An actual argument I recently saw:

Person B: “Any site which contains slurs against trans people in its sign up process is unreliable” (was referring to k!wifarms)

Person A: “Slurs aren’t considered bad in most countries”

Person B: “That doesn’t justify their usage. For example, conversion therapy isn’t considered bad or banned in most countries, that doesn’t mean conversion therapy is justified or good.”

Person A: “What are you talking about? Conversion therapy is banned in most countries”

Person B: “Shows a diagram showing that conversion therapy is only banned in a handful of countries”

Person A: “I mean in most civilized countries”

I’ve seen lots of other people refer to countries as civilized or uncivilized in similar contexts. Is this generally considered to be racist?

  • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Standing up for all “oppressed groups” is contradictory. For example, in western countries, LGBT people are an oppressed group, and so are Muslims, yet when the latter are in power, they treat the former very badly, so which side do you stand up for

    Easy. The answer is that you stand up for the oppressed group.

    Why, exactly, do you think that’s a contradiction? When a group is in power, they are by definition not oppressed.

    In all of your examples - all of them - there are oppressors in power, and there are oppressed that are not.

    As generalized groups,

    • LGBT people are not in power over Muslims.
    • Transgender women are not in power over cisgender women.
    • Palestinians are not in power over Israel.

    In case it really needs to be said - obviously, not all Muslims, cisgender women, or Israelis are oppressors. But all Palestinians and most LGBT people are oppressed.

    Palestinians are not “the Muslim world” and painting such a massive and diverse group as a monolith is disingenious at best. The same should be said for associating all Jewish people with the actions of Israel - it’s fundamentally wrong.

    The answer remains the same, in any and every case. You stand up for the oppressed group.

    Doing so is the only way you stand for:

    a society in which anyone is allowed to live their life as long as they aren’t harming anyone else.

    And since you seem to really want to beat the nuance out of all human existence with your teacher comment - no, individuals being shitty to each other doesn’t change anything.

    If an oppressed LGBT who happens to be a racial majority is racist against an oppressed minority who happens to be a homophobe - guess what, they’re still both oppressed - but as individuals, they can also just be shitty. They don’t have to be treated as oppressors, insofar as you need to stand up for one against the other.

    Unless one is actively in power over the other’s life and uses that power to oppress them, in which case the answer remains the same - you stand for the oppressed.