I don’t know where people are getting this idea, but it’s wrong. Even if I had nothing better to do with my time, I would not be required to respond to you. This is not a dialog. This is a place where I post articles, and you respond. Again, that’s “you respond.” That’s it.

Seriously, where are people getting the idea that they are entitled to enormous chunks of another human being’s time because they feel like discussing something? I wrote the freakin’ article, dude. I don’t owe you an eternal dialog on it. Look at Hathor, getting between 10 and 100 comments on every article. If we responded to every comment, we’d never post a new article. Is the illogicality of your position becoming clear now? Or is everybody just becoming so narcissistic that this is going right over their heads? And do you people also complain to CNN when they don’t respond to your every comment, or are you applying a different standard to bloggers because they don’t enjoy the same privilege to ignore people 100% of the time that you extend to really big companies?

And you know why the big companies don’t respond? It’s not just that they have better things to do with their time. It’s also their realistic anxiety that someday some commenter with a bruised ego is going to sue them for saying something they didn’t like, or for responding to one commenter but not another, or some other half-ass idea stemming from the increasingly common idea that Everyone Should Be Available To Me Right When I Want Them.

Get over it.

Related posts:

1. The entitlement of the passive-aggressive do-gooder
2. Trolling: the privilege of way too much time on your hands
3. Extroverts provide a privilege demonstration

http://feeds.blindprivilege.com/blindprivilege

Please update it to: http://feeds.whatprivilege.com/whatprivilege. You can do this by using the link at the top of the sidebar.

I’ll be deleting the blindprivilege feed soon (and eventually the whole domain, so I don’t have to keep paying for hosting), and I don’t want you to miss anything from What Privilege in the meantime. Thank you.

No related posts.

• It actually has the gall to begin comments with “Without having actually read the article, I can say…” wank wank wank.
• It says things like “…because I sense the article will be full of X, Y and Z…” wank wank wank.
• It demands clarification of points that were spelled out carefully in the article.
• It discredits the writer for having failed to make points that are also spelled out carefully in the article.
• It argues passionately against things the article never, ever said.

Your initial thought may be that this person read but did not understand the original article. The vast majority of the time, you would be mistaken. Usually, these are simply trolls who can’t be bothered to read, because they’re much too anxious to start wanking, wanking, wanking their own comments.

Instead of trying to explain anything to these people, or to draw them out on their reasoning, I advise you to just ignore them, report them, or if you have the power, delete them.

Related posts:

1. On being a white ally
2. Response entitlement: you don’t have any
3. White Trash Blues: Class Privilege v. White Privilege

That assertion is rolling in privilege. Specifically, the privilege of not having a health condition for which doctors advise a special, non-vegan diet.

Let’s get one thing clear: the debate about whether or not some vegan diet somewhere would work for people with insulin-resistance, Crohn’s disease or failing kidneys or a medical requirement for more protein than the typical human needs is not the issue. In fact, let’s just take it as a given that there is a vegan diet for everyone, somewhere. But at this point, it’s a matter of fact that a functioning vegan diet for some of these conditions remains unknown. Vegans complain online of being told by doctors they have a condition that requires them to eat red meat or eggs or whatever. Some of this may be ignorance or prejudice on the part of the doctors.

That’s not the issue. The issue is: people are being told by their doctors they have conditions which require a low-carb diet, or require more protein than most people, or that keep their systems from digesting half the foods available on a vegan diet. For a vegan to say “humans only eat meat for pleasure or tradition” is absurd, insulting and privileged. And untrue. People often eat meat and animal by-products because they are being advised by the experts in healthcare that they must.

Take me, for example. I ‘ve never liked beef. I’d rather never eat it. But I get anemic. I take iron pills every day and eat quite a lot of veggies and dark leafy greens per week. And when the anemia happens, I take extra iron pills and eat even more greens. No help. I have on multiple occasions systematically tried every food but beef known to help with anemia, to no avail. I’ve tried herbs. I’ve tried everything anyone at health care stores can think of. Nothing but beef gets me going again. I languish in fatigue until I break down and eat beef I don’t like or enjoy. Then I’m fine.

That’s a really mild example. There are people with immediately life-threatening problems who are being advised by well-informed doctors that they need to eat animal by-products or meat, at least for a certain period during their illness. When a vegan says no one eats meat except for pleasure/tradition – read “selfish purposes” – they are callously erasing that person and his concerns. How does that fit in with the vegan philosophy – deleting people who don’t fit your scenario?

