Living In a State of Sin

I’m a middle-class cisgendered white male in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship.  I know, great way to start a post on a feminist journal, right?

I’ve always thought of myself as the progressive sort, but as time goes on I’m starting to realize how much privilege has permeated my life, and how that has affected my judgements and my perceptions.

I think about the people I spent time with in high school and college.  About the jokes wrought with racism, classism and sexism that were "okay, because we don’t really mean it".  I don’t want to get into it, but the drill’s pretty familiar.  Rationalization is great: it’s okay to be wildly offensive and make light of other people’s trauma because hey, it’s just a joke.  Makes everything aaaall better, right?  Yeah, right.

Even now though, it’s important to me, to recognize that no matter how much I educate myself, I will always have the life experience of somebody who is privileged, and not somebody who’s been oppressed.

I’ve been nervous about posting in the Feministing community for some time.  I’m constantly worried that what’s going to come out of my fingertips is going to be something with an assumption tucked into it, some point of view inexorably tied to the life experiences I’ve had, and will continue to have no matter how loud I cry that it’s foul play, or how far I go in trying to reject it.

You may be wondering where I’m going with this.  I’ve been thinking the same thing.   What I’ve come to is this.  If I don’t speak up, I can’t offend anybody, but those notions that are pressed into my neurons may take forever to be found and cleaned up.

I’m sorry if this comes off sounding like a crutch.  I don’t mean to come off sounding like I’m expecting to come out here, penis blowing proudly in the breeze until somebody tells me to put it away.  I do try.  I fundamentally believe that all people should be treated as people.  That everybody deserves to be treated as a human being, regardless of gender identity, mode of dress, chromosomal make-up.  That nobody should be elevated above or pushed below another person except by how they treat others.  That when a crime is committed, it is the criminal who chooses to commit the crime, and not the victim who causes the crime to be commited; and it is not simply that the victim has suffered a crime.  That you cannot expect, after centuries of privileged behavior, to just say "okay, everybody has to be treated the same now" and expect that it works that way.  We cannot stand idly by and say "Well, there are non-discrimination laws, so that means there’s no discrimination.  Obviously these people who have been oppressed for generations are just not as good as us privileged folk."  That women have the right to decide what they do with their bodies, without the interference of doctors and pharmacologists who have moral objections.  This list is not comprehensive, but I could be here a while if I don’t trail this off now.

Possibly I am rambling, so here is the bottom line.  I have things to say.  I want to contribute.  I do not mean to speak in such a way that I exert privilege, but I also recognize that I haven’t figured out all the ways in which that happens.  And if it happens, I really do hope that you’ll call me on my bullshit.

Thank you.