Fighting discrimination through discrimination (2 Viewers)

[fellatio_Martinez]

No. This isn’t a healthy way to run a society at all. It’s what leads to some of the crap like young authors getting cancelled because they aren’t black enough to write a story with a black character.

People have empathy and sympathy and a working brain. And just because you’re in a minority doesn’t mean your subjective view is always 100% correct.

Rights are always balanced in a liberal democracy. Whether that’s religious peoples rights to avoid being made to make statements they don’t agree with, scientists rights to describe the truth as they see it, atheists rights to call out religious intolerance where they see it or women’s rights to privacy and safety from men.

As a society you talk together for a compromise or you set yourself up for failure. Everyone should have a seat at the table, no one should take priority over another by default. For a start, which gay people do you pick to represent “the gays”? Owen Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos would give you very different answers as would Diane Abbott and Candice Owens on race or a liberal and radical feminist on sex.

Perfectly put.

Some people have an awfully simplistic and unhelpful way of looking at politics and it just creates more divisions.

 

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[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

On one level, we’d like to say that any human being can offer their understanding & their solidarity to any other human being, and if it’s given in good faith then it can be received in good faith too.

But realistically, you’re going to take it much better from someone who’s got a sufficiently similar experience of life as your own, because they know where you’re coming from.

To make a football analogy - Bury fans & Bolton fans are in a fairly similar spot right now, and can meaningfully offer a lot of solidarity to each other. Our fans aren’t in quite such a bad place as them, but we know well enough what it’s like - so we can offer our well wishes to Bury & Bolton fans & have that taken seriously. On the other side, fans of - I don’t know, let’s pick an example - Man City? On the whole they should probably stay out of it, given that they have very little idea what it’s like to fear for the very existence of your club.

So - if I as a straight white guy want to talk about discrimination, I need to stay aware that I’m analogous to the Man City fan in this situation, and check what I’m saying, or I’ll risk offending someone else who knows this stuff from first hand. They should get to speak first.

I wholeheartedly agree that those people should be the major voices when talking about issues like racism, homophobia and misogyny.

The point I was making is we hear a lot of black people talk about how easy it is being white and feminists go on about how privileged and easy it is to be men etc, but how do they know? They've not experienced it so are they just making presumptions and generalisations just as the white men are talking about about racism and sexism?

If being a man is so easy why do more men commit suicide than women? Why do more men suffer stress related illnesses? It's not that simple.

For example I could say that women and black people have the fallback excuse of "it was the man/whites keeping you down" if they fail at something. As a man it's normally "you obviously didn't try hard enough"

Now, I have no idea if the comment about women or black people is accurate - I'm not either of them. The best I can do is cite a few examples of where this has been used, or had it used for them, as an excuse. However I can definitely tell you from experience that the comment about being a man is true for my own experience.

 

[rd45]

If being a man is so easy why do more men commit suicide than women? Why do more men suffer stress related illnesses? It's not that simple.

I agree completely, it’s not as simple as men vs women.

We have to remember that patriarchy fucks men up as well as women. Some powerful & privileged men do very very well out of it, but for the rest of us there’s a cost. Oppression & inequality harm everyone* apart from those at the very top of the pile.

That’s a reason why men as well as women will benefit as we fight misogyny - why straight people benefit from better rights & recognition for LGBT+ people - etc etc. More equal societies bring benefits for all their citizens. All the boats are lifted on the rising tide. It’s not a zero-sum game, we have common cause.



* although not everyone is harmed as grievously

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

I agree completely, it’s not as simple as men vs women.

We have to remember that patriarchy fucks men up as well as women. Some powerful & privileged men do very very well out of it, but for the rest of us there’s a cost. Oppression & inequality harm everyone* apart from those at the very top of the pile.

That’s a reason why men as well as women will benefit as we fight misogyny - why straight people benefit from better rights & recognition for LGBT+ people - etc etc. More equal societies bring benefits for all their citizens. All the boats are lifted on the rising tide. It’s not a zero-sum game, we have common cause.



* although not everyone is harmed as grievously

I agree.

Although I hate the term 'boats lifted on a rising tide' - it's used in economics and is horseshit. It's either a complete misunderstanding of how tides work or they mean 'rising sea level'. Even then it's still nonsense.

 

[rd45]

For a start, which gay people do you pick to represent “the gays”? Owen Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos would give you very different answers

lol, why not both?

Straight people get to express the whole spectrum of political thought, so should gay people, yes?

 

[Evo1883]

Yes, thank you, that’s a perfect example. More of this please. More women, more BAME, more LGBT+ MPs is good for all of us. Move out some straight white men to make room. When both houses of parliament reflect the diversity of the whole country, we’ll really have got somewhere.

Well if that was the case, 80% of everything would be white male/female as that's proportionate to the population overall.
Then id imagine the LGBT community would be represented by around less than 6% with 92% - 94% identifying as heterosexual.

Point is, the best person for the jobs should be appointed everywhere, we don't reward people based on certain factors, this creates anger and hatred.

And if we actually gave proportionate representation you would be moaning that not enough people of colour and not enough LGBT people were being represented

 

[Evo1883]

In 2017
45 of 650 MPs identified as LGBT, so 1 in 13 roughly.

They already have their representation.
6.92% to be exact

So we need to sack a couple and bring some more straight ones in to give actual representation (see, bonkers way of thinking)

 

[fellatio_Martinez]

In 2017
45 of 650 MPs identified as LGBT, so 1 in 13 roughly.

They already have their representation.
6.92% to be exact

So we need to sack a couple and bring some more straight ones in to give actual representation (see, bonkers way of thinking)

This is where their argument breaks down.

Identity politics is bollocks.

 

[Evo1883]

This is where their argument breaks down.

Identity politics is bollocks.

It is utter nonsense and creates division