I'm going to go out on a limb and ask what you interpret "privilege" in this context to mean. I'm honestly not certain, and reading your other English comments in this post has caused me to wonder if we're talking across each other by not using words in the same way. (I'd read the German comments too, but my German is horribly, horribly rusty and I am way too tired after the day I've had.)
My understanding of privilege in this context is that you don't belong to a group that experiences some kind of discrimination. I am privileged in that I am Caucasian. I don't have to deal with racism directed at me. It's not part of my life. I do have to deal with sexism, though, because I lack a different privilege (being male).
Privilege gives you blinders; it makes you less aware of how other people might perceive something. Knowing what your perspective is and where your blind spots are helps you to examine things more fairly. It helps me to say "I have a problem with this show because there are no people of color in it" even though I'm not a person of color nor personally affected by that kind of racism.
And I'm curious, because your descriptions of European attitudes sort of amaze me – have you really never experienced this? I mean, I hear stories on American news about France wanting to ban the hijab and it sounds like discrimination to me. I've also seen news stories about anti-immigrant fervor in parts of Europe. Wouldn't you say that a woman native to France who isn't a Muslim has some sort of privilege? Her religious choices aren't questioned and she doesn't face anti-immigrant prejudice. Her world view is colored by that. In order to understand that anti-immigrant prejudice is a problem, she first has to think about the situation as though she didn't have the privilege of being French by birth.
I do sort of wonder if the difference in perspective lies in how our two countries dealt with their acts of atrocity. Germany tried its war criminals and punished even relatively low-ranking people who worked in concentration camps. This didn't happen in the US. No white slaveowner was put on trial for owning slaves. The focus after the Civil War was putting the country back together, which meant that not even Robert E. Lee, the Southern general who dcided that Virginia's rights as a state were more important than a black man's rights as a human being, was tried for treason. He and other Confederates were deprived of the right to vote, but in 1868, Andrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon of anyone who had rebelled against the United States in the war. Lee should have been hanged for his treason. The sad thing is, that opinion is still rather heretical in this country.
There was no moment where we as a country stood up and said that slavery was wrong. Desegregation was fought tooth and nail, a century after the Civil War. We're still not free of these attitudes, and that's why the idea of privilege is so important in American discussion – we only get past these problems when we acknowledge that they exist, when we acknowledge our own privilege. For better or worse, some of these problems won't be solved unless enough people who are privileged not to be black or female or disabled recognize that there is a problem.
I've strayed far afield from the point of your comment. To be honest, I have no idea what your way of discussing these problems is. It seems that your preference is not to discuss these problems. I'm hoping this isn't the case.
I also apologize if any of this has come off as patronizing. I honestly don't know where you're coming from here, and I want to make sure I've been as clear as possible with my arguments.
(As an aside, yes, the America-centrism of SGA fandom is pretty overwhelming at times, but it's not been my experience that this is always the case. I was in Harry Potter fandom for a little while, and I knew of a lot of American fans who went to great lengths to make their stories feel as British as possible. But fans tend to stay relatively close to canon characters, and the lack of prominent European, African, and Asian characters in fics probably has more to do with the lack of such characters on the show, rather than with the attitudes of American fans.)
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 01:32 am (UTC)My understanding of privilege in this context is that you don't belong to a group that experiences some kind of discrimination. I am privileged in that I am Caucasian. I don't have to deal with racism directed at me. It's not part of my life. I do have to deal with sexism, though, because I lack a different privilege (being male).
Privilege gives you blinders; it makes you less aware of how other people might perceive something. Knowing what your perspective is and where your blind spots are helps you to examine things more fairly. It helps me to say "I have a problem with this show because there are no people of color in it" even though I'm not a person of color nor personally affected by that kind of racism.
And I'm curious, because your descriptions of European attitudes sort of amaze me – have you really never experienced this? I mean, I hear stories on American news about France wanting to ban the hijab and it sounds like discrimination to me. I've also seen news stories about anti-immigrant fervor in parts of Europe. Wouldn't you say that a woman native to France who isn't a Muslim has some sort of privilege? Her religious choices aren't questioned and she doesn't face anti-immigrant prejudice. Her world view is colored by that. In order to understand that anti-immigrant prejudice is a problem, she first has to think about the situation as though she didn't have the privilege of being French by birth.
I do sort of wonder if the difference in perspective lies in how our two countries dealt with their acts of atrocity. Germany tried its war criminals and punished even relatively low-ranking people who worked in concentration camps. This didn't happen in the US. No white slaveowner was put on trial for owning slaves. The focus after the Civil War was putting the country back together, which meant that not even Robert E. Lee, the Southern general who dcided that Virginia's rights as a state were more important than a black man's rights as a human being, was tried for treason. He and other Confederates were deprived of the right to vote, but in 1868, Andrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon of anyone who had rebelled against the United States in the war. Lee should have been hanged for his treason. The sad thing is, that opinion is still rather heretical in this country.
There was no moment where we as a country stood up and said that slavery was wrong. Desegregation was fought tooth and nail, a century after the Civil War. We're still not free of these attitudes, and that's why the idea of privilege is so important in American discussion – we only get past these problems when we acknowledge that they exist, when we acknowledge our own privilege. For better or worse, some of these problems won't be solved unless enough people who are privileged not to be black or female or disabled recognize that there is a problem.
I've strayed far afield from the point of your comment. To be honest, I have no idea what your way of discussing these problems is. It seems that your preference is not to discuss these problems. I'm hoping this isn't the case.
I also apologize if any of this has come off as patronizing. I honestly don't know where you're coming from here, and I want to make sure I've been as clear as possible with my arguments.
(As an aside, yes, the America-centrism of SGA fandom is pretty overwhelming at times, but it's not been my experience that this is always the case. I was in Harry Potter fandom for a little while, and I knew of a lot of American fans who went to great lengths to make their stories feel as British as possible. But fans tend to stay relatively close to canon characters, and the lack of prominent European, African, and Asian characters in fics probably has more to do with the lack of such characters on the show, rather than with the attitudes of American fans.)