Am I Writing a Blog or Oppressing Minorities?

Right now, I need to take a break from my reading about Black Feminism. Here is a brief summary of my reading tonight... One day, the authorbasically unpacks the invisible "knapsack of white male privilege," and I realized: she is oppressed. And suddenly, just like that, she becomes conscious of the phenomenon of her own oppression. Wow. Deep. Likewise, I have become aware of the phenomenon of two overarching themes in my education: George Bush sucking and white males deliberately subjugating everyone else.

According to these theories, a white civil rights activist is still oppressive to blacks. Period. I do not deny the presence of white privilege, and I think there is some truth to it, but it has its limits. It cannot account for everything on earth that is bad. When a person is unconsciously oppressive by bearing skin whose color is consistent with that of Band-aids, they do not deserve to be attacked. Further, it is irrational to hold an individual accountable for the actions of a many. Of course, other, darker shades of Band-aids need to be produced or whatever. Regardless, I did not produce this Band-aid, and I did not label it "flesh," so I see no vehement need to feel guilty. Here's the point: change is necessary; that doesn't mean I am assuming the role of active oppressor simply by being a member of the dominant culture. That would be to hold someone accountable for the skin they were born into, and holding me accountable for being an affluent white girl is equivalent to holding a poor black girl accountable for her position in society, and both are wrong.

While I value these theories, I absolutely despise the spiteful, extremist rhetoric used to express them and their tendency to place the weight of an ethnic group's faults throughout all of history on the generations who just so happen to be alive. I also dislike that they evade a practical solution, claiming to be conscious-raising, which is in practical terms the everlasting right to rant, and that they pit one group directly but nonsensically against another. Women's and Gender Studies sets women and men against each other, just as Black Diaspora Studies pits blacks and whites against each other. Annoyingly, the only people concerned with this problematic dialog are extremists speaking only for the interests of one side. One group refuses to admit that it's possible that white males have even a slight advantage over other demographic groups, while their opposition can't quit whining about their socio-economic position.

I do not feel oppressed to the degree that theorists say I am. Nor do I see how reducing certain groups to victims or being allowed to conceive of oneself as such is productive in any way, other than by justifying an empty future before it even unfolds.

Now I must return to my reading about how I oppress people with my whiteness. I am not oppressing anyone. I am writing a blog.

Lauren Ream