I thought about titling this diary something like "The first step to ending oppression is listening to the oppressed" or alternatively, "Hey White people STFU!" But the first, though more accurate, was too dry and would get forgotten, and the second was too derivative of recent meta, and if there's anything I hate it's being derivative. Sometimes people pay attention to what I say, sometimes they don't. Clearly, I'm not always popular here, being an psuedo-iconoclast and all. But this shit is important, so I titled it like I did, because this is coming from a place of respect for a lot of people I'm criticizing, though many won't see that.
So what the hell am I saying? If I'm not telling you to shut the fuck up then what? Well, first off, I'm telling you to listen. If you start talking about how the police are worse now and a black man tells you, "No, this is how it's always been." don't just reply and tell them they're wrong because you've read all the right books and Cornell west agrees with you. (And no, he doesn't, BTW) At the same time, if you're well off, if you're a lawyer who's got a comfortable income, don't tell some poor person how the law does so and so and protects them like it protects the rich. And if you're a dude, don't try to tell a woman that her being constantly told what's what isn't oppressive.
So what does this boil down to? Sit down and fucking listen to oppressed people. The first step of fighting oppression is listening to the people who are fucking oppressed. It is a particular conceit of most, and by most I mean nearly all, members of an oppressing group, and that means us White Men, and everyone else who falls into that dynamic somehow, that the members of the oppressing group knows exactly the best way to solve all the problems of the oppressed group. Conveniently for the member of the oppressing group the problems they are intent on solving are not always the problem that the oppressed group are concerned with.
This is because, as a rule, the oppressor doesn't fucking listen to the oppressed.
Now, I understand that this may be a jarring realization for some of you, since so few of us here are oppressed here. Right? I mean, none of you white men who just happen to be poor have ever had anyone tell you how the price of food and energy just doesn't really matter in regards to inflation, right? Never. And when it does happen I'm sure it's no big deal.
I know when I, a white dude without much money or political power, got gentrified out of the Bay Area I just let all those rich tech folks explain to me how they deserved to be there. And I mean, why would someone who has a job at a university need to listen to someone who fucking experienced gentrification firsthand. Someone who actually knows what the fuck it's like.
So when I see some white dude telling a black man how the cops are totally, totally worse now than they were during the civil rights movement. Or when I see a young black man talking about riots then I listen. Sure, maybe I don't agree with everything, but who ever does. But I sit there and I listen to what they say is wrong. And I don't tell them they're wrong about some specific point and I don't tell them that so and so saying blah, blah, blah. Because they don't fucking care about that shit once I've told them they're wrong. Just like I don't care whether your statistics about gentrification are right once you've told me I'm wrong about my experience being forced out of where I grew up.
You get that?
And let me be clear here, I'm using mainly race and class in this diary because that's been the conversations I've been involved with recently, but all of this goes for all kinds of oppression. A female friend of mine told me a year ago about how the Pick-Up artist community was breeding hate and it would lead to violence, based on her experiences and what she knew about gender. I dismissed it. I don't claim to be perfect, by the way, I still fuck up regularly on this shit, but I can admit when I do, which is a step. But I dismissed what she had to say and then what happened? Oh, I was completely fucking wrong. And while me being wrong isn't an uncommon occurrence, it does happen more when I ignore what someone tells me is a problem in regards to an oppressed group they're a part of.
So I'm not telling any of you to shut up, what I'm saying is that you need to get your shit together and realize that if you tell a woman or a black man, or a black woman or a gay dude or some guy in a wheel chair or a poor person that the experience they've just related to you is false then you're wrong. You may be right in the larger sense, you may have the real answer to oppression in general, but when you tell someone their experience of oppression is wrong then you're wrong. Straight up wrong.
Let me repeat that. In bold and quotes.
When you tell someone their experience of oppression is wrong then you're wrong. Straight up wrong.
And finally let me say that not only should we listen, but we need to exhort others to do the same. We need to point out when people are trying to silence oppressed people or when they're merely harassing someone who they disagree with. We need to do this with the understanding that those people probably mean well, so not as an attack but as a reminder. God knows I need them sometimes.
EDIT: The rec list? I'm humbled and thankful that this was important to enough people. Since I didn't actually say it in the diary let me make clear that this is what I learned from listening to people of color, women, and members of other oppressed groups. I didn't figure any of this out on my own, I was lucky enough to know some awesome people, some of them here.