The Rise of Victimhood Culture (Hola DU!)

[flamingdem]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/

Last fall at Oberlin College, a talk held as part of Latino Heritage Month was scheduled on the same evening that intramural soccer games were held. As a result, soccer players communicated by email about their respective plans. “Hey, that talk looks pretty great,” a white student wrote to a Hispanic student, “but on the off chance you aren’t going or would rather play futbol instead the club team wants to go!!”

Unbeknownst to the white student, the Hispanic student was offended by the email. And her response signals the rise of a new moral culture America.

------- snip

Then she explained her grievance:

Ok. 1. Thanks for you thinking that the talk is “pretty great”. I appreaciate your white male validation. I see that it isn’t interesting enough for you to actually take your ass to the talk. 2. Who said it was ok for you to say futbol? It’s Latino Heritage Month, your telling people not to come to the talk, but want to use our language? Trick NO! White students appropriating the Spanish language, dropping it in when convenient, never ok. Keep my heritage language out your mouth! If I’m not allowed to speak it, if my dad’s not allowed to speak it, then bitch you definitely are not supposed to be speaking it. Especially in this context.

She also published the email that he sent to the white student:

Your not latino, call it soccer. You don’t play futbol. Futbol is played with people (LATINO) who know how to engage in community soccer, as somebody who grew up on the cancha (soccer field) I know what playing futbol is, and the way you take up space, steal the ball, don’t pass, is far from how my culture plays ball.

I’m not playing intramural once again this semester because you and your cis-dude, non passing the ball, stealing the ball from beginners, spanish-mocking, white cohort has ruined it (for the second time). Unless I find another team you won’t be seeing me.

I don’t care if this email is over the top or mean. So complain to whatever white friends you want about it. You’re never going to know what its like to not be able to your own heritage sport comfortably because of your gender/race/ethnicity.

[snagglepuss]

1. Really fascinating read. Highly recommend this as it explains some

inexplicable events on DU.

[flamingdem]

11. Essential reading for the over 40s here who don't understand

some of the eruptions here or in real life.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. ...is going to lead to more isolation.

The aggrieved might “exercise covert avoidance, quietly cutting off relations with the offender without any confrontation”

and since people who do get responses tend to feel they've been judged unfairly, the 'covert avoidance' is just as likely to end up moving in the other direction as well.

So instead of inviting people to a game, they'll just wind up ignoring and avoiding someone they see as looking to be a martyr, and the result of 'microaggression identification' is going back to less diversity, as people simply give up on trying to interact with people who are different.

[snagglepuss]

5. I think one could say that tribalism is the logical end point of identity politics

which has always been about valuing group difference over and against commonality amongst heterogeneous individuals.

[saturnsring]

7. If someone bit my head off like that yea I would avoid them but because it sounds they don't want

Me around

[flamingdem]

12. Good old humanism could help if we could remember

what connects us is greater than what divides us.

[btrflykng9]

16. +1

[yeoman6987]

3. Over the top is an understatement. Wow!

[saturnsring]

4. Sounds almost like a problem she has with him and his friend

Your not latino, call it soccer. You don’t play futbol. Futbol is played with people (LATINO) who know how to engage in community soccer, as somebody who grew up on the cancha (soccer field) I know what playing futbol is, and the way you take up space, steal the ball, don’t pass, is far from how my culture plays ball.

I’m not playing intramural once again this semester because you and your cis-dude, non passing the ball, stealing the ball from beginners, spanish-mocking, white cohort has ruined it (for the second time). Unless I find another team you won’t be seeing me.

[snagglepuss]

8. Insightful observation. It'd be interesting to know what rules professional

soccer follows (ie World Cup) Do Latino players share the ball more than let's say Italian or English players? Do they never steal balls?

[Xithras]

6. Lol. Welcome to every college campus in America.

Yet another reason I quit teaching a couple of years ago. Today's college students are weird and getting weirder.

And someone should point out to that complainer that Spanish is a European language. Unless she's speaking Nahuatl herself, she should cállate with that cultural appropriation crap.

[snagglepuss]

9. That is why I find the notion of CA ludicrious. Everything on Earth has been at one time or

other appropriated. Where would the world be if Romans didn't appropriate Greek thought? Where would Muslims be if Mo hadn't appropriated the Abrahamic deity? Where would Christians if Jesus hadn't appropriated Judaism? etc etc

[GitRDun]

10. Very interesting read..I don't know if I would say its victim hood though

Maybe it's just me, but if I got that e-mail I would definitely reach out.

