Who is John Scalzi and why should I listen to him scolding people?
Shut Up and Listen
71–80 of 115 posts
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are born with a high IQ and a wealthy background that is more due to luck than any extra effort you have put in. Your ancestors effectively overcame these obstacles on your behalf, so in essence that is a form of privilege; just a different type.
Just because you have privilege doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's not your fault . You shouldn't really feel guilty. It's just luck a lot of the time. Luck can take away privilege as well. One unluck car accident can make you paralyzed. There goes your able bodies privilege then. And not everyone has the same obstacles (that's the point of privilege), so you can't say for sure that your white ancestors had the s…
No one has argued in this thread that you and I are bad peeple because we're priviledged. What they're saying is that if we are not aware of that priviledge you are living in ignorance and should not be surprised when less priviledged people don't take us seriously.
Take Rosseau's famous example of priviledged ignorance: "If the peasants have no bread, let them eat cake." If we are not aware of our priviledge we appear just as ridiculous as that French princess.
Also, I'm pretty sure my white ancestors never turned on the tv and saw a state governor standing at the door of a university trying to block white people from getting in.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#73When our brains encounter certain issues (politics, religion, racial issues, favorite editor) it automatically goes on the defensive and start filtering out everything and starts immediately thinking how to come up with bullet points to deflect the arguments. That prevents us from listening. With respect to those kind of topics there are very few if any who can approach it with a clean slate. So it takes considerable…
Yeah, and lots of people think it's only The Other Side that does it. But most of us are wired to be tribal. Our Side does it, too. In fact, each of us ourselves likely does it.
It's good to have friends with a wide variety of political beliefs.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#74the example of walking through a dark parking lot to demonstrated 'straight white privilege' is pretty shitty. in fact it's probably the worst example you could choose. his 'privilege' of not worrying about being assaulted comes from the fact that he is 6' 280 pounds, not because he's white or male or straight. a big gay black man (or woman, for that matter) of the same stature probably doesn't feel that twinge of fe…
I am a 5'6" white guy weighing 120lb. I don't feel fear walking through dark parking lots. The shortest path between my house and the closest grocery is through a large, poorly lit lot. The better lit street route would add, oh, about a minute to the walk. I would absolutely not walk through there if I was a woman. I don't really mind the small chance of being robbed -- a small chance of being raped is a completely d…
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Re: Shut Up and Listen
#75A textbook example from a Reddit thread: in a conversation about college, one poster lamented the existence of women's and minority groups (like the Society of Women Engineers or the National Society of Black Engineers) that exclude white males. A second poster pointed out that those organizations don't exclude white males, and in some cases white males are actively courted. The third poster responded to the effect o…
Do you have a link to that? I'd love to be able to show that to others.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#76Re: Shut Up and Listen
#77the example of walking through a dark parking lot to demonstrated 'straight white privilege' is pretty shitty. in fact it's probably the worst example you could choose. his 'privilege' of not worrying about being assaulted comes from the fact that he is 6' 280 pounds, not because he's white or male or straight. a big gay black man (or woman, for that matter) of the same stature probably doesn't feel that twinge of fe…
I am a 5'6" white guy weighing 120lb. I don't feel fear walking through dark parking lots. The shortest path between my house and the closest grocery is through a large, poorly lit lot. The better lit street route would add, oh, about a minute to the walk. I would absolutely not walk through there if I was a woman. I don't really mind the small chance of being robbed -- a small chance of being raped is a completely d…
"small chance of being robbed"
do it in a bad neighborhood at the wrong time/place and this turns into "large chance of being cornered, beaten for being white/outsider/unknown, robbed, and if you put up any resistance, killed."
all your anecdote tells me is you don't venture far from your own safety zones.
my point is a bank, board room, police station, or any number of other places is a MUCH BETTER place to illustrate the "white, straight, male" privilege that exists.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#78A textbook example from a Reddit thread: in a conversation about college, one poster lamented the existence of women's and minority groups (like the Society of Women Engineers or the National Society of Black Engineers) that exclude white males. A second poster pointed out that those organizations don't exclude white males, and in some cases white males are actively courted. The third poster responded to the effect o…
Do you have a link to that? I'd love to be able to show that to others.
Ugh, I'll see if I can find it, I don't even remember what the original topic was.
edit - found it: http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/184uh5/as_a_w...
Looks like that post was heavily downvoted. You can read up the parent chain to see the other posts I referenced.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking for a 'solution' is the wrong angle to take. There is no easy answer to any question that involves privilege. You can't make a decision about how it can be fixed and just fix it. It's an ongoing process and a living conversation. That's why he says that it's not just about shutting up when you're called out on your privilege, it's also about listening. Accept that there are things in the world, and positions…
People are all privileged in different ways and in different circumstances. I think this idea is what tends to get swept under the rug when pointing to some overarching Privilege.
Re: Shut Up and Listen
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're not his intended audience IMHO - people like you (who already approve of his politics) are.
John Scalzi is an award-winning author with a considerable fanbase. Last time I was in Times Square, his latest book was being projected on the largest screen there. I humbly suggest that among his immense readership are people who either disapprove of his politics, or who are not quite as aware of their privilege as he is and would benefit from having a smart, eloquent person point it out publicly.
I suggest the intended audience of his blog and the intended audience of his fiction are not the same.