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Post by Vince524 on Feb 15, 2019 19:55:32 GMT -5
This is the local high school. My daughters went here. My foster son is a junior & my foster daughter will be a freshman in the fall.
2 different articles
Apparently, the version they used had a word that was considered offensive. None of the articles make it clear what the word is, but I'm guessing it's retarded.
So we're bringing identity politics to high school and telling white males to check their privilege. Because people are like formulas and if you're white, male and straight, you life is going to be so easy.
I wonder how my foster son rated.
Raised in poverty, family that escaped from a religious cult. Neglect at home. Raised more by older siblings than parents. Father suffers from depression, alcohol & drug use. Mother alcohol. Mom left them in the care of dad, moving to another state. Been homeless a few times.
Yet he's straight, male, white. Good looking.
We're more than just a sum. Sure, he won't ever have to deal with the same crap that a black kid will have to deal with, but that's not his fault. Is it healthy for him to be aware of that? Sure. But I think there are better ways to deal with it.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 15, 2019 21:03:47 GMT -5
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Post by Christine on Feb 15, 2019 21:07:05 GMT -5
The concept of white male heterosexual privilege isn't meant to be applied to specific individuals e.g., to Vince's foster son, to demonstrate to Vince's foster son how privileged he is. Individual circumstances will vary.
It's supposed to be a thinking exercise. It's not supposed to be a judgment, let alone a blanket judgment, or any sort of condemnation. (Yes, I know, but that's Twitter FFS).
It's not a hard concept to understand, either. Overall, statistically speaking, surely even Vince's foster son with all his personal sufferings can still appreciate, having viewed the world and the other white, male, heterosexual people in it, the concept of white, male, heterosexual privilege.
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Post by Vince524 on Feb 15, 2019 21:23:31 GMT -5
And I get that. I get that, as a white, straight male I can't know what it's like to be pulled over for driving while black, to worry while jogging alone at night, or to get harassed for holding hands with the man I love. But this literally boils it down to a scorecard.
White male straight kids come with many other issues that are unique to them. Such as my foster sons. Such as other things, like being socially awkward, or come from a abusive home, or has a sibling with severe disabilities that command their parents attention far more than they can give to them. Loss of a parent or parents. Traumatic moments in their life. Being bullied.
This isn't the end all or be all. But this isn't the better way to have it.
This can be a worthy conversation, but a scorecard isn't a conversation. It's a way to tell the some students to sit down, shut up, because their so privileged they don't deserve the same respect and dignity as others. And that's just as wrong as telling a kid who is female, gay and black that they don't. You don't repair one harm by inflicting another.
Think about what we're really talking about with white privilege. That we don't have to worry about bad things that happen to say black people for being black. The problem is, it's not that the white kids should have that same discrimination,it's that black kids shouldn't. It doesn't help to yell that a judge doesn't sentence a white kid from a nice family to more than community service for having a little pot on him, while a black teen would get sent to prison for the same thing. It can be worthy to point it out, but the thing we want is to stop the bad treatment of black teens, not impose it on white teens.
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Post by Christine on Feb 15, 2019 21:38:52 GMT -5
White male straight kids come with many other issues that are unique to them. Such as my foster sons. Such as other things, like being socially awkward, or come from a abusive home, or has a sibling with severe disabilities that command their parents attention far more than they can give to them. Loss of a parent or parents. Traumatic moments in their life. Being bullied. No. None of these things are unique to white male straight kids. Black, female, gay kids can have all of these issues too. What can't happen is, e.g., a white male is treated like a black female. That's where the concept of privilege comes in. Privilege does not include "every single sucky thing that could conceivably happen to me as a human." You don't like the scorecard because you see it as individually tailored to each person. It's supposed to be a thought exercise, not a literal scorecard for each individual's life, wherein ONLY race, sex, gender, orientation, etc., matter. I don't think the scorecard itself is the problem. I think the problem is that everyone suffers from terminal uniqueness. You're wrongly extrapolating here. I don't see anything in the links to indicate that the teacher who conducted this exercise was telling anyone to sit down or shut up or that they didn't deserve the same respect and dignity as others. You're in conspiracy territory now. No one (at least, no one sane or taken seriously) is calling for the imposition of harsher treatment on white teens to fix the problem of harsh treatment on black teens. |
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Post by Don on Feb 16, 2019 6:16:44 GMT -5
In this instance we have another fine example of "progressives" advancing to the culture that brought Hitler and Stalin and Mao such great success: victimhood culture. My guess is the perpetrators knew exactly how this would be perceived and did it precisely to stir up shit with their ideological enemies. I am no longer granting the excuse of cluelessness to social warriors of the left or right. As the wars on victimless crimes (gambling, drugs, prostitution) wind down, the controllers need a new reason for control. So, to replace victimless crimes, they've created crimeless victims. On the left, the victims are seen as anyone who's not white, male, rich, or straight. On the right, the victim list is reversed. Same tune, just a counterpoint. And while the right shifts toward honor culture from distrust of the status quo, the left shifts toward victim culture for the same reason. Yet, ironically, both seem convinced that the way forward is to grant even more centralized power to the institutions that have created this horrible mess in the first place, to enforce their conflicting views on everyone, depending on which side of the line 51% of the people fall on one particular day every four years. (seems like a stupid way to run a society, but what do I know?) And our supposed "leaders" are preaching honor culture and victim culture as the only ways forward, when they are simply two different excuses to ramp up repression and centralization. Listen to Trump and hear the appeals to the honor society ringing in his voice. Listen to AOC if you want to hear the appeals to victimhood society. Neither is showing any sign of dignity in their culture. And the vast majority of people support neither of them. Just a few very vocal idiots on either end of the spectrum. The right wants to bring back honor culture while the left is doubling down on victim culture. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people simply try to retain their dignity. I invite the world to read the following article and regain their dignity. Honor, Dignity, Victim: A Tale of Three Moral Cultures |
