By Michael Ebmeier, Opinions Editor
The social justice blogging movement is about as divorced from social justice and reality as possible. Hordes of winging Tumblr users blast absurdities laced with politically inflammatory issues all over the internet, polluting already touchy and sensitive topics with toxic vitriol. If my language sounds a little strong, or if you’re not familiar with social justice blogging, let me give you a bit of context to help you understand how bad things really are.
The following is an excerpt from social justice blogger feministconservative’s post: “My first week of work,” in which she describes her first week working in an undisclosed college’s admissions office.
“I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege [sic]. Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions [sic] were.”
Any applicant who was a white male was immediately disqualified from admission into feministconservative’s college if she happened to be the one looking over the application. Might I add that she claims to be a member of Mensa? Really, you can check if you don’t believe me (feministconservative.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/my-first-week-of-work/).
But whatever, right? It’s just someone being stupid online right? Surely there aren’t many people like this. Right? Please? Well I’m sorry to say but feministconservative is not an anomaly. There are thousands of self-anointed “social justice warriors” (they actually call themselves that) online, many of whom have found their home on the popular blogging site Tumblr and social media mainstay, Twitter.
The common thread among social justice warriors (SJWs) is an obsession with the concept of privilege. Privilege, a special right, advantage or immunity granted or available only to a particular group of people, is a valid sociological construct. But now it’s been so thoroughly bastardized by SJWs that it’s hard to take seriously. SJWs angrily call people out on white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, western privilege, cisgender privilege (not transgender), thin privilege and goy privilege (not Jewish). Some of those privileges are actually real, but good luck having a discussion about them without an SJW screaming obscenities at you in all caps.
A go-to line SJWs use to deflect criticism is “X is power + privilege.” As in “racism is power + privilege,” “rape is power + privilege” or “sexism is power + privilege.” This is almost always used after being called out for some kind of bigoted hypocrisy. Let’s take a look at @Carly_Jacksn on Twitter. She, in so many words, claimed that white people who oppose the United States’ involvement in Syria do so solely because the president is black: “99% of white racists agree: Vote NO when going to war with #Syria #justsaying” When called out for her racism by several Twitter users, she replied, “You come from a position of privilege and power.”
This is how the social justice warrior thinks: It’s not racism unless it comes from someone with privilege and power. Only white people can be racist, only men can be sexist, and (most troubling) only men can be rapists.
I don’t have space to present individual examples of every SJW sin, but searching Tumblr for “#privilege” or “#socialjustice” will demonstrate how bad the problem is (or for a “worst of” gallery, try reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction).
It’s not that the social justice warriors’ comments are racist, sexist and absurd that’s the problem, it’s how SJWs are shaping the public discourse. Feminists with a real desire for change and a thirst for equality are often lumped together with SJWs. Survivors of rape are tossed in with the SJWs who are “metaphorically raped” when their male co-workers are promoted in their place. SJWs spit on academics and activists who take sociology and feminism seriously by blaming every social ill on the nefarious white man and his privilege.
The predictably angry reaction to SJWs poisons discussions of race and gender online even further. 4chan’s /pol/ board, a place where people are politically incorrect intentionally, has stirred SJWs into frenzies on several occasions. Remember the “goy privilege” I mentioned? It wasn’t a real thing before /pol/ users pretended to be SJWs outraged by the “oppressive privilege of non-Jews.” They successfully integrated a made-up type of privilege into the mainstream of social justice blogging. The situation is so far gone that it’s nearly impossible to have a reasoned discussion about politically sensitive issues online.
Despite everything I’ve said I really do care about social justice. Social justice is great, but the modern social justice warrior is not. The difference between being a positive force for social justice and a social justice warrior is being a facilitator of change instead of an obstacle. But then again, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I think, because according to @From_Nothing: “If you are White you have white privilege and are inherently racist.” Shame on me, I guess.
