Victor van Schagen
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

This is a reply to Ryder’s comment.

Full disclosure: I’m a middle-aged white male.

What you wrote is derogatory, short-sighted and poorly thought out.

  1. Privilege is a issue of perception. I’m someone who hates conflict. I try to go out of my way to avoid confrontation, and in difficult situations with dumb or inconsiderate people, I play nice. I mostly keep my mouth shut and get on with it (and, if possible, I try to avoid these people in the future). As a man, this has given me a reputation as being thoughtful, balanced and solid. I very much doubt a woman in my position would have the same image. She would have been perceived as timid, too quiet, unambitious. Vice versa, if I would complain to HR about inappropriate workplace behaviour, I would be listened to and seen as pro-active, modern, considerate. A woman, as you put it, would be seen as ‘hypersensitive’, who ‘should grow a thicker skin’.
  2. Donna Harris has managed to achieve success, often in difficult work circumstances, while ‘being nice’. The ability to swallow shit in silence is not equivalent to being nice. And becoming successful while swallowing shit is not a valid argument that the shit doesn’t matter. If you, in your life, have to eat a spoon of shit on occasion, while others get a plateful, the right response is “Let’s get rid of the shit”. It’s NOT “Hey, I sometimes have to eat it too. Just get used to it.”
  3. Everybody views the world from their own frame of mind, based on their own life experiences. This can make it hard to see things from a different point of view, and to accept that not everyone’s experiences are the same. Quite the opposite. The default way of thinking should be “This other person has lead a different life than me and will have experienced things I haven’t.” Instead of brushing aside those experiences, try to listen and help people. Do not tell them to just ‘grow a thicker skin.’
  4. I don’t know how, or why, you dragged violent activists into this whole argument. It’s got nothing to do with the original article. And if you’re going to mention Antifa, I’ll counter that with white supremacists.

)

    Victor van Schagen

    Written by

    Lead Artist, living in Berlin, Germany.