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- In American culture we have this idea that people who aren’t personally affected by an issue are the most “objective” and therefore most “rational” about it. Besides the fact that objectivity as we define it is doesn’t exist, it’s often the case that the those who have direct experience of an issue are better able to see its full scope and implications than those with the fewest stakes in it. White people often have a limited and distorted perspective on racism, as straight people do on homophobia, cis people on transphobia, men on misogyny, etc.
Cord Jefferson's Gawker piece on pedophilia as a “sexual orientation,” and his response to criticism of it, are a disturbing example of how wrong things can go when we confuse limited experience or knowledge of an issue for impartiality. Many of the problems with the piece seem to stem from a total obliviousness to his privilege and its implications. By his own admission, Jefferson didn’t (and doesn’t) know what he was talking about, but still believes he’s qualified to write about a complicated and extremely painful issue that’s widely misunderstood. This is the essence of casual privilege.