ID: Is this a pigeon meme where the person is tagged “cis society”, the butterfly in their hand is tagged “trans people having a backbone about anything at all”, and they are asking “is this destroying my free speech?”
ID: Is this a pigeon meme where the person is tagged “cis society”, the butterfly in their hand is tagged “trans people having a backbone about anything at all”, and they are asking “is this destroying my free speech?”
Paulo Friere coined the phrase “to the oppressor, equality feels like oppression.” But at some point in the last 10 or 20 years, “oppressor” has changed to “privileged,” and while I understand the sentiment I’m afraid it leads to some misconceptions about privilege and oppression. Friere carefully constructed a long and detailed basis for his statement, carefully explaining the dynamics of oppressor/oppressed dynamics, but he was speaking pretty specifically about peasants in neo colonies in the global south, like Brazil.
I think you will definitely find many people of privilege among the oppressor class(es), and privilege functions within society to justify different kinds of oppression. But you’ll also find people of privilege set against injustice in every way they possibly can. Because of the way privilege is bestowed upon some people but not others, contrary to how oppression is more like an organized effort by some political interest, be it national, economic, etc., to keep many people poor and wretched so that only the few can prosper. The privilege, IMO is a function of the oppression. I guess I think privilege is a personal thing whereas oppression is a much wider problem, as many individuals come together in order to dominate an other. The social factors that might drive this are all too abundant.
I see the “privilege” quote everywhere, but I never see the “oppressor” quote brought up, even though I’m pretty sure its the source. It gives me sort of an icky feeling too, like it may be saying something much different than the original. Our ruling classes love to tweak little details like this, and really its usually to claim the work of some oppressed workers as their own.
But in order for change to occur, privileged people would have to come over to, and fight for, the side of change. This would not affect their status as privileged, but it would affect whether or not they were an oppressor.
Edit: further down I discover it isn’t an exact quote with one word changed, the phrasing Friere uses is much different even if the meaning is the same or at least very similar. Kind of undermines my premise here but these are still worthy topics of discussion. But I’ll try to be less of a goober about it
I think that privileged works better. It feels like oppressor implies an active role, while privileged is passive. To be harmful, those of the privileged group need to do nothing but exist. Whereas members of an oppressor class would need to enforce the oppression.
Since MLK saw the moderate liberal as a bigger obstacle than the Klansman, I think privileged is the ticket.
It also makes sense as an ally has to take an active role to be an ally, not just passively not participate.
It’s such a funny thing. The other user asked if it was a direct quote from Friere, and I was so sure that it was. But when I went looking for the exact quote I found the part of the book where it was from, it is definitely not an exact quote. Friere’s formulation is much better, but it is definitely not a direct quote that changes one word.
These ideas I try to bring up I think are worth discussing! But I undermined my own premise which isn’t a great way to start a good faith discussion.
I’m still not crazy about the " privilege " formulation demonstrated in the meme and elsewhere, and I still believe Pedagogy of the Oppressed served as inspiration for the “privilege” quote, but its much harder to make a criticism of it. Like you said there’s sort of interesting ways that “privilege” informs the formula vs “oppressor”. Some of my discomfort with “priveledge” as the subject may be that I’m just not as knowledgeable about it, having never, for example, read a book about it, and being a person of relative privilege myself, have to work hard to make sure that my understanding goes deeper than just intellectual.
The way it is phrased, “to the privileged, equality feels like oppression” is a little open ended to interpretation for my liking, but maybe that’s what makes it an interesting topic for discussion. For as much as the word privilege has entered our vernacular, especially when discussing oppression and oppressive dynamics, it isn’t clear what it means. I have theories but unless i describe them, they arent self apparent. I think right wingers are able to stir up a lot of confusion among people in the middle, who are likely victims of a dozen different kinds of oppression themselves, by highlighting the shortcomings in corporate liberal “identity politics”, such as DEI as we experience now. While diversity, equity and inclusion are fine and important ideals for a society to strive for, the corporate face of it never sat right with me. And now the only semblances of workplace protections for people who are the subject and victims of institutional racism, has been pushed out of the airlock along with the safety of millions of others
I can’t find a source indicating he said that phrase. Where did you get the information from? The one I always hear is “When you’re accustomed to privilege”, etc. In that form, it would be better phrased as “equality can feel like oppression”, because obviously not everyone who benefits from the privilege agrees it’s right.
Its from pedagogy of the oppressed
Keep in mind, this comes after a long section explaining that “it is the historic mission of the oppressed to restore the humanity of the oppressors,” so he’s not just chastising people for being bad here, he’s explaining (in part) why the oppressor can never free the oppressed; the oppressed liberates them both and creates a new kind of person.
Sorry for my paraphrase, I haven’t read it for a little over a year, although I think about it a lot
(I made an edit where I fixed a typo that like completely changed the meaning in the last paragraph)
Ah, okay, so it’s the same general idea, but not expressed with those exact words.
Yeah its funny though I thought it was more or less a direct quote, so thanks for calling it out. It is different enough to make me reconsider some of what I said