What a great opportunity to learn about her culture.

[snagglepuss]

13. Why expose yourself to someone that abusive? There are

millions of civilized people to befriend who if misunderstandings arise will give you the benefit of doubt and will politely explain why something you said or did was hurtful.

[GitRDun]

14. I see pain, not abusiveness.

That's just me though.

I'm strong enough to take a chance...my gain if its pain, no big deal if its abuse...I take it from people on DU all the time. I can walk away and sleep at night.

[Igel]

15. Rings fairly true for many.

Too many really seek to find vicarious victimization if there's a paucity of the real thing in their lives, or seek to blame incidental factors for important things. "My family's poor because of X." To which my response is that the family's poor because the single mother has 4 kids, is 35 years old with a high school junior, didn't graduate high school and has a substance abuse problem. But the real reason is something entirely different.



But I can't help but wonder if it's not a reflection of something else. Not quite sure what.



Something "upstairs" is trying to connect it with an interview I heard recently about melting glaciers. The archeologist was talking about how artefacts were coming to light in the thousands in northern North America and revealing a lot of information that they'd be struggling to place in its proper complex. That it was creating a new subdiscipline in the field, and it was an exciting time.

The interviewer listened, asked a few questions, but came alive with the question, "Yes, that's all well and good, but what are your worries?" All the excitement, new finds, intellectual curiosity, etc., paled before what was important: What could be going wrong, how could it all be horrible? Nobody wants to hear about achievements, we all want to wallow in worry and anxiety.

Seemed somehow wrong.

(BTW, the main worry was the usual: When there are a lot of artefacts, tens or hundreds of thousands of them, many will be lost to nature before they can be collected. This is always true. It's just that usually this happens long before the archeologist comes along, so in fact the archeologists in this case have more artefacts than they can conserve. An abundance of riches is, it would seem, a bad thing. What might we lose that's important, what might we overlook?)

[Beartracks]

17. "There is no end to conflict in a victimhood culture." Sums it up.

==================

[cprise]

18. I agree with Hobo Tron's comment under the article

For starters, those things are incredibly isolated and rare. No one would be talking about them if they were everywhere at every college. Secondly, a microaggression is a small thing that people who think it's a molehill dismiss as oversensitivity, but they don't disappear, they add up.

But let's not pretend Liberals are the ones taking this to the next level. Dealing with tiny racist crap is real, being upset because holidays other than Christmas are being acknowledged is not. Crucifying a woman because she made a game you don't like is not. Howling about Shariah Law while trying to pass very similar laws is not.

The article itself seems pretty tone-deaf (i.e. privileged and almost clueless). Just note the passage about media complaints:

For example, the emergence of “the blogosphere” in the early aughts––something I participated in to some extent–– was rife with examples of conservative, progressive, and libertarian bloggers calling attention to minor slights against their respective ideological groups by mainstream media outlets. In “Fisking” the MSM, the aggrieved seized on these slights, often exaggerating them in the process; tried to garner the support of third parties (an ombudsman, the public at large); cast themselves as victims of unfair treatment; and demonized adversaries.

DUers from the aughts ought to recognize this kind comfortable (and dangerous) rationalization of media bias. All the more chilling that its coming from a white, erudite millennial -- repeating old Boomer mistakes from the late 20th century. Apart from tossing in a couple of lines about white "victimhood" (though its not so much victimhood as a deranged complex) the author appears blind to the aggregate experiences of Latinos and engages in false equivalency.

The "new moral culture" is the old moral culture... Remember "uppity women and blacks"? The difference now is that the often violent responses the 'uppity' got in return no longer happen in the shadows. It gets shared on the Internet, instead, along with all that "divisive" ethnic history that school boards have BANNED.

Have a nice day!

[Doctor_J]

19. so a white student says that a speaker at Latino heritage month looks pretty neat,

and this sends the Latino student into an outrage of victimhood - "white males are forbidden from mentioning our speakers". Then she claims that the white student is "telling people not to come to the talk", and that he is not allowed to say futbol.

To some, a day without poutrage is like a day without sunshine. Incidents like this are where Fox news gets their material.