Month: July 2020
SJWs and Privilege
There is a lot of talk about privilege lately, and there is something that I’m beginning to notice. A lot of the SJWs who speak about white guilt and privilege are actually privileged and I seem to actually feel guilty about it.
I’m pretty sure that’s where the disconnect lies. A girl that I have known her whole life posted a… I want to say meme, but I don’t think that’s what it’s actually called, on Facebook. She is a very sweet, very smart girl, but also very privileged. I’m not saying this as an insult as the post stated. It is not an insult. It is just a fact of being. She was raised in a two parent family. Her mother is a teacher and was there for her everyday after school. She always had a nice house. She always had big family parties, plenty of food, after school activities. She was given her first car. Her parents helped her with high end college.. she was quite privileged and I am very happy that she was because I love this little girl (she’s 24, but I’ve known her since the day she was born so bare with me).
The problem is that she assumes that because she had it so well that everyone else like her also had it as good. She doesn’t understand that there are people out there like her, and by like her I mean white, that did not have a two parent family. That did not have a mother at home waiting for her with an after school snack to help her with her home work. Some of us lived with single parents who worked all day and were too tired when they got home to cook. Who looked through the couch in hopes of finding some change so they could walk to the store and buy a candy bar or bag of Jax so they could eat that day.. some of us lived in Volkswagen Pintos as a toddler and again in a car as a teenager when they were kicked out of the house.. some of us had drunken step father’s who would hug and kiss us smelling of beer, and telling us how if we were just a little older they’d have married us (when we were 9).. some of us were kidnapped as a child and brought to live in a cult till we were rescued. Some of us spent years hiding from our mother so that didn’t happen again.. some of us didn’t have birthday parties, and had to walk to work everyday for months to save up and buy our first car. Some of us had to actually work full-time while in college to pay for it.. and some of us, even going through all that understand that we are still more privileged than others.
My problem with white privilege and the message that it sends is that it’s actually racist. It assumes that white people are better than people of color. It assumes that just by the fact that someone is black that they automatically had a worse life than someone who is white. Now I’m not saying that I wasn’t more privileged than some.. I was.. everyone is. But that does not make my life, in general better than anyone else who happens to be darker than me… which as a pasty girl of Irish decent is pretty much everyone.
I would never categorize someone as being less “privileged” than me.. as if I were special for some reason, just because of my skin color. As if someone who is black or brown couldn’t possibly have had a better life than mine because of it. That is racist. I’ve known black people my whole life.. they are everywhere if you haven’t noticed. They are not all inner-city poor people. They do not all need us whites to help them out of their situation.. they are not all less than privileged because of their race.
From what I have seen of the SJWs they conflate black with poor. They conflate inner-city with criminal. They conflate white with better. They conflate white with master.. whites can either save or destroy at their will. We are either “helping” the poor black people or we’re “oppressing” them. That’s racist.
People talk about how blacks are portrayed in the media and on TV, and maybe they are right. When I grew up the Huxtables were on my TV every night. He was a doctor (the character, I’m not going to get into the actor), she was a lawyer. The kids went to college. They were strong, smart, independent people who happened to be black. This was how I was raised. This is my understanding of people, but a lot of TV shows, movies, and music is written with blacks being either poor or thugs. This is the same Hollywood culture that cries to defund the police and that Black Lives Matter. The way I see it black lives only matter to the SJW white elite to the point where they can be tokens for their political ideology.
If someone points out that the biggest problem for the POOR blacks is single motherhood, high school drop out rates, and gang violence, then the person is a racist. If someone points out that, though blacks have the 2nd highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (Native Americans being the highest), they are only 20%.. meaning 80% are not. 80% of Black American’s are just like everyone else and getting by just fine.. that is racist. Anything said that DOESN’T describe blacks as a victim is some how racist… that’s racist. White, upper class, privileged Americans should not get to dictate how people think about anyone else.. that’s racist.
What happened to conversations?
Open communication is the most important thing in any relationship. Anyone married couple or councilor will tell you that. Our ability to communicate so completely is a lot of what separates us from the apes. We can talk. We can read body language. Hell when we know someone well enough we can almost read their minds.
So when did communication and conversations become so toxic? When did it become, “Think like me or you’re evil!”? This is true in personal relationships, public affairs, and just about any way that people interact at all.
Social Media is obviously the worst. People sit behind their keyboards and talk so much crap it’s ridiculous. Names are called, threats are spewed, and nothing is accomplished. I was raised in the Boston area, so I was always pretty liberal. I also went to public college and studied in the soft subjects of History and Poli-sci, so I’ve made a lot of liberal friends. I’ve also made some conservative friends. I always loved debating them. I’m one of those people that likes confrontation to a point… especially when I think I’m right… but I also LOVE to learn new things when it turns out that I’m wrong.
My first History class in college I had the best professor. He was this little Joe Pesci looking guy who came in on the first day, climbed up on his desk, and said, “I’m from the toughest borough in the toughest city and I’m not taking any crap from any of you.”. It scared or confused some of the kids in the class but I thought it hilarious. He made history fun. He told stories about the past like he was talking about a book or a movie character. He added details and opinions and made me want to learn more.
