Background reading.

[feuervogel]

If you really want to educate yourself on what I'm talking about when I say "social justice" and that sort of thing, here are some links, in addition to the ones scattered throughout the previous posts and comments. This is my starting point, and these are the things I take as understood when I make arguments. I know it's a lot of material. It's a big internet out there.

I'll note there's likely some overlap between these sources. And many of these sites were found by simply putting "X 101" into the google.

Starkeymonster's links for clueless white people

my delicious' privilege tag see also the feminism and politics tags.

Intent! It's fucking magic!

101 Primer

Finally! Feminism 101

Feminism 101 at Shakesville (includes a section on "$SLUR doesn't mean that anymore")

Racism 101

racism_101

Ableism 101

Ableism 101 at FWD/Forward

Ableist word profiles

Not your mom's trans 101

I couldn't find a good LGBT* 101 site, but a lot of the feminism 101s cover that.

Julia Serano's glossary of terms

Heteronormativity

Intersectionality

Kyriarchy

Understanding the principles of social justice is a lot of work. Adjusting your habits along those principles is a lot of work, and ongoing effort. It doesn't hurt you to change yourself to be more kind and less knowingly harmful to others, and it can help make the world a better place for those who have been harmed by the effects of privilege.

You'll still slip up sometimes, or you might not know that a word is harmful to others. No one's perfect, and no one expects perfection. When someone says, "hey, that hurts me, please stop," your response should be, "oh, sorry. I didn't know." and then to cease that behavior. You shouldn't dig in your heels because your sacred, magical intent was good, so the fact that you hurt someone else doesn't matter.

Comments

Not disagreeing with anything you're saying

[legionseagle]

...but the difficulty with using "101" to find links is that that term is derived from a US-based system of classifying college courses. As you may be aware (from eg the post at Feministing which caused such a furore) there's some discussion about whether US-centricity is itself an issue of privilege. When you go to a "101" site you know that the issues addressed will be addressed through a US perspective predominantly if not exclusively, and it's worth looking to see what other takes there may be on the matters at issue. I've found, for example, whatistigerbalm's takes on ethnic and racial conflict in the Balkans a very valuable alternative perspective on social justice issues.

Re: Not disagreeing with anything you're saying

[feuervogel]

I'm having a hard enough time getting them to consider a non-privileged position. I don't want to imagine the difficulty of getting them to consider a non-US position. (The people I'm arguing with on my lj are all in the US.)

[thady]

Thanks for the links. I've read a lot of them already, but a couple are new to me. *adds to the pile of bookmarks*

[zombieallomorph]

Same as thady :)
I didn't know the links about disabilities yet, and I think that's exactly where I still have to learn the most.

Thanks!
I'm also considering translating "Not your mom's trans 101" ... I know some people who don't speak English who should definitely educate themselves a bit ...

[feuervogel]

I'm definitely not an expert in ableism, but I try to be aware. One of my friends became blind and physically disabled as an adult, and her experiences have been rather eye-opening.

The "not your mom's trans 101" came from one of my besties. I liked the dissection of the "trapped in an X's body," among other things. So many of our cultural narratives are so harmful.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

Word.

[amakarie.livejournal.com]

Um... well, at least I learned that "lame" is considered a derogatory. It makes sense but I never thought about it.

I don't reply to conversations a lot because I don't feel I'm educated enough to have a discussion on a lot of these issues...but just want you to know amid a lot of crap your posts enlighten me on a lot of stuff I was only vaguely aware of or completely ignorant of.

[feuervogel]

There are a lot of things most of us have never thought about. I'd like to get people to think about them and, if possible, change their hurtful behavior. Some people apparently have no interest in stopping hurting people.

And the idea of letting everyone else do the background reading so I don't have to spend my time teaching them and arguing with people who aren't at all familiar with the concepts helps me out a lot.