Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[Nigel Irritable]

Yeah I can see a need for the white privilige thing, even if the contributions are often either banal or trolling or badly thought out.

Why on Earth would you make that concession? As opposed to saying that you can see the need to oppose people being smug, overbearing and racist? The whole point of the "white privilege thing" is that it isn't just anti-racism, it's a particular theory of racism, and "seeing the need for it" makes it impossible to effectively oppose the consequences and corollaries of it.

 

[muscovyduck]

Middle class privilege is being able to push privilege theory to hide the amount of privilege you actually have.

 

[Tom A]

The other worrying thing is the assumption that being an ally must = uncritical and total support.

Exactly.

That's not my idea of being an ally. If I were present at a meeting of feminists and their allies, and one of those speaking started saying the holocaust was a hoax, would I in that situation be unable to criticise that? There's literally no means by which anyone can criticise what's said unless you fit certain racial and gender criteria, basically implying that if you are oppressed you can remain unchallenged no matter how bigoted your statements unless someone who outranks you on the oppression heirachy calls you out.

Substitute "feminist" with "Muslim" and you'll very soon encounter people whom are willing to tolerate Holocaust denial (and other forms of anti-Semitism), not to mention patriarchy (enforced gender segregation in Stop the War Coalition meetings anyone?), and will readily accuse you of "Islamophobia" for calling them out.

The idea this stuff can call itself anarchism is hilarious, but we've already seen the fringes of the British supposedly class-based anarchism capitulate to this stuff rather than meaningfully interrogate it.

Been there, done that, got unfriended by people on Facebook (and have unfriended people myself), and the less said about lifestyle anarchists/activists, the better.

 

[Delroy Booth]

although in that instance I somewhat feel that they have a point, although all the same, banning ignorant idiots from wearing headdresses isn't going to suddenly eliminate the terrible poverty which the majority of Native Americans suffer under.

There is a point, it's a legitimate position no-one dispute that. Same with bonfire night in this country. But banning the ignorant from wearing headresses isn't goint to eliminate any of the material and structural problems except in the most minor individualistic way, but it'll make the people who do the calling out feel good and superior, like going to Live 8 made all those worthy middle-class feel good and superior I mean hey they weren't just listening to a few bands they were materially helping, right? It's not just competitive language-policing it's smashing the kyriachy.

 

[Tom A]

Middle class privilege is being able to push privilege theory to hide the amount of privilege you actually have.

This.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Why on Earth would you make that concession? As opposed to saying that you can see the need to oppose people being smug, overbearing and racist? The whole point of the "white privilege thing" is that it isn't just anti-racism, it's a particular theory of racism, and "seeing the need for it" makes it impossible to effectively oppose the consequences and corollaries of it.

Because it's got to be a component of fighting racism, an awareness of how deeply engrained racism is into the day-to-day lives of people. An awareness of that for people who otherwise wouldn't have to worry about it isn't by any means a bad thing. The idea that it presents a emanciptory act in itself is wrong however.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Because it's got to be a component of fighting racism, an awareness of how deeply engrained racism is into the day-to-day lives of people.

Why would you imagine that this is something that privilege theory is essential to? Do you really think that nobody ever noticed that racism is "deeply engrained" in "the day to day lives of people" before tumblr existed?

Not everything that is expressed using the language of privilege theory is useless, but the useful parts don't have to be expressed using the language of that theoretical framework.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Why would you think that this is something that privilege theory is essential to?

It's not! I daresay it's possible to accomplish a similar aim without relying on a massively flawed individualistic framework that throws up these kinds of problems constantly.

 

[J Ed]

These articles are by a middle-class student at my uni who appropriates working-class culture by wearing a flatcap and trackies on a pretty regular basis

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/
http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/cultural-appropriation-continued/

 

[Tom A]

Hey, if I didn't shower after a week and ate crap food, I will probably soon be seen to be "appropriating" the culture of the homeless and those on the very margins of society!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

It's not! I daresay it's possible to accomplish a similar aim without relying on a massively flawed individualistic framework that throws up these kinds of problems constantly.

Which brings us back to the question of why you say you can see the "need for the white privilege thing"? You don't need to make that concession and doing so cuts the feet out from under the rest of your argument. A central problem in debating with privilege/intersectionalists is that they like to portray opposition to their particular theoretical framework as opposition to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. It's really very important not to give ground on this.

 

[Tom A]

Which brings us back to the question of why you say you can see the "need for the white privilege thing"? You don't need to make that concession and doing so cuts the feet out from under the rest of your argument. A central problem in debating with privilege/intersectionalists is that they like to portray opposition to their particular theoretical framework as opposition to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. It's really very important not to give ground on this.

