White privilege is a myth

[ceeboo]

Sexist, sexism, genitals, OMG, Sexism, Victim, Suffering, Ceeboo's a sexist, Ceeboo's hurtul )

Lem, I understand how difficult it is for you to understand a concept like individuality - I also recognize how badly you must see everything as being a mere part of a group. So to help you, I will give you a short lesson.

Everything I have posted to you on this thread has been directed at you, an individual person. Everything I have posted to you has nothing to do with whether you are a male of a female. It was directed at you. Specifically and only to you.

Now, once you wrap you mind around the foreign concept of individuality and how gigantically important, valuable and critical all of that really is, I will explain where and why sex was introduced. Sex was introduced in the discussion because I referred to the author as a guy - there is no question that I was mistaken and there is no question that your correction was valid. But my response to you (even with the highly offensive genitals remark, was because I didn't think it had much bearing to the conversation taking place) In other words, it had NOTHING to do with your sex. It had everything to do with you - a single person on a message board.

I hope that was educational.

I won't be replying to you again about this, I'm done - Go Kick Rocks!

[Lem]

Sexist, sexism, genitals, OMG, Sexism, Victim, Suffering, Ceeboo's a sexist, Ceeboo's hurtul )

Lem, I understand how difficult it is for you to understand a concept like individuality - I also recognize how badly you must see everything as being a mere part of a group. So to help you, I will give you a short lesson.

Everything I have posted to you on this thread has been directed at you, an individual person. Everything I have posted to you has nothing to do whether you are a male of a female. It was directed at you.

Now, once you wrap you mind around the foreign concept of individuality and how gigantically important, valuable and critical all of that really means, I will explain where and why sex was introduced. Sex was introduced in the discussion because I referred to the author as a guy - there is no question that I was mistaken and there is no question that your correction was valid. But my response to you (even with the highly offensive genitals remark, was because I didn't think it had much bearing to the conversation taking place) In other words, it had NOTHING to do with your sex. It had everything to do with you - a single person on a message board.

I hope that was educational.

I won't be replying to you again about this, I'm done - Go Kick Rocks!

What is educational is seeing you go further down the rabbit hole in explaining how sexism addressed toward an individual is acceptable.

…even with the highly offensive genitals remark, was because I didn't think it had much bearing to the conversation taking place) In other words, it had NOTHING to do with your sex. It had everything to do with you…

Sexism directed toward an individual, even one you dislike, is still sexism. One could argue it is worse than general sexist comments, because you are bringing down the full weight of a gender and using it rudely to attempt to insult an individual. That is the definition of stereotypical bias.

(I say attempt, because being treated to sexist comments by an anonymous poster who has learned one’s gender is so common that at this point, all the response one can muster is a laugh and an eyeroll, and a fair amount of pity. I must say, however, that it is somewhat unique to see someone argue (repeatedly!) that sexism directed to an individual is acceptable when one dislikes an individual who happens to be a woman. Most people shy away from such obvious incongruity.)

[Some Schmo]

You've got to wonder how one can get so upset by being stereotyped as a Trump supporter but can't get his head around why it might offend a woman to make sexist comments. What's even more hilarious is not understanding that Trump supporters have way more in common as a group than all the women in the world.

But none of it is surprising. It's not a ceeboo visit without a healthy dose of self-pity. Soon we'll hear him wonder why nobody is jumping to his defense before he passes out on his fainting couch.

[Res Ipsa]

Sexist, sexism, genitals, OMG, Sexism, Victim, Suffering, Ceeboo's a sexist, Ceeboo's hurtul )

Lem, I understand how difficult it is for you to understand a concept like individuality - I also recognize how badly you must see everything as being a mere part of a group. So to help you, I will give you a short lesson.

Everything I have posted to you on this thread has been directed at you, an individual person. Everything I have posted to you has nothing to do with whether you are a male of a female. It was directed at you. Specifically and only to you.

Now, once you wrap you mind around the foreign concept of individuality and how gigantically important, valuable and critical all of that really is, I will explain where and why sex was introduced. Sex was introduced in the discussion because I referred to the author as a guy - there is no question that I was mistaken and there is no question that your correction was valid. But my response to you (even with the highly offensive genitals remark, was because I didn't think it had much bearing to the conversation taking place) In other words, it had NOTHING to do with your sex. It had everything to do with you - a single person on a message board.

I hope that was educational.

I won't be replying to you again about this, I'm done - Go Kick Rocks!

Ceebs, just between us raccoons and whales, I don't think you are either an inferior or superior brand of human. I think you're just human -- like me. And you have a human brain, just like me. And human brains are great at creating after the fact rationalizations and treating them as motives for our actions. But the plain and humble fact is that we really can't tell why we acted in a certain way. Some part of our brain supplies the reason, but commonly after the act -- not before it. And we know from lots of studies of the brain that what we say and think and do is influenced by tons of sensory inputs that we aren't even conscious of. And it is really hard for the conscious part of our brains to spot our own biases. It's much easier to spot them in others.

So, maybe it makes sense to give serious consideration to the possibility that when we offer up a detailed explanation for past actions, it's really just a part of our brain telling us a story that makes us feel good about ourselves. And that we should always suspect that its fudging -- at least a little bit.

You had lots of possible ways to respond to Lem. One of them was to not respond at all, which would be a fairly sensible way to respond to a comment that you felt had little bearing on the conversation. Or to acknowledge the correction and move on. But what you did was focus attention on the comment that you thought had little relevance, thereby treating it as if it were important. That might be evidence of part of your brain fudging a little bit -- feeding you a rational sounding story but a story that isn't really consistent with what you did.

