Wednesday 28 August 2013

Let's talk about "cheap" food, or rather food that isn't cheap.


Food poverty is much more than just having £10 a week to spend on food.

Food poverty is having the food but not the time or physical energy to cook it. When you're working two jobs and looking after three kids, you don't have five minutes to sit down let alone thirty to chop veg for a homemade veg soup.

Food poverty is having the food but not the knowledge to cook it. Home economics has been woeful in this country in the last few years, many people can barely boil an egg, figuring out pulses is beyond them.

Food poverty is having the food, but not the equipment or fuel to cook it, a sack of chickpeas does no good if you're sitting in the dark with £0 on the meters.

Food Poverty is having just enough money to buy food but no decent shops nearby, it's when you can afford to buy cheek and skirt but cheek and skirt cuts aren't available because all the abattoirs are now grinding down these cheap cuts to make "gourmet" burgers. So the only cuts available to you are outside your budget. It's when you have a market but half the vegetables they sell have seen better days and the other half will only last a day or two when you get them home and you can't go to the market everyday for veg.

Food poverty is having just one little crappy refrigerator so you can't bulk buy and save money or store much food, did I mention you also can't go shopping everyday? So whatever tiny amount you get when you can go has to last you until you can next go.

Food poverty is having to go shopping so hungry that you faint in the store, because you haven't eaten in three days.

Food poverty is not being able to leave the house so having to spend out for home delivery and only being able to choose from a narrow selection of expensive stores that will deliver.

Food poverty is going to a food bank and finding nothing to you can eat unless you want to be violently ill. Food poverty is not being able to get to a food bank in the first place.

Food poverty is when you don't have the ability to chop fresh vegetables due to disabilities, it's when it's all you can do to crawl out of bed and stuff the first no-prep item you can reach into your mouth just to keep yourself going.

Food poverty is suffering from an illness like Celiac that means austerity cookbooks are at BEST 90% "I can't eat that" and typically 100% "I can't eat anything in here" because austerity cookery relies heavily on cheap staples like Pasta and plain wheat flour.

Food poverty is having spent so much of your life hungry that you no longer recognise the signs of hunger and have to be reminded to eat the food you have got.

Food poverty is when people who have none or few of these problems are put up as experts on being poor because your voice isn't even considered. When an expert is someone not like you who has only been hungry for a short time and never someone who is like you who has spent most of their life battling with food poverty.

Food poverty is when to get help you have to hand over the details of what you buy to someone who has no idea what living with your conditions is like, and you get to watch them frown and just know they are going to insist that you can easily cut your food bill and you know full well you can't because what they don't see is that you only eat one meal a day to ensure you have access to nutritionally dense food that won't make you sick.

Food poverty is more than having money to buy food, it's having access, having the ability to store and to cook. It's about being healthy to start off with. It's about all the things people don't think about.

Monday 26 August 2013

Much ado about a girl called Jack.

Trigger warning for discussion of suicide and poverty.

Perhaps you've heard of a girl called Jack, a much feted face of "poverty porn", the acceptable face of "impoverished" people. What you won't have heard is how intensely problematic the tropes she plays into are.

Recently someone wrote an article on why she has a platform and is considered legitimate.
http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/08/lentils-and-lager-why-we-forgive-tax-evaders-but-not-benefit-claimants/#more-16865

The other article talks about the politics of acceptability, but it didn't go far enough, it merely address how Jack is seen without addressing how Jack plays into it.

http://agirlcalledjack.com/2013/08/25/dear-jilly-luke-i-tried-to-top-myself-six-months-ago-in-my-beatrix-potter-cosy-poverty/

First off we have the title; This tactic would not work for anyone who wasn't a white, seemingly cis, able bodied, articulate, and perceived to be middle class person. You'll see from the comments that immediately many relatively privileged people clustered around her to "defend" her, because a privileged person's tears are the first thing privileged people see. It is not that I lack sympathy with that level of despair, it's that "Well I tried to kill myself" plays right into those aforementioned acceptability politics. It renders Jack "vulnerable" and rouses privileged people's instinct to defend her, she's one of theirs after all, not one of ours. Instead of sympathy, it becomes a rallying defense cry in the world of acceptability politics.

Then comes the accusation of how others think and feel about her, it is pure defensiveness. As she was to complain to me later, she's "sorry" for her privilege, this is a purely privileged move, as again it structures other people as being unreasonable and contains a plea for defense. It's also profoundly immature and defensive, I say this as someone who has pulled it in the past. Quite frankly, it's the sort of shit you say when you don't know any better and see no reason to learn better.

