This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Every day we get told that cis-het white guys should shut up and stop 'splaining oppression.
Judging people by nothing other than skin color is abhorrent reasoning, and an example of the racist and discriminatory perspective that you claim is causing oppression.
Credibility matters. If you have no credibility with your audience on the topic at hand, then your sound evidence will go unheard. It's not an issue of "should" it matter, but rather that it does matter. That's reality.
Well yeah, it's the audience who gets to determine how credible you are, by whatever (arbitrary and/or misguided) standards they choose.
As someone speaking to an audience, it's your responsibility to determine if it's worth your energy to engage with them. Sometimes it works out even in the most bizarre circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
Who decides whether or not evidence is based and sound?
During the slave era, white slave owners believed they were doing good for the black man. That this was their optimal role in society.
If you are not the oppressed, you cannot objectively be part of the discussion about whether or not and how the oppressed are being oppressed. It's quite simple. The only thing you can do is help. If you argue against their oppression, you are perpetuating the structural inequality.
In a nutshell, everyone is oppressed, in some way.
You can be oppressed and be an oppressor. There's something to be said for how and why, but weighing them against each other is nebulous. This has been true throughout history. re: israel-palestinian, hmong-vienamese, english-scottish, etc.
> If you are not the oppressed, you cannot objectively be part of the discussion about _whether or not_ ...
I don't find this assertion is sound. There's an element of ideology in there, which I appreciate, but I do not agree on this practical tenet. If it was rephrased or attenuated to a more specific decisioning system (ie the latter part of the statement, is more palatable, albeit also something I don't fully agree to), I would re-examine it.
So, just because some men had a crappy idea — at the same time people also thought the earth was made in a week — every white man who ever lives is now precluded from an opinion. Dear lord.
It is better not to engage people who think like that. They’re don’t have a good faith interest in improving the situation, they only want to talk down to people.
I'll give you a couple very extreme examples that you can hopefully find parallel in:
Do slave owners get a seat at the table when discussing whether or not and how slaves are oppressed?
Do white people who support Jim Crow laws get a seat at the table when discussing whether or not and how black people are oppressed?
Does a religious majority get a seat at the table when discussing whether or not and how a religious minority is oppressed?
The argument is: those that are not affected by the oppression discussed (who may even be doing the oppressing) simply cannot have an objective discussion on whether or not and how a community is being oppressed. How do you know what that oppression is and feels like to tell someone that they are not being oppressed? Therefore, where a white cis-het male's opinion is productive is only when discussing how they can help-- not when discussing whether or not that oppression exists.
In the same vein, I am male. My opinion is not productive when discussing whether or not and how women are oppressed. Consider this scenario: male politicians are deciding on laws that govern women's bodies; women say they are oppressed; men say no you're not oppressed. Do you see why men's opinion are not productive here? My opinion only matters when discussing how I can help women feel less oppressed.
At the end of the day, you have the freedom and right to discuss all you want. But ask yourself, is your discussion productive or destructive to someone else. Your arguments will never convince an oppressed community that they are not oppressed, that's gaslighting. It will only convince other unaffected people against them-- which is why it's destructive to discuss the existence of oppression when you are not the oppressed.
So the alt-right gets a seat at the table when discussing whether or not the mainstream media oppresses them? But the media must sit in silence?
So the Russians get a seat at the table when discussing if Russian-born Ukrainians are being oppressed? But the ethnic Ukrainians have no say.
So gun rights activists get a seat at the table when we discuss if their 2nd amendment rights are being oppressed? But the gun-owning majority gets no say?
Do members of the Church of Scientology sit alone at an empty table when discussing how they are oppressed? Members of major religions who have members routinely massacred have no say?
How about white supremacists? They’re a small minority. I’m sure they’d claim to be oppressed.
How about men being unfairly oppressed by “me too”? No place at the table for women!
Hopefully you can see how ridiculous your position is. You’re choosing cherry-picked situations where the answer is something you agree with. You’re also assuming that no group of people would ever deem themselves to be oppressed when they are in fact not - but that’s clearly not the case! You’re also forgetting that it’s entirely possible for a minority to oppress a majority - just look at Syria.
ultimately the existence and degree of oppression is a factual matter. in general I agree that white dudes tend to have very little information that they can add to such a discussion. the way society is set up mostly precludes learning anything about it firsthand.
at the same time, I think your position is too absolute. to give you an example, I used to work in a small pizza place. one day a black dude came in and ordered eight slices of pizza. my coworker informed him that he was significantly overpaying and could save money by ordering a whole 16" pizza instead. the guy instantly flew off the handle: "you think I don't understand math?", "would you ask a white person that question?", "I didn't go to school for two years to be talked down to by the likes of you", etc. my coworker (a white dude) explained that, in fact, he asked everyone who ordered eight slices that question as it was store policy (it was) and that it had nothing to do with race.
as far as I understand it, racism was not happening in that situation. was it wrong of my coworker to point that out, or should he just have accepted that he didn't deserve a "seat at the table"? or am I wrong, and my coworker was being racist while treating this man exactly the same as all the other customers?
