The Deciders

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Although things seem, for the most part, to be moving in a positive direction, straight white men are still, for the most part, the deciders in our culture. They dominate politics and business, and culturally are expected to be in a position of decision-making.

One of the common side effects of this is an inability to step outside of that role when it would be appropriate to do so.

"Who do you think you are, telling me that I don't understand what it's like to be a black man in the south?"

"What do you mean, I don't understand what it's like to be a woman?"

"I know exactly what it's like to be a Hispanic lesbian single mother, don't tell me I don't."

"It just alienates me when you tell me I can't really understand what it's like to be a small castrated Asian prostitute."

"I don't want to just be an ally."

"I don't see why transsexuals should have a word for people of the same sex/gender alignment. I don't like being pigeonholed."

"Native Americans shouldn't view white guys with suspicion; we deserve to be viewed as innocent unless we actually fuck them over."

"I don't see why they want another label, don't they have enough already?"

"If they won't listen to my input on how they should feel, what they should want, and how they should react, then they've lost me."

Listen, white guys. You need to step off. You're being offensive, with your being offended. Your privilege is showing in the ugliest way possible, which is in the form of entitlement. If you really want equality, the first place to start is to let the people who aren't the deciders start making decisions for themselves, and you need to step out of your accustomed socially dictated role and let them.

Don't tell me that you understand what it's like to be me, when I'm pretty sure that you don't. And for fuck sake, if I tell you that I don't think you do, don't insist. I won't insist that I understand what it's like to fight in combat or to impregnate a woman and have no power over what she does with that pregnancy, because I don't. I can try, I can imagine it, but I can't really know, any more than you can really know what it's like to be pregnant. Insisting that you understand is entitlement, it's an attempt to exercise privilege, and it's also a theft; it's insisting that you know my experience better than I know it, to such an extent that YOU know what understanding my existence is better than I do. It's insulting, it's condescending, it's dismissive, and it's a COMPLETE DICK MOVE.

I don't know what it's like to have testicles. Nope. I really don't. I don't think that gets in the way of us understanding each other's basic humanity, but I can think of a few things that do, and insisting that you really do understand what it's like to be a woman is one of them. Unless you used to be one.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Can't argue with any of that.

[Faust]

"Native Americans shouldn't view white guys with suspicion; we deserve to be viewed as innocent unless we actually fuck them over."

Yes, If I recall the Irish persecution of the Native Americans was quite brutal. Hoopy indians still shudder at the sight of the fierce white devil of Kilgarven.

I'm sorry ALL whites oppressed the Native Americans.

[Signora Pæsior]

Bless this post with everything I have.

[Juana]

Exactly what Nigel said.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

If I can't understand, than I am not justified in agreement or disagreement. Agreement would be smiling and nodding, feigning solidarity with a position I can't really understand. Disagreement, or even trying to add my two cents to the conversation, would be injecting my own beliefs into a conversation about which I am ignorant. So my only rational choice is to butt out.

If you want to have a conversation about what it's like to be oppressed, you can't really tell everyone who doesn't already know what it's like that they can't understand. If you want to have a discussion about how to fix that oppression, and you're not willing to entertain the idea that the oppressors will ever understand, then you have to either give equal weight to their experiences as to your own, or admit you and they have nothing to talk about, since you'll never understand each other anyway.

[AFK]

Some straight white males are the deciders....


There are plenty who are on the butt-end of decisions, including those shaped by black men (Obama), women (Congresswomen), gay men (Barney Frank), along with all of the straight white males who were born into the RIGHT straight white families.


This smells of politics of division, to me, and I think is the wrong direction to go in, IMO.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yeah. Big difference in Great White Fathers, banksters, etc. and some of the white guys I've known, who might have gotten marginally more consideration from the "powers that be" than the local Black folks, but not enough to keep them from being worked over by the cops or held in jail for weeks on so-called charges like "suspicion". Kind of a broad brush.

[Juana]

If I can't understand, than I am not justified in agreement or disagreement. Agreement would be smiling and nodding, feigning solidarity with a position I can't really understand. Disagreement, or even trying to add my two cents to the conversation, would be injecting my own beliefs into a conversation about which I am ignorant. So my only rational choice is to butt out.

If you want to have a conversation about what it's like to be oppressed, you can't really tell everyone who doesn't already know what it's like that they can't understand. If you want to have a discussion about how to fix that oppression, and you're not willing to entertain the idea that the oppressors will ever understand, then you have to either give equal weight to their experiences as to your own, or admit you and they have nothing to talk about, since you'll never understand each other anyway.

You are not getting what Nige is saying. Like, at all. Sympathy and empathy, you can (and should) have. You may certainly have parallel experiences that make it much, much easier to understand what it's like but the actual, physical living it is not something you can actually do (short of doing something like Black Like Me).
You have one(?) kid, correct? You certainly don't seem like the kind of guy who would bail on his pregnant lady, so you were there for it, yes? Would you say you get what it's actually like to be pregnant (the kid sitting on your bladder, your hormones freaking out, etc.) or would you say you can sympathize what it's like because you were there and observed how uncomfortable actually being pregnant is because you were there for your wife through hers?

You are not allowed to disagree with our experiences (any more than we are allowed to disagree with yours). If a trans* or genderqueer person tells you what it's like to be trans* or genderqueer and you say, "oh no, that's not how it is at all!" then you are doing it wrong. If a woman tells you what it's like to be a woman, and you say, "that's totally wrong!" then you are doing it wrong. If a black man tells you what it's like to be a black man in American society, and you say, "Nu uh! That's not what it's like!" then you are doing it wrong.
You will never hide your gender from someone. You will never live in a body that is seen as public property. You will never live in a society that views you as a criminal solely because you are a black man.
In short, you will never experience what these people experience because you cannot repeat it (which isn't a bad thing; it's just a straight up fact). That is the difference between getting it (knowing it's hard and that it sucks) and living it (knowing that saying something about being trans* or GQ can loose you everyone you know, knowing that men who get handsy with you are much more likely to be praised or ignored than stopped, being viewed as expendable).

