7:34pm July 17, 2013

➸ Urocyon's Jaunts: confusedtree: Over the past few weeks I have seen the word “equality"...

Over the past few weeks I have seen the word “equality" thrown about in an attempt to derail discussions regarding oppression and it’s ringing more and more hollow with every parroting it gets that it’s started to really open my eyes about the complacency of ally culture, or at…

Totally agreed with just about everything. The following is a response for readers of the post to consider, not a response to the post itself:

My only fear is that, since so many people on tumblr look to people’s language above their ideas, people won’t differentiate between diversity-t privileged people saying equality to mean sameness or gaining the power to oppress or as a derailing tactic… and oppressed people saying equality to mean people having the same value.

Because I’ve been burned that way as an oppressed person (and one with a language disability at that), at least as often as I have been burned by privileged people promoting sameness and other messed up concepts.

So I end up speaking up, nit because I disagree with the point of these posts, but because I know some people read them and then start knee jerk reacting to anyone who says equality regardless of context.

(Similar with “we are all human” - means one thing by privileged people who want to imagine we are all the same, something quite different from when used by oppressed people whose lives are literally threatened by current beliefs, including in mainstream science and ethics, that we are less human than some animals.)

I know none of this is what the OP is talking about. I also know without encouraging people to look at context, some people will only take from this post that equality is a keyword their mind can latch onto and respond to without considering the context.

Notes: