The practice of intersectional victimhood is fascinating. It is the ultimate bait-and-switch con game. Everyone is invited to play, and almost all will lose. Like most manipulations, it loses its appeal when you look at the fine print. Sympathizing with politically manufactured victims is a cheap imitation of love and appreciation. Let’s unwrap the pretty package and see what lives inside.
If your life is shallow enough, then you live vicariously through the experience of others. You compare their appearance with your experience, and of course you come up looking wounded and damaged. You can easily assume that the heartache you feel is unmatched by the people around you. The simple fact is that we do most of our crying on our pillow at night. Since more and more of us refuse to commit to life-long married love, that means that more and more of us cry alone. We don’t have a partner to help us put our emotions into perspective. We lose sight of how our suffering fits into our larger experience and how it compares to the experiences of others.
Like the naive mark at the carnival, we fall prey to the first barker who tells us that our suffering was exceptional. The emotional appeal is easy to understand. Everyone wants to be seen. Everybody wants to feel special. Playing on those feelings is a classic strategy employed by abusers through the ages.
At first the emotional pain contest seems like a cheap path to superiority. It goes without saying that you’ve felt your own hurts more intensely than watching the feelings of others. Who do you know who has felt all the pain that you have? Our narrow experience tells us that we’re unique and special. Our emotional brain says we will win the pain game. A broader perspective says we’re average if not fortunate.
Now the carnival con man turns over another card. There is always someone who has hurt more than you have. There is always someone who is a more-favored contestant in the current hierarchy of victimhood. Since you’re probably not a poor brown-skinned lesbian from Africa, then you must be one of the abusers. So sorry, but their pain is more important than yours. Better luck next time.
You’re welcome to play the pain lottery again (and lose). If you think this description is only hyperbole, then I ask you to read the news more deeply.
The Democrat party calls itself the party of the oppressed minority. It claims to be the party of justice.. unless you’re a Jew living in New York City. There, you’re told to stay inside your home so you don’t “provoke violence” by being alive and simply walking down the street. If you apply now, your application to possess a firearm in your home can be denied in a couple of years when it is finally processed by city bureaucrats. Good luck getting a permit to carry a concealed firearm and defend your family in public. Laws are for the little people, and if you really wanted to be safe then you’d have your own security team like the elite billionaires and politicians.
The Democrat party says they are the party that respects women’s rights.. unless your attacker claims to be an intersectional victim. Too bad that you’re a white woman if you’re sexually assaulted by a Hispanic homeless person in Los Angeles county. You see, now the political perceptions are more important than your physical safety. Again, you can apply for a carry permit. I hear that the chief of police in Los Angeles grants a few hundred permits a year. For enough money, you might be one of the lucky elites who gets one.
We’d all like to get something for nothing. Pandering “progressives” promise that we’ve already paid the bill with our suffering. All they demand is our future, our votes, and our freedoms. The allure is obvious, but it is a sucker’s game. The best way to win is to not play.
This article was originally posted at the SlowFacts blog and is used with permission.