There are people halting the progress of their diabetes by eating a non-vegan diet. Could there possibly be a vegan diet that would do them even more good? Sure, anything’s possible. But like I said, go subject yourself to medical experiments. How does advising others to be the vegan movement’s guinea pigs fit in with the vegan philosophy?

Additionally, there’s something very classist about asserting that everyone could just go vegan right now if only they’d stop making excuses. The US is full of people who don’t know how to eat properly by any standard. We don’t teach nutrition in schools anymore, and many parents just don’t have a clue. Fortunately, a vegan diet doesn’t have to be expensive, so it may be possible for them to eat vegan for the same or less money. But what about families where all the adults work very long hours just to make ends meet, and no one has time to do food prep and cooking? The answer I usually hear is: “They just need to buy a slow cooker and there are tons of vegan recipes that’ll be quick and easy to fix that way.” Yeah? Because everyone has an extra $24 or whatever it costs to buy a slow cooker? Check your privilege – not everyone does.

Saying the only reason people don’t go vegan is they don’t want to erases a lot of people who have legitimate reasons to believe they can’t.

No related posts.

They did. Americans were hurt to learn their country – even their culture – had lost so much credibility with Europe. We discussed the reasons, and found the difference in perception boiled down to Americans not seeing quite as many “lies” from the Bush administration as the Europeans saw, and dismissing European concerns as baseless.

That was just one forum. It wasn’t a forum about politics, which is why I’m not linking to it. It was just friends united to enjoy a fandom talking about something else and getting their feelings bruised and trying to understand. It went fairly well.

But I’ve been thinking lately about the depths of American hypocrisy, and two examples from the past couple of decades really stand out:

• We said we hated Iraq and Hussein, we sure did, and yet we just spent 10 years driving gas guzzlers and buying his oil. Even more ironic: the people trying to spend less on gas (whether to be green or just frugal) were more likely to be liberals than conservatives, and it was the conservatives who wanted to “kick Iraq’s ass” so badly. Doesn’t really mesh with making them loads and loads of money.
• We hate Communism and want to kick its ass and have been working on that for decades, but we have absolutely no problem with the fact that almost everything you can buy in the US is made in China.

Maybe it’s not that we’re hypocrites; maybe we’re just so uneducated we can’t think stuff like this through. I personally do have a problem with bolstering China’s economy – not because of their governmental philosophies, but because of stuff they actually do, like treating workers badly and drowning baby girls because they aren’t worth much. I’d like to hit them where it hurts – the pocketbook – but the anti-Communist hell-raisers of the U.S. haven’t provided me that option. They’re too busy wanting to buy stuff cheap at Wal-Mart and not tell the all-hallowed Big Business what to do. Likewise, I wouldn’t have a problem with not bolstering Hussein’s regime (it’s just I’m aware of the fact we installed him), so I work at keeping my gas consumption low. But the anti-Iraq ass-kickers just spend another $80 or whatever it costs to fill up their giant SUVs.

It’s not that American culture is full of contradictions. It’s that a lot of Americans, all by themselves, are so self-contradictory in their actions it’s impossible to take them seriously. Except, they’re really well-armed. Yeah, I can see why Europe was scared.

No related posts.

First, the cultural. Most of the search results lead to other people asking my question. The responses they get range from “You’d be much better off just getting therapy” (yes, because clearly all adult abused kids are well-to-do and can afford the extensive therapy required to get over the abuse) to “now you sit right down, you ungrateful shit, and list all the GOOD things your parent did for you, since obviously, having donated part of your zygote, this person loved you and you are an asshole” to things like this trip to the little shop of horrors, in which someone asks Yahoo: “Can i sue my parents because they hit me?”

Consider first what you did to contribute to the situation.

There is never a reason to strike another person, but, you could have very well pushed them to their limit.

Underlying all of this is the myth that every child who complains of having experienced poor parenting is obviously a spoiled shit who in fact had everything too easy and isn’t grateful for the massive self-sacrifices her zygote donor obviously made. Also underlying it is the assumption that such a suit would be revenge rather than justice. To which the abuse survivors explain that, no, they want to see the parent held accountable in some fashion. Publicly.

Another reason I can think of for suing would be to send a message to other abusive parents: you might get away with this while I’m under your control, but after that? Oh, yes, there could indeed be consequences.

The doublethink required here is extraordinary. I mean, you just know these people answering these question are all the same people who read about horrid abuse cases in the paper and think “hanging’s not good enough for those parents.” But when someone puts a face on it, when someone says “I was abused”, they go into denial. Why? Why do they automatically, unthinkingly assume the parent is the one being wronged?

It’s a bit like assuming every alleged rape is really just a case of some vicious bitch lying. Why not? We’re big on victim blaming.

