I am well aware of my societal-privilege, and have done my best to avoid it, but it is simply not always possible. In school, I got in a fight (violently physical) with a human who produced vast quantities of skin pigment, and who also owned a penis. I was moving to Oregon a few days later, so the principal decided not to suspend me, but to suspend my cooperator. This enraged me, and even though the decision might have been alternatively motivated, i.e., no use suspending me on my last days of school, I saw it as discrimination. We were both equally guilty of a crime, and therefor should be equally punished. I moved for either suspension of both of us, or suspension of neither. This was one day that I didn’t get beat up on my way home. But, I had to go to school the next day.

Every instance after this, I try to recognize privilege when it happens, confront it when I think it does, and try to avoid utilizing the privilege, but it is nearly impossible. The question is not “what can I do to avoid using this privilege?”, the question is “what can I do to avoid having this privilege?”

Regardless of which area one chooses to pursue, the recognition that exploitation and discrimination are morally wrong is the key. One who recognizes that these ideas are wrong only need be informed that other forms of the same ideas are present, and will likely see them as equally valid. Many people who produce small amounts of pigment do not see that discrimination is present on his or her behalf, but that does not mean that these individuals are not fighting against oppression as they see it. Just as I might not have known about the Coltan conflict in the Congo, doesn’t mean that I do not care about the Congolese people. I care about all people. I want to fight against all forms of discrimination, those I can identify, and those I have not identified yet. Not everyone is obligated to pursue the issues surrounding “race” (I don’t agree with this term, and new science tends not to either, when describing various social groups), species, sex, hetero-sex, class, etc., equally when choosing to be active against these concepts. To be active against discrimination and exploitation as a whole is to consider all of the individual concepts or facets of those concepts as one ideology. To be clear, to focus on species, one excludes “gender” (I don’t agree with this term as gender is self-defined, not biologically or anatomically defined) and “race”, etc. To focus on “race”, one excludes species and “gender”, etc. To focus on discrimination and exploitation without excluding any individual facet, one must focus on hierarchy. However, to broadly focus on such a pervasive and socially accepted form of dominance, in which discrimination and exploitation lie, would be quite an achievement as far as scope of content and ability to encompass all forms of discrimination and exploitation within a viable, easily transferrable ideological construct. Proponents of anarchy have tried, but have ultimately been ineffective. For example, it is hard enough to encompass all of the aspects of meat consumption in a conversation about animal exploitation, let alone vivisection, fur, leather, dairy, eggs, etc. However, focusing on one issue, such as vivisection, lends support to the idea that eating meat is acceptable, because vivisection is what is focused on, not the general use of animals. So focusing on two, or three, or however many, does nothing to address the root of the problem which is not who or how we discriminate or exploit, but that we discriminate and exploit. The hard part is: How do you start?

What single campaign can we have that encompasses all forms of discrimination, exploitation, oppression, etc.? We would have to include every form of oppression, and not choose those only known to us, but unknown. Here are some I know:

(in no particular order)

Racism
Sexism
Heterosexism
Capitalism/most other forms of government
Anthropocentrism
Speciesism

These forms of oppression all manifest, and can lead to, different characteristics of behavior (white supremacy>slavery), or action, (heterosexism>violence against LGBTs) and contain individual facets (animals>leather, fur, flesh, etc.), but I think these are the main ones.

How do we stop all these forms of oppression, without focusing on single, double, or triple isms, or excluding any one facet?

By breaking down the hierarchy responsible for all of these things.

This is an incredibly hard concept to even start to explain to most people. Proponents of social-anarchy will attest to this. Similar to “white social privilege”, humans do not even see their own human privilege. The notion that all beings and things on Earth are the property of humans in general.