The next comments claim she doesn't respond to criticism, I've yet to see her let critical comments lie make of that what you will. She also completely fails to understand the other article in a blaze of immature defensiveness. Then again she works hard to be "acceptable", to stress what a good job she had, how hard she's worked to find work, and what a wonderful parent she is, and to say "I'm just like you" to middle class people, while running and hiding behind "but my life is crap" when criticised for stances or for the pandering. In short, she works at having a image of a what I call "poor but", not as being seen as poor, but being seen as:

Poor but Hardworking.
Poor but Unlucky.
Poor but Just like non-poor people.

And by default, poor but not like me or other poor people. She repeatedly emphasizes she does not belong to our group over and over. Whether or not Jack recognises this, she plays into the idea that she is an acceptable poor person, which means by default, we are not and she is not one of us. Jack plays right into the worst stereotypes about poverty without ever thinking about it, and when confronted with it? She runs and hides behind "but I'm poor, I've suffered", without it seems ever thinking that she's talking to people who are also poor and suffer.

She uses her suffering as a justification of how qualified she is to talk on poverty, but never considers the larger picture of poverty. Her future looks bright, many people who were born in poverty unlike Jack? We don't have a bright future.

The next section of it contains complaints from Jack because she apparently cannot understand that getting nasty comments is not the same as social judgement. She is indeed judged relatively lightly due to her privilege and conformity to the "good poor person" stereotypes. This is a demonstration of just how much privilege she has, that a few nasty comments loom so large in her world view that she cannot discern the difference between that and how much shit others with far less privilege get.

Then she spectacularly failed to understand food politics. Cheap is not necessarily the same as poor person's food. To prepare many of the foods Jack enjoys one requires knowledge and time, both things that poverty often renders in short supply. Not to mention being able bodied, there is a reason many poor disabled people rely on premade foods. In short, money is not the only barrier to diet. A impoverished mother working two jobs to keep her head above water probably doesn't have the time, energy or knowledge to whip up a Dhaal. Jack's food is cheap but it is does not erase those barriers, and thus it is not food every poor person can have. In short, that is why she lands up as the face of the squeezed middle not the face of ground in poverty.

Then we go onto a rant about validation. Jack has a real bee in her bonnet about validation it seems, it's why she stresses how poor she was over and over again. I suspect she's well aware that in poverty terms all she's taken is a short dip in the shallows of a lake of poverty some people have never been able to leave. She doesn't seem to get that her privilege grants her automatic validation and approval from the majority of society.

And then we go into poverty porn, another lavish description of just how hard Jack has had it. She doesn't seem to think that the people reading it might have just as bad stories to tell. The focus as always is on Jack and Jack alone. Jack's poverty is not my poverty, I realised this as I got to a description of "walking everywhere". Able bodied privilege on display, she lost me as a reader as I fondly remembered when I could walk everywhere but didn't have the energy to at 5st nothing and sank into memories of crushing from birth poverty. The pain of being hungry not for a year but for everyday of your life. Something Jack hasn't experienced and something I hope to her son doesn't experience.

Then she talks about her suicide attempt and the aftermath, and you know what I remember? I remember being in the same place and the lack of sympathy, I remember being stalked from the food bank and being berated by my landlord for wanting them to surrender the tapes to catch that guy. I remember being three days hungry and cold and still being to blame because some creepy guy tried to follow me home. I remember pulling out clumps of my hair and being unable to sleep because he was still out there. I remember the constant message of nobody cares, not sugary tea, because I am not acceptable, and never will be. I remember wanting to die when I was just a child. I remember people always being angry with my poverty and need because I am not acceptable and I remember that Jack plays into the beliefs that make it so. I remember that her body would be a tragedy, mine wouldn't even be noticed. I remember acceptability and who has it out of the two of us, and I remember that I am like the majority of poor people in this.

Jack constantly plays into "acceptability". She might not have created the idea, but she's complicit in it's perpetuation. By being the "good poor person" and "poor but", the need for the "bad poor person" is created and maintained. When Jack plays into that? She hurts people like me.

When we try to tell her she is doing so? She explodes into defensiveness and dumps her fans on our heads. This is why a girl called Jack is intensely problematic, her identity is built on a stereotype that hurts long term impoverished people, and she refuses to acknowledge that.

Thursday 15 August 2013

The politics of "solidarity".


Or how multiple minorities are systematically silenced from objecting to bigotry within any given group by a hierarchy.