Given what we know about how brains work, I don't think any of us can speak with confidence as to our motives for our actions. I don't think you can, with confidence, discard out of hand the notion that the way you responded to Lem has nothing to do with her sex. For me, that doubt is reinforced by your last post, which could be held up as a classic example of "mansplaining." I doubt you see it that way, but then you aren't a woman who has encountered the phenomena day after day after day from man after man after man. That, after all, is what is meant by privilege. Your brain treats the way you experience your life as normal. So it tends to dismiss criticisms from others, who experience the world differently than you do, of what your brain considers normal.

Please don't confuse what I'm saying with being a bad person. I'm saying we all have gigantic blind spots, especially when it comes to our own behavior. And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I think we have to acknowledge that our perceptions of our motives are at best incomplete and at worst dead wrong.

[ajax18]

Sigh. Another sexist comment from ceeboo. It's unfortunate, because while ceeboo dislikes Lem, Lem has no similar feelings about ceeboo but only dislikes sexist comments. ceeboo is just digging himself in deeper by adding the explanation that it's not sexist to behave in a sexist manner when you are being sexist toward a woman you don't like.

Or if that woman is a conservative, i.e. Sarah Pallin

[Some Schmo]

Or if that woman is a conservative, i.e. Sarah Pallin

It's not surprising you need this pointed out, but making sexist comments about Sarah Palin is still sexist.

Making comments about her lack of intelligence or insanity, on the other hand, is just being observant. She's not stupid because she's a woman, she's stupid because she's Sarah Palin.

[canpakes]

Your last paragraph is a perfect summary of what privilege means. But I’m betting you knew that.

This is something that Ceeboo and I were talking about on the side. Privilege isn’t exactly apparent to the folks in the privileged position. And it isn’t, by definition, gravely insidious. It just ‘exists’, and manifests across multiple boundaries, be they class, sex, or race. Society will always have biases like that.

[ceeboo]

Ceebs, just between us raccoons and whales, I don't think you are either an inferior or superior brand of human. I think you're just human -- like me. And you have a human brain, just like me. And human brains are great at creating after the fact rationalizations and treating them as motives for our actions. But the plain and humble fact is that we really can't tell why we acted in a certain way. Some part of our brain supplies the reason, but commonly after the act -- not before it. And we know from lots of studies of the brain that what we say and think and do is influenced by tons of sensory inputs that we aren't even conscious of. And it is really hard for the conscious part of our brains to spot our own biases. It's much easier to spot them in others.

So, maybe it makes sense to give serious consideration to the possibility that when we offer up a detailed explanation for past actions, it's really just a part of our brain telling us a story that makes us feel good about ourselves. And that we should always suspect that its fudging -- at least a little bit.

You had lots of possible ways to respond to Lem. One of them was to not respond at all, which would be a fairly sensible way to respond to a comment that you felt had little bearing on the conversation. Or to acknowledge the correction and move on. But what you did was focus attention on the comment that you thought had little relevance, thereby treating it as if it were important. That might be evidence of part of your brain fudging a little bit -- feeding you a rational sounding story but a story that isn't really consistent with what you did.

Given what we know about how brains work, I don't think any of us can speak with confidence as to our motives for our actions. I don't think you can, with confidence, discard out of hand the notion that the way you responded to Lem has nothing to do with her sex. For me, that doubt is reinforced by your last post, which could be held up as a classic example of "mansplaining." I doubt you see it that way, but then you aren't a woman who has encountered the phenomena day after day after day from man after man after man. That, after all, is what is meant by privilege. Your brain treats the way you experience your life as normal. So it tends to dismiss criticisms from others, who experience the world differently than you do, of what your brain considers normal.

Please don't confuse what I'm saying with being a bad person. I'm saying we all have gigantic blind spots, especially when it comes to our own behavior. And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I think we have to acknowledge that our perceptions of our motives are at best incomplete and at worst dead wrong.

RI - I often read your board posts when I see them. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don't agree with you, and sometimes I'm really not sure. At the end of the day, I read them because they quite often make me think and they almost always contain positions laid on the table for consideration. In this particular case, your post to me, like other before, is making me think, evaluate and consider several things about me and what motivations might have been in play while I was hitting letters on my keypad.

While I really appreciate your entire post (Read it twice so far) - I found this part of your post (bolded below) to be especially worth serious consideration:

I'm saying we all have gigantic blind spots, especially when it comes to our own behavior. And if we're going to be honest with ourselves, I think we have to acknowledge that our perceptions of our motives are at best incomplete and at worst dead wrong.`

Thanks!

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Why did that part stand out to you?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

Your last paragraph is a perfect summary of what privilege means. But I’m betting you knew that.

This is something that Ceeboo and I were talking about on the side. Privilege isn’t exactly apparent to the folks in the privileged position. And it isn’t, by definition, gravely insidious. It just ‘exists’, and manifests across multiple boundaries, be they class, sex, or race. Society will always have biases like that.

Like many other topics of discussion, "privilege" has been caricatured by people that are uncomfortable having to think about it. It's simply assuming that others experiencing the world the way I do, and that how I experience the world is "normal." In my little suburb, we've been gradually installing curb cuts at intersections. In the '50s, when many of the sidewalks were first put in, most people experienced crossing the street as stepping off the curb, crossing the street, and stepping up onto the curb as normal. Only after folks who used wheelchairs for mobility made a ruckus did most folks think about how curbs interfered with the mobility of the disabled. What was normal for most folks was a serious disadvantage to others. Now what's normal? Curb cuts at intersections, wheelchair ramps, automatic doors with push button entry, etc. The design of streets and sidewalks was originally made by folks with abled privilege. The problem simply wasn't visible to them. Once they took seriously the concerns expressed by a discrete, defined group that was disadvantaged by the design, they could see the problem and do something about it.

Privilege isn't anyone's fault. It's not a moral defect. It's a big blind spot.