timberwraith
If you think:
a) your particular experience with oppression has somehow made you immune from treating other oppressed groups unjustly
b) and furthermore, you believe you can use your experience with oppression as a shield from criticism
c) and you can use your own oppression as justification in abusing another oppressed group...
You're as rotten at your core as any other bigot.
Using your own oppression as cover for abusing others is cowardly, dishonest, and absolutely reprehensible.
timberwraith
One aspect of intersectionality that I rarely see people address is that most people have multiple intersecting modes of being both oppressed and oppressor, and because of this, people will sometimes utilize aspects of their identity as an oppressed person to justify and cover for their actions as a member of an oppressor group.
For example, a white woman might use her experiences with misogyny and sexism as cover for her abusive behavior toward a black man or a male immigrant.
timberwraith
Another example: An atheist might use their experiences of oppression in christian culture as cover for their hatred of Muslims and Islam.
Another example: A queer/trans person might use their experiences of oppression as cover for their xenophobic hatred against people immigrating from non-Western cultures.
timberwraith
I can go on. There are SO many examples which I have seen in real life.
This happens regularly and people are often afraid to address the issue because the response is to be reflexively accused of bigotry by the person who is engaging in bigoted behaviors against another oppressed group.
timberwraith
All of this exists in a larger social hierarchy, btw. Different groups of oppressed people will be ranked by hierarchical societies as "better" or "worse" than each other. This gives some oppressed groups advantage over other oppressed groups in behaving abusively to oppressed groups lower down in the hierarchy, while larger society provides cover for their actions.
An example would be cis women behaving abusively toward trans people and being supported by patriarchal culture in doing so.
timberwraith
In this example, women are an oppressed group, but are seen as better/superior to trans people, who are excluded from the cis sex/gender binary and are placed into a category of "other."
Cis women are therefor accorded justification and social approval in their oppression of trans people, another oppressed group who exist lower in the social hierarchy of ranked oppressions.
timberwraith
And under these conditions, cis women can readily access their status as oppressed people in justifying their abuse of trans people.
timberwraith
This is but one example. There are many others.
timberwraith
I'll end this thread by offering the bombshell observation:
In u.s. culture, while Jewish people are an oppressed group, they are placed in a higher position of status in the social hierarchy than Muslims and/or people of Arabic origin. This is an effect of decades of active Islamophobia/anti-Arab/orientalist hatred drummed up by 9/11 and various wars in the Middle East. It is compounded by xenophobia.
timberwraith
Under these conditions, a part of the Jewish community can and does readily use their status as oppressed people in covering for their own Islamophobia/anti-Arab/orientalist sentiment.
This is currently being actively used in covering for their support of genocidal events in Gaza, in which reflexive (false) claims of antisemitism are used as cover for their own support of abuse against another oppressed group.
timberwraith
But again, this is one example that has very poignant relevance in current world events.
There are so, so many others that are in active engagement as I write this.
Without the ability to deconstruct the underlying patterns of power, social status, and the complex entanglement of oppressor and oppressed status, all of this remains opaque.
Oppression is a socially fractal phenomenon which reproduces itself in all social relationships. It is everywhere and many varied.
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