We want your input. We need your help solving the problems. This requires your empathy. It doesn't need you to say "I get it" in a way that means you've lived what we have (because you can't and you haven't).

Some straight white males are the deciders....


There are plenty who are on the butt-end of decisions, including those shaped by black men (Obama), women (Congresswomen), gay men (Barney Frank), along with all of the straight white males who were born into the RIGHT straight white families.


This smells of politics of division, to me, and I think is the wrong direction to go in, IMO.

On a cultural level (which is what Nigel's talking about when she says "Deciders") all white straight men are the ones who decide how things will go. Video games and movies and books and politics (who is being thrown under the bus this election in favor of gaining the SWM demographic's vote?) are all aimed at SWM (over all, and the ones that are not are very frequently condescending and still tainted by WSM's idea about what subordinate groups like).
Also, "yeah, some of us have to deal with decisions made by x groups" is kind of begrudging those groups their progress (particularly because those are individual people and not an entire culture). We've lived under the onerous (less so, the last fifty-ish years) yoke of white straight men (this comment is attacking the system, not anyone here because PD seems to be populated by people who get how shitty history is). Let us have our progress. Further, we are still, by far, outweighed by the power of straight white men.

Yeah. Big difference in Great White Fathers, banksters, etc. and some of the white guys I've known, who might have gotten marginally more consideration from the "powers that be" than the local Black folks, but not enough to keep them from being worked over by the cops or held in jail for weeks on so-called charges like "suspicion". Kind of a broad brush.

Totally tangential curiosity: the Great White Fathers - more apt version of the 'Fathers of American History' basically?

Less tangential curiosity: what class did these men come from? Because class is an enormous deciding factor in nearly everything.

edited for clarity.

[Juana]

Some straight white males are the deciders....


There are plenty who are on the butt-end of decisions, including those shaped by black men (Obama), women (Congresswomen), gay men (Barney Frank), along with all of the straight white males who were born into the RIGHT straight white families.


This smells of politics of division, to me, and I think is the wrong direction to go in, IMO.

To be more specific, Danny Glover couldn't get funding for Toussaint because it's a film about about a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France. Everyone in the US and Europe said things like, "awesome concept! but where are the white heroes? no one will come see a film with no white heroes."
You know how a lot of comericals hypersexualize women? That's to appeal to men.
Modern Family actually has a gay couple, right? But they're hella camp. They're stereotypes. And how many other shows have even one openly gay character? (ETA: besides, like, GLEE).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yeah. Big difference in Great White Fathers, banksters, etc. and some of the white guys I've known, who might have gotten marginally more consideration from the "powers that be" than the local Black folks, but not enough to keep them from being worked over by the cops or held in jail for weeks on so-called charges like "suspicion". Kind of a broad brush.

Totally tangential curiosity: the Great White Fathers - more apt version of the 'Fathers of American History' basically?

Presidents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Father

Less tangential curiosity: what class did these men come from? Because class is an enormous deciding factor in nearly everything you do.

Lower class, obviously. Poor as fuck. But "white males" all the same.

But I've also known a lot of middle and upper class white guys who somehow managed to learn to see through the bullshit WITHOUT going through that particular treatment. We have some here.

[Juana]

Thanks!

Culturally speaking, those guys count for more than either you or I, Stellz. They're still Deciders, albeit less than middle or upperclass SWM.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Thanks!

Culturally speaking, those guys count for more than either you or I, Stellz. They're still Deciders, albeit less than middle or upperclass SWM.

So when I went to the dance hall with H. and the cops dragged him out by the hair and left me alone, he was a "decider"?

[Juana]

Individually? No. He wasn't. But SWM over all are Deciders, which sometimes plays out in the form of entitlement Nigel talked about in the OP.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If I can't understand, than I am not justified in agreement or disagreement. Agreement would be smiling and nodding, feigning solidarity with a position I can't really understand. Disagreement, or even trying to add my two cents to the conversation, would be injecting my own beliefs into a conversation about which I am ignorant. So my only rational choice is to butt out.

If you want to have a conversation about what it's like to be oppressed, you can't really tell everyone who doesn't already know what it's like that they can't understand. If you want to have a discussion about how to fix that oppression, and you're not willing to entertain the idea that the oppressors will ever understand, then you have to either give equal weight to their experiences as to your own, or admit you and they have nothing to talk about, since you'll never understand each other anyway.

You have it backwards, which, ironically, makes me feel like you didn't really listen to what I was trying to say. You can listen, and you can gain cognitive and sympathetic (not empathetic) understanding from their description.

You can't tell THEM what their experiences are, any more than they can tell you what your experiences are.

The difference you'll tend to see is that they won't try to tell you what your experiences are, because that's not their role.

If you butt out, that's the same as deciding you don't give a fuck about oppression or equality, and the fact is that we need you. We just don't need you telling us you know us better than we do. During the Civil Rights protests, a really common scenario was white guys getting involved and then just naturally, with no ill will or malice, trying to take over at meetings and dictate the way they thought things should be done. There's a difference between input, and trying to take over. Unfortunately, straight white men in America are deeply enculturated to take charge. It's wrapped up with the cultural perception of manhood.