As a gay man, I think this privilege debate is kind of ridiculous. [View all]

[Kurska]

I'm a gay man and I'm Jewish. I grew up in the small town south. You can bet I took a metric ton of shit from people for that and as hard as it may be to believe not all of that came from the hands of evil white people. I still can't get married to the man I love in the state of my birth.

However just because I look white (ask a million racists, apparently being Jewish means I'm not really "White&quot . I apparently have gotten some kind of huge social advantage over other minorities?

Even outside of what we generally think of as discriminated against classes of people, white people can be born poor, they can be born with horrible diseases, they can be born with drunken abusive fathers. My father is a heterosexual man, but he grew up in the slums of Baltimore with an overworked mother and an absentee father.

This privilege thing to me seems like we're prejudging the lives of other people based on their race. "Oh you've had it so easy" or "You don't know what discrimination is like so just shut up". And I hate this thread despite posting it, because I feel like to counter that kind of talk you have to get into ridiculous oppression Olympics where sides argue "No I am the real victim". When in reality we're all human beings with unique life stories and journeys that deserve to be considered holistically. You don't know a damn thing about someone based exclusively on their race and I wish people would stop acting like they do. Even based on what I've told you today about being Jewish or being gay, frankly I don't think you know a thing more about me than when you started reading this thread.

I'm a human being and I deserve to be judged as human being, not as the sum total of the negative or social advantages I was born with.