One day he was talking about politics and said that one needed to pick a side. You couldn’t be “undeclared” as we call it in Massachusetts. You had to pick, Republican or Democrat, that was the only way to get anything done. I thought he was wrong. That seemed like the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. I sat in my classroom, listening to this teacher that I had adored and admired and thought was so smart and I completely disagreed with everything that he was saying, and for some that may have made them question their own beliefs, but for me if just made them stronger. I loved my professor. I agreed with him on so much.. but not everything. I didn’t have to. I was allowed to disagree with him, and I was allowed to respect him. That was the best lesson I could have ever learned from college.
I post crap all over social media. For a long time, especially after Trump was elected I posted a lot of Liberal media. My friends on the right would comment or critique and I would chat back with them inquiring on why they disagreed and what they thought may be a better idea. My left friends would jump on with insults and disparaging remarks and I would shut them down and tell them that I would not allow them to insult my friends. Even the ones that I disagreed with. I earned some respect from the right for that.
Now, I am a centrist. I completely agree with a lot of what the Liberals say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what they say. I completely agree with a lot of what conservatives say, and I completely disagree with a lot of what conservatives say. I still continue to post articles and videos to my page. I still continue to ask questions and debate my friends, and I still continue to shut down anyone who throws insults at those who disagree.
I am not a Liberal. I am not a Conservative. I am a person who loves to talk about what I feel with others and listen to them in return. I am constantly changing. I am constantly growing. I am constantly learning new things. I don’t believe that anyone who has other’s best interests at heart should be labeled as evil or a fascist or anything else. I don’t believe anyone should be canceled for anything that they say… even the evil and the fascists. Without open conversations and debate no one will be able to learn. No one will be able to grow.
What ever happened to conversations? And how can we learn without them?
Anger: The drug of choice
Have you ever known someone who was angry? I don’t mean like, “I’m mad that Burger King stopped carrying curly fries.” angry. I mean truly to their core angry. The person who festers on every wrong and injustice ever put upon them. Hitting every light on their way to work. Getting whole milk in their coffee instead of soy. Every relationship they ever had ended badly, or they had one that was so bad that they could never imagine entering into another because all people of their chosen sexual interest and all romances are painted with the brush of evil.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with this person? Like, an actual one. One in which the person listens to you and actually hears you? It’s not as easy as one would think. People who are angry are almost impossible to reason with. The amount of cortisol and epinephrine running through a person’s system makes it very difficult for that person to listen to anything anyone has to say that doesn’t follow the narrative that’s pushing those chemicals.
In some cases anger becomes the drug of choice. It doesn’t matter what they are angry at. A person, a system, or life itself. Everything is someone else’s fault. They are always the victim, and anyone who tries to change their mind on this fact is the enemy. There is a clear line in the sand that must never be crossed. The person has to stay on that side of angry. On that side of justified. On that side of victimhood or else they’ll have to take a look at them self and see that they are the problem.
I know that when I’m having a bad day everything suddenly goes wrong. I wake up late, I can’t find my keys, I fumble and drop my keys when locking the door, my purse gets caught on the screen door handle, that causes my coffee to spill all over me.. and I haven’t even left my porch yet.
That is a sucky day. But the reason it is so sucky is not because the keys and the door are against me. It’s because my mind is otherwise occupied by the angry drugs coursing through it and I can’t focus on the keys, the lock, the door, the coffee.. and so on. I am rushed. I am distracted. I AM. And that’s the key. I am those things. The only way to change those things is to change how I react to those things. I take deep breaths. I learn to laugh at myself. I keep a spare shirt in my car for the MANY coffees that get spilled. I make better decisions.
It’s a scary thing to realize though. No one wants to “be a loser”. They don’t want to think that had THEY done something differently that the outcome may have been better. They want to blame someone else for their misfortune. Much better to be a victim, than to be a loser, and let’s face it, the angry chemicals are way more fun than the depressive ones, and a lot less complicated than doing the work.
When someone is stuck at a job they hate, and someone mentions that they could possibly get a new job. That’s paramount to assault. They are stealing their identity. The person couldn’t possibly just change their actions. That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works. They are stuck. Their boss won’t give them a raise or a promotion, so obviously they’ve stopped doing the extra work because no one cares anyway. They can’t go to another job because???? they have bills to pay??? and looking for a job is hard work.. and it’s not like anyone is going to hire them because their boss won’t give them a good reference… and… and .. you just don’t understand. No one understands.
People stay in crappy relationships, because it’s “easier than leaving”. Have you ever been in a crappy relationship? They’re nothing easy about that. Now I’m not talking about actually physically abusive relationships. Those are a completely different situation and they need real help sometimes getting out of. That is a fact of there being a predator and a victim. I’m talking about the crappy relationships in which you don’t talk anymore. You don’t have fun anymore. You don’t care anymore. People just cling to them for the sake of it. Because it’s what they are used to and it gives them something to complain about.
When asked if they’ve thought about therapy, or what they have done to try to bring back the romance or work on it at all.. they just say “you don’t understand”. The most cliche phrase in existence. It’s literally the phrase teenagers say to their parents, who, by the way.. were teenagers once too.
The problem is not that the other person doesn’t understand. The other person completely understands. You like to be the victim. You are addicted to the chemicals in your brain.. you don’t want to do the work. You want to blame everyone else for your problems. We all understand. The question is, do you?
Katrina Michelle Russell 