Lately I've seen an extra large amount of complaint on Facebook about how various so-and-sos are feeling oppressed because of their views on whatever topic. And there is definite amounts of oppression in the world. But. It seems that every American feels oppressed about something, in some area of their life. Yet no one is claiming, "Haha! I totally oppressed little Timmy today!" So this leads me, again, to wonder about the fake-oppression mentality (again, stressing that there are absolutely folks who are being oppressed; people get bullied, oppressed, and killed for their race, their sexual orientation, their gender, and onward, and that is completely unacceptable).
This is more along the lines of what I consider the "wishful" oppression. Say that you act like an ass-hat and your friends call you on it. The only "oppression" happening there is your friends are oppressing your obliviousness to you acting like an an ass-hat. You probably weren't taking a stand for ass-hats everywhere and your friends aren't "the man" dragging you down. You were being an ass-hat and claiming oppression gives you victim status, with a little bit of a martyr air to it.
I have seen the fake oppression/persecution mentality in different folks I've met, my whole life (covering a spectrum of humanity). I honestly see it as a left-over of being colonized by folks who were being oppressed and persecuted several hundred years ago. Some traditions need to be let go.
Yes, there are things in life that aren't fair and there ARE cases of active oppression that happen. And I think we should work towards treating everyone the same, whether or not they ride a bike, love "Halloween" movies, are nudists, enjoy coconut in cookies or whatever. Everyone is just living the best life they can, making the best decisions they can, and being the best people they can be in whatever circumstances they're in. For the most part, there is no organized "other" out there trying to hold you down, they are too busy living their own lives and making the decisions they do with what information they've got.
Sigh. This all makes sense in my brain and probably comes across as this elitist little rant saying, "Suck it up and shut up." That's not what I mean. I'm just tired of folks whining about their different problems every day and making them sound like huge catastrophes of deliberate oppression, when there actually are huge catastrophes of oppression happening. There is a line between the two, and I think Americans are a bit fuzzy about that line. It's the difference between malevolence from an outside source and having a situation where you don't get your own way all the time. I have parts of my life that feel oppressed, but I'm aware that it's just the result of folks acting dumbly and not as a united front of oppression of me. I live my life as best I can and stand up for what I believe...and I suspect there are folks who think I'm actively oppressing them. So it goes. Alas, it would probably just be easier for me to wear a shirt that says, "Taking a stand for ass-hats everywhere."
An Erinku:
even
vegetarian diets
result in the death
of vegetables
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