Tag Archive for "privilege"

Posts Tagged privilege

White savior complexes, hurt feelings and the undue pressure put on writers of color

Teju Cole has a deeply nuanced and informative piece at the Atlantic Monthly about a phenomenon that now finally has a name: the White Savior Industrial Complex. According to Cole, the specific type of activism where white and/or other privileged people enter communities, countries and cultural contexts that are not their own, is still a site rife with misunderstanding, assumptions, faulty generalizations and ultimately, misguided “do-gooding.” His piece was in response to Kony 2012 and in defense of a series of poignant tweets, including:

@tejucole 5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.

I suppose you could see how these tweets were controversial–except that they are totally correct. So, really the only people ...

By zerlina • 12 years ago

Wednesday Weigh In: ‘White Male Nerd Culture’ Edition

Over at Salon, Irin Carmon examines the “white nerd male culture” after this week’s #SXSW attempt to diversify led to sometimes awkward results:

On Monday, an enthusiastic white man congratulated film blogger and software development manager Malaika Paquiot-Mose for how well she’d done on the South by Southwest panel that had just ended.

Inconveniently, Paquiot-Mose hadn’t been on it.

Still, the gentlemen insisted that she had, despite the fact that Paquiot-Mose and Latoya Peterson, the panel’s moderator, honestly couldn’t figure out which of the black female panelists she had even been mistaken for. It didn’t help that the panel was called “Race: Know When to Hold It and When to Fold It” – on diversity and representation in technology – and by ...

Over at Salon, Irin Carmon examines the “white nerd male culture” after this week’s #SXSW attempt to diversify led to sometimes awkward results:

On Monday, an enthusiastic white man congratulated film blogger and software development manager Malaika ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Roundup: The many ways “If I Was a Poor Black Kid” got it seriously wrong

Have you seen this BS? A self-described “middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background” wrote an article for Forbes called “If I Was a Poor Black Kid.” [sic]

If you haven’t seen it yet, first of all, bless you for not spending all your time on the internet!

And second of all, I’ll save you the trouble and give you the short version: “If this middle class white guy was somehow transformed into a poor black kid, he’d pull himself up by the virtual bootstraps, mostly with Google Scholar, to rise above his circumstances.”

*SERIOUS MEAN MUG*

This from the same guy who devoted an entire column to giving reasons why most women will never ...

Have you seen this BS? A self-described “middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background” wrote an article for Forbes called “If I Was a Poor Black Kid.” [sic]

If you ...

By Courtney • 13 years ago

Unpacking the invisible messenger bag

My column for this week at The American Prospect is on privilege. It’s a piece I labored over, as privilege is such a difficult topic to think, talk, and write about. Thankfully I had a lot of great friends, including some of the Feministing crew, offer their thoughts and criticisms, and so many smart colleagues offer resources. It’s good to have friends.

In part, I reflected:

Unfortunately, too many people that I encounter — particularly on college campuses — get sort of stuck in a muck of guilt. They become invested in testifying to their own lack of ignorance in public spaces (read: “I’m one of the good ones”), but then don’t constructively re-imagine what those spaces might look like in ...

My column for this week at The American Prospect is on privilege. It’s a piece I labored over, as privilege is such a difficult topic to think, talk, and write about. Thankfully I had a lot ...

By adina giannelli • 13 years ago

Desperately Seeking Sterilization: the politics of privilege

My post-collegiate boyfriend was an affable Dane who later became a public school teacher. Children loved him, and (I think) he loved children, but he didn’t want to have any of his own. That was his story, anyway. He spoke loudly and often about not wanting to breed, or parent, or do anything involving the permanent presence of children. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was an active alcoholic who could barely take care of himself. It may have had something to do with his age, or it may have been that he simply, unequivocally did not want children.

He once told me a story about going to his doctor at ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Why do strange men think they’re allowed to touch me?

One morning last week I was in line at Starbucks, preparing for the long work day ahead. As I stood in line, a man walked through the café, heading for the seating area in the back. He stopped when he reached me, placed a hand on my arm, leaned in close and said, “You’re so beautiful.” I gave him the filthiest look I could muster – now a reflex after over a year of dealing with New York City street harassment – and stepped up to the register to order my drink. The barista handed it over, and as I walked over to add milk and sugar, I could feel myself becoming angry. I stirred the milk and sugar in, ...

One morning last week I was in line at Starbucks, preparing for the long work day ahead. As I stood in line, a man walked through the café, heading for the seating area in the back. He ...