Okay, so this is interesting how many people are joining in on this.
Here’s my thought on it. My husband and I have a version of this where we get home after a hard day and we go, "Oh, boy, had a really tough day! I’m tired. The printer broke at work. I’m not feeling well. I think the car needs to go in for service. The cat threw up on my handbag! " And then he says, "Oh, but my day was ever WORSER. I had a longer drive and you totally can’t understand how terrible that drive is. And your printer broke at work, but at my job I had a boss that went bonkers. And your car is newer than mine. And the cat totally attacked my brand new luggage. " And blah blah blah. We are both looking for sympathy and neither one of us is feeling particularly better after our whinefest.
I feel like that is happening on a national level right now. Where there are people who are saying, yes, you have shitty things going on, but look at the history of my people. It’s a history of woe and sorrow. Like, here’s a GREAT example of this.
And I think that maybe it’s not effective for us to say, well, it’s okay for a black person or a Jewish person to complain, but if you’re a white guy, you can’t.
I think that it’s important to understand all the cultural issues, but it’s not creating a very good conversation. I am a member of a facebook group, Pantsuit Nation, that started in support of Hillary Clinton and now is a place where people are sharing stories of standing up to incidents of racism and bullying. There was a very nice story in there of a woman who sat down at a bar with a stranger who was wearing an pro-Trump shirt and ended up having a very deep discussion with him about issues of race and privilege. I’d like to know how we shift the conversation past the “who’s had the crappier history” issue and into a place where we all feel recognized and cared for. I think it’s coming from this one-up narrative that one race or group has to take the place of another for top dog.