Solidarity is a very problematic concept within social justice circles, it's often used to excuse bigotry within circles. Those of us presumed to be women are encouraged not to object to the Transphobia/Racism/Disabilism/Classism in Feminism because it wouldn't be "solidarity" to call out our peers for being bigoted wankstains. Same for GLBTQ groups with disabilism and sexism in particular, I've been tossed from quite a few GLBTQ groups for pointing out slur usage that casually demeans mentally illpeople, disabled people and people presumed to be women. Apparently telling your peers that their genitals are disgusting is okay, but saying that's offensive and bigoted is not acceptable because it's not "solidarity".


The PoC community also suffers from this standard as well. With all other identities being seen as coming dead last.

The concept of "Solidarity" being more important than "divisiveness" aka objecting to problems within social justice isn't just limited to within minority groups though. It's become broadly incorporated into the bigger social justice society. Away from the bastions of bigoted thinking, individual social justice advocates come under tremendous pressure to tolerate bigotry from other minorities in the name of "solidarity". To the point where social justice is evolving a hierarchy of who is allowed to be bigoted to others based on who is thought to be more oppressed. So we end up with a case of "more oppressed than thou because my one oppression is worse than all of yours", which doesn't help.

Yet we consistently do not talk about the role "Solidarity" plays in actually dividing us. All my Identities are equally important to me, if someone demeans one, then they are also demeaning the one they share with me by saying I am not actually an equal and that my equality with them depends on me accepting them demeaning me in other ways. That is not acceptable, and this status quo needs to change for all people with multiple minorities, because true Solidarity is not saying shit that makes your peers feel awful. Minority members who piss all over members of their minorities that have other oppressions are the ones who lack in solidarity, not the minorities that point out this.

Monday 12 August 2013

Apparently shit rises to the top.

 Trigger warning for mentions of abuse.




Social justice it seems has a really short memory when it comes to big names who used to be absolutely shitty.

One person I've recently seen being held up as a big name within certain sections, was part of a group responsible for some really awful behaviour, including invading communities where survivors talked about their experience, second hand arm chair diagnosing the abusers with mental illness and telling the survivors to basically shut up and that they shouldn't be talking about it because their abuser was clearly ill and not responsible for their actions, or outright calling people liars.

They jumped on survivors for doing whatever they needed to do to survive, criticizing people for actions committed while they were a child with a child's coping skills just trying to manage in an abusive environment. They policed the responses of survivors constantly, didn't regret something bad you did to survive while a kid? You're an awful person. Didn't act broken enough? You're lying.

They piled on women survivors who were scared of men for being "sexist".

This person in short has a long long history of basically shitting all over survivors especially survivors belonging to groups they don't belong to. Yet over and over, they're held up as an example of social justice. They talk about solidarity, but they have none for anyone who doesn't have the same oppressions as them.

And yet, they'll never be outed for any of this shit because this shit is seen as exclusively the domain of certain groups they don't belong to. They are no worse than others, but their extra minorities basically act as a shield against anyone ever realising that for many of us? That person was a Hugo.

Hugo is getting flack despite the ignorants pushing back against it, this person has never received one drop of flack for any of the shitty stuff they've done or said, and they probably never will.

I could name them but if I did, they wouldn't get shit for anything they've done, I would get shit for daring to "attack" a "true social justice advocate" because that is what they're seen as, but to me? They'll always be a Hugo. I will never trust them, and I will never stand in solidarity with any group that fetes them because such a group can never be in solidarity with me when it harbours a Hugo within. I have about as much desire to expose myself to that level of toxic shit as I have to taking a swim in sewage.

Sunday 11 August 2013

So you're a minority who said something fucked up?

Our example? Someone last night tweeted:

"Yes. When you HARM people, sometimes the conscience you try to reject turns on you. You get sick. Your health worsens."

I saw it and responded to it immediately pointing out that it was problematic, the response to that was even worse, but first I'm going to explain why it's problematic.

Firstly, there is a huge problem with people believing that disability and illness is caused by things people do, if you're fat, it's your weight even though disability often causes weight in reality, if someone thinks you're an asshole, then they often see it as "karma". That statement reinforces this notion even if the person didn't intend it to do so.

It also reinforces the notion that there are deserving sick people who became sick through no fault of their own, and undeserving sick people who are responsible for their own illness because of what they did even if the person didn't intend it to do so. Neither of those notions need feeding, they're a massive pain in the ass as it is. Plenty of people get sick for no reason whatsoever and some of them are assholes.

