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People really, really oversimplify these situations when they focus on ideas like "feeling offended". Yes, everyone is allowed to feel offended. That's not the
by Steuard 14y ago
People really, really oversimplify these situations when they focus on ideas like "feeling offended". Yes, everyone is allowed to feel offended. That's not the point.
The point is that women in our society live their entire lives under a constant barrage of related offensive behaviors that men do not. Black people in our society live their entire lives under a constant barrage of related offensive behaviors that white people do not. (Black women get hit by both barrages.) In each case, some of the offensive acts are overt and nasty, but most take the form of countless tiny slights that seem harmless on their own but add up to an intensely oppressive environment.
So yes, everyone is allowed to be offended. But it's really, really unwise to "question the validity of others who are offended" if you aren't subjected to the same continually hostile environment that they are.
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoconstant barrage? A bit of hyperbole there don't you think?
- Steuard 14y agoNot in the slightest. (Unless you took my "constant" to mean "every second" rather than "multiple times each day".) I used to think about this sort of issue in much the same way that you seem to (or at least, I made similar comments at times). I was doing my best to be fair and sensible. But over the past year or two, I've read a lot and learned a lot, and I've realized that I was wrong. This stuff is complicated, and if you haven't spent as much time studying it as you'd spend on a couple of college courses, you probably don't understand it as fully as you think. (I certainly didn't.)