Unpopular Opinion: Cishet White Men Shouldn't Talk On Minority Issues- Cameron Ilavsky

      

      For basically the entire history of the dawn of man, the straight white man has ruled without opposition. They colonized and pillaged and dehumanized people of color out of their homes all for their own benefit. Even now, more than 2000 years later, white men still decide most changes made for minorities. 

        Now, for the sake of clarification, I am going to bring up the fact that "cishet" has been considered a slur by those it describes. However, it literally means "cisgender" and "heterosexual" and has no secondary meaning. It is just a shortened compound word to describe the sexuality and gender identity of those people, therefore it is not a slur/derogatory term. 

        Many things, like abortion rights, trans rights, and gay rights have been contested by white men in the past. Even things that don't affect cishet white men, like LGBTQ+ access to healthcare or if trans people should be allowed to use the bathroom of their gender identity and not their birth sex. Things like this don't affect their lives at all, and yet they still make actions to limit the rights and freedoms of these people. 

        While the prospect of women in positions of power has become more possible in recent decades, they are still in a male-dominated workplace, vulnerable to being berated and condescended, even in their position of power.

        Cisgender heterosexual white men have never faced oppression. (That's not to say they haven't struggled, struggle and oppression are very different)

. Therefore, they shouldn't be allowed to determine what is and is not offensive. To list a few: rape jokes, casual ableism, "it's just a word" arguments, and the "super straight" movement from 4chan, Twitter, and TikTok. All of these are very harmful and are often brushed aside by them as jokes or just not offensive. 

        In short, since cishet white men have never faced oppression, and essentially single-handedly created and support systemic racism, they should be forced to take a more backseat approach to issues facing minorities. Personally, I think that the issue should be solved by the group of people it's affecting and not the people that are only in power because of a two millennia-long fear tactic.

        Finally, I would like to mention that while I would consider this a popular opinion, there are still a plethora of cis straight white men in positions of power, and more get added every day, so it must not be popular enough.

    I would like to mention that as a white person, there are obviously topics I am not qualified to mention, mainly POC issues, and I can only speak from experience of being LGBTQ+. I don't want to belittle the issues in those communities, I just don't feel comfortable talking about it as a white person.