But sir! I have privilege!

On making up a guy to feel bad for.

A few months ago I was reading a bunch of illness memoirs—so many—and while I was reading this noted a tic that’s pretty normal in contemporary writing but kind of comical here: the other-people-have-it-worse disclaimer. Sure, I have Crohn’s and I’m literally shitting blood, but if I were [pick your identity] instead of a white lady,¹ you know, it would be worse. I benefit in various insidious ways from my privilege, even as I’m, again, almost dying.

There’s plenty you can say about this type of thing—plenty that has been said—but what I really find kind of weird about it is that these books, whatever gestures they make toward broader inclusion, are ultimately focused on a narrow personal experience. So if you want to talk about the racial disparities in the maternal mortality rate, or whatever, you should, but that’s going to be a different book. Maybe a better book, maybe a more worthy book, but a different book. This is a book about shitting your own personal guts out on the toilet.