merry christmas!

[wavyarms]

In light of the recent Fox News reports about attacks on Christmas, I present to you The Christian Privilege checklist. I disagree with 12 and 24 (both in NJ and MA) but in general it's good food for thought.

The only one missing is: "If I am a classical musician, I can assume that almost the entire western canon is based upon texts of my religion."

I shall now go do some X-mas shopping. :)

In other news, thomascantor had his final graduate recital yesterday, and it was great. Very good, very interesting concert. Special kudos to sen_no_ongaku for his piece, which was extremely effective. I look forward to the recording!

Also, I'm briefly in Boston right now, but not for very long. If I don't run into you, I'll be back for a nice long 3-week stretch starting Christmas Eve, so not to fret!

[EDIT: Since that privilege checklist was so popular, here is a link to a whole bunch more.]

Comments

Re: Taking issue

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see if I can take these on.

#2: I have the same reaction you do, although I try to be conscious of it and fight it as well. However, we are in Cambridge - remember Texas? How many of your neighbors there would have shared your reaction?

#6: But how often are those cars vandalized?

#18: I don't think I agree with you here. Because so many people are Christian, Christianity is viewed as a large and complex subject. Therefore, a Christian criticizing aspects of the religion from within in a subtle manner can usually be sure of being understood, and not just trashing Christianity as a whole. But people don't have the same complex grasp of Islam, and in their lives, it's not as huge a subject. So someone who is Muslim, writing in the US or England (which is where this particular checklist applies) will not have as easy a time. If they write about certain subtle things within their religion they disagree with, they run a very big risk of having people outside their religion say "See? Even Muslims think Islam sucks!" and having people inside their religion say "You jerk - we have enough problems already, we have to present a united front to the outside world."

#19: I think being Muslim is a much bigger liability, even outside of the US and Europe, though you're right that that's where the primary difficulties would lie. But I would say that Muslims have a harder time in the US than Christians have in the Arab world, though I'm unqualified to say that - it's just my opinion. I cite this article as a source.

#20: Jews often have to contend with the accusation that they're only rich because they're Jewish, and "all those Jews stick together". Or somesuch.

#24: Yes, I mentioned in my original post that I also disagreed with this one. But again, that might be because we're in a liberal area of the country.

#31: This intersects with race, and refers primarily to Native Americans, who for a substantial portion of US history had their children taken from them and put into schools. Same happened to the Aborigines in Australia.

#34: How much did you learn about Islam in school? Or Judaism? Any famous Buddhists? What about famous Hindus? This ties into the concentration of history around Europe and America. Obviously it's a complex ball of interdependency - Europe oppresses non-Christian religions, so non-Christians don't rise to positions of power, so they don't make the history books.