Rock, Paper, Scissors, Marginalization

There are certain things that it’s hard to stay quiet about, and certain evils which perpetuate especially well when people stay quiet about them. One of the things I resolved to do when I wrote my post about Ferguson was not to be quiet anymore. I don’t live a lot of marginalization. I’m a six foot tall white male between the ages of 20 and 45, which puts me in one of the least marginalized demographics on the planet. But I read a lot and I try to listen, and I try to make things fit in my head. Today it’s with a simple game of rock, paper, scissors. It is overly simplistic, but it’s a model.

Oppressors are Rock

You can find Rock all over, in comment sections or on social media, or in meatspace talking casually about how entitled this or that group of people are, and how someone should give them what for. After all, Rock has had a hard life too, and you don’t see them complaining. They take what they’re given, or what they can take, and nobly struggle through life. they just want to see everyone at their level, we all start the same after all. We beat Scissors, and watch out for Paper. That’s life.

Oppressors are also Scissors

Scissors are the other bit, the devil’s advocate, the ones who argue that marginalized people aren’t really marginalized, they just have a few problems. They just need to take a bit of responsibility, clean up their own backyards, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. People have it way harder elsewhere, and they’re not going to get anywhere by trying to get special treatment. After all, things are mostly equal. You watch out for Rock, they’re the ones typing in all caps, and you deal with paper when you like.

Bystanders are Paper

Paper doesn’t really get it. They know that there are issues, they’ll be the first to tell you that, but they don’t really feel like they understand the scope well enough to say or do anything. They know the cost of doing anything about Rock is that it could affect their relationship with Scissors, and Scissors doesn’t seem so bad most of the time so they like to stay on good terms. Rock is sometimes out of line, but they’re just the product of their times. It’s just best to let them be.

Marginalized people are Mushrooms

They spend a lot of the time in the dark, eating shit. Somewhere there’s a game happening, but when they try to include themselves it usually results in a pile of derailments. Rock is sure that Mushrooms put themselves in the dark, and Scissors points out that sometimes Mushrooms are fervently desired by gourmets, so it can’t be that bad for all Mushrooms. Paper has had a really long day, and is concerned about Mushrooms, but needs a glass of wine and maybe a nap before they can really get into the issues. Oh, and the babysitter called. And there’s that thing with Aunt Rose. Life just keeps getting in the way.

The game

And that’s the game. Oppressors control most of the field, and bystanders already have so much on their plate that it’s hard to find the extra effort. Marginalized voices are pushed farther and farther away, and no one in the game gets it because the game, for them, is simple. Paper covers Rock, Rock crushes Scissors, Scissors cut Paper. That’s how life has always worked. Everyone in the game starts with the assumption that everyone else is in the game and has an equal chance of winning. Except for Mushrooms. Even of some Mushrooms manage to muscle into the game and take up a place with paper, they have to worry about both Rock and Scissors. They have to deal with the fact that all the players talk about them like Mushrooms, even if they’re in the game. Even Paper, who insists that their one other Mushroom friend told them it was fine.

Bystanders are people with privilege, whether it’s privilege of gender, class, race, or often (read always) an intersection of several of those and many others. When bystanders do nothing, when they don’t act, don’t really listen, oppressors rule the game. They get to do and say whatever they want, shaping play and spaces to what they want, and damn everyone else. When they do nothing, when we do nothing, we let this happen. We contribute to that board state.

When marginalized people, people who experience all kinds of intersectional oppression, push back, they aren’t trying to throw the Spock. Or Lizard. Or the Cake, some terrifying handsign that laughs in the face of the rest of the players. They’re trying to get into the game at all. They start on the outside, and have to work hard just to get a position, then harder to keep it, because that position is so tenuous. And they have to do it while everyone else insists that Mushrooms has been playing the whole time. Or that if Mushrooms wanted to play, all they had to do was ask. Nicely. Except for Rock, who insists that they built the whole damn game, history be damned.

It’s easy to blame it all on Rock as the foundation of the problem. Or on Scissors for being smarmy assholes. Or Paper, for doing nothing. But the problem with systemic issues is that it isn’t any of the players, it’s all of them. It’s the structure of the game itself that denies Mushrooms entry. Paper could listen to Mushrooms, and give Rock what for when they open their yap. Rock could believe Mushrooms and lay down the law on Scissors when Scissors is advocating for the devil. Scissors could be more self aware, and channel that sharp energy into keeping Paper jumping instead of sitting back with a glass of wine. But all of it starts with listening to and believing Mushrooms’ accounts of their experience rather than everyone inventing their own.

I’ve probably overextended the analogy by now. The intervention of Paper isn’t the only way for Mushrooms to get in the game, but it certainly doesn’t hurt if we do our part to keep Rock in line. Hell, I bet we could take Scissors if we tried.