In many ways this can foster a hierarchy and dogma of its very own, where no one dare question what someone says in case they get opposed to the ideals of anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. as a whole. There is no middle ground, no room for "ah, but what about..." with such people, and this makes debate almost impossible, and since this has infected large swathes of the movement it means one ends up abiding by their rules so they keep credibility within the movement by ensuring their allydom isn't at risk.

The worst thing about it is that this is meant to face down very real issues in society, and the worst case scenario is that people deliberately "go the other way" rather than be associated with them, becoming, for example, people who think that all feminists "hate men".

 

[Tom A]

Also, I stumbled into privilege theory via disabled people's rights politics. A lot of good work is done by the disabled rights movement, like campaigning for the implementation of the social model of disability (which states that it's society that disables people, not their impairments), and building organisations of disabled people, led by disabled people. At the time it all made a lot of sense, however even though it has its good points (and disabled people are very likely to be excluded from other movements, as well as from other aspects of society that non-disabled people take for granted), it is still a form of identity politics, and there is that same "us and them" mentality which means that all non-disabled need to prove themselves worthy of allydom.

 

[Delroy Booth]

These articles are by a middle-class student at my uni who appropriates working-class culture by wearing a flatcap and trackies on a pretty regular basis

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/
http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/cultural-appropriation-continued/

It's ok for middle-class people to take the piss out of the poor and appropriate their culture, infact laughing at the primark scum who don't get the lingo is half the fucking point. But mocking the native americans by wearing their clothes is bad - although it might change again and wearing a kaffiyeh will become a sign of solidarity and/or fashion accessory depending on the whims of leftist fashion in a few years. The material aspect of privilige is ignored again in favour of a view which implies privilige mainly manifests itself through cultural appropriation - which is interesting when you consider the person who wrote that lives a life of unimaginable comfort, wealth and security, as a by-product of the extermination of the native americans. The economic system we live in, western capitalism, necessarily depended upon the extermination of the native americans in the colonies. The wealth of that person, and of her parents, and of her parents parents etc, whether working-class or otherwise, was a direct product of mass murder. No amount of privilige checking articles will ever undo the vast privilige you have a accrued as a result of this genocide. The only way to ever stop being an oppressor isn't to check your words or call out those who are slightly insensitive, that's a trivialisation, in reality the only option would be to kill yourself, as for as long as you live that privilige will be with you, and the longer you live the more you perpetuate it and if you have children you pass it on them and thus reproduce the oppression for the next generation. Realistically suicide is the only legitimate position for a white middle-class 1st world person worried about their privilige.

It's better not to think about these things if your western and middle-class, better to focus on what people wear.

 

[sihhi]

Middle class privilege is being able to push privilege theory to hide the amount of privilege you actually have.

Once again, your saying this = an attempt to hold on to the fact of your p, q privilege.
The more you resist it, the more it shows up as being a privilege you are eager to hide hence the reason you are attacking it since it is in part unconscious. You might not like "being a shitty human being" but you are one, because after all "Can we learn to be “colourblind”? Abstract: Probably not."

 

[seventh bullet]

Spot on, it's always funny to note how a lot of the people who complain about cultural appropriation are middle-class people appropriating working-class fashion. One of the people I know who is keenest on exposing 'cultural appropriation' is middle-class but has taken to wearing a combination of trackies and a flatcap.

In my limited experience (outside of student politics, thank fuck), it is usually done in an 'ironic' and mocking way. Appropriation as a way to mark middle class superiority over the dumb, common proles or 'chavs' (never recognised that as a legitimate working class subculture, though).

 

[Delroy Booth]

I wonder if "alawite privilige" translates into Syrian for when Al-Nusrah massacre people, invite children to cut their heads off in the street with machete's etc? I wonder if there ever will be massacres over this tuff. Will the decline of the left in the UK lead to the sort of sectarian bloodbath we've seen in Russia and the Middle-East since their class-based left died out?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Which brings us back to the question of why you say you can see the "need for the white privilege thing"? You don't need to make that concession and doing so cuts the feet out from under the rest of your argument. A central problem in debating with privilege/intersectionalists is that they like to portray opposition to their particular theoretical framework as opposition to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. It's really very important not to give ground on this.

Well in that allow me to rephrase "the need for a blog to carry instances of latent racism in society that white people probably wouldn't notice otherwise" there is that better? I like the EverydaySexism twitter because it does that sort of job without alienating people with pretentious intersectional buzzword bingo. It's a lot more effective as a result I'd say.