The person claimed it was a known psychological phenomenon? That is bullshit of the highest order. Some of the examples given like Ulcers were complete basic bullshit 101. Ulcers? Aren't caused by psychological issues, they're caused by Bacteria. The only thing that being conflicted or stressed can do? Is lower your immune system making you more likely to develop one, IF and only IF you already have the bacteria, no bacteria, no ulcer.

Secondly, it's basically unprovable that physical illness is caused by specific actions, there have been a few dramatic cases where Somatoform disorders were caused by psychological issues, however the reason is usually pretty clear cut, being things like extreme long term abuse or severe psychological stress. You cannot get this from just being an unthinking asshole.
Most illnesses or disabilities have multiple causes. Someone can have the gene for something and may never develop it, someone else might not and might develop it. Illness is a complex entity at best and ONLY a psychologist/psychiatrist would even have a chance at knowing enough about someone to venture a single psychological cause for their illness and they probably wouldn't because they know better.

Thirdly, the whole science of illness caused by psychological stress, is pretty damn shaky at best, and yes problematic in and of itself, often used as an excuse to label and drug patients whose illness or disability is rare or unusual enough that the first three or so attempts to figure it out end up drawing blanks. It is seriously over diagnosed and not at all common with many people 'diagnosed' with it later being discovered to have been misdiagnosed and actually having a physical reason for their illness or disability. It has been studied for thirty years and the experts still can't agree on it. Lay people who know nothing about the condition or about the research certainly should not be using it to draw lines between being an asshole and being sick.

So yes, it's problematic, and really triggery to people who've been subject to it wielded by people who didn't understand it. I spent over a decade misdiagnosed, untreated and dismissed because a doctor read a study in an area he didn't understand and when the first blood tests didn't show any obvious cause, he put me down along with most of his patients as being 'hysterical' (He was sexist and did it primarily to female patients) and diagnosed somatoform disorder. That involved a lot of pain and stress, so yes, I'm going to speak up when anyone feeds the socialised myths that many would be doctors take with them into medical school and then into their surgeries, and that many older doctors have picked up in place of 'hysteria' as a medical diagnosis for "patient is female and no obvious problem can be found".

The response though by an able bodied person and others upon being asked not to feed these ideas?

First they ignored that I was articulating my experience of my oppression in favour of claiming they didn't say anything of the sort/context/I didn't understand. As painful quite frankly as it is to get that from someone who has a lot of privilege, when it comes to someone who knows what it is like to be treated like that? It's extra hurtful and frustrating. I expect the cis, able bodied, white guy to pull that behaviour, but I also expect the person with more than one minority to remember what it's like when privileged people don't listen to them over their oppression.

If another minority pulls you up about something you said that affected them? You should treat them as you would have others treat you when they say something that affects you.

Then they claimed I was being bigoted against them, for what? Asking them not to shit on me? If that counts as bigotry now, the entire SJ movement is screwed.

Then more parties waded in.

I got accused of being selfish and not caring about the other person's oppression. This is funny since what the other side was basically saying was "Shut up, we don't care about your oppression". I do care about that person's oppression, enough that I tamped down the pain, anger and trigger enough to explain that it was problematic and to remain relatively polite in the face of their ignorant behaviour, when what I really wanted to do was to let it all out, and burst into tears on top of that. Those notions cause me serious pain, and to be blunt, was the situation reversed, I have no doubt that the other parties would think nothing of expressing all their pain at whatever shitty thing I said by ripping into me hardcore.

I got the "Boot!straps" lecture, aka "I can deal with it, so should you" from one party who didn't have any physical illness. Seriously, it was just a cascade of every type of shitty behaviour many social justice advocates complain about when privileged people do it to them, only done by people who were supposedly my compatriots.

My point? If you are oppressed and find this shit frustrating when it's done to you, don't do it to others. If you do? You're being a hypocritical asshole and need to go back to SJ 101 until you are no longer one.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Hugo and mental health.

Last Night Hugo Schwyer had a public mental breakdown on twitter. Please note, nothing Hugo has done is defensible, his actions have been deeply racist, sexist and appropriative. This post has nothing to do with advocating forgiveness for him or excusing him, but it is about not feeding harmful tropes about mental illness and using him as an excuse to do so.

I recognise that people are angry with him and they have every right to that anger, but the following things harm all mentally ill people and are not appropriate in any way.