Then I found some forum posters who claimed that in most states, you have until the age of 20 or 21 to sue an abusive parent. As far as I can tell, that’s generally true in the case of physical, non-sexual abuse, so if you were beaten as a child, you have until you’re a junior in college or your third year working at Burger King to hire that pricey attorney! Otherwise, the US is A-OK with what happened to you. Interestingly, sexual abuse often has a much longer statute – in some states, it’s up to the lifetime of the victim. Apparently emotionally abused kids can just go fuck themselves, since it’s very hard to document emotional abuse the way you can document wounds a doctor has seen. I realize there are other issues, like the problem of evidence, but for the law to blatantly suggest that sexual abuse is somehow worse than physical and emotional abuse is sending a very wrong message: all abuse is equally wrong in a moral sense.

Eventually, I found this forum, in which yet another person was asking the same question, but the respondents appear to be fellow abuse survivors. The questioner is 23 and can’t really function in life – agoraphobic (from the sound of it), unable to hold down a job, etc. All of this could easily be attributed to the abuse the person describes enduring. Here is my favorite response:

I have been doing a lot of research on the same topic for the past few day’s it seems to me that it is quite feasible although I would speculate that a lot of lawyers would not want to dirty their hands with such a case, there are as the other person who commented said; who see the sanctity of family as untouchable. As the threes of us, along with many others know; there is no sanctity in abuse.

Here, in a nutshell, is America’s concept of family values: we need babies, because babies become consumers who buy crap. We mustn’t allow anything to discourage people from making babies. It doesn’t matter if the babies are born addicted to something and grow up in a slum with no education, or they’re born to wealth and made to pay for it with sexual favors from an early age. It’s all good, because as long as they are eating and wearing clothes, businesses can make money off of these kids. That’s what America values.

And heaven forbid anyone check in with the adult children of the people making and supporting these laws.

Related posts:

1. Non-survivor privilege and silence
2. College has become a barrier for smart poor kids
3. Abuse cycles – from macrocosm to microcosm

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about a few other topics I want to write on. For example, anarchy and my concern that maybe the concept of fairness was the most harmful thing humans ever manipulated each other into aspiring to. If you knew life just wasn’t fair or equal and you were on your own, how would you have lived your life? Would you have been a selfish asshole, or would you have cooperated with others in mutual interests? If no one told you, “be patient, the government/daddy/the lawyer/etc. will fix it”, how many situations would you have fixed yourself, to your benefit, that instead you left to fester and cause you harm? Those of you who have reliably been able to get help from the government/daddy/the lawyer/etc. might wonder what I’m talking about. Those of you who – like me – did not have much luck with the people we were supposed to be able to turn to for justice might.

Another topic: how much does financial poverty contribute to abuse cycles in families? Money equals survival in a post-hunter/gatherer society. When people don’t feel secure, that leads them to either internalize or externalize the insecurity. Meaning, they either take it out on themselves or others, so it seems to me poverty tends to create families full of abusers and willing victims. And whatever good you may personally find in religion, it has undoubtedly been offered as a panacea to poverty. Just using Christianity as an example: it’s easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle eye than for a rich man to get into heaven. The meek shall inherit the earth. Etc. Chock full of delicious reassurance that we’ll be rewarded for taking shit. That’s a great way to set up a whole big class of people who will take abuse, and if you deny that religion has ever been used for that purpose, I’m not going to take you seriously. Being religious does not preclude admitting that bad things have been done in the name of religion. In fact, I would think it puts more of a burden on you to recognize those evils.

Possibly the best story in the Bible, for both topics, is the Prodigal Son. This son gets Dad to give him his inheritance early, and he blows it and ends up destitute. Comes home. Dad welcomes him and takes care of him. Meanwhile, the other son – who did his duty – wonders what the fuck is this shit. That’s the Bible being honest with you, kid. Get used to it. Do the responsible thing, and no one cares. Everybody loves to be a big fancy forgiver of sinners, so hurt them often and hard, and they will give you everything you want and then some. Irresponsibility always gets rewarded.

I don’t have a finish for this post – like I said, lack of energy and headspace – so I’m just going to stop. Comments are welcome!

