>Maybe identifying as a card carrying member of a "disadvantaged" group isn't the healthiest outlook to have.
Maybe some people don't walk around looking for every opportunity to trumpet their social group like an American Express card and just have certain realities that they deal with that individuals who aren't say a minority, a woman or physically disabled aren't privy to and sometimes have baggage thrust upon them just by virtue of their position.
The comment you pointed to seems very reasonable to me, I am assuming from the rest of your comment that you don't think it is.
We all have such realities, and typically few if any other people realise what's going on. Just be kind. To everyone (note to self: be better at this).
I'm by no means asserting it isn't reasonable, In fact I'm using it to bolster my point in suggesting an opposite side to the same coin of "card carrying member of x" in a manner that demands attention to perhaps what informs and enforces the perception of "identifying as a card carrying member of %group%" with a dash more nuance than what exists on the surface.
For some people, their identity and association as a member of %group% is something they outwardly display to be observed and consumed by others, and they have their reasons for it. For others, it's something they keep to themselves and prefer to carry on and be judged on the merits of their contributions to work and family, and they have their reasons for that. These things don't invalidate one another.
For others still, their association with %group% isn't something they choose, and is prominent and obvious by merely walking into a room and for good or ill, a person often finds themselves navigating all sorts of assumptions, guesses and biases about that association whether or not they can control it. That was the thrust of my comment.
> Most people reading this will already be fairly tolerant. But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
Some women choose to openly identify as (for example) feminist and embrace all of the connotations and reactions that come with that.
Some women choose to identify as feminist more privately and live their life being fair with others and only discussing their group association among certain circles they feel allow them to do so free from worry of being ostracized or criticized for that group association.
Some women choose not to identify as feminist at all, want nothing to do with the modern brand of 'feminism', but might still have to put up with some of the externalities of being a woman in certain spaces that sometime get associated (sometimes unfairly) with, or are critiqued by modern feminism.
This is an example. This is my point.
The comment I referenced above perfectly illustrates an example: just because I am a member of the black community doesn't automatically mean I desire to constantly be the spokesperson for position n that impacts the black community. Some individuals choose to be in that role, other's don't; however that there are those who don't want that burden shouldn't be taken as an indicator to mean they're immune from the biases and assumptions that come from onlookers who see me as an opinionated and (I'm trying to hold back from typing this word because of the baggage inherent to it in this context) articulate black man and ask me "Well what do you think about Black Lives Matter?"
> just because I am a member of the black community
> doesn't automatically mean I desire to constantly
> be the spokesperson for position n that impacts
> the black community.
Sure. But again, everyone has something like that. I am German. When I lived in the US, do you know how many times I had to give my opinion on Hitler? Or dissuade people from the notion that because I am German I must obviously be a fan? When discussing things with British people, you know how many times they dig up "2 wars"?
As a man, I have to put up with the fact that women who know nothing whatsoever about me will see me as a danger, even though in fact they are almost certainly more of a danger to me than I am to them.
And that's my point. We agree more than you think we do, we're just using different ways of arriving at the exact same nexus. It's life, it doesn't however mean I have any obligation to indulge those curiosities, and I for my part, have no desire to. There's no more wrong with me understanding and acknowledging the position some people are in and their willingness to engage than there is with my own position and my tendency to go "No thanks" when asked to give some explanation on the black experience.
It's life. Absolutely. I don't have anything to say to the contrary.
Short, fat, scrawny, aging, young, poor, immigrant, religious, atheist, nose-picker.
Maybe identifying as a card carrying member of a "disadvantaged" group isn't the healthiest outlook to have.