On Oppresion and White Christian Heterosexual Men (First in a Series of Nasty Posts)

There will be more nasty posts in this new series, which is based on the idea that I got of collecting all the things that keep irritating me like a pebble in my shoe, things which keep happening over and over without anyone correcting them much, things which are like frogs leaping out of the mouths of otherwise intelligent people (this being a reference to fairy tales).

I recently read a comment somewhere about how the oppressors are white Christian heterosexual men and how everyone else should join forces against them and that way we would win. This is terribly simplistic for several reasons:

First, we all have the ability to be oppressors, given the opportunity to be so. There was a time when the Irish attacked the shores of Britain to capture slaves for themselves. Then later the British enslaved the Irish and so on. History can tell us that the once oppressed can quickly become oppressors when the tables are turned.

This is why I find the victim-focused or the oppressor-focused approaches insufficient without a long and hard look at what makes people oppress other people in the first place. True, writing boring theory is -- boring -- but I see no way around that problem.

Second, being oppressed doesn't necessarily make a person good, kind and otherwise fascinating. Being oppressed can also make a person bitter and vindictive or most likely just down-trodden, passive and hopeless.