The answer is that it's not all about 'coworker', but understanding that the way society has treated black people and minorities has create a hostile environment. The reason why people don't want white men at the table is because they tend to make it personal and about themselves. There's a great episode of south park, the 'n word' episode [0], that kind of explains this. Stan exuberantly "gets it", by "not getting it".
like I said, I think I understand at a high level what people mean when they say white men shouldn't have or don't deserve a seat at the table. I certainly wouldn't presume to have a useful opinion on stuff like "how bad is racism today?". I also understand that the guy in the restaurant probably didn't just lose it because of that one isolated occurrence, and that his lived experience might very well justify the outburst.
what I'm trying to understand is what exactly "the table" is and what it means for a person to respect that they don't get a seat at it. should my coworker have just stood there and not defended himself? or should he have gone so far as to apologise for something he didn't understand or think he did? was making any attempt to defend himself or correct the perceived misunderstanding presuming to have a seat at "the table"? am I recentering the discussion around white men just by asking how he should have handled it?
I'll have a look at the video later, can't watch at work.
You're still kinda missing the point. It doesn't matter what your coworker did or didn't do. It's not about them. You bringing up that point again kinda proves that you shouldn't have a seat at "the table". What do we mean by "the table"? Usually it's an active voice in discussions on these things. Do everyone a favor and start listening to people. Really listen. Become empathetic. Don't try to fix things, because you don't understand the problem. Start understanding that you don't understand the problem.
It sure must suck to get yelled at by someone, especially when it's confusing or doesn't make sense. Want to know what's worse than getting yelled at? Getting shot by the authorities.
tbh I'm starting to get the impression that you are deliberately sidestepping my question, but maybe I just haven't done a good job with phrasing it. all I'm really asking is whether the coworker in the story is taking a seat at "the table" by making any attempt to explain whatsoever.
your coworker is having a human interaction with another human. That's life. Sometimes people are upset. Sometimes they're upset about stuff that doesn't make sense. Sometimes you can calm them down by talking with them and sometimes you can't. The table doesn't happen in day to day interactions. The table exists to try and solve the issues that cause these day to day interactions to exist.
... yes? You can't argue you're being objective about your expectations of people who didn't voluntarily choose to live in your house or follow your rules but don't have means to do otherwise.
I mean, your example is literally spot on. You as a parent can't be objective - you have to oppress your children to get them to adhere to your ideals of the household.
Sorry, wasn't commenting on the merits of parenting, authoritative styles, etc. Just trying to match OP's children's definition of "oppression" ..
* having expectations involuntarily set on your performing of activities that you would not voluntarily perform otherwise;
* punishment for failing to meet those expectations, rather than a reward for meeting those expectations
With the contradictory idea of the person setting the expectations and punishments being "objective" in a discussion.
Certainly if the request from the children is "we don't want to clean our rooms", the only truly objective response is to either:
a) incentivize them to clean their rooms with negotiated rewards and benefits, in a true market sense
b) convince them through logic and rhetoric to voluntarily choose to clean their rooms;
c) agree that they don't have to clean their rooms.
Well, yes, you're excluded from discussing that oppression if you exclude matriarchy/patriarchy from parenting. As a society, we deem matriarchy/patriarchy in parenting as part of raising children.
The entire idea of patriarchy in civil rights is that white cis-het men believe they know what's best for everyone in society-- and this power is given to them by society through politics. That's precisely what these "social justice" movements are trying change, the power structure, and increase representation in politics and society at large. Would you argue that is it right for white cis-het men to "parent" other communities in the same way you parent your children?
What if they disagree with your premises? I'd rather be your enemy than ally if all I can do is nod my head like an idiot puppet at all of the terribly misinformed social justice rhetoric you're throwing at me.
But at least ask yourself why you disagree and why you think someone is wrong about their oppression. And then apply that lens of thinking to another era, say Jim Crow, and how your lens of thinking can affect others.
