To believe someone else *cannot* understand your experience is dangerous. Not only does it put you at fundamental odds with them, but it also prevents you from ever allowing yourself to feel vulnerable with them.
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This is why I distrust groups that claim only they have the authority to understand their experience. It discounts general human's ability for imagination and empathy and is self-isolating and self-reinforcing.
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The example I have authority to speak on is women. I very often see women talking about how men cannot represent them, can't understand their experience, and discount a man as a representative just because of his gender. While I agree similar experiences is correlated with-
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the same gender, to discount someone *because* of their gender is just a blatant stereotyping the other as incapable of cross-group empathy, and it really makes me feel uncomfortable.
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It in effect denies the possibility of agreement or understanding on anything: society deemed to exist only through force and deceit.
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I agree - I don't have to experience someone else's love, ecstacy, passion, hate, exhaustion, hunger, fear, pain or horror to understand their experiences. I can imagine how ecstatic, erotic, painful or bad these things can be and understand them
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I think it's true that a *full* understanding of another's experience is impossible, only a probabilistic one.
If those groups accept that, they'll realize they can't speak for other people just because they share characteristics.
Given that knowledge, they'd rediscover empathy
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I don't think it discounts empathy because why else would these groups share their stories/art with us?
The point imo is so the majority does not get to decide what's best for these people, they do.