Musings: The Friend Argument

[JHan]

11. Thanks for sharing your experience ...

My thoughts on this are kinda meandering and..exploratory. I'm still figuring it out.

You touched a bit on Privilege ( whiteness) which is real but not always clear cut. For me, in some respects I grew up privileged, in others not.

There is no way to fully relate to the uniquely horrific experiences of another ethnic group especially when attitudes, and systemic biases, still exist which are symptomatic of the way society views "minorities" through a bigoted lens .........and misogyny , for example, validates those attitudes hence terms like "misogynoir".

But suffering itself isn't unique to any ethnic group. It's possible for a white person to acknowledge the ugly legacy of history and become sensitized to the way it manifests itself without feeling guilt or burdened by it, or feel their own personal suffering is diminished in comparison. And this is where I have a bit of a problem with intersectional politics. The methods used by forces which oppress and divide haven't changed , if we focus too much on the "walls" than the commonalities of suffering we end up splintering into Balkanized groupings, feeling unable to relate to each other.