On Claiming Victimhood
Even if you have a legitimate claim to being a victim, does doing so help you in any way?
Several years ago, rapper Lil Nas X was arrested for public nudity, and he was then charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. However, he responded to these charges by asserting that he was gay.
Before his mega-fight against Conor MacGregor, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. asserted that his being Black was leading to unfair media coverage during the run-up to the fight. MacGregor replied that his being an Irishman was producing similarly unfair coverage for him.
Why did these people respond to adversity or perceived unfair treatment by highlighting their group memberships? Because claiming membership in an oppressed or marginalized group is framed as a virtue in today’s world. Being a member of such a group is akin to labeling yourself as a victim - which has been rewarded again and again during much of the 21st century.
Indeed, over the last 20 years or so, the currency applied to claiming victimhood has increased to the point that whole fields of study have emerged - or increased in visibility - focusing on victimization. Critical race theory, critical feminism, critical Latino studies, queer studies, and other similar areas have emerged to focus on ways in which various groups have been victimized by heterosexual White men. And since the October 7th Hamas attack against Israel, the increase in anti-Israel rhetoric, and in anti-Semitism more broadly, has led some Jewish people and groups to claim victimhood.
Let me emphasize that all of these groups have valid claims to victimhood. African Americans and Native Americans have been severely mistreated in US history. Women have been subjugated below men for much of human history, and in fact many religious scriptures dictate that women must submit to their husbands. Gay men and lesbians have been harassed, mocked, and intimidated for a very long time. Jews have been persecuted for more than 3,000 years. None of this is fair. All of it is completely and totally despicable.
The question I ask here is whether claiming victimhood is beneficial, even for those who have a valid claim. Does it help anyone’s mental health - or the collective mental health of any group - to see oneself or one’s group as having been victimized? Or does it simply drag people and groups down?
Labeling oneself as a victim brings anger, animosity, and a desire for retribution against the person or group by whom one has been victimized. Indeed, I would argue that, in many cases, it’s very difficult to coexist peacefully with a person or group whom you believe has victimized you. Further, the value placed on victimhood has shifted the goal of problem solving from overcoming barriers and triumphing over obstacles to turning to authority figures when one has been wronged. Remember the days when the best way to get rid of a bully was to ignore him? Now the way to deal with people who say things you don’t like is to tattle on them to the authorities, or to try to hurt or kill them.
Since when has this approach ever worked? Our society is a mess because so many of us are so angry with each other.
I have academic colleagues whose entire research programs focus almost exclusively on racism. That’s basically all they study. A few years ago, my presentation proposal for a developmental psychology conference I’d been attending for more than 20 years was rejected - for the first time ever - because the conference was going to “be centered on disrupting racism.” Now, I would never argue that racism and other forms of bigotry should be ignored or whitewashed. But should an entire developmentally oriented conference focus exclusively on racism? Even if you wanted to feature people of color as the conference theme - something I have absolutely no problem with - why would you not highlight their strengths, accomplishments, and achievements? Why on earth would you exclusively focus on ways in which they had been victimized?
My Black colleague Wilfred Reilly has proposed what he calls the “continuous oppression narrative.” In using this term, Reilly is referring to the idea that people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and other minority groups are being oppressed every minute of every day. The victimization framework - also known as intersectionality - assumes that people who claim at least one minority identity are oppressed, and that the more minority identities you can claim, the more oppressed you are. For example, a Black lesbian woman is more oppressed than a White lesbian woman is, and more oppressed that a heterosexual Black woman would be. Conservative firebrand Candace Owens, who is Black herself, labels this framework as the “Oppression Olympics” because the idea is that - for example - an overweight, Black, disabled, transgender lesbian would sit atop the intersectionality pyramid, and it would be virtually impossible to criticize such a person for any reason. (Intersectionality theory holds that you cannot criticize or question anyone who outranks you on the oppression pyramid.)
For now, let’s assume that intersectionality theory is 100% accurate. Let’s assume that a disabled, Black lesbian woman is indeed more oppressed than a non-disabled, heterosexual Black woman. Let’s assume that heterosexual White men continue to enjoy “privilege” that they did not earn, and that other groups have suffered as a result. Most of us could imagine coming up with at least reasonable arguments to support these positions.
But in the end, what does the disabled, Black lesbian woman gain from focusing on how oppressed she is? Is that going to make her happy or help her make contributions to the world around her? When she’s at the end of her life, is she likely to look back at how oppressed she was and talk about how much better her life was because of it?
When I was in Hebrew school during the early 1980s, the teachers talked a lot about the Holocaust and about how many Jews were killed by the Nazis. But they also encouraged us to “forgive but not forget.” That is, remember what happened, and do your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again - but don’t spend your life hating the people who perpetrated these atrocities.