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Post by Vince524 on Feb 19, 2019 12:57:01 GMT -5
White male straight kids come with many other issues that are unique to them. Such as my foster sons. Such as other things, like being socially awkward, or come from a abusive home, or has a sibling with severe disabilities that command their parents attention far more than they can give to them. Loss of a parent or parents. Traumatic moments in their life. Being bullied. 1) No. None of these things are unique to white male straight kids. Black, female, gay kids can have all of these issues too. What can't happen is, e.g., a white male is treated like a black female. That's where the concept of privilege comes in. Privilege does not include "every single sucky thing that could conceivably happen to me as a human." You don't like the scorecard because you see it as individually tailored to each person. It's supposed to be a thought exercise, not a literal scorecard for each individual's life, wherein ONLY race, sex, gender, orientation, etc., matter. I don't think the scorecard itself is the problem. I think the problem is that everyone suffers from terminal uniqueness. 2) You're wrongly extrapolating here. I don't see anything in the links to indicate that the teacher who conducted this exercise was telling anyone to sit down or shut up or that they didn't deserve the same respect and dignity as others. 3) You're in conspiracy territory now. No one (at least, no one sane or taken seriously) is calling for the imposition of harsher treatment on white teens to fix the problem of harsh treatment on black teens. Mean to respond to this the other day. Started to but it got garbled and never finished. I'm gonna try again. For some reason, I can't get the hand out of doing what you did with breaking up individual parts to respond to, so I'm gonna write it out and # 'em. 1) Of course here you're correct that their not exclusive to straight white males, and it was badly stated on my part. The point is, that these things can be very difficult to deal with and the scorecard can't & of course doesn't take them into account. We need to judge people as individuals, or better yet, not judge them at all. It's a thought exercise in that it seeks to tell everyone that if you lack certain disadvantages, you need to check your privilege. Such things don't tend to start conversations, they end them. 2) I haven't heard how this was handled in the classroom at all. Yotham wasn't in the class. If he relays anything, I'll let you know. Having said that, again my issue is with the scorecard being used as it reduces everything to these points. Again, it may have been handled better. The school itself is a good one. 3) No, I don't think I am. Colleges are having courses on problems of whiteness and people are openly against whiteness. Yes, it's fringe right now, but if it's becoming acceptable to have college courses on it, it's becoming more mainstream. |
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Post by Christine on Feb 21, 2019 20:51:51 GMT -5
1) Of course here you're correct that their not exclusive to straight white males, and it was badly stated on my part. The point is, that these things can be very difficult to deal with and the scorecard can't of course doesn't take them into account. We need to judge people as individuals, or better yet, not judge them at all. Two points here: the scorecard isn't meant to "judge" anyone. And yes, I agree, better to not judge anyone at all. But the larger point is, the scorecard wasn't meant to take every single life experience into account. If it were, it wouldn't be about what we understand to be privilege. Privilege addresses (is supposed to address) characteristics that are innate - white, black, male, female, straight, LGBT, disability. It's not supposed to address every single thing that could conceivably happen to any person circumstantially. The point of privilege is, I think, meant to counteract the downplaying or outright dismissal of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. (You'll recall "playing the race card," "playing the sexist card" etc.) The idea that a person is inundated against certain very real roadblocks by luck of being born white, male, and straight is not wrong. It's factually true. Look, I'm female, but I'm also white and straight. I accept that I have the privilege of being white and straight, wholeheartedly I accept this. It's fact. And I shut up and listen when black and LGBT people talk about what life is like for them. I wouldn't chime in, "Oh, but why don't you just do X to help yourself, black/gay person?" and when people rightly push back on such I wouldn't cry, "but wait, I'm female, I'm not privileged!!!" That sort of shit is absurd. It's no hardship for me to acknowledge my particular privileges, and I don't know why it's so hard for anyone else. The only thing I figure is that some people want to hold on to their precious victim cards and they don't like being told they might actually have it better in some regards than other people. For Chrissakes, it's not supposed to be a competition. |
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Post by robeiae on Feb 21, 2019 21:00:27 GMT -5
Well again, the original point of this scorecard was to mock, which I think it clear from looking at it in full.
I think discussions in school about privilege are fine, can be a positive thing. But using this scorecard as a basis for such a discussion was not a good idea, imo.
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Post by Christine on Feb 21, 2019 21:12:58 GMT -5
Whatever the original point of the scorecard was, I don't think it's correct to imbue the teacher or other subsequent users of it with that same intent.
Find a better "scorecard" or whatever mechanism to convey the concept of privilege, sure.
But clearly Vince (and many others in the wide world) are not arguing that the scorecard is mocking.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 22, 2019 7:35:13 GMT -5
Any "scorecard" is a stupid way to convey privilege in a classroom environment, in my view. Because it's not a quantifiable concept, or at least it shouldn't be.
And the fact that people don't realize the scorecard is mocking is part of the problem with it being used.
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Post by Vince524 on Feb 22, 2019 8:27:42 GMT -5
I didn't see this as mocking. and the news that I saw didn't give me the impression that it was used as mocking either.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 22, 2019 9:30:46 GMT -5
You misunderstand, Vince. The scorecard that was being use by the school was created by people who were mocking the idea of privilege. Clearly, someone from the school found this scorecard on the internet and--not grokking the point of it--used it as a tool in the school. And that was--again--not a particularly smart move.
Because--in my view--"privilege" isn't about ticking off boxes and totaling up points. And teaching that it is is supremely counter-productive.
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Post by Vince524 on Feb 22, 2019 9:45:38 GMT -5
Ah, I get it. And then yes, I agree
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