1. Declaring that he isn't really having a breakdown.

Quite apart from the fact that to fake it that well, he would need to be an amazing actor? People having breakdowns should ALWAYS be believed. It's no different to survivors of anything else. Once we state someone is lying about something like mental illness, we set a standard for believing people, this is a problem. In fact, the SJ community has a huge issue with this since it happens constantly, I've seen clearly suicidal people bullied because during in a breakdown they were deemed assholes and therefore not worth believing.

There is nothing about believing he is seriously ill that implies anyone has to forgive or forget any of the shit he's pulled or the hurt he's caused. His actions and words still hurt many many people, and they are still unforgivable even in light of his breakdown.

This attitude of "you need to be this social justicy/not deemed an asshole to be believed about your experiences" will kill someone eventually if it hasn't already. This is a dangerous attitude to be frank.

2. Any notion that his actions while in the breakdown are manipulative.

I'm not talking about his prior actions, just the ones when he had the actual break down, it's called a breakdown for a reason. Calling his actions manipulative just feeds into the old trope about mental illness being a form of manipulation. Mentally ill and learning disabled people have struggled with this dismissal for a long time; Feeding it is problematic.

Have it from someone who has been manic and who has a combined form of depression that gets really bad when it hits? You are in no fit state to manipulate anyone when you are like that. You aren't even in a fit state to know that you are unfit to do or know anything. Yes, it can be self centered, but it's also not under your control, it's like your personal little demon has taken over and is pulling your strings. You are incapable of knowing precisely what you're doing, you meet the standard for an inability to consent to anything. That's why we have sectioning, because people in the middle of breakdowns are severely compromised mentally.

To be blunt, even if he was faking or being deliberately manipulative which I doubt, it is better to consider it to be a real breakdown than to send the message to mentally ill people that if you think they're an asshole, you will be disabilist to them when they're at their most fragile. Last night twitter scared and triggered the hell out of me, I nearly suffered a breakdown of my own because of all the people I thought I could trust or that I thought knew better who were feeding both ideas.

This doesn't mean what he said and did during the breakdown can't be hurtful in and of itself, because no matter his intention or mental state, he can still do things that hurt others. Someone killed by someone is still dead even if their killer is legally insane.

When I explained to some of them that it was problematic I got the following which reveals problematic ideas:

1. You're just interested in defending him, or if you're not with us, you're on his side.

No. I get that people are angry with him, I am as well, but pointing out that breakdowns must be believed and that mentally ill people do not have the insight to manipulate people when in them is not defending him. It is defending myself and others from disabilist stereotypes that harm us. What he has done is unforgivable and should never be forgotten, but his assholery does not justify indiscriminately hurting all mentally ill people.

2. But you're policing what PoC say.

Let me make this clear, I get angry all the time about disabilism and other bigotries, but I always always try to remember that what I might say in that anger can and has at times been hurtful to other minorities. My anger does not justify me saying something that hurts another group simply because I am angry at one of their group.
Even angry I do my best to walk the edge between expressing that anger and not oppressing others, and yes, I don't always manage it, sometimes I do say oppressive shit in anger that hurts other people, and let me make this clear, when I've said something racist because I'm angry about a bigoted PoC I encountered? People of color do exercise their right to tell me that was some awful racist shit I just said and nobody ever says they're policing what I say about my oppression no matter how they express it because it's understood that PoC as a minority get to say "hey that isn't cool" when they get hurt even when it's to someone angry about oppression.

However when it's the other way around and some privileged person of color (since that's the one oppression I don't have being white) is dumping all over a group I belong to and they don't? I have yet to see anyone acknowledge that I also have a right to say "Hey, you're hurting me as well, could you not do that?" no matter how polite I am about explaining it, and yes, I always try to be polite because I do understand that people angry about oppression are in pain and I think it would be inappropriate for me to scream at people in pain even if they hurt me. Sad thing is I can't claim to have ever received the same consideration when in pain myself and someone needed to pull me up about something.

I don't enjoy having to pull people up on this stuff in the first place and I'd rather not feel I have to, but it is still the right of minorities to object to the problematic stuff other minority people say even when those other minority people are talking about their oppression. Pointing out someone said something oppressive should never be considered policing, because there's no need to dump on other minorities while expressing your anger at the harm someone has done or is doing to you.

3. You're not thinking about the mental health of others.

Yes, I am, I do not however think that means I don't get to defend my own mental health and that of others from what others said. If you're demanding I sacrifice my health and possibly even my life rather than object to someone feeding hurtful ideas they don't need to feed? You're kinda being an asshole.

