At A Loss For Words

So.

I just had a great visit with my dad. Just peachy keen. He bought me coloured pencils, combat boots and groceries, along with a lovely lunch. We were both kind of really enjoying each other's company until...

I started talking about privilege. My privilege, specifically, and how it interacts with my political action, and how I'm trying to learn how to use the privileges I have to act without reinforcing their power, and how that's hard and I think about it a lot.

And then he blew up. The classic small-l liberal blow-up. About how political correctness is immobilizing people and how I'm wasting time thinking about these things and it's better to just act. About how worrying so much about people's "feelings" is dysfunctional and people are too sensitive and REAL issues like unemployment and hunger don't need to have anything to do with identities or privileges. About the "death of the liberal class" and all that.

And then I blew up. The classic radical kid blow-up, with vehemence and a real, sincere, rage-induced lack of clarity. About how the liberal class could go fuck itself because it wasn't enough, as important as that work may have been at times and how it's helped. About how my friends and I certainly weren't immobilized, but we took the time we could to think about the structure of our interactions. About how acting without thought and consideration to the ways language and habit formed the very power structure that caused the issues we were trying to fight would end up reinforcing this power. About how the time to compromise was up. About how awesome my peers are and how much I'm learning. About how living an anti-oppressive life and being vegan was an important form of political action. About how I am no expert and it is my responsibility to educate myself on the forms of privilege I enact, and to work to consider the opinions and experiences of others in a real way.

And then he told me I was doing a good job of erasing my privileges.

ERASING THEM?!?!??

I guess to him, because I'm not in a salaried position yet, because I'm occasionally poor, because I don't have people listening to my sage-beyond-my-years voice yet, I'm erasing my privileges. And of course, that's possible. Clearly, because I am choosing to be immobilized by political correctness, I am suddenly able to truly understand what it's like to not be white, or educated (in a socially rewarded kind of way), or employed, or able-bodied, or English-speaking, or a Canadian citizen, or, or, or, or...

And here's the thing. His frustration is because he wants to see change. He does. He wants the world to be better and he wants everyone to live in harmony and so on and so forth. He wants me to be a part of that change the same way he wants his life to affect change SO BAD he barely sleeps at night and he works 18 hour days. He's a really great guy. And really smart and really honestly doing really interesting great things. And I love the shit out of him. It's just that... the way he works to change the world is different than the way I hope to. He works within a system I detest, mistrust and fear. He navigates it and manipulates it and trusts it because he knows it and because, whether he can understand this or not, he's REWARDED by it. It feeds him and his ego. It keeps him safe all over the world. It erases his positionality and streamlines his actions. He can act out his intentions as, simply, a "good person." And his expertise is unquestioned. His opinion is always valued. He has to prove himself, yes, and I think because he works so hard at this, he's unable to see the ways in which he DOESN'T have to prove himself.

After he said this, I got blue in the face, I blustered and cussed and shuddered with the desire for words I wish I had...

Because he's a lot of people that way. He's the mainstream. And because I love the bastard, I have to face it more often than I would choose to, but in reality, I think it's probably my responsibility to face this reality on the regular. And I really wish I knew how to do it better. I wish I could keep my calm and fight elegantly and cogently and without getting self-righteous or violent.

So I know this is another "oh poor me" kind of rant from someone with a lot of privilege dealing with something a whole lot of people have to deal with in a much grander scale, and you know, as distressed as this does make me, I'm still just fine, and I'm still fully intending to figure this shit out, but you know...

If anyone has any ideas as to how to deal with this stuff better, or if anyone just wants to rant about similar experiences, by all means.

Cuz I'm at a loss for words.