[The tone of this post is earnest, not in any way meant to be a complaint. I want to be a better comrade]
I’m someone with a very dense cross-section of privileges. (If i didn’t grow up poor i might win the least oppressed demographic trophy)
This makes me feel as though I cannot speak on anything important without coming across like I’m whitemansplaining, regardless of whether I consider myself knowledgeable on the topic.
Should i just accept that my voice isn’t really needed in most conversations? (A white guy telling an iranian expat that Reza Pahlavi was actually not good for iranians isn’t ever going to accomplish anything, is it?)
Not to say I’m an encyclopedia of theory but i consider myself well enough read to apply dialectical and historical materialist analysis to most topics.
I spend a lot of time around people of all walks of life and I feel as though it’s kinda disrespectful of me to pipe up and correct the record on basically any topic beyond the mundane like videogame strategy.
I guess i don’t even really know what kind of answer I’m looking for here. Maybe just validation that it’s ok for me to be silent when someone is just plain wrong about an important topic? Idk. Thanks for reading
It sounds like you’re confusing standpoint epistemology (I am white therefore I know things about being white, and do not know things about being black) with … uh … another kind of epistemology (no investigation, no right to speak).
Investigation means research, not magically becoming a different person with different life experience and privilege.
That said, a white person with advanced degrees in African American studies would be wise not to tell a Black person how their life works.