There is no part of being angry with a shitstain like Hugo that is means someone's mental health will be harmed if they don't say things that hurt mentally ill people. There is plenty to talk about that isn't problematic, expressing that you're angry and hate him as a person, talking about his privilege in all other respects, criticising his lack of recognition of the WoC he hurt, criticising that he was so enabled by the white feminist community/patriarchy to hurt so many people, saying you don't accept the apologies, seeking support and comfort from your friends and allies. Talking about his prior bullying behaviour and the reality that he's been a shitstain for years doesn't hurt mentally ill people.

In short, nobody is asking anyone to let him off the hook for years of sustained shitty oppressive behaviour. The guy is an grade A asshole and has hurt people dreadfully, but the comments about mental health being slung around hurt as well. Please could we also have a conversation about that and efforts to tackle the harm caused?

Friday 2 August 2013

"context", the new "Intent", intersectional fail.


Or how to fail at intersectionality. The following responses to "er, please don't do that, it's problematic" are not appropriate:

1. Arguing that context matters and that you didn't say anything oppressive and that others didn't understand the "context".

Seriously, things like say the usage of disabilist slurs as insults can never ever have context that renders them non-oppressive. Context is not magic, much like intent is not magic. Even if you think your context neutralises the problematic elements of a term or idea, if a member of the minority who is affected says otherwise, you should listen.

2. Pulling a full on guilt trip, and trying to frame "hey, this is a problem" as saying you totally fail at intersectionality.

Seriously, I shouldn't have to reassure you that I value your other opinions when I feel the need to ask you not to do something that hurts me or anyone else. Any social justice advocate can write amazing essays that we want to read but still make mistakes that result in a "could you not?".

The world is not divided into perfect social justice advocates and total assholes. You are allowed to fall in the middle and you probably will. We will all fail at some point, it doesn't mean we're bad people, just that we made a mistake and need to rethink such actions in future. When I ask you not to do something and tell you why it hurts, all that is required is that you listen and absorb the information, not that you reach for the hair shirt.

3. Arguing that because you were talking about your oppression when you used whatever problematic phrase or word, that criticising it is derailing and bigoted.

Derailing means attempts to distract attention or to complete hijack the discussion. When I say to you that X is a problem and explain why it's a problem, I don't need a huge long discussion or you to focus solely on that. Not doing it again will suffice. All you are required to do when an intersection in what you said is pointed out is to listen and adjust accordingly. People should not feel obliged to tolerate oppressive comments about their minority just because you're talking about your oppression.

Being asked to consider the harm you're doing to oppressed people, especially in areas where you're privilege is not a derail just because you did the harm while tackling your own oppression.



More intersectional fail is in the propensity of some people to make sweeping comments about the experiences of groups they aren't part of. People do not get to decide the experience of oppressions experienced by others. For example white people do not get to decide how People of color experience racism. Not only does this apply to all oppressions? It also applies to the experience of where privilege intersects with oppression.

From my own perspective sometimes I see People of color try to define the experiences of white minorities. This is especially painful when People of color who are Straight/Rich/Not disabled/Cis/male individuals decide to define how GLBTQ/Poor/Disabled/People seen as women who are also white experience their oppressions.

The sweeping comments made by the small group of people of color who do try to define the experiences of white minorities are usually based on what appears to be an idea that white skin gets us treated as straight, rich, able bodied, cis men automatically. It doesn't work that way quite frankly, oppressions stack, and privilege is never a free automatic negation of any and all oppressions.

A poor white person is still seen as a poor person and treated as such, we still have to deal with the scrounger rhetoric, we just don't have to shoulder racism along with it,though we may have to shoulder multiple other oppressions that affect all racial groups. White privilege is not and never will be a free pass from other oppressions, it simply means you're not oppressed racially. Having white privilege means as a poor person I won't be racially profiled, but I will still be subject to class profiling. I've never been and never will be followed around a shop because of my skin color, I have however been physically picked up and thrown out of one simply because I was known to be poor. (Which makes me wonder how that shop treated impoverished PoC if they treated me that badly).

A white disabled person is still subject to disabilism. They won't be refused a job because of their skin color, but will be refused one because of their disability. Having white skin won't grant them the job automatically any more than being able bodied would get a person of color a job automatically.

Regardless of what group you belong to remember that privilege is not a free pass to the land of candy and unicorns for people who are also minorities. The only people who are entirely free of oppression are Straight, Christian, Rich, Able bodied, White,  Cis Men.