 

[Tom A]

I wonder if "alawite privilige" translates into Syrian for when Al-Nusrah massacre people, invite children to cut their heads off in the street with machete's etc? I wonder if there ever will be massacres over this tuff. Will the decline of the left in the UK lead to the sort of sectarian bloodbath we've seen in Russia and the Middle-East since their class-based left died out?

See also: Sunnis, Christians, and Mandaeans in Iraq.

 

[emanymton]

These articles are by a middle-class student at my uni who appropriates working-class culture by wearing a flatcap and trackies on a pretty regular basis

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/
http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/cultural-appropriation-continued/

Think that guys a ISN member, thats the recent split from the SWP for those not keeping up.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Well in that allow me to rephrase "the need for a blog to carry instances of latent racism in society that white people probably wouldn't notice otherwise" there is that better?

Yes, it is better. And it would also be better if expressed in bigger terms than just advocating a blog. In the more general sense that it is necessary to address many of the things that privilege/intersectionalists address. It just isn't necessary to import their framework to do it, and doing so is more likely to be counterproductive than helpful.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Think that guys a ISN member, thats the recent split from the SWP for those not keeping up.

Hang on, isn't J Ed one of them too? Are we about to see a university ISN group torn to shreds over this?!?

 

[Tom A]

Think that guys a ISN member, thats the recent split from the SWP for those not keeping up.

I know a few ISNers and they seem like pretty sound people, did work on anti-benefit cuts and UKUncut campaigns in Manchester. The two I know the most seem pretty working-class and down to earth, probably hence why they aren't in the SWP anymore (in fact one of them is one of the expellees for "secret factionalism").

 

[frogwoman]

On privilege issues here is part of anti-body chauvinism "fat acceptance movement" delineating acceptable behaviour from its allies ie anyone not fat, after questioning this slogan:

http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/post/48885126420/fatanarchy-kittyoftheyear-uhhh-no-there-is

"The first rule of ALLY CLUB: You do not talk in ALLY CLUB.

The second rule of ALLY CLUB: You DO NOT TALK in ALLY CLUB.

The third rule of ALLY CLUB: If a marginalized person says STOP, the argument is over.

The fourth rule of ALLY CLUB: Ganging up on marginalized people and/or their blogs with a bunch of your privileged buddies means you’re out of ALLY CLUB. If marginalized people come after you in droves? YOU’VE FUCKED UP. APOLOGIZE. DON’T EXPECT TO BE FORGIVEN.

The fifth rule of ALLY CLUB: If you ping a bunch of marginalized people with the same bullshit “honest question, guise!” then you’re out of ALLY CLUB and automatically inducted into TROLL CLUB.

The sixth rule of ALLY CLUB: No “what about me,” no “but privileged people don’t have perfect lives, either.”

The seventh rule of ALLY CLUB: If you fuck with marginalized people you do not get to say when the argument is over. It’s over when the marginalized people you fucked with say it’s over.

The eighth rule of ALLY CLUB: If this is your first time reading a social justice blog run by a certain group of marginalized people, DO NOT SUBMIT SHIT."

All allies are allowed to do/criticised for "being a shitty human being" for not doing is repeating parrot-like what those in the intersection are saying in general. Any disagreement or discussion of the sorts of tactics or messages that might be applicable can be brought to an immediate halt by: "If a marginalized person says STOP, the argument is over."

In these circumstances it's inevitable that people who do not feel they are being listened to or that having a marginalised status=more listening time, will create their own privilege axes: asylum seekers to wield an 'immigration privilege' to have some power against other immigrants, ex illegal immigrants to accuse legal immigrants of 'legal immigration privilege', 'dark' West Africans might begin stressing 'colourism' to stop middle-class mixed race people at the top, non-fertile women sensing 'child-discussion privilege' amongst mothers, young offenders accusing other working-class young people of 'outside bars privilege'.

Working-class society pulled into permanent coalition with middle class, becoming a large snowglobe of bitterness and recrimination aimed at groups and sub-groups also oppressed.

Oh for fucks sake. I do actually think there is a point about this stuff, how patriarchal society imposes (especially on women, but also men) a certain idea of how beauty should be and how you "should" look, mostly for heterosexual society but some elements of the gay community end up self-imposing it as well, for example the whole butch/femme thing, it sort of becomes expected that's how "a gay person" looks etc.

I also think that the fashion industry and the health industry is also responsible for promoting some very damaging perceptions of women's bodies, (and increasingly men's bodies as well) by for example pathologising everything apart from an impossibly perfect figure, the size zero stuff is one example of this but there are far more other more subtle ones.

