How To Address Victimization?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Uriah_Betrayed
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
U

Uriah_Betrayed

Guest
As Catholics how should we respond to the arguments of victimization where an individual or group argues that society has say for example “white privileged” or “straight privileged”

My main question is, if they’re just going to shake their fists at the people they think are oppressing them (ex. blacks v white / gays v straights) then do we still have an obligation to be charitable to them? This obviously has most importance with dealing with the gay community and those who have made their victimization part of their identity since one of their targets would be the Catholic Church.

So should we as Catholics even bother acknowledging people who solely feed off their feelings of being victims and who demonize their enemies?
 
We should treat everybody with love ad respect. We needn’t indulge everyone’s grievances, but arguing with them is counter productive.
 
Uriah_Betrayed said:
As Catholics how should we respond to the arguments of victimization where an individual or group argues that society has say for example “white privileged” or “straight privileged”

My main question is, if they’re just going to shake their fists at the people they think are oppressing them (ex. blacks v white / gays v straights) then do we still have an obligation to be charitable to them? This obviously has most importance with dealing with the gay community and those who have made their victimization part of their identity since one of their targets would be the Catholic Church.

So should we as Catholics even bother acknowledging people who solely feed off their feelings of being victims and who demonize their enemies?
Click to expand...
If they like to play victims who is going to tell them not to do so?
Or you can say but you cannot change their behavior.
It is a defeated animal position, when fights happen between animal. The animal who loses plays dead.
If, for the balance of their psyche they need to have us as oppressors, well, let it be.
Maybe it is a charitable work, like when the mother does not give something bad (like a knife) to a kid and the kid replies: “You are bad, bad, bad!”.
And mother hugs her and says: “Yes, mummy is very bad, isnt’t it?”
Some of those people, their real age is 25 but they behave like children and maybe they have got an emotional age of a kindergarten kind…
Sorry, I am not kidding…
See stages of moral development of Kholberg.
 
Uriah_Betrayed said:
As Catholics how should we respond to the arguments of victimization where an individual or group argues that society has say for example “white privileged” or “straight privileged”

My main question is, if they’re just going to shake their fists at the people they think are oppressing them (ex. blacks v white / gays v straights) then do we still have an obligation to be charitable to them? This obviously has most importance with dealing with the gay community and those who have made their victimization part of their identity since one of their targets would be the Catholic Church.

So should we as Catholics even bother acknowledging people who solely feed off their feelings of being victims and who demonize their enemies?
Click to expand...
I think people who have been victimised and marginalised for a long time, and have been effectively told to shut up many times, don’t always explain the problem in the clearest manner, because it is personal for them and very upsetting. When someone has clearly been hurt and is clearly upset, I think you have an extra obligation to be charitable towards them. Jesus didn’t say “Love only those who suffer quietly and don’t make a fuss”, or even “Love only those who are polite and nice to you”.

“Privilege” is a way of talking about kyriarchy. It’s a real thing. It’s why, for example, if a board is less than 1/3 women, or less than 1/3 black people, or less than 1/3 any less privileged group, the opinions voiced by the members of that group will be considered as representing that group, rather than considered properly on their own merits. It isn’t about everyone in one group being rich while everyone in another group is poor: it is more subtle than that. And it can be hard to see until you’ve started noticing it.

Of course, like anything, there are people who misuse these terms, but that doesn’t mean you can stop listening and stop being charitable to someone who is upset or angry.
 
"you will never know the level of sufferings of…"

THIS, THIS is the word that ends up poping up for all minorities. If I will never understand the suffering of black people, or people with SSA, or Women, then why should I care any bit about them?! You can feel free to say “because God tells us too” but I’d like a more earthly answer too, why should I care about people who say the quote above? If I can’t understand something then why should I love it in the Christian sense, or heck even CARE about it as a general human being?

Now let me get this out of the way, I’m Hispanic. If I wanted I could join these kinds of people and cry about how Chicanos are collectively oppressed by the evil white man. Who knows maybe I’m wrong and it really is “Majority bad, minorities good” I don’t know I’m just sick of listening to the complaints and then everyone expecting we can have any sort of relation with those types of people.
 
I have never starved. Having never starved, it would be presumptious of me to talk about starvation as if I knew more about the personal experience of it than someone who has actually starved. Can you imagine if someone was describing their experience of slowly starving, and I interjected with my personal view that it wasn’t really that bad, or that it doesn’t happen any more, or that it must have been their fault, or that they should have acted differently, or that they should stop talking about starvation because everyone knows it’s bad?

And yet, my inability to fully comprehend what it is like to starve does not mean I should not care about those who starve, or that I have some get-out. When someone describes their experience of starving, my appropriate response is to listen and sympathise, while aware that I won’t fully get it. Even if that person is angry at me for belonging to a group that doesn’t typically starve, and for belonging to a group that benefits from the same system that led to them starving. My response should not be outraged insistence that I had nothing to do with that: they are not saying that I did anything wrong, but are expressing anger at the general injustice of the situation. That I am unaware of how my group benefits from the system is typically a privilege of belonging to the benefitted group: the groups disadvantaged by the system often have to be aware of it.

I should also do what I can to help other people who are starving or in danger of starving, and be aware of when things are likely to lead to people starving. I don’t get to not care about people starving, just because I hope never to fully understand what it is like.

Does that provide a more concrete parallel, since “Love one another” is too abstract?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top