Related posts:

1. You just need to love God better
2. Abused kids can’t really sue their parents

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

What part of that isn’t a description of the years in the US since 9-11? Breaking it down bit by bit:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline,

Family values going to hell, weirdos runnin’ around expecting to have rights just like normal people – check.

humiliation,

Bin Laden got us with out pants down! Oh, noes! Yeah, loss of life and property damage and stuff – yeah, really sucks! But mostly people think our national penis is small! Argh!

or victim-hood

Well, we are victims! In fact, we’re the biggest victims ever, and anybody who says we can’t torture people and stuff is just an unfeeling bastard!

and by compensatory cults of unity,

Hey, you’re either with Bush or you are against every decent worthwhile thing in human experience. It’s your choice.

energy, and purity,

And in these awful days where terrorists run amok, one of our biggest concerns is female virginity! There’s nothing at all creepy or objectifying about purity balls. They help remind fathers that hymens are their property, and it’s their duty to protect those fragile membranes from, you know, terrorists and foreigners and, um, that boy that works at 7-11.

in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants,

What would you call a group of people to whom it makes complete sense to go after Hussein because he might have WOMD when we had almost cornered Bin Laden who, you know, actually committed mass destruction?

working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites,

That would be Bush, Cheney, and most of the cabinet. And then some.

abandons democratic liberties

Hey, we’re at war here! In order for us to protect your liberated American way of life from terrorists who want to destroy it, we’re going to have to… well, destroy your liberated American way of life. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it works.

and pursues with redemptive violence

Action Item: kill Hussein. Check! Now we’re even for Bin Laden. Um, just trust us on this.

and without ethical or legal restraints

We prefer the term “Patriot Act.”

goals of internal cleansing

But it really was the gays and the feminists that made God abandon us! We have to punish the weirdos so God will protect us again.

and external expansion.

Welcome to the United States Territory of Iraq. Be sure to visit Halliburtonville (formerly Baghdad) and observe as we violently force freedom on people whether they want it or not.

No related posts.

I am not counting any “privileges” I’ve earned for myself: by definition, privilege is something you’re simply handed.

Privileges I have:

• If a violent crime’s commited against someone I know, I’ll automatically be low on the list of suspects.
• Even when my family was quite impoverished by my country’s standards, I never had to worry about having enough to eat.
• Whether or not I wear makeup, long hair or polished nails, it’s very unlikely anyone will speculate about my sexual orienation on that basis.

Um.  Okay, that’s a very short list.  Believe it or not, I gave this an hour.  I had others; some I dismissed because I realized they were things I’d actually earned for myself, others because they just weren’t that true once I started thinking about it.  But if you join in, we can brainstorm together.

Related posts:

1. Abused kids can’t really sue their parents

Explorer Captain James Cook, who gave this plant the botanical name of “intoxicating pepper”, first discovered kava kava. Kava has been used for over 3,000 years for its medicinal effects as a sedative, muscle relaxant, diuretic, and as a remedy for nervousness and insomnia.

My first thought was a sarcastic “Wow, Captain Cook predates Jesus!” because, obviously, if it’s been in use for 3,000 years and he was the first to discover it, he must have lived 3,000 years ago.

Of course, this isn’t what the writer means. The writer means “Of the Anglo sect of humanity from whose perspective I write and you are forced to read, Captain James Cook was the first to encounter this ancient herb.” Kava had no existence before it was found by whites: after being found by them, its prior existence became a simple “history”, suitable for books and encyclopedias. No more alive in today’s world than the Spanish Inquisition.

After my initial sarcasm, however, I was sobered by the realization that I’d grown up hearing similarly idiotic statements and I’m not sure at what age I stopped accepting them without thinking. “Christopher Columbus discovered America! And a bunch of people living on it! Who, um, somehow had no idea it was there until he pointed it out to them!” And for a nice added dash of Anglo privilege, let’s not forget the man’s real name was Don Cristoval Colon – but if that’s what we’d learned in the first grade, we’d have immediately recognized he wasn’t of Anglo descent and perhaps gotten the dangerous idea that people other than English speakers could contribute to society (or whatever it was he did). As an added bonus, we gloss over the fact that he thought he was on the other side of the world and the natives he met were therefore Indians. Instead of getting a good laugh for that one, we just didn’t make the distinction for about 200 years – and when we did suddenly realize how unfair that was of us, we didn’t bother to consult the people we’d been calling Indians. We just came up with the name “Native Americans” and patted ourselves on the backs for being so PC. “American Indians” saw it a bit differently, however:

At an international conference of Indians from the Americas held in Geneva, Switzerland at the United Nations in 1977 we unanimously decided we would go under the term American Indian. We were enslaved as American Indians, we were colonized as American Indians and we will gain our freedom as American Indians and then we will call ourselves any damn thing we choose. –Russell Means

Freedom, sure – but you’ll also need history privileges if you want to make it stick.

Related posts:

1. Trolling: the privilege of way too much time on your hands