Musings from the past week

I was recently talking to a friend about misogyny and sexism, and he said that he considers himself to be a "recovering sexist" rather than a feminist, but that his ultimate goal is feminism. He talked about the fact that until he came to college he wasn't aware of his male privilege or his white privilege, because he never had reason to be. He was socially conditioned in school to believe that women were conquests and that his masculinity was derived through them. Additionally, he didn't understand  a lot of things about race as well, because he was never alerted to his privileged position and never had to recognize harmful patterns of social marginalization and discrimination, since he is part of the dominant group. One thing that particularly struck me was when he said that he knew that black face was wrong because he had been told so, but didn't understand why until it was explicitly explained to him. At first I reacted with shock, but then I had to pause and realize that he was talking about bettering himself and that he was coming from a place of ignorance, so unless he was able to ask these questions and have these kind of conversations with people, which he was more than willing to do, he never would be able to progress. Oftentimes, and I have been guilty of this, people who consider themselves to be progressive jump on others or are frustrated with them when they express inherently ignorant statements or ask questions that we see as so blatantly obvious. But this isn't an intentional ignorance. Rather, some people genuinely don't know what white privilege is and why it's wrong to dress up as a Native American on Halloween, so unless we are willing to answer their questions and not insult them for their lack of knowledge they will remain in the dark about these issues. How can we express anger towards someone who simply hasn't had the exposure to these problems? Yes, they are not of more concern than those who are currently being oppressed, but they are a key part of ending oppression.

On the other end of the spectrum, I recently got into a discussion with people about the idea of everyone's entitlement their opinions and whether their beliefs are worthy of respect simply because they have a right to them. One person posed the argument that although someone's opinion may be offensive and harmful, it is  nonetheless still a person's right to say it. I thought about this in the context of race and I have to disagree to a certain degree. Yes, everyone is entitled to say what they feel, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't challenge them or take them to task in regard to telling them that what they said was problematic and inaccurate and why. I don't think we should forgo criticizing or deconstructing arguments on the basis that it was "brave" for a person to express how he or she feels no matter the subject matter or position. The belief that what a person believes is personal and his or her own business is simply not true, because our beliefs don't occur in a vacuum and we don't act upon them in a vacuum either. If we all cultivate our own thoughts and don't interact with one another and discuss them and stand up to the damaging ones, we will never escape from the racist ideologies that bind us. How can we stop actions and beliefs if we don't speak out against them? If someone gives his or her racist opinion and isn't challenged, how is he or she to know that there is an alternative dialogue and that people don't agree with him or her? As far as I'm concerned silence is on par with complicity.