Is there such a thing as reverse-prejudice?
I ask because I feel this would be a great community to reach out to and tell me exactly what they think.
Ok. On another large magazine contributor platform I am in, one of their members shared a non-binary late teenager explaining they were non-binary. I was discussing the video I had seen with fellow members because every-time someone tells me they don't fit into the binary biological make-up of a human body I scratch my head a bit. I just can't see how someone can claim to be genderless. Although, that being said I'm very open to learn more and be schooled on the subject. I do recognise that I'm a bit old school and kids in my days were forced to be binary. Anything else was ridiculed.
That being said, a woman jumped on and said that my thought process was "typical for a hetero-normative person to think in such terms" and that "she found it worrying that a person would want to know about gender and sexuality" - is it me or did my privileged white heterosexual male ego take a bruising? lol. But I do think she was stereotyping me in a way that she thought typical of my group.
That being said it took me into a wider thought process in my mind. I recognise that I'm in one of the most privileged groups in the world. I'm very mainstream when it comes to gender, race, accessibility, sexuality, able, breedability and so on. In life (in real life) I don't find many battles amongst my peers. In the grand scheme of things I never have done. I'm quite lucky in retrospect.
A good friend of mine, another writer once admitted to me that because I was a white man she would believe me over her peers. She viewed me as some sort of authority figure. And that shocked me. That shocked me to the core. The sheer depth of cultural brainwashing it would take for someone to believe this, and yet, I still can't get my head around it. Also, the strange thing was is that I saw HER as an authority figure because she was the one that essentially taught me to write from the heart.
Whilst that knocked me off balance for a few days because I've always considered every human being my equal, and perhaps that's also a privilege I have been afforded. I merged the two concepts today after that discussion with another member and went onto the train of thought - is there reverse prejudice?
Well of course there is.
Look at me and the Queen of England for instance. The Queen is far more privileged than I will ever, ever, ever be, and I look up at her on her podium and see her as an overpriviliged pompous bitch. How dare she sit on her golden throne whilst there are people living in squalor, unable to feed themselves. And then my thought process dived onto another tangent.
I've often encountered this reverse prejudice but I've put it down to people being arseholes, plain and simple. I'm one for diving into communities online that perhaps my archetype isn't very welcome. Forums for women for example, is a big one for me, but that's a different story.
It's a discussion that works me up quite a bit because when people generalise, categorise, stereotype and pigeon-hole, I scream - I'm not fucking like that, that's not me. And chances are not many of us are like that. We've read it somewhere in gross over-simplification of gender or likewise, or something bad has happened to a person and then they categorise every similar person that way too. But people are different.
I am different.
YOU are different.
It's like now that America and USA are at war with Syria, and Russia is threatening to wade in - I can guarantee that our governments views aren't representative of their people. Who the fuck wants a megaton nuclear warhead through their letterbox?
Not me.
You?
I hate my government - that could be considered as reverse prejudice.
And I guess I get back to my roots when I say that it's best to treat everyone at face value, because prejudice at it's core isn't a healthy emotion. It motivates others to act in silly ways based on fear and not the current reality.
I could torch my Muslim neighbours house because of ISIS but then that wouldn't be representative of their views. There's no bombs being dropped on my country and there is no threat anywhere.
I'd like to think I judge others on face value, not from what I know.
Stop a while, get to know someone, find their deeper value.
Everyone has something of worth.
Own yours :)
Where I grew up people would stereotype whites on wealth, openly making them a target. People would assume because of your skin color that you had things easier, that you didn't have to work for what you have and that therefore can't relate to them. This is racism, racial discrimination is when you are treated differently because of the stereotypes surrounding your ethnic background.
Some people have convinced themselves that only those with more chances to discriminate can be called discriminators, I think this idea is very dangerous.
About non-binary kids, a comment was made in one of my posts just a little while ago that partially touches on the subject.
Aside from the people who identify their gender with neutrality, there are those who will also reject gender as they see it. Some people see gender as 100% either or, when is never 100%. They can become frustrated with what they think is unachievable to them and reject what they see as an imposition that would kill their true character. People have different words to describe different things and for some people it really is a phase.
A kid that refers to themselves as non-binary may really be trying to say that they can't find themselves in humanity, that they feel like an alien, or they may be protesting what they think is expected of them because of their sex. Usually when you speak to them you'll find that they are very defensive towards things they perceive as authoritarian.
I guess I can say all this without the fear of my privilege being used against me since I am trans and not white, crazy times :p
No such thing as "non-binary" . It is not discrimination of people to not take people seriously when they parrot unfounded tumblr-ideology as 'fact' all over social media and then play the victim status because they are not the majority. People dont like being lied to. And from research with actual trans people and former trans, the "non-bianry" and tumblr transtrender is people using it to gain popularity online. If they kept that stuff to tumblr and their RPGs, people wouldn't mind at all about them having their fun.
