not to mention most people are privileged and oppressed at the same time

genderatonality:

I hate the idea that privileged people are inherently oppressive. It’s fatalistic. It reifies privileged identities that I’d much rather show to be products of specific, challengable processes and work to dismantle.

Privileged people are oppressive by default, sure. But it’s entirely within their power to resist oppression.

To claim otherwise is to create an Original Sin framework in which all that’s left for privileged people to do is to endlessly confess and apologize and perform their guilt, and that ain’t worth shit.

And anyway, oppressed people aren’t naturally anti-oppressive anyway. They just have a personal interest in doing the work of resisting oppression, which leads to more of them doing it. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, they may find a tradition of resistance that supported them. More often than not, whatever community they find will be a mixed bag