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

[sihhi]

For the purposes of interactions with privilege politics types / intersectionalistas it will centrally depend on how the baby "self-identifies".

That's my point: what if the child doesn't self-identify either way and doesn't want to - is that a bad thing, is that screwing up the oppressed side?

I know it's sort of related to a huge issue in social work and adoption and all that - but the privilege issue just adds a whole new level of wilfully inserting problems to human affairs.

 

[Fruitloop]

sihhi That's right and it's exactly how it should be. For the record, my grandmother was Scottish.

 

[sihhi]

it was a joke sihhi - your original post (before you edited) said:-

a white lesbian couple white now have a twelve month old Iraqi Kurdish-white mixed heritage baby they have adopted

I missed off the word heritage as in to stress that they themselves aren't by some coincide fostered or adoptees in Iraqi Kurdish culture and neither half is self-identifying as Iraqi Kurdish.

 

[love detective]

i thought you'd typed white instead of right

then i did a joke doing the same thing

tough crowd tonight

 

[Nigel Irritable]

That's my point: what if the child doesn't self-identify either way and doesn't want to - is that a bad thing, is that screwing up the oppressed side?

If the child doesn't grow up to have a tumblr account, spend too much time on twitter, or get involved in radical liberal politics, the issue is unlikely to arise that often unless there's some visible indication that s/he is from an ethnic minority background.

 

[sihhi]

i thought you'd typed white instead of right

then i did a joke doing the same thing

tough crowd tonight

I wasn't having a go. I get it now - Denis Norden crossed with Michael Barrymore.

I am a knob.

 

[sihhi]

If the child doesn't grow up to have a tumblr account, spend too much time on twitter, or get involved in radical liberal politics

Of course, sure, but this is the point - radical liberal politics - immigrant working-class people don't all want to go and be part of a POC liberation caucus, because they might not see things in such ethnicity-based terms.
We call it radical liberalism but LP is a socialist and a revolutionary socialist.

 

[cesare]

Of course, sure, but this is the point - radical liberal politics - immigrant working-class people don't all want to go and be part of a POC liberation caucus, because they might not see things in such ethnicity-based terms.
We call it radical liberalism but LP is a socialist and a revolutionary socialist.

LP just self defines as that - she isn't.

 

[JimW]

...
We call it radical liberalism but LP is a socialist and a revolutionary socialist.

Nationalise the top hundred trending hashtags!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

We call it radical liberalism but LP is a socialist and a revolutionary socialist.

As Cesare notes, we are not bound to accept her "self identification".

It is worth saying though, that this stuff is percolating into the actual socialist left. As previously noted, we have some stuff by ISN members, the AF women's caucus, the WSM publishing an article defending it, random anarchos on twitter, and even, wiping the smug smile off my face, an SP member on twitter who was pushing the intersectional part of it. And to some extent, that's going to get worse unless there's a concerted push back because some of the demographics and groups the socialist left recruit from are ones were this sort of stuff if having some resonance.

When radicalish students sneeze, a lot of left groups get botulism.

 

[sihhi]

LP just self defines as that - she isn't.

I was thinking of 2'50'' here for the self-definition




There is no rational grounds for challenging it in the privilege world.
In the privilege system - there is no "red-baiting axis" or non-victimisation for non-socialists privilege.

If working-class men challenge LP it's outside the rules, cross-intersection and psychological buried sexism, if working-class women challenge LP it's 'not the majority of working-class people' challenging her, and 'plenty of better of better w/c activists' (or whatever the line was to Malcolm Harris) who accept her as revolutionary socialist - hence no need to change any aspect of behaviour or self-identification.

 

[J Ed]

As Cesare notes, we are not bound to accept her "self identification".

It is worth saying though, that this stuff is percolating into the actual socialist left. As previously noted, we have some stuff by ISN members, the AF women's caucus, the WSM publishing an article defending it, random anarchos on twitter, and even, wiping the smug smile off my face, an SP member on twitter who was pushing the intersectional part of it. And to some extent, that's going to get worse unless there's a concerted push back because some of the demographics and groups the socialist left recruit from are ones were this sort of stuff if having some resonance.

What kind of pushback could there be? I'm sure it would happen if there was an influx of non-students into the left, but there isn't going to be because people associate the left with the people you mentioned!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What kind of pushback could there be? I'm sure it would happen if there was an influx of non-students into the left, but there isn't going to be because people associate the left with the people you mentioned!

Groups that are aware of it and take a hard line on it, won't be pulled by it in the same way as groups that are willing to adapt to it.

 

[andysays]

Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed
I feel that I've learned something from what you said, anyway, @AvaVidal, and I've apologised publicly because of it

Well big fucking whoop...

It's still all about Laurie, as far as I can see. She may well have can her fingers burnt, her feelings hurt and even "apologised publicly", but pound to a penny* it won't make a blind bit of difference to her me, me, ME! schtick in the long run.