I've had problems with my weight before, although never been obese. I think that some people (and actually women can be the worst for this, men often don't notice or don't care) are far too paranoid or bitchy about what are really quite minor fluctuations in people's weight, one of my best mates at uni is quite overweight although definitely not unhealthy, and she was really insecure about it despite eating healthily, because I think her family expected her to lose weight, they were also always on at her about "when are you gonna get married?" and I actually get the feeling she might be gay. But I think that is because of patriarchal/capitalist society and the way that it is in some families, obviously there is a flipside of that for example people saying "eat up you're too skinny" when the person is a normal weight.

There's also this idea that obesity is always the person's fault whereas where they live, the amount of money they have etc may restrict their access to nutritionally healthy food, they may for example work 12 hour shifts and not have any time when they get home so just end up sticking a pizza in the oven, or eat fatty food in work breaks if they're working a really physical job.

However, there does reach a point where obesity is medically unhealthy doesn't there? obviously people have the right to eat whatever they want but there does reach a point where it's clinically dangerous, for example because of the strain on your bones/organs and difficulty in walking for example. There are also binge-eating disorders where people think they're too thin and eat all the time. And telling somebody who wants to lose weight that they don't need to and the idea of promoting being obese being a "privilege" etc, because it's affecting their health could actually be really dangerous.

 

[sihhi]

Libcom has just reposted a section of a new AK Press (main anarchist publisher in the anglo west) book titled Insurrections at the intersections: feminism, intersectionality and anarchism

I can't really call myself an anarchist, but I don't really feel we need or want "an intersectionality of our own" (as opposed to a liberal one)

Features ideas like: "Simply defending the right to legal abortion does not bring together all those affected by heteropatriarchy. Similarly, legal “choice” where abortions are expensive procedures does nothing to help poor women and highlights the need to smash capitalism in order to access positive freedoms. Reproductive justice advocates have argued for an intersectional approach to these issues, and an anarchist feminist analysis of reproductive freedom could benefit by utilizing an anarchist intersectional analysis."

So yes there is a problem but in fact serious class analysis has had a better go at sorting out these problems than intersectional ones.

It concludes:

"An anarchist intersectional analysis, at least the way we are utilizing the standpoint, does not centralize any structure or institution over another, except by context. Rather, these structures and institutions operate to (re)produce one another. They are one another. Understood in this way, a central or primary oppressive or exploitative structure simply makes no sense. Rather, these social relations cannot be picked apart and one declared “central” and the others “peripheral.” And they are intersectional. After all, what good is an insurrection if some of us are left behind?"

How does that make sense - that 'they are one another' ? How are immigration raids the same as rape within the family?
How can those who are in danger of sweeps unite with those who experience domestic violence unite with those who think 'immigration has far gone too far' with those who think 'all this talk of domestic violence, I don't hit my wife, give her money to look after the kids' unless there is a common target and a common aim of overcoming difference and gender ?

 

[J Ed]

Think that guys a ISN member, thats the recent split from the SWP for those not keeping up.

He is, yeah.

 

[Tom A]

However, there does reach a point where obesity is medically unhealthy doesn't there? obviously people have the right to eat whatever they want but there does reach a point where it's clinically dangerous, for example because of the strain on your bones/organs and difficulty in walking for example. There are also binge-eating disorders where people think they're too thin and eat all the time. And telling somebody who wants to lose weight that they don't need to and the idea of promoting being obese being a "privilege" etc, because it's affecting their health could actually be really dangerous.

There is a fine line between being concerned about one's health and moralising though, and a lot of fatphobes can be quite moralistic indeed - particularly amongst vegans, it must be said.

 

[sihhi]

These articles are by a middle-class student at my uni who appropriates working-class culture by wearing a flatcap and trackies on a pretty regular basis

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/
http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/cultural-appropriation-continued/

That guy pre-ISN obviously:

SWP member Max Brophy spoke immediately after and denounced the attacks on the scabs as ‘sectarianism’! He said he could make the same criticisms of Labour that comrade Rock had made, but deliberately refrained from doing so. Presumably this would alienate the LP, to whom the SWP are trying to present themselves as safe allies. He then called for us all to unite and fight and all that. Basically, pretend political differences don’t exist. At least until the right moment, when ‘the party’ will suddenly spring its programme onto the class (presumably).

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The presence of this stuff on Libcom is particularly funny for those of us who can remember the rabid, and sometimes offensive, hostility to identity politics that prevailed over there at one point.

 

[frogwoman]

There is a fine line between being concerned about one's health and moralising though, and a lot of fatphobes can be quite moralistic indeed - particularly amongst vegans, it must be said.

Yeah I know but this probesity reminds me of the pro-ana sites, "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" and all that shit.