I do not think that this is okay. It is not okay for me to exercise white privilege over a black man because he has male privilege over me. What he did was an abuse of his privilege, a blatant attack on your personhood and on your body. However, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with his race.

I have become aware of my own privilege, and the racism that comes with that, only recently. I’m really struggling with this issue of my white privilege vs. lack of cisgender (non-trans) privilege.

About a week ago, I was getting gas, and a black man asked me for money. I turned him down. He got mad, started yelling, and called me cracker. Ok, that’s fine, I really don’t have cause for complaint here – I think I need to suck that up, rather than start crying about “reverse racism” bullshit. And I have to rethink my position on not giving money to those who ask for it. My reasoning has to do with “they’ll use it for drugs and alcohol”, but really, is my reasoning based on my privilege / racism?

But, then, he saw my painted toenails and earrings, called me “faggot bitch” repeatedly and spit on me over and over. In the minds of many, there’s no difference between queer / trans – we are all “faggots” to them.

Now, am I supposed to just suck that up too? Because the sense I get, is that because I am white, I have no right to point out misogyny / homophobia / transphobia in people of color, or to get upset and frightened when it is directed at me.

Although he began with attacking my whiteness, he turned his attack to my transness, and became particularly abusive when he did so. I’m sorry, but I cannot accept this from anyone, regardless of the race of the other person involved. I will not be trans-harrassed / bashed and just “suck it up” because it happened to come from a person of color.

Checking privilege is hard. No doubt. It’s hard to be confronted by it. It’s hard when someone calls you on being shitty, or even on just having the privlege of shittiness being accepted. I’m going to read the posts when I’m back from business (I’m actually going over my allotted time just responding to this!), but, geez.

As a straight guy, I realize that I have to pay attention to my privlege. I have to take the time to recognize that my maleness and straightness afford me certain bonuses. Any time you’re coming at something from a position of relative power or dom, you have to expect that there are going to be things you miss- privilege that you don’t notice.

It’s tremendously disappointing (even if not entirely surprising) when people that I think of as progressive fall into the same traps as the people that we’re fighting and trying to change and educate. Just like people expect me to look beyond my experiences (rightly) when dealing with feminism, since I’m a man, I expect other people to show the respect and consideration to at least consider what is being said when dealing with other issues.

Very frustrating.

Which is not to say that this particular one wasn’t valid – I’m just really really sick of feminists fighting each other, instead of the actual enemy.

Okay – have seen this referrenced countless times – what is this?

And you’re definitely right about thinking that you have immunity just because you’re liberal. Which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. The “What do you mean? I can’t possibly be a racist! I’m a feminist!” really makes absolutely zero sense. I mean, you would like to think that it would be true. But it’s clearly not.