By SJW McWoke
If mathematics were not such patriarchal system, I would feel comfortable about counting the number of times we progressives have been accused of “soft” bigotry by not demanding that all peoples adhere to the same standards of behavior. I am here to correct that misimpression. There is nothing soft about my bigotry.
This is about, and has always been about, my participating in the heroic rescue of oppressed peoples, thus burnishing my credentials as a superior moral being. It will simply not do to have those oppressed peoples be capable of self-empowerment, and not be dependent on my nobility of spirit. I must therefore adopt the position that they are irredeemably oppressed, and are therefore owed all consideration, understanding, and double standards that we can apply. It’s an essential part of the identity I assign them. It must be so, or my identity as knight in shining armor swooping in to rescue the populations in distress is in jeopardy, if you’ll pardon the patriarchal Eurocentrist sexist violent metaphor. Nothing soft about it.
Of course it does not look good when phrased in those terms, so we must always phrase it differently. The vocabulary of intersectionality does that for us. In the hierarchy of victimhood – the only hierarchy that we can accept – the more numerous the victim-points one amasses, the more flexibility and understanding they are owed when they perpetrate the same actions against others that we decry the white, male, cisgender oppressors for perpetrating. They cannot help it, the poor souls. They were oppressed, and are forever doomed to victim status. The poor dears, But I can help them! And so must you! And if you don’t you’re a racist!
“Soft” bigotry, my foot (no offense to the differently-abled!). I need People of Color, in all their glorious victimhood, to be incapable, either by nature or nurture, of rising to the moral heights I demand of white oppressors. You only call it soft bigotry because you are prejudiced toward hard things – as of course you would be, you phallocentric monster. No offense to monsters! We can’t expect real monsters to act properly. They can’t help it. White males, however, can, but choose not to, and no amount of walking the walk can atone for what I attribute only to the actions of other white males. And Jews – we cannot forget the Jews, so convenient as poster children for victimhood when powerless, so convenient as Nazi stand-ins otherwise. Funny how we don’t excuse Jews for anything that we excuse other oppressed people for. Not I’m-going-to-reexamine-my-assumptions funny, but funny.
So enough about soft bigotry. That terminology is offensive to someone, I’m sure.
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