How does the concept of intersectionality affect you? Sexual discrimination, white privilege, male privilege?
Can we use and teach intersectionality in our units to help people analyze disfunction?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/this-teacher-taught-his-class-a-powerful-lesson-about-privil
This Teacher Taught His Class A Powerful Lesson About Privilege
With a recycling bin and some scrap paper.
I was "beat" into a gang at 15, and ran away from home at 16. By 17, I had been pregnant three times.
By 25, most childhood friends had already died of overdoses, or car-wrecks, or AIDS.
When I stepped into my relative's homes, under hostile eyes, where was "white privilege?" When I walked into a store, with my pregnant belly, in GoodWill clothes and twenty-year old car...where was "white privilege"? Where was "white privilege" when my family was being scrutinized, in case we "trailer park trash" were robbing the "moneyed folks" blind?
I'd like to know. Maybe the keepers of such a fortune were asleep on the job.
This hostility, this innate distrust in society, may not necessarily be due to racism, by itself. Classicism is a critical, judgmental bitch. We have a long way to go, folks.
Best of luck
"This feminist sociological theory was first named by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, though the concept can be traced back to the 19th century. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, caste, and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels, contributing to systematic injustice and social inequality. Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination."
Intersectionality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Intersectionality (or intersectionalism) is the study of intersections between forms or systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. An example is black feminism, which argues that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms of being black, and of being a woman, considered independently, but must include the interactions, which frequently reinforce each other.[1]
For clarification on your last sentence, are you saying most Mission Support Group squadrons don't get the importance of the mission?
As the AF attempts to shift focus back to operations (Gen Welsh says something to this effect on most speaking engagements), being good at your job ought to get more recognition. The Ops Groups I've been a part of usually have the attitude that we are affecting the mission, hence 'more' operational than the support troop cooking meals or crunching the travel vouchers.
I agree it's easy to feel entitled in my mission/operations focus because I fly the plane. The key is to know that entitlement exists and work to ensure my actions do not become biased because of it.
I don't think that is discrimination or prejudice, but entitlement, there are definitely some who feel entitled. That being said, how that entitlement is displayed varies from unit to unit. Ours takes good care of us, and I have been hanging out there for 14 years.
The thing that I agree with the most is that pilots need to get what all goes into the rest of the AF. The good ones do and become leaders and commanders that have respect that is not just based on the rank. And I have met some who were kick ass pilots, but could not lead a sandwich out of a paper bag, luckily, it seems there are fewer of the latter.
In the South, we refer to them as long zippers.
As a Marine, everybody had to eat the same Sh&t sandwich to earn the title (officers had one, that may have had condiments and napkins {joke} enlisted had another). Any kind of privilege was non-existent in Boot Camp. Unless I can claim that I did not have the same chance at becoming Commandant as an officer, I would have no standing. Unless we are saying that the officer/enlisted separation is some kind of elitism? But if it were, there would be no opportunity for enlisted to commission, unless we assume that is some kind of charity project.....don't think so.
Now that I am in the Guard, I would say the same thing: Do not see intersectionality. Promotion is based upon work ethic, capability and performance. You want to promote, do the work-I don't see that privilege stacks into the equation. Everyone has the opportunity to do PT, to work on marksmanship, to do their PME, to take college classes and use their GI Bill to pay for it.....
I see the military as truly being a land of opportunity for success. I think that troops can either take advantage of the opportunities or not. Sometimes those opportunities come by way of challenge, pain, sweat and sometimes by studying. To a large degree, we follow our own destinies. Some choose to cry over spilt milk.
I do think that good leaders learn how to identify what makes their personnel tick. I think they then alter their styles slightly when dealing with different personalities to maximize performance from their personnel. I do not see that as privilege nor discrimination, but as leadership.
May have strayed slightly off topic...
I liked your comments on opportunity and leadership and agree the military does provide many great opportunities to learn and grow, regardless of who you are.
The challenge then is to analyze those things when your troops are having issues, when the unit isn't operating optimally, and determine using an intersectional lens, that the root of the problem isn't one of prejudice or bigotry.
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The way I see it, this does more to tear us apart than it ever will do to bring us together. It gives us a reason to not accept 'personal responsibility' and blame others for their bad choices or just plain bad luck.
I'd like to clarify that we don't suffer from priviledge, it's something we have because we're born that way, an able body for example whereas handicapped don't have that privilege.MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca's analogy to moving seats to gain opportunity makes sense, but often time members of society may judge/criticize those for not moving seats. Perhaps they could never see that as an option?
Intersectionality should be a lens we use to look at the different biases we possess and how those biases affect our beliefs and actions. Can we use it to mend us together?