that people with any kind of privilege in any group or community do
where, when it’s pointed out that members of their community are being marginalizing jackasses
they take that observation, turn it into an generalizing accusation, and then pretend that they are the real victim.
It goes like this:
“Look at those Christians doing a really homophobic thing.”
“HOW DARE YOU. THEY AREN’T EVEN REAL CHRISTIANS. YOU KNOW NOT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE THAT.”
“Look at those feminists being all transphobic. That is not cool.”
“NOT ALL FEMINISTS DO THAT. I’M NOT LIKE THEM. WHY MUST YOU ACCUSE ME OF THINGS I DON’T DO.”
“Hey, look. There are some fandom members being totally racist.”
“JUST BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE AND MAYBE EVEN SOME OF OUR AUTHORS AND STORY-LINES ARE A BIT DOESN’T MEAN THAT WE ALL— AND WHAT ABOUT THE GOOD STORY-LINES WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS IGNORE THE GOOD AND JUST FOCUS ON THE BAD WE ARE NOT RACIST.”
“Hey, wow. Check out this large number of atheists being demonstrably sexist.”
“HOW DARE YOU GENERALIZE ALL OF US AND I AM REALLY HURT BY YOUR ACCUSATIONS. WE DON’T ALL DO THAT AND ISN’T THAT WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT? TALKING ABOUT IT IS WHAT’S SEXIST!”
Don’t do this. If something bad was done by members of your community to someone because of some arbitrary fact of who they are, the correct response is to worry for those people who were harmed and do your best to correct it and speak up against it, both now and in the future. This may involve some self-reflection on your own behaviour, or it may just involve more diligence when paying attention to the behaviour of others so that you can tell others to knock it off when necessary.
But pretending the problem doesn’t exist, or that the real problem is that someone pointed out the problem, or the real problem is that your privileged little feelings were hurt by someone pointing out that privilege, welp, I have no sympathy for you.
You just participated in a silencing tactic that keeps people from discussing, acknowledging, and dismantling their privilege. And that also keeps the victims of oppressive acts from bringing them up or talking about them.
