Solution for the “Confusing” Gender Neutral Toilet Sign Issue.Being an Ally Between a Rock and a Hard Place.And if you’re feeling freaked out, worried, nervous, scared, dazed, or confused, welcome to a new normal: that of a conscious life.Īnd to all of my social justice warriors, kings, queens, quings, keens, and everything else and in between: I got your back. A decision to do nothing is action in support of bigotry. But allowing yourself to continue uncritically experiencing unearned privileges in your life is perpetuating oppression complicitly. Adding shame to the conversation doesn’t lead to productivity. It’s wrong to blame you for what other people did throughout history. Develop empathy.Īnd hopefully, once you do, you’ll realize your role in all this stuff isn’t to be taken lightly. Stop thinking of yourself as the default, an unmarked canvas, and start thinking about what these things mean to you critically. You have a race, you have a gender, you have a sexuality. We can have conversations that will expose us and make us vulnerable, make us question ourselves and find answers, help us better understand ourselves and others. We can ignore it all and and pretend it’s a liberal conspiracy and continue living blissfully. There are a few ways we can react to this. Among them, we can live openly, in safety, be employed and be ourselves and nobody can ever legally tell us not to be. Only you can truly know your narrative, and I can’t tell you what it is, but “my great grand parents” this, or “my dad worked so hard” that, and all this “I had a tough childhood” shit doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged.īecause of who you were born to be - because of who we were born to be - we are handed a lot of things. Having a rough day, or a rough life, doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged. It’s a bummer to get called out for getting something you didn’t ask for.īut being bummed out doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged. We used to just be people, then suffrage made us men and civil rights made us white and Harvey Milk made us straight and now “Janet Mock, what is this, you’re telling me I’m cis? I’m more than just a bunch of checked off boxes.” Why are you all trying to make me feel so guilty?” It was just a bunch of horrible people who happen to share almost all the same identities. “The Holocaust was us, but that wasn’t me. We don’t see ourselves in the protagonists of Worlds Not So Greatest Hits, from the Crusades to the Slave Trade. So don’t you dare try and assume you know who I am.” We don’t see ourselves as white, straight, cisgender, and man. I got into Yale solely on my own merit,” you kid. Wasn’t it awesome back before we were seen as white, straight, cisgender, and man? “I don’t see race,” you might have said. I publish new Social Justice, Gender, & Sexuality Resources. Well, I wrote this ( originally a Facebook status) for you, Tal, as well as the rest of us: Now, there seems to be a groundswell of backlash, where privileged people ( like this super privileged Princeton student) are “denouncing their privilege” and “finally standing up for straight white guys” (HAHAHA). I’ve written about privilege here, and I’ve written my own privilege lists, inspired by Peggy McIntosh (blame her!), which have garnered a lot of hullabaloo on my site.