I should have specified - la_marquise_de was talking about Wales at some points, which is where being locally un-privileged came into it. But it's not quite relevant right there.
The thing about US privilege is that, while there are of course downsides to living in the US vs. many other Western places with better healthcare, better employee protection, etc., it's still there. I didn't believe in it for a while because it seemed like people were always either talking about anglophone privilege or Western privilege or first-world privilege, but then I kind of sat back and watched more and a few threads came along about pointing out the specifics of US privilege, and it was interesting. They pointed out that we don't have to worry about other countries invading us or strong-arming our government into taking part in a war, for example. This post looks like it has a pretty thorough list, although I don't know if I agree with all of them (although I guess if you think about them as "the ability to" instead of "all Americans do this" it does work). And the thing about it is that the cultural issues sound (to an American, anyway) rather petty, so it's easy to brush them aside and say they don't matter, compare it to things like "dog-owning privilege" or "musical-ability privilege" ... but once I started paying attention to discourse at ONTD_F or any of the SJWy spaces, it started becoming really apparent that the entire model of racism/oppression that SJW insist on is completely US-centric, and that the fact that pointing that out often leads to a huge jeering dogpile about deflection, that a group "accused" of having privilege can make such a big stink about it and deny it, means that it actually exists. And then every time someone assumes that everyone in a discussion on FFA or similar is American - either refers to Americans as "we", or takes a general statement about laws/government/food/etc. to mean "American etc." - it's like a bell clangs, because, wow. And this isn't to say that I think it's bad for people to have it or that Americans should be constantly apologizing for it (my understanding of privilege being that everyone should have the same benefits, not that people would privilege should lose theirs), but that when SJW go after a non-American for bringing up a white-on-white oppression they should probably consider it for a moment. (That said, the woman who went after her the hardest is not American. But she does cling to the very US-centric view of oppression.)
Re: appropriation - in general, I take it on a case-by-case basis, because there are so many nuances and I don't really understand how, eg, cooking another culture's food is taking it. But when it comes to the sort of thing in Valente's post, it is a massive squick. Blerg, I'm finding this really hard to articulate right now, but basically, there's a huge tendency for Americans to latch onto a foreign country and decide it's the best thing EVER they feel such a CONNECTION based mainly on a) not interacting with actual modern people from the country and b) media they've consumed that may have very little to do with the actual country right now. Especially when it comes to the UK. And I used to do that, I think! But the post I linked to does it hard, and then because in the comments when someone says reasonably, "gosh, it feels like you're turning my country into fairyland and ignoring what it is actually like," she avows no understanding at all of what the commenter's saying, it reads to me like a huge lump of US privilege being actively defended. And then she goes on to make out like Americans are actually the ones who have it the worst:
Every time I open my mouth and people hear my accent, I get to be the focus point for all the horrible things people think about Americans, no matter who I am or what I might think or know--it doesn't matter. I'm an American. I'm a piece of shit. I'm the worst of everything, and stupid to boot. I've been in a fight in a bar because someone heard my voice and decided he wouldn't have some fucking American in his pub. ... I'll be sure to remember that no matter who I am or what I do, I will never, never be welcome here. Silly me. I'd managed to forget.
It's revolving an entire country around one person, and it's messed-up. And then when la_marquise_de points out that she gets similar things, because everybody thinks of myths and fantasy when they hear her accent, RH starts attacking her because she'd know real oppression if she were from a non-white country! (Never mind that she doesn't take Valente to task for the same thing.) She also says that marquise would never know what it's like to have her country marginalized as she's British and therefore does all of the non-marginalizing, which is where Wales came in, though, I think, elsewhere in the thread.
tl;dr, I can understand doing the "ooh, fairies and goblins" thing in the first place, I can't understand defending it and telling someone ARE YOU HAPPY YOU'VE RUINED BRITAIN FOR ME, I especially can't understand allowing someone in your comments section to get attacked for doing nothing different than what you are, and I can't understand acting like you have no idea why anyone would think you ought to have taken the attacker to task when someone brings it up later. (Which happened.)
no subject
The thing about US privilege is that, while there are of course downsides to living in the US vs. many other Western places with better healthcare, better employee protection, etc., it's still there. I didn't believe in it for a while because it seemed like people were always either talking about anglophone privilege or Western privilege or first-world privilege, but then I kind of sat back and watched more and a few threads came along about pointing out the specifics of US privilege, and it was interesting. They pointed out that we don't have to worry about other countries invading us or strong-arming our government into taking part in a war, for example. This post looks like it has a pretty thorough list, although I don't know if I agree with all of them (although I guess if you think about them as "the ability to" instead of "all Americans do this" it does work). And the thing about it is that the cultural issues sound (to an American, anyway) rather petty, so it's easy to brush them aside and say they don't matter, compare it to things like "dog-owning privilege" or "musical-ability privilege" ... but once I started paying attention to discourse at ONTD_F or any of the SJWy spaces, it started becoming really apparent that the entire model of racism/oppression that SJW insist on is completely US-centric, and that the fact that pointing that out often leads to a huge jeering dogpile about deflection, that a group "accused" of having privilege can make such a big stink about it and deny it, means that it actually exists. And then every time someone assumes that everyone in a discussion on FFA or similar is American - either refers to Americans as "we", or takes a general statement about laws/government/food/etc. to mean "American etc." - it's like a bell clangs, because, wow. And this isn't to say that I think it's bad for people to have it or that Americans should be constantly apologizing for it (my understanding of privilege being that everyone should have the same benefits, not that people would privilege should lose theirs), but that when SJW go after a non-American for bringing up a white-on-white oppression they should probably consider it for a moment. (That said, the woman who went after her the hardest is not American. But she does cling to the very US-centric view of oppression.)
Re: appropriation - in general, I take it on a case-by-case basis, because there are so many nuances and I don't really understand how, eg, cooking another culture's food is taking it. But when it comes to the sort of thing in Valente's post, it is a massive squick. Blerg, I'm finding this really hard to articulate right now, but basically, there's a huge tendency for Americans to latch onto a foreign country and decide it's the best thing EVER they feel such a CONNECTION based mainly on a) not interacting with actual modern people from the country and b) media they've consumed that may have very little to do with the actual country right now. Especially when it comes to the UK. And I used to do that, I think! But the post I linked to does it hard, and then because in the comments when someone says reasonably, "gosh, it feels like you're turning my country into fairyland and ignoring what it is actually like," she avows no understanding at all of what the commenter's saying, it reads to me like a huge lump of US privilege being actively defended. And then she goes on to make out like Americans are actually the ones who have it the worst:
It's revolving an entire country around one person, and it's messed-up. And then when la_marquise_de points out that she gets similar things, because everybody thinks of myths and fantasy when they hear her accent, RH starts attacking her because she'd know real oppression if she were from a non-white country! (Never mind that she doesn't take Valente to task for the same thing.) She also says that marquise would never know what it's like to have her country marginalized as she's British and therefore does all of the non-marginalizing, which is where Wales came in, though, I think, elsewhere in the thread.
tl;dr, I can understand doing the "ooh, fairies and goblins" thing in the first place, I can't understand defending it and telling someone ARE YOU HAPPY YOU'VE RUINED BRITAIN FOR ME, I especially can't understand allowing someone in your comments section to get attacked for doing nothing different than what you are, and I can't understand acting like you have no idea why anyone would think you ought to have taken the attacker to task when someone brings it up later. (Which happened.)