*unintentional pun, honest!

 

[andysays]

...What's wrong with black anyway? The black people I am close to certainly prefer that term, in fact the black person I know best (my ex) is proud to call herself black...

Yeah, but if she really knew what was what, she'd be grateful to the smartest smuggest kid from a smart smug school for correcting her.

Or so Laurie would have us believe...

 

[cesare]

This is heading back into that circular conversation again. Bearing in mind that I don't know the ins and outs of political theory - I would describe LP as a capitalist, and the business she has invested/investing in is herself/her brand/her monetise your [whatever]. Privilege theory and intersectionalism is just a blunt/crude method of analysis, but I don't think there's any harm in using it as a gentle nudge for yourself when talking with people. I dispute that this is gaining much traction yet in real life, apart from a very narrow audience.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I dispute that this is gaining much traction yet in real life, apart from a very narrow audience.

Nobody is saying that intersectionalism is all anyone talks about down the pub. But the socialist left itself is a narrow and specialised audience, which in turn disproportionately recruits from certain other narrow and specialised audiences.

 

[cesare]

Nobody is saying that intersectionalism is all anyone talks about down the pub. But the socialist left itself is a narrow and specialised audience, which in turn disproportionately recruits from certain other narrow and specialised audiences.

The socialist left can appear much too inward thinking, and alienated from what's happening down the pub.

 

[articul8]

there are pubs and pubs - plenty of NE London hipster pubs that would love this intersectionalista talk

 

[cesare]

there are pubs and pubs - plenty of NE London hipster pubs that would love this intersectionalista talk

Identity politics playgrounds.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The socialist left can appear much too inward thinking, and alienated from what's happening down the pub.

It certainly can. And none more so than those whose first priorities are the dynamics of "our spaces" or policing each other, and random people on twitter, for language errors. Which is a strata I suspect makes up a slowly increasing percentage of recruits to various left groups and activist circles.

[Note: This is not intended as a dismissal of people opposing sexism, racism, etc from other left activists. It's a comment about subcultural priorities]

 

[Favelado]

there are pubs and pubs - plenty of NE London hipster pubs that would love this intersectionalista talk

"North-East" London was invented in 2001 and I reject its existence.

 

[articul8]

"North-East" London was invented in 2001 and I reject its existence.

Hoxton, Shoreditch, Dalston (these days)...

 

[cesare]

Hoxton, Shoreditch, Dalston (these days)...

Regeneration places, influx of people with more money etc

 

[articul8]

Nathan Barley types - horrible

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Nathan Barley types - horrible

It's a bit more complex than that. The classic London hipster-led gentrification process goes in waves: Cheap rent -> Artists -> Associated hip types -> creative industry people -> media sorts -> outright yuppies. Each wave creates certain facilities and makes the area attractive to and safe for the next wave, and each wave is successively richer than the last. They actually teach Hoxton's recent history in both urban regeneration courses (as a good thing) and in urban studies / social geography courses (in a more critical light) because it's such a clear and archetypal example.

 

[cesare]

It certainly can. And none more so than those whose first priorities are the dynamics of "our spaces" or policing each other, and random people on twitter, for language errors. Which is a strata I suspect makes up a slowly increasing percentage of recruits to various left groups and activist circles.

[Note: This is not intended as a dismissal of people opposing sexism, racism, etc from other left activists. It's a comment about subcultural priorities]

But is it possible that your view is distorted by what you're looking at?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

But is it possible that your view is distorted by what you're looking at?

Yes, it certainly is possible. And this thread tends to draw people towards it, concentrating on particularly memorable examples.

But, while my recent reading habits and this thread may be magnifying this stuff, it isn't creating it from whole cloth. It is there, it is growing, and it wasn't there not very long ago, at least not in this form. Even ignoring the main stream of this stuff, three left groups have now published stuff putting this stuff forward (although they haven't necessarily adopted it as groups), which simply wouldn't have happened three years ago. That's a noticeable shift on the micro-scale of the far left.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Actually this is off the point entirely, but does anyone know if the gentrification of Hoxton has now traveled North of Hoxton Square, ie into the main historical Hoxton area? Back 13 or so years ago, there was a kind of invisible barrier just past the Square which divided the gentrifying, hipster, part from the working class, in large part immigrant, old core of the area.

 

[cesare]

Yes, it certainly is possible. And this thread tends to draw people towards it, concentrating on particularly memorable examples.

But, while my recent reading habits and this thread may be magnifying this stuff, it isn't creating it from whole cloth. It is there, it is growing, and it wasn't there not very long ago, at least not in this form. Even ignoring the main stream of this stuff, three left groups have now published stuff putting this stuff forward (although they haven't necessarily adopted it as groups), which simply wouldn't have happened three years ago. That's a noticeable shift on the micro-scale of the far left.

I agree that it's out there, but it seems (to me) to be confined (so far) to academia/students/occupy & activists that choose (for example) occupy over more structured class based work.