All right then. A misunderstanding. No autopsy no foul.
Ok, Scylla, sorry about your friend. I assure you that is an atypical case. See you in the political threads.
Well, even if you did … you know, if they were only white sorority girls…
<ducking and running>
I couldn’t determine whether or not I was bothered by it without knowing what culture-and-community that person is coming from.
In the communities that I’ve been or am associated with, I have seen people – often dominant voices in the community – consider it appropriate to bash or abuse members of the following groups without expecting there to be consequences, apparently because they believed that mistreating members of majorities that happened to be a minority in their locations was legitimate because those people were “oppressive majority” types: straights, Christians, theists-in-general, men, monogamous people, non-kink people, whites, thin people, people with children, Southerners, and probably other groups I can’t think of.
I’ve seen MTF transfolk in a transsexual community deride the FTM transfolk in that community for transitioning to an “inferior” sex. I know a straight man who’s very active in his local queer community, spending a lot of his social time with parts of it; if it were the social norm there to ostracise straight folks, he and his friends would have a problem. How about gay communities that won’t tolerate bisexuals because they’re not gay enough? How about sf fandom, which includes a culture of referring to people outside of fandom with terms of contempt (“mundanes”)? How about religious discussion groups where any Christian viewpoint is shouted down rather than treated with the respect the non-Christians in the group demand for themselves? How about people who say they want to date “real women”, meaning “reubenesque women”? How about geek-types who condemn anyone who is interested in sports as being shallow and stupid?
Does that straight white guy want to get into “bleeding-heart liberal” politics, but feels that every day he goes out there trying to support his political position he’s confronted with people who expect him to justify his presence there in the first place, or apologise for his orientation, his skin tint, or his genitalia? I’ve seen that happen too.
I think it’s very dangerous to argue that certain groups can’t be oppressed by definition, because they are defined as “majority”. They’re not going to be the majority everywhere; humans aren’t that evenly distributed. If “majority” people who are minorities in their social groups or situations, or who are treated differently based on that “majority” status are by axiom not taken seriously when they claim oppression, then they are damn certainly going to wind up oppressed, 'cause there are some people who’ll happily screw over anyone they can get away with screwing over. No consequences, no reason not to.