Understanding your own privilege

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Graphic by Alan Li

It happens from time to time that a celebrity says something offensive towards a specific community. It can be intentional or accidental, but it always causes online controversy. They say something insensitive, or they debunk a popular,ย  non-canon relationship. This isnโ€™t the issue, as they almost always apologize. The issue is the articles, blog posts, and comments sections that come out of these situations.

These articles, blog posts, and comment sections are full of straight people with opinions. Iโ€™ve seen everything from, โ€œIโ€™m sure they didnโ€™t mean it,โ€ to โ€œget a grip, stop being a special snowflake.โ€ There are multiple problems with this.

People with privilege do not get to decide whether or not something is offensive to an oppressed community. When you try and police what offends people, you are oppressing them further.

People are people. We are full of emotions that include anger and sadness at offensive behaviour.

A recent example of this happening was in the โ€œSupergirlโ€ internet fandom recently. One of the main actors, Jeremy Jordan, debunked a very popular, non-canon relationship, Lena and Kara, that is very important toย  many fans. He sang about it and mocked the โ€œship,โ€ while another actor, Melissa Benoist, proceeded to call him โ€œbraveโ€ for what he had done.

Controversy abounded on the internet, many people called Jeremy out, while othersย  defended what he had done. The majority of people defending his actions were straight, who proceeded toย  tell the LGBT+ community that he โ€œdidnโ€™t mean it,โ€ โ€œdidnโ€™t know what it meant to fansโ€ and that โ€œwe shouldnโ€™t be offended, itโ€™s not canon anyway.โ€

People were policing the emotions of an oppressed community in favour of an actor they loved. Even after the actor took to Twitter to apologize and the people who were offended accepted his apology, the community who had originally supported him stood up to sayย  that we never shouldโ€™ve been offended in the first place.

This is a minor example. However, there can be more extreme and severe examples in the media, wherever you turn.

Trying to decide whether or not an oppressed community is allowed to be offended about something is a very aggressive thing. It may not seem harmful to the average, privileged person, but next time you try and tell someone that they shouldnโ€™t be offended, consider why they are offended in the first place.

Instead of silencing the voices of the oppressed, raise themย  up and make sure they are heard . Their feelings are different from yours and you donโ€™t get to decide if they get to be offended about something that targets a minority.


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