Forgiving but not forgetting has freed many Jewish people from the emotional toxicity of seeing themselves as victims (at least until after the October 7th attack, when the Far Left aligned itself completely against Israel - before Israel even had a chance to defend itself). Some Jewish people have responded by throwing around allegations of anti-Semitism - something I have tried my best not to do. As a Jew myself, I’ve lived 54 years without ever once claiming victimhood. Have I been called awful names and treated poorly for being Jewish? Of course. But do I define myself as a victim? Of course not. Would I insist that academic conferences focus exclusively on anti-Semitism? Nope - there are lots of other important issues to address, including highlighting the strengths and assets that people possess.
Many surveys, including some that I have conducted myself, indicate that conservatives are happier than liberals are. Might this be because liberals spend so much time focusing on victimhood, whereas conservatives don’t do that? It’s definitely possible. More than a decade ago, I was a member of a study group that focused on ethnic identity - how people come to define themselves as members of the ethnic groups they belong to. How and why do African Americans, Mexican Americans, Jewish Americans, Chinese Americans, and other groups derive meaning and self-esteem from belonging to their ethnic groups? It’s a fascinating question, and literature definitely does indicate that people from any kind of minority group tend to feel better about themselves when they are positively attached to their ethnic groups. But the study group quickly devolved into race-baiting, and I decided to leave. Ethnic identity is a strength, which is why I’m interested in it. Race-baiting involves focusing on victimhood and on blaming other ethnic/racial groups for your and your group’s lot in life. I am not interested in that. Even if the allegations that the race-baiters talked about are true - which they most certainly are to some extent - they don’t do anything to make anyone’s life better. The Far Leftists in that study group who were engaging in race baiting seemed like bitter, unhappy people. What else would you expect when they are focusing so much on negativity? Why not focus on how well so many ethnic minority groups and their members are doing?
As the Hebrew school teachers said regarding the Holocaust, forgive but don’t forget. This advice could also be applied to slavery, Native American genocide, Japanese American internment, and pretty much any other historical atrocity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pretty much said the same thing as my Hebrew school teachers - let’s move forward rather than looking back. No one alive today has ever enslaved a Black person, kicked a Native American tribe off their land, interned a Japanese American in a camp, or gassed a Jew to death. I get that we need to continue to teach about these historical events, but we don’t need to blame modern-day members of the groups that perpetrated the atrocities. Blaming a modern-day German for the Holocaust makes absolutely no sense, and neither does blaming a modern-day White American for the evils of slavery.
Note that I am not telling anyone to “just get over it.” It would be completely inappropriate for me to say that. What I’m saying here is that focusing on your own personal, and your group’s collective, strengths is likely to do much more for you (and for your group as a whole) than is thinking about how oppressed you are. There certainly is a place for understanding historical events and their relation to modern-day realities, but spending your life focusing on how you’ve been wronged will likely just make you miserable. Life is full of opportunity, so why not take advantage of it?
Look at it this way - I know Black people who focus on how they and their group have been wronged, and I know Black people who focus on the blessings they have in their lives. Who do you think is happier? I know gay people who focus on homophobia, and I know gay people who focus on the blessings they have in their lives. Again, who do you think is happier?
When I teach my class, I talk about the fact that the mayors of almost all major US cities are people of color. The mayors of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Miami are all Black, Hispanic, or Asian. Isn’t that something to celebrate? I sure think so. But why am I one of the only people I know who talks about that? Isn’t this a sign of social progress, and a reason not to focus on victimhood?
In Conversations with God, a book series I quote very often in my posts, Neale Donald Walsch writes that what we focus on is what manifests itself in our lives. People who focus on positive things tend to be happy, and people who focus on how they have been wronged tend to be sad and angry. All of us are blessed in many, many ways - so why would we not choose to center our lives around these blessings? Even if we, and the groups we belong to, have been victimized and mistreated, there are so many more positive and uplifting things to center our lives around.
Have you heard the saying that pessimists are usually right, but that optimists are happier? Something similar could be said for people who claim victimhood versus people who focus on the positive aspects of their lives. People who claim victimhood may be correct in doing so, but does that improve their lives in any meaningful way? I could claim and focus on anti-Semitism, but I don’t. You want to know why? Because I would prefer to concentrate on how wonderful and amazing my life is, and on how incredibly blessed I am. I’ve described my life story several times in my posts, and frankly I consider it nothing short of a divine miracle that I’ve managed to succeed at all. Why would I want to ruin that by labeling myself as a victim?
I hope that the people from that ethnic identity study group read what I’ve written here. Not because I want them to understand why I left that group more than 10 years ago - honestly I couldn’t care less whether they understood why I left. Rather, I would want to invite them to consider a more positive and uplifting way to look at life - to look at how they, and the groups they belong to, have been incredibly blessed. To see the wonder and beauty in life rather than focusing on historical wrongs.
So there you have it. Even if you can claim victimhood, that doesn’t mean you should. At least not if you want to be as happy as you are entitled to be.