Clueless
I mentioned a few days ago in a comment that a bonehead error a lot of people make is confusing “minority” with “oppressed” when the two are not the same at all. Here’s Hamza Yousaf making that exact mistake.
“The way we handled that, it clearly was a mistake.”
Humza Yousaf concedes that the way the SNP handled self-ID was a “mistake” but making life easier for trans people was “the right thing to do.” @AdamBoultonTABB | @HumzaYousaf | #TimesRadio pic.twitter.com/PZBzjEXKPo
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) May 25, 2025
…advancing people’s rights, I think that’s really important, I never demured [he means demurred] from that view, I’m a passionate advocate for minority rights, being a minority myself, but – I mean all minorities, whether sexual minorities, people who are transgender, whoever…
Spot the problem? Women are not a minority. “People who are transgender” are a tiny minority, but that does not mean they are necessarily at a disadvantage in relation to women. It’s not the case that women are the powerful privileged oppressors in relation to men who make themselves into parodies of women and take women’s jobs and awards and organizations. The word “minority” is not a magic excuse-all.
A lot of people make that argument: women are not a minority, so they don’t need protection. It’s bogus, it’s always been bogus, because, as you say, minority does not equal oppressed. Billionaires are a minority, but no one claims they are oppressed (well, except billionaires and libertarians).
It’s like the natural fallacy. Natural does not always mean healthy, wholesome, or good. After all, poison ivy is natural.
I think that most people who conflate “minority” with “oppressed” are perfectly aware that there’s a difference. I would suspect that Mr. Yousaf is not willing to defend any of the following minority groups :
– Billionaires
– Serial killers
– People who have earned 5 doctorates or more
– Members of the Westboro Baptist Church
– Soda can collectors
My guess is that people conflate the two because they think an “appeal to minority” (if I might dub it thus) sounds better. Why? I can see a few reasons. “Minorities” are much broader than the specific groups you’re defending/advocating for, so it makes you seem as if you care about more groups than you actually do, which in turns also conveniently lessens the need for you to justify the fights you’ve picked. The state of being a minority is (usually) quantifiable, and is seldom debated, so you don’t need to explain why you think a group is a minority like you’d have to explain why you think it’s oppressed. There’s also surely an element of “intersectionality” in there: you get to suggest that all minorities are oppressed for the same reasons, and share a common struggle. And that they should all like you for standing up for them.
Here’s another potential reason: it’s convenient to put all those oppressed minorities in the same mental box, especially when you’re not part of any of them. It allows you to generalize without having to do much thinking or use much nuance.
I was thinking the same. It’s an exercise in thought termination. We can all understand how a minority can be oppressed (we’ve probably all experienced it beginning in the play ground) so we can just go with that and ignore the possibility that the claim isn’t actually true. But if we talk about oppressed groups that just invites questions about the nature and reality of the alleged oppression and we can’t have that. It’s the old bargain “I’m one of the true believers/good guys so, in fairness, I deserve to relieved of the burden of thinking about what I’m doing especially if that thinking might lead me to an awareness that I’m not exactly one of the good guys.” The religious impulse – ain’t it lovely?