Check your privelege, once more with feeling!

Gul,

I hope that cyclist gets run over by a truck.

Face tries so hard to convince us he's 100% hetero.

I'm only gay for you, dude.

Res ipsa loquitur. He was cutting class during Sex Ed, and had learned nothing since. So sad...

What does this mean? I see this about every other post you make, and I don't know enough Latin to figure out the context.

She doesn't know what it means. Don't ask her.

In the common law, res ipsa loquitur (Latin for "the thing itself speaks") is a doctrine that states that the elements of duty of care and breachcan sometimes be inferred from the very nature of an accident or other outcome, even without direct evidence of how any defendant behaved. Although modern formulations differ by jurisdiction, the common law originally stated that the accident must satisfy the necessary conditions ofnegligence.

From Wiki.

But in Garamet's defense she might have a different meaning for it since she was born before Latin was invented.

It's a legal term that means "the thing speaks for itself."

Particularly appropriate for Face, since he's told us he doesn't understand the difference between boys and girls.

This article makes sense to me, as a [generally privileged] person thinking about privilege. What really stands out, if you're a person who rides a bicycle, is that when you have something to say about how things could be changed to make your experience safer/seem safer/less intimidating/less of a hassle/etc., most people will give you a blank look--because they've never considered what you're asking for, from your perspective.

Had an experience with the City Council last spring: we were looking for bike lanes* on a certain minor arterial (fair amount of traffic, 30 mph limit, parking on both sides) which is according to all standards wide enough to put lanes on. The reaction from half the council was "wait, why can't you just go over two blocks, ride parallel, and then come back over two blocks?" They never considered that this was an inconvenience, and that they would never ask people in cars to undergo such an inconvenience.

*Regarding whether bike lanes are the best infrastructure: It doesn't really matter. At this point in time, in this city, we're looking for any public indication from the local government that people on bicycles aren't 3rd-class-citizens, and the MPO decided this was a good start.

That's racist.

Yes, it is vitally important that all people be assigned appropriate and "Progressive"-approved labels so that we know who's who and what's what.

But the expression in and of itself predates common law, and is perfectly acceptable in common parlance.

Yes, it's originally documented in Scholastic dialectics, so the juridical usage is probably younger.

Such as "progressive"?

Cis is a metacommentary on labels, by the way; it's whatever is considered on this side of the commonly accepted need for labelling, and the whole point is that that can change.

I hate to be a pedant, but as much as it's a legal doctrine, it is also a latin phrase per se.

You might be in the wrong profession.

B-but, Wikipedia -!

That's legalese for "I actually enjoy being snooty".

Why?

What's wrong with trying to understand where other people are coming from and how their experiences might not match your own?

He won't be able to answer that question.

Because you're not trying to understand where other people are coming from and how their experiences might not match your own.

I don't need to check anything to understand where other people are coming from and how their lives might differ from mine.

Check your privileges is just another leftist term for "shut your fucking mouth because I'm right and I don't want to hear opinions other then mine"

How is that, exactly?

Note how he answers by saying check your privilege with different words. He doesn't even know what it means, but sees fit to critique it anyway, all the while calling for people to adhere to the principle.

It's a modernized version of "Try walking a mile in the other guy's shoes." He probably hated/misunderstood that one, too.

[Zombie]"Why should I walk in somebody else's smelly shoes? I can afford my own fucking shoes!"[/]

Metaphors be with you...

Please. Let's not pretend that the "privilege" discussion is only about empathy for the less fortunate. Plenty of privilege-baiters push it into discrediting the opinions and accomplishments of white males.

Actually, "Check your privilege" is the current way of saying "you're a racist." Without actually saying "you're a racist."

I see where the author is coming from, and I understand why it stings, because it does sting. Like her, I grew up dirt poor. Sometimes we were homeless, sometimes we lived in shacks (by shacks, I mean real shacks. Think "Grapes of Wrath" type shacks). There were days where we wouldn't eat, and sometimes we actually had food. We moved a lot when I was a child. I lived in various places throughout Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio before finally settling down. I worked hard in school, and I excelled. I started working at 14 years of age, and I worked my fingers to the bone, and I used that money to buy food, or help pay rent. So to hear "check your privilege" just hits all of the wrong chords, because from my perspective, there was no privilege. For myself, and my family, we were on the bottom rung of the ladder most of our lives.

I get what she's saying. She's not looking at me and saying I've had it easy because I'm a white male, she's saying that even though things were shitty, being a white male still gave me a leg up as I got older, because our system was built on the foundation of white males having certain built-in advantages, and I think in many circumstances she's right about that. Our system was built on the idea of moderately wealthy, white male land ownership, and while the playing field continues to be leveled, there are still inequalities that have to be addressed, which means for now I still have some small advantages. That doesn't make me racist, and it doesn't mean I should feel bad or like I'm oppressing someone, because I'm not. I'm just a human being, and I can't help being born white, or male. I am not a bad person for being white.

Of course, that is how some people use the term, and that's just bullshit. Those people I ignore, because they're using a phrase they think makes them appear forward thinking and well informed, when all it really does is make them appear as they really are, which is petty and argumentative. I've had wealthy white guys tell me "check your privilege", which just makes me roll my eyes, because those are people who have no clue what they're saying. See, it's a conversation stopper, an intellectual roadblock, because you, as the "privileged" aren't supposed to have any way to respond to it without looking exactly that. Of course, I don't give a shit and will argue it down anyway. My best friend and I, when we were in high school together, used to buy each other lunch depending upon who had money that day, and then we'd share it. Sometimes it was a pretzel and a lemonade, because they were the cheapest items on the menu. We'd split that between the two of us, and yes, my friend was black, but like me, his skin color didn't change the fact that our stomachs were empty, and there was little either of us could do about it.

Still, to come back around to what the author is saying, though my friend and I experienced economic poverty, not all experiences are equal, and I think that is important to remember. There are places in this country where having white skin, and being a man, will get you in the door because there is still a bias, both against minorities, and against women, but it has to be understood that this is an old bias, one that has been around hundreds of years, and is actually dying out. If not this generation, then the next generation will subdue this bias and that privilege will see its grip on our culture lost. There will come a time when black and white won't matter, and I see "check your privilege" as a way to say that we're not there yet, there are still biases to be brought down, but that is just how I see it.


TL;DR - Ain't no thing. Just ignore the haters, and try to be good to everyone. We still have a long way to go to full equality, but we're getting there.

Eh.

It's not a perfect word and I avoid using it but it serves a purpose. It's much simpler to write than "people who are not transgender" or whatever.

We make up new words (blog, for example) all the time when the need arises. There's nothing remarkable about it. But like I said, i avoid it because some whiny-ass folks looks the train of thought if you give them anything to be butthurt about ("you don't need a label for ME! I'm NORMAL!")

heterosexual AND homosexual are relatively new words, as are transgender, and transsexual.