Sokushinbutsu is pretty good too.

When will we get the heartwarming holiday film adaptation of "Nicholas was?"

I think the point is that sometimes this stuff can be confusing.

I like how I knew where that story was published before I even got to the end of the post. Never change, Daily Mail.

First off, prejudice isn't 'without experience or reason to be.' That's kind of the point. You observe a behavior pattern and use it deterministically. It can be something as simple and trivial as noting that women like shoes or as pernicious as noting that there are more black men than white men in prison. Prejudice…

I definitely agree with you that I don't think that was Hugo's message, but I'm less sanguine about what I've been hearing elsewhere.

I don't think the shadenfreude should be 'rightly ignored.' We - by which I mean feminists, queer theorists, and others who study traditionally socially disenfranchised groups - have created quite a toolkit of vectors to interrogate cultural paradigms and unhelpful attitudes. They should be used.

Actually, there have been studies showing that babies perceive race. So it isn't entirely artificial, this patriarchal concept that races are monoliths, though they definitely built quite a castle on that foundation. But other than that, I agree with you - especially about the part where I'm also pretty sure that…

If we don't erode prejudice on both sides of the power divide, though, the prejudiced on top will always be able to foment counterrevolutions by whipping up fear of the potential consequences of empowering those on the bottom. That's been seen all through history too.

There's no such thing as reverse racism. There's just racism. And if you fear that opening yourself up to honest critique about your own prejudice will somehow roll back the clock on social progress for minority groups, you obviously don't have a lot of faith in multiculturalism as a positive force for good.

Um... you seem a little angry there. I am not a white guy, I never defended them as a unit - in fact I suggested that maybe, just maybe, they AREN'T a unit. If you are right, and if this election killed off the White Guy Unit (I sincerely doubt that, but let's roll with it), well, there is such a thing as being a sore…

Oh, I'm not saying white privilege doesn't exist. My comment is about reactions to the supposed referendum on white privilege that I'm not even sure Election 2012 WAS. Some of those reactions - again, not this piece specifically - have seemed pretty racist.

I disagree profoundly that there is ANY group of people you *can't* be prejudiced against. No one argues misandry exists, despite the fact that male privilege also exists. Removing certain groups from the continuum of prejudice is like saying that inclusion disciplines are a minority hobby. Anyone can be a victim, or…

Seems relevant.

Seems relevant.

Not bringing this up in a direct critique to this piece - I thought it was pretty good, though it could have been about a dozen pages longer and not touched on everything - but more in something I noticed in a lot of the post-election writing I read.

I saw this at Scary Mary in Salem. So much fun!

Oh, for Pete's sake.

All of this.

I'm definitely going to be the odd one out here, but...take what worked in Dragon Age II and run with it.