Another nude sports figure pointlessly objectified on a magazine cover

[BainsBane]

178. You describe them as flamebait

Last edited Tue May 20, 2014, 09:31 PM - Edit history (4)

Because you refuse to recognize that an issue that doesn't concern you has legitimacy. To me, telling feminists and people of color that their posts are flamebait demonstrates perfectly the myopia I described. You don't see it as selfishness because you see me and the issues I talk about as illegitimate. Rape matters. Violence against women matters. Racism matters. The arguments you made to me above are the same made to the African American members of this site. It is a clear demonstration of class, race, and gender based notions of politics, truth, and acceptability. You don't consider it selfishness because you see me and the issues I write about as beneath consideration, as not even constituting a self to ignore. The issues I post about concern millions of people around the world, even if you think yourself above them and me.

One member insisted threads talking about the existence of privilege were flamebait, but his arguing that people shouldn't talk about it were not. He could not acknowledge that a view apart from his own had any political relevance. It so happened that his was a view of a white man who doesn't like to think about racism, unless it's to blame Republicans. The same is true for declarations that feminist threads about rape and violence against women are flamebait. They only are flamebait to those who think those experiences and those lives are illegitimate, particularly in comparison to their social security checks or getting their pot stash legalized. To sit in judgement of the concerns of others and call their concerns flamebait is a demonstration of the very privielge and entitlement those threads seek to address.

My guess is you wouldn't call this thread flamebait, but one advancing the opposite point of view would be flamebait. Many others take that same position, whether you do or not. Such a position demonstrates a vision of politics entirely bound to self.