Doesn’t this demonstrate how utterly ridiculous the “minority” and “majority” labels are?
Don’t get me wrong… these terms are useful in a particular context, when you’re worried about a minority of people being underrepresented, underprivileged, overly-scrutinized, etc. but let’s not forget, in these cases, it’s always relative to a “majority” who has better circumstances. That’s to say, the minority wouldn’t be underprivileged if it were not for a majority that is equally so overly privileged.
Where do these groups come from in the first place? Is there something about the blood of a Latino man that makes him fundamentally and categorically different than anyone else? What about when that Latino man legally enters the US and decides to join ICE in the process of capturing other Latino men, has his blood then been purified to another category? What if the Latino man goes to his home country, and he’s magically no longer a minority, has his blood then again changed? Obviously not.
Being minority or majority seems to have a lot to do with whatever arbitrary categories you fit into, dependent typically upon a single factor. Some big ones:
Where were you born?
What god do you believe in?
Do you eat meat?
What sex are you attracted to?
Do you identify with your birthed gender?
…
We create categories from the answers to these arbitrary facts about oneself, and we then rely on those categories to identify groups of people. But these facts don’t really tell you anything about the people they supposedly represent. Perhaps you learn one detail about an individual, such as “they’re a vegan.” Yet, you don’t know why they’re a vegan—so what good is knowing they’re a vegan at all (unless you’re catering, of course)? Yet, despite not knowing much about about these people, we use these categories as a platform to stereotype them—to reduce them into simple facts and pretend we actually do know everything about them.
Why do we have an instinctual bias toward this behavior—toward creating “in groups” and “out groups” out of thin air, and then using that logic as a gospel for ethical intervention? To me, this entire categorization thing seems as though it’s only valuable as a platform for controlling people. What’s most deceiving, though, is the fact that you must use this same platform to counter it. You have to “advocate for vegans” if you want to help out their underprivileged community — thus using the same platform for reducing people down to easily identifiable categories.
People should start saying, “I’m not vegan. I just can’t stand to eat meat given all the animal cruelty.” Or “I’m not vegan. I just have a rare allergy to protein and might die if I eat meat.” Or “I’m not Latino. I was just born in a Latin country.” … doing this might sound silly, but I think it cuts the lifeline used by oppressors here. Stop categorizing us — stop categorizing yourself. You’re a complex and highly dynamic person.
I’m not trying to start a debate on classification, I am just pointing out that the powers that be will have less inclination to protect one of their own based solely on things like skin tone. The only person prosecuted for all of the financial wrongdoing associated with the 2008 collapse was a black guy.
Doesn’t this demonstrate how utterly ridiculous the “minority” and “majority” labels are?
Don’t get me wrong… these terms are useful in a particular context, when you’re worried about a minority of people being underrepresented, underprivileged, overly-scrutinized, etc. but let’s not forget, in these cases, it’s always relative to a “majority” who has better circumstances. That’s to say, the minority wouldn’t be underprivileged if it were not for a majority that is equally so overly privileged.
Where do these groups come from in the first place? Is there something about the blood of a Latino man that makes him fundamentally and categorically different than anyone else? What about when that Latino man legally enters the US and decides to join ICE in the process of capturing other Latino men, has his blood then been purified to another category? What if the Latino man goes to his home country, and he’s magically no longer a minority, has his blood then again changed? Obviously not.
Being minority or majority seems to have a lot to do with whatever arbitrary categories you fit into, dependent typically upon a single factor. Some big ones:
We create categories from the answers to these arbitrary facts about oneself, and we then rely on those categories to identify groups of people. But these facts don’t really tell you anything about the people they supposedly represent. Perhaps you learn one detail about an individual, such as “they’re a vegan.” Yet, you don’t know why they’re a vegan—so what good is knowing they’re a vegan at all (unless you’re catering, of course)? Yet, despite not knowing much about about these people, we use these categories as a platform to stereotype them—to reduce them into simple facts and pretend we actually do know everything about them.
Why do we have an instinctual bias toward this behavior—toward creating “in groups” and “out groups” out of thin air, and then using that logic as a gospel for ethical intervention? To me, this entire categorization thing seems as though it’s only valuable as a platform for controlling people. What’s most deceiving, though, is the fact that you must use this same platform to counter it. You have to “advocate for vegans” if you want to help out their underprivileged community — thus using the same platform for reducing people down to easily identifiable categories.
People should start saying, “I’m not vegan. I just can’t stand to eat meat given all the animal cruelty.” Or “I’m not vegan. I just have a rare allergy to protein and might die if I eat meat.” Or “I’m not Latino. I was just born in a Latin country.” … doing this might sound silly, but I think it cuts the lifeline used by oppressors here. Stop categorizing us — stop categorizing yourself. You’re a complex and highly dynamic person.
I’m not trying to start a debate on classification, I am just pointing out that the powers that be will have less inclination to protect one of their own based solely on things like skin tone. The only person prosecuted for all of the financial wrongdoing associated with the 2008 collapse was a black guy.