So to try and start to break down this social hierarchical given, I suggest baby steps. Start with one issue. Add another one. Add another one. The twelve issue people have just as much right to harp on the two issue people as the the two issue people have to harp on the one issue people. None. The hierarchy is being maintained by excluding from one’s group an “other” and maintaining the ladder system he or she purports to oppose. The number of issues one adheres to is not one’s “moral barometer” as Steve Harvey puts it. If we all did as much as we could, we would no nothing else. Just doing something is better than doing nothing, and because someone is doing more than someone else, doesn’t invalidate the latter’s something. “Vegans of Color” is another way to support the idea of an “other”. Way to go against the grain, y’all (sarcasm). If we are truly to be free from hierarchy of people, values, species, race, sex, gender, etc., we must form a community which does not recognize these as making one an “other” from the collective group, but maintaining individual status within a community group. The fact that I am called a white male limits me. I might lack the pigment concentration of some, but I am not just white. I might have a penis, and might be classified anatomically and biologically as a male, but I am not just a man. I might be classified as a human, but this I am not, just, either. I might campaign for animal rights, but I am not just an ARA. I might produce music, but I am not just a musician. Allow me to be me, Lloyd, not Lloyd the white male, or Lloyd the vegan, or Lloyd the DJ, allow me, and all others, to be us, just like you. I don’t focus on veganism as a single issue, but if I did, I would be justified in doing so. I am not required to campaign for anything, but not doing so doesn’t mean I support it, or trivialize it. When conversing with a person, regardless of reproductive organs or pigment or sexual orientation, I speak of the oppression I think is relative to them, or the discussion. Publicly, if one were to address racism to a group of people, many people will identify and many will not. But if one were to address all forms of exploitation or discrimination, all would identify because even the “richest, whitest, males” feel “othered” and discriminated against by poor people. I know, not much sympathy there, but the point is this: No single issue or double issue can encompass all facets, so lets take small bites and address each one individually, but with the clear intent of ending all forms of oppression. This is similar to advocating eating one vegan meal a day. One is not advocating eating two meat meals, but advocating one vegan meal with the clear intent of veganism as the end. In order to campaign against slavery, one must identify slavery as oppression and move to end it, as one step further towards ending all forms of oppression. If one is motivated to stop all forms of oppression and has a clear message that this is his or her goal, it does not matter which individual campaign he or she chooses, but that the end goal is the elimination of discrimination, exploitation, and all other forms of oppression.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. Gandhi was on to something. I don’t want to see oppression, so I will try to defend against ALL forms, just not ALL on Tuesday.

Thanks for thinking.

I just read two articles about intersectionality. It touches on speciesism, sexism, and race.

I dig this one the most:
http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/intersectionality_101_sexism_racism_speciesism_and_more

This one has some great points:
http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/intersectionality_and_animal_advocacy

http://www.theleftflank.com/white-man-s-burden.php

Cheers,
Cranston

Googling her just now I came up with her 1999 dissertation on animals as trope in the works of African-American writers Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison…

http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/open/19992/erickson_stacy_m/Dissertation.pdf

Elaine: I meant that making universal claims for animals (like saying no human should ever be complicit in their deaths–an impossible task) might be less effective than working in specific ways to oppose animal-exploiting industries, especially since these industries are responsible for deepening class, racial, national, and other inequalities and since there are activists all over the world already working on this stuff.

I was responsible, in a way, for bringing people from diverse ethnic backgrounds to a mostly white, euro-american, campus in the countryside. By taking an opportunity to work with staff on better understanding diversity, ethnicity, and how racism does show its head, even on campus, I began my never-ending journey and thirst for understanding racism and later on white privilege.

Not until several years ago, through my work at the YWCA, did I get acquainted with white privilege. I knew that I had unearned privileges, but often times struggled to define it as such. As Defi and Ande said already, I agree that Tim Wise and the white privilege conference web sites are good to check out.

As for books, the most recent one I read was Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. This book details accounts, stories, facts and figures, and research done by transracial adoptees, who were more often than not, and still are to this day, adopted into homes of white people, and how adoption ultimately impacts their lives in numerous ways.

Thank you to everyone for posting the helpful links and book suggestions!