When they play it up as an extremist anti-cis, anti-heterosexual cult - that is when people get defensive.
This stuff is pseudoscience. And if it is going to use Saul Alinsky tactics and Hitler's method of "keep telling the lie over and over until people believe it" ...it is seen by the majority of society as nothing but narcissism.
After reading a former trans article (Walt Heyer), listening to Trans Blaire White and also information from Milo Yiannopoulos I wonder how much the democrats are paying this feminist SJW movement? because if something is based on pseudoscience and not facts and it is all about overthrowing the majority for just a micro-size of the population, ....something sounds off.
The older I get, the less I believe I am on any sort of political scale - but I do know that the further left on the Political scale you travel, the closer to the extreme right you become, until all boundaries are blurred
This is exactly what I thought they were doing. I basically said in the group that I was in - could it possibly be that they can't identify with their gender peers? Like myself, I don't identify with a lot of my peers. I try to make new friends, but I'm often turned off with their complete lack of respect for women. It's a big player in my life, respect for women, because I have a lot more women friends, and I also understand (sort of) their daily struggle - but I also know it isn't these guys faults, it's how they were brought up. I just choose not to involve myself with them. And it's why I don't identify with them. But I still feel male, think like a male and act like a male on the finer aspects of our biology and psychology.
The problem is telling them that is what they are doing doesn't help them, because they are tired of their feelings been denied to them, regarded as just feelings, without impact in their lives.
I have tried going the route of trying to explain this simply, like I explained it to you, but I've only been accused of trying to oppress them despite being trans myself and even banned from a few sites online.
Then I have to hear how people think we are all in some sort of conspiracy against gender because some kids are trying to find themselves and we don't call them idiots every time they use their context, the only context they may know, to describe their situation.
Acceptance does not equal support.
Is it racist to assume someone has privileges because of the colour of their skin? Not considering what personal circumstances of theirs may negate any assumed privileges. Yeah, that's racism.
Is it sexist to assume someone has privileges because of their gender? It's a bizarre generalization. And that's what prejudice is.
Accepting some human conditions as more marginalized in particular spheres does not have to mean pointing the finger at people we think have it better. That's just projecting negative feelings about our lives on symbolic oppressors.
Everyone was born into the world having no say what happened in history to form civilization and the world as it is today. And the oppressions and hardships that happened between and to certain groups of people are forgotten while others we are reminded about.
How many people know what is the Holodomor? the Holocaust? Does it matter which was worse? No.
Just one more thing!!! lol....isn't it funny how some extreme feminists are focused on ill-defined constructs like 'rape culture' in our society yet don't really speak of ISIS which is a rising threat to the culturally subjective values of contemporary Western Civ? food for thought.
exactly
Brilliant discussion here - I do believe that, as I have always said, treat others with the respect and dignity that you would like to be treated with - how I can forge that momentum I'm not too sure of yet. Even in professional forums I find myself being shot down in flames from an angry person trying to shove their viewpoint down my throat - whatever happened to calm and unbiased discussion, huh?
The interpretation of historical conflicts between vastly different and technologically unequal cultures is illogically focused on racism as the type of xenophobia. Rather than fighting different religions, cultures, etc being recognized as the state of things. The political correct view of villifying europeans is an extension of this. There's a lot of censorship there, that someone who denies any purposeful white hegemony is racist or even white supremacist. The political 'far left' is Orwellian. Their values are doublespeak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
There's no need to make villains to value diversity or care about the plight of displaced cultures. It's counterproductive. As it is to assume that people don't care about such things because of their gender and skin colour.
I agree. The far-left are what my fellow researchers call "regressive authoritarians" and they have been oushing a lot of Orwellian these past few years. And they have shown sighs of cult behavior and tactics. Doublespeak, groupthink, doublethink. Censorship. 2+2=5, a whole lot of others I can't think of right now.
But you're right.
It think the left like playing identity politics because they like to exploit minorities to use them to push social reform and to get their votes. And the left are all about bigger government.
This is a topic I feel strongly about. Take feminism for example, a once great movement to diversify and strive towards gender equality, now has been bastardised into a hate men campaign. A lot to say on that issue.
I wrote this piece about my views on feminism being trans, you may enjoy it.
It's weird that a woman being a tomboy is more accepted socially than feminine men, yet I think trans-male is less socially accepted than trans-female. do you think that's true?
There is still some prejudice about women's choices of individuality which men don't experience, in my observations.
I agree!
