Honestly, I think people don’t like to learn/think about these issues and even if they do… It’s hard to put in perspective and they still fuck up constantly, which is why they argue the if.
For myself, I didn’t even know this was a word that was being used to describe the shootings / police killings / etc in the United States, so it was surprising when Elli said we were getting rid of it and I made fun of him for a bit until I understood what the situation was. (Then of course, I resumed trolling him in a different capacity)
It’s really hard to put into perspective how abstract and yet how real the gap is… And even when people accept, they usually don’t fully understand. Like, we can consider my perspective on discrimination issues…
My family (great grandparents / grandparents) fled Russia / the Ukraine in order to avoid lynches during the soviet revolution. This history means nothing to me, so when someone brings previous generations into the argument, it’s relatively hard to follow…
If we continue with my own upbringing…
I’m an English speaker who grew up in the heart of French Quebec which has a history of dislike / discrimination against English speakers due to historical events. There are so many things like, not being able to attend certain people’s events / certain families who would choose to not associate with you whatsoever. Actually, several people left the school due to issues with discrimination and bullying (which actually propagates within the group that is actively being bullied).
It’s a very interesting environment, yet because I’m white, it is judged by the public that I could not have ever faced discrimination (even by those who imposed the discrimination). Similarly, you can see why it would be hard for someone with this perspective to see how other people’s problems are worse.
I mean, fast forward a decade or so… I’m married, my wife is of first generation Malagasy and the difference is actually quite surprising even though she doesn’t fit into the demographic oppressed for centuries (her family just came to Canada in her youth). She went to a much better / more privileged school than I went to and carried that through to multiple University degrees.
So, on the surface, how does this make any sense and why does it relate to the issue at hand? It’s in the mentality with how we approach day to day tasks.
- It can be dangerous for my wife to be alone in a lot more situations where it’s safe for me.
- She needs to be careful with what she says, whereas I can shout at the owner of a club if I want and toss my drink, and walk out the front door.
- She has to ensure that everyone can see her reuse-able bags are empty at the grocery store.
- When picking up supplies during the pandemic, the only comments we get on how much we purchase is when people see her picking stuff off the shelf on her own.
Like, the weird thing is, she didn’t realize that she was privileged until she interacted with the world outside of her school circle/family and she didn’t realize exactly what white privilege was until we started dating.
The discrepancy in day to day life / how easy it is for me to connect with people and businesses is stunning. I think, even for us, as a family it’s hard to understand the actual situation that people face in worse neighborhoods / in lower income families. Like, you can imagine certain things that you’ve been exposed to, but to think that you have a full picture with only a glimpse of reality is crazy.
So, it’s really hard for people even within the minorities to fully understand what others are going through either due to their own success or their own failures. Like, it’s weird right? If you succeed and you’re in a demographic that isn’t set for success you can get so disconnected from the people who are failing and lose that understanding of the problems that plague them… And if you fail, it’s hard to see how anyone can be doing any worse.
When people look at crime as a whole, they say… Well the people in the groups that are most affected bring as much trouble among themselves as outsiders bring to them… Yet when you look at schools / bullying anywhere in the world, you see the same situation emerge where conflict generates more conflict on the parties being oppressed, because it’s the easiest way to deal with the situation.
Privilege is such an obvious, yet abstract thing, it’s so real and hard to distinguish… Often you lose grasp entirely on where you are on the spectrum because everyone only ever looks up, even the people who are near the bottom. The only way to resolve that is by accepting and not arguing. You can’t understand what the gap is between you and someone else, how large it is…
So, how this relates to simple changes like this… It’s when someone or a group of people say that they need something in order to feel comfortable. Often times, the best thing you can do is to just accept, because you can’t possibly fully understand. Greater acceptance in all directions would lead to a much more cohesive society.
I feel like I come from a bit of a unique perspective of being born into privilege / moving into an area where my demographic was the minority / moving back to the city (multiple cities) / interacting with a wide variety of people (my friend group is quite diverse geographically / background / LGBTQ / racially - not by design, but just how it happened)…
So yeah, understanding other people have problems that I should care about has generally been elusive to me up until recently. I get things wrong a lot of the time in terms of what is ok, what is not. This even with my high level of exposure to a lot of people who are directly affected by these issues.
So yeah, understanding is hard. Accepting is hard when you feel like you have the right to something and you don’t understand why someone believes they should have the right to live without it or maybe you don’t even understand what demographic wants the change / don’t believe that demographic even exists…
But yeah, if everyone showed a higher level of acceptance, myself included, the community would be a better place and the world would be a better place. And no, a site censoring words that it believes are discriminatory is not a violation of your rights just as much as gun control doesn’t lead to communism. It is not a slippery slope to anything, other than a better cohesive environment.
