hate hurts the same, either way. I see one group telling the other how they've got it easy, and then I feel like I look at that and think "How??". Like this is a real person dealing with real vitriol, how do they have it easy? Yes they have certain privileges, but does that diminish their experiences, and if so, how? And like...maybe we should look to others around us who experience the same hatred from the same source, and instead of only being able to see why they have it easier in the competition of the "most oppressed" and turning that hatred into a game, we could see how we can use our shared experiences to relate to one another and see each others perspectives, and band together and fight against discrimination so NO one has to experience it. To me, the oppression olympics have just become the order of the day in the modern civil rights movement, and they're just divisive, at the core. The second we quit playing that game, the second we can start making progress, again.
I think in these situations, there are two major factors that should be brought to attention: 1) the fact that privileged group(s) are often unaware of their own privileges, so it's not like they're consciously in on some huge conspiracy to keep oppressed minorities down everywhere; they're simply ignorant of their own power (that's sort of the definition of privilege), and of the struggle others might have, and 2) since no one likes to feel attacked, blamed, or made to feel responsible for the plight of someone else, they'll immediately go into defense mode and use whatever tactics not to be barraged by whatever "accusations" are being hurled their way. At some point, it just becomes a silly argument, over who is right and who is wrong, with little progress made in the end. And like most internet arguments, by that point, it doesn't even matter whose "right", since you're only proving what a big mouth you have. I will say that my first encounters with feminists was online, and most were middle class, education, straight white women, putting them ahead of me in several areas, though they didn't know that at the time. Calling someone a "potential rapist" simply because they were born with a penis is not exactly the best way to get someone to see your point of view, and because we both had baggage, combined with little information from the other side, debates got heated fast. It's not easy for most people to take a step back, learn how they might be a part of a larger problem or problems, and say, "You know what? I have it better than a lot of people, so I'm going to use that power to even the playing field". That's too much of a hassle, and they'd rather continue living how they've always lived, forgetting about those that don't concern them. I wasn't born female, and I'll never know what they go through from a first person perspective, so if I'm to help them, it takes LISTENING to them, first. That's the problem with too many of these debates: too much talking and not enough listening. On EC, they usually center around sex, orientation, ethnicity, age, and gender, among others. Also, there's a difference between saying you stand for x, but refuse to prove it, and genuinely standing by your word. One is an attempt to appear "progressive" and "liberal", a self-serving action that is really no better than the openly-bigoted who will outright tell you where they stand on an issue. That's another frustration: it seems trendy these days to be all for civil rights in theory, but not in practice. Again, it's not like switching on a light bulb, and it took me forever just for me to realize how much I've benefited from male privilege, as a MAAB, alone, so I don't expect things to change overnight.
The outrage at Russia's treatment of gay people is completely justified, but it annoys me that far more serious human rights violations in Russia have never been met with such fierce opposition.
The oppression olympics has always seemed to me a strange way of putting the other person down even more. Basically I see it as saying, "I have gone through so much more, therefore I am a stronger person." It's a very narcissistic manifestation of a very basic human want to be lauded for one's courage.
Cause when you're in a situation that sucks the only thing to do is to try and claim the position of foremost suckiness?
It makes people feel good to know they have it worst. That way they either get a free ride to bitch as much as they want, or expect people to admire them for dealing with their bad situation so well. Or maybe even both which is especially bad. Why would somebody focus on being most hated anyway unless they aimed to do something about it? I'd prefer to think of how extraordinarily privileged we are to live how we do, social prejudices included. Gays in Africa are executed by the state merely for being.
Oppression is relative. For example, the majority in America (whites) would be a minority, in, say, South Africa. There have been matriarchal societies in the past, and there will be matriarchal societies in the future. While I don't deny that oppression has existed, everyone is blowing it out of proportion, and everyone needs to calm their tits and look at the situation objectively.
I'd say that's a pretty bad example. South African whites have a great deal more power than black South Africans. A disproportionate amount of civil servants and corporate executives are white, and the white population has more money and influence.
*Applause* I agree with pointing out oppression and social prejudices when they are pointed out in a manner that is actually meant to spark change, rather than simply trying to instill shame or garner sympathy.
I happen to think that in general, accusations of oppression Olympics are misused, especially at EC, and is regularly used as a tactic to shut down conversations of privilege. I don't deny that oppression Olympics ever happens, but I do believe discussions about it are over-inflated.
Yeah, i got into this, or rather this black guy got into this with me on another forum. "Gays don't have to look over their shoulder cause someone gunning for em" - I've been assaulted twice. Said that gay slurs are nowhere comparable to racism, went off about Ellen comparing gay rights movement to black rights. I was just "not getting in a dick measuring contest with you over who has it worse." It's just disappointing when shared suffering completely fails to result in shared empathy. Likely someone say this just doesn't support gay rights and especially doesn't want their race/gender/whatever compared to us, so it's their way of justifying that.
:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap Thank you, OP! You basically just said everything I have always thought! The Oppression Olympics fills me with the same boiling anger when it goes on and on and on. Just the thought of it annoys the fuck out of me. It's so stupid and pointless and time wasting. Who wants to win a trophy for "Most Shit On By Society?" That's so fucking dumb, but people get so riled up in proving their feelings are more important or their troubles mean more (just trying to use anything to be superior because people just can't help themselves) that they don't even realize being the winner means being the biggest loser, it means taking all the bad and using it to prove that you're the lowest of whatever and being...proud? Uck! That's so pathetic, why would anyone want that title? That just leaves me to believe that when people get going on something like this they don't even realize how pathetic it would be to be "right" in that kind of argument. Or maybe they do and they've just twisted around in their minds that being the most pathetic means getting the most...attention, sympathy or whatever. To me that's just fucking sad. "Yeah once they see that we've suffered the most they'll give us more respect," Um...or they'll just fucking pity you. I also can't stand the talking in collectives. The "we this people" vs. "them." There are so many different aspects to a person and so many different reasons why their life could be bad or good that how can you pin an entire community's plight or fortune on one thing you all have in common? It's too broad. Just focus on yourself, the individual and what you've been through personally instead of being all "our community has suffered and yours hasn't! wah, wah, wah" because you don't know what any person from the "them" side has been through in their actual life. On the same note, someone from your side could have a totally dandy life with no suffering because of their orientation, gender, race, whatever, so you just look like a fucking dickhead preaching and ranting about "the pain your people have to deal with on a daily basis." Really? You know what every person you have this one thing in common with has to go through on a daily? Okay, say we're talking about a....fuck, I don't know, a transperson and this dude grew up in a second gen home with two dads who totally supported him, helped him transition way back when he was kid. He's always had friends who never judged him and grew up going to awesome open minded schools. That kinda takes the flame out of the broad fiery statement "we transpeople have it harder!" when there's a transdude who changed early in life and hasn't had any trouble with it his whole life so far. What you really mean to say is "I have had it hard because of being trans," so just fucking say that. You don't need a group to make your struggles/feelings more valid. Having support is one thing, but using communities as armies is where community minded people go wrong--that's when a person should start standing up on their own for a while instead of mob--ahem, I mean "support"--gathering just to fucking express themselves. Whoo, that felt good. That has been on my mind for a minute.
It becomes a real problem whenever a genuine concern is brought up, only to be shot down as unimportant and "divisive" -- this also happened in the African-American and Chicano civil rights movements when women brought up sexism in the communities. Essentially, the message becomes, "Shut up, your problems don't matter," ironically proving which group has power over which, by dictating who or what is given priority and focus.
