Privilege and such

Have been reflecting that some manifestations of calling out privilege or checking my own privilege can function as a disabling force in building solidarity around broader struggles...

I am intentional here:

I am reflecting both on the exercise of calling out others' privilege, as well as an aggressive and habitual declaration of my own privilege, as a supposedly necessary and intelligent prerequisite for solidarity building.

To be sure, a community with a complete disregard of privilege-politics will not be healthy either, due to lack of awareness or willingness to engage the types of necessary renunciations that are part not only of political, but spiritual struggle.

Nevertheless, formal declarations of one's moral credentials or humility by birthright, or a "privilege politics" of identity-battling can sometimes serve as nothing more than priming for egoic warfare, masquerading as moral injunctions for others to follow suit, or else risk failing at coalition, or risk failing at achieving ethical goals.

There is a form of egoic pleasure that the "winners" of this moral battle can get (ha! I'd know this well, I confess!)... Unchecked, my attachment to the pornographic titilation of moral battle will make me unwittingly complicit in disruptions to ongoing coalition... This can leave bloodied vacuums in otherwise well-meaning Left spaces that are unfortunately too often filled in the mainstream by Right-wing, uberconservative alternatives in the service of capital.

These forms of identity politics, both those that don't take into account privilege at all, and those that become addicted and aroused by endless rehearsals of moral battle, can become toxic and soul destroying.

I've beaten this dead horse:

I want friendship and comradeship,
trial and error,
Healing...
...to grant and be granted forgiveness,
More than victim-perpetrator dualisms,
I want a community of allies.

I am no more a victim nor a perpetrator of oppressive systems as I am simply an imperfect ally and an imperfect friend, just like the best and the rest of us who wish, simply, to do justice to our fellow humans.

Let us not pretend disempowerment where we have found our voice to speak this. Let us not pretend false humility where we have taken the space and trusted we would be listened to.

Let us stop pretending...


Please:
Let me stop pretending.