Smakebit: Bad Feminist

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Söndag och dags för ett smörgåsbord av smakbitar ur böcker igen. Smörgåsbordet finns hos den gästvänliga Mari på Flukten fra virkeligheten och alla är välkomna att kika runt och/eller delta själv. Mitt bidrag kommer från boken Bad Feminist av Roxane Gay och en femtedel in är jag lite tveksam, men kapitlet som handlade om privilegier tyckte jag om så därifrån kommer dagens utdrag:

     Too many people have become self-appointed privilege police, patrolling the halls of discourse, ready to remind people of their privilege whether those people have denied that privilege or not. In online discourse, in particular, the specter of privilege is always looming darkly. When someone writes from experience, there is often someone else, at the ready, pointing a trembling finger, accusing that writer of having various kinds of privilege. How dare someone speak to a personal experience without accounting for every possible configuration of privilege or the lack thereof? We would live in a world of silence if the only people who were allowed to write or speak from experience or about difference were those absolutely without privilege. 
     When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups. Must we satisfy our need to be heard and seen by preventing anyone else from being heard and seen? Does privilege automatically negate any merits of what a privilege holder has to say? Do we ignore everything, for example, that white men have to say? 
     We need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation. We need to be able to argue beyond the threat of privilege. We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we’ll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist. Because at some point, doesn’t privilege become beside the point?

Ha en trevlig söndag!