Gender discrimination is experienced in different ways. However, I always try to tell those who seem interested, that in my experience I never saw more aggresiveness given towards me than when I looked like a feminine man.
I've been perceived as a feminine/masculine female and a feminine/masculine male, I never felt more fear than walking down the streets having people think I was a gay guy or a male-to-female trans. People seem to be more critical of feminine masculinity than masculine femininity.
Not sure what you mean by that, because I don't know what you mean when you say trans-male. There seem to be more maletofemale than femaletomale, the perception of more acceptance for mtf may come from there. Becoming aware of ftm is what really took mtf to being seen as more than a 2.0 gay or fetichists. Growing up I saw several entertainers use the subject of mtf for humor, so I can see how people could think laughter equals tolerance or acceptance.
It makes a conundrum for me as it doesn't make any sense not to identify as Feminist. Women's rights is still very new. It's not even in one human life time that women had all the options anyone should have in life. At least in Western Civ. Now the term 'feminist' is the most loaded term in the language, a floating signifier, and if I say I'm a Feminist, some assume beliefs I don't have (many anti-feminists are glad to hate the label; very glib about it).
That's the general problem with adopting many labels, but Feminist is affected the most. So I went from 'anti-femnist', to 'feminist'. I thought it was cowardly to not claim such. Now I realize its just ineffective. As much as some feminists are extremists, the word has become a pejorative in some sense. Which is really significant symbolically, and is why feminist principles still need championing. It doesn't have to have anything to do with men vs. women. Aside from rape laws which have fought that 'boys will be boys' mentally; now both genders have to think about consequences of social life which once only women did. Sometimes it is true that males dont like feminism because they lose privileges and the de facto male perspective that's accepted in some spheres.
Through my travels in life I've found that both men and women are striving for the same thing in life but trying to achieve it in different ways because of their biological and psychological make-up. A man wants a family, a woman does too - and similarly a man wants to be single and have fun, a woman does as well. But each try to achieve this in entirely different ways because of social constructs, ideologies and a whole range of forces in our micro and macro environments.
When people start getting a hang of this, truly, then I think we can move towards the common good. Rather than a blame game it can be changed into a life journey where we support each other. Gawd. I'm such an idealist lol
To me, at core, feminism claims women suffer more than men do because men protect a system that benefits them at the expense of others. I haven't found this to be true. And I haven't found that people need to identify with the ideology to be very well aware of women's struggles or champion for better treatment.
I think the idea that women suffer because men ignore to their benefit is dangerous, it can create resentment and hinder conversation.
It's difficult to describe the conditions of one gender without contrasting it with the other, the hypocrisies are there. It can easily be misconstrued; 'women are judged for this yet men not' doesn't have to mean 'men have life easier' or that men as a collective are conspiring to keep this status quo or those absurd things. either side of the feminism debates seem to go to their assumptions of the other in a reactionary way.
No feminist will admit that men and women could face the same struggle in regards to gender discrimination but in different ways. They need that oppressor and they need the oppressed. There is no feminism, no wave of feminism, that supports the idea that women suffer in equal meassure or less than men do. The whole things is about men having it easier. I am not saying a feminist, a person, couldn't see the struggle of men. But feminism is not a feminist, feminism is an idea, and I just stated what the idea is. You wanna know if I am right? Try to suggest to a feminist that men could suffer just as much as women do and see what happens. Any mention of men's issues that doesn't start with the mention that women have it worse is not welcome by this idea.
there is a lot to say about this but for the moment I'll just say this -
bigotry, prejudice and abuse is rampant and can go back and forth between any humans. Racism, oppression, racism are systematic oppressions and can not occur in reverse because they are in the system and oppressions can not be equated with abuses. Apples to oranges. I know this doesn't really address the entire message of your post but I have to run out and just wanted to say this for now :-)).
I'm also really open to discussion on this and it's why I wanted to have it. I've heard it's all systemic, like my friend perceiving me as an authority - that blew me away. I am sure there's other things I'm not very aware of.
Yes but don't use that term. "reverse"
Hate is hate, racism is racism. discrimination is discrimination.
Malcolm X was against hate of any kind to any color in his final days.
MLK jr also sad to judge people by their character, not their color.
Tupac also said the same, that he was not for the "all-black/all-white" stuff.
Anyone who tries to use mental gymnastics and fancy word play to try and tell you that it is ok to hate and tries to justify to hate whites or hate Asians or anybody because of their race or their color - is the real racist.
Yes. Absolutely agree. Thanks for commenting - I like to judge people as I see them. It's an interesting topic to say the least, that how deeply embedded our prejudices are. As I grow older I'm trying to shed that crap, but I probably still have many that I don't know about yet - I've only recently managed to let go of people that drive too slow on the road lol
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