Challenging Intersectionalist nonsense

[SpookyFrank]

The counter productive list thing seems perfectly reasonable ime

Telling people not to cry is pretty fucking stupid though.

8. Crying
Your tears take up too much space.

They very quickly turn the issue into an exchange about your feelings, your education, and making you feel comfortable in your privilege.

Politely tell your tears to have a seat. Several seats. A plethora, really.

When your tear glands start to well up, stop or get the hell up and excuse yourself. This is not saying that your tears or your hurt feelings do not matter; they just do not have space here.

Tears rarely worked for the oppressed in stopping the oppressor from beating them, selling them, lynching them, hanging them on a fence, dragging them behind their pick-up truck, shooting them outside their front doors in front of their families, publicly shaming them, and draining every ounce of worth from their souls.

So they do not serve any use here!

What kind of deranged bullshit is that? Your feelings do not matter here? Well where the fuck do they matter? This reads like some shit an abusive parent would say tbh. People don't cry because they think it's useful ffs

 

[bluescreen]

Trouble is, it can end up with having to trust other people telling you what they feel without paying attention to your own feelings. More dispassionate analysis is necessary but too often the assumptions on which it's based aren't shared.
@Rutita, I reckon it's the way the feed works - I keep missing stuff too.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Why have you skipped over my posts on this thread?...just curious.

Well, I didn't have anything to contribute to anything except the last one, the one i liked, which I assumed to be either an excellent piece of satire, or perhaps just above my head.

 

[tufty79]

Telling people not to cry is pretty fucking stupid though.



What kind of deranged bullshit is that? Your feelings do not matter here? Well where the fuck do they matter? This reads like some shit an abusive parent would say tbh. People don't cry because they think it's useful ffs

Apologies - i didn't read the link, just made assumptions that it was similar to something i had previously read, and just jumped on the bits Jon picked out

*checks privilege *

 

[Treacle Toes]

Trouble is, it can end up with having to trust other people telling you what they feel without paying attention to your own feelings. More dispassionate analysis is necessary but too often the assumptions on which it's based aren't shared.
@Rutita, I reckon it's the way the feed works - I keep missing stuff too.

Yeah, I can accept that as it happens to me sometimes too. I was just asking.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

'Knowing with every fibre of your being' is not a good feeling. And even that needs challenging, perhaps?

It's just a turn of phrase. I meant that I know intrinsically.

 

[Treacle Toes]

which I assumed to be either an excellent piece of satire, or perhaps just above my head.

Why would I bother to satirise something so important? Is what I said so alien to you that I can only be joking?

 

[bluescreen]

It's just a turn of phrase. I meant that I know intrinsically.

Yes, I meant: examine your assumptions. I know I don't.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Apologies - i didn't read the link, just made assumptions that it was similar to something i had previously read, and just jumped on the bits Jon picked out

*checks privilege *

Oddly enough I agreed with a lot of the rest of it.

But you never know what someone else's experiences have been so you never know whether or not they're entitled to show emotion in whatever situation.

 

[tufty79]

Fair point!

 

[Treacle Toes]

It's just a turn of phrase. I meant that I know intrinsically.

You need to work out why then? Will working out why be all validating for you? Do you expect to discover anything that challenges why and how you think?...and what does intrinsic mean to you? Does that mean from your perspective and all else is wrong, because you don't feel or know it?

 

[Vintage Paw]

What do you know about intersectionality theory, Jon? Have you read where it comes from, who coined the term and why, and what they were doing?

As with everything theory, there's often a difference between its roots and the theory, and how it ends up being applied. But even so, not all applications are equal.

I often wonder if the enemy shouldn't be intersectionality but rather whatever made it easy to repurpose into something that can be woolly and divisive.

Nevertheless, for example, for every person telling you that racism is white people twerking, there are others doing important work into how class and race intersect to fuck people over.

I think those wrong-feeling fibres perhaps need to dig a little and do some reading rather than just looking for something that can back up your gut feeling.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Why would I bother to satirise something so important? Is what I said so alien to you that I can only be joking?

It just sounded like you were saying intersectionalist sounding stuff when I had said I don't fully understand intersectionalist. Which would have been funny...

I will probably have to come back to this thread tomorrow.

 

[tufty79]

See, that is the problem. You want to unconditionally challenge something you don't understand.

Understand it first, then you can decide whether it is worth unconditionally challenging..

 

[Jon-of-arc]

See, that is the problem. You want to unconditionally challenge something you don't understand.

Understand it first, then you can decide whether it is worth unconditionally challenging..

No, I want to understand better before I challenge, hence this thread.

 

[tufty79]

Oh god. Penny dropping moment. 'i don't understand it therefore i don't like it' - sound familiar?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Intersectionality to me means something different to how it's being used here. To me it's just a way of talking about the ways in which various (and oh how I hate this word) struggles are related to each other and how the people involved can support each other to achieve their various aims given that everyone is heading in broadly the same direction.

What we seem to be conflating that with here is privilege politics.

/mansplaining

 

[SpookyFrank]

No, I want to understand better before I challenge, hence this thread.

So why is the thread called 'challenging intersectionalist nonsense'

 

[Treacle Toes]

It just sounded like you were saying intersectionalist sounding stuff when I had said I don't fully understand intersectionalist.

I said something that challenged how you are dismissing/understanding intersectionality. I asked you to define terms/the hierarchy to which you were applying whether or not tufty's example was good enough..you wanted something 'better'...I asked what is better for you....how is that satire?

 

[tufty79]

Intersectionality to me means something different to how it's being used here. To me it's just a way of talking about the ways in which various (and oh how I hate this word) struggles are related to each other and how the people involved can support each other to achieve their various aims given that everyone is heading in broadly the same direction.

What we seem to be conflating that with here is privilege politics.

/mansplaining

Yeah. I am tired and brain fogged and mixing my twattery and decency up

 

[SpookyFrank]

Did you see that movie Pride? That's intersectionalism. Miners and LGBT folk joining forces because they realised they share a common enemy.

 

[Citizen66]

Posted my stupid question above without having seen Citizen66's comment. Thanks for that. Still not convinced it's so easy to deconstruct like that if you're not the default class.

The main problem is that it makes good points. It's when it's used as an authoritarian stick to beat people with that it loses its stardust.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's all about how you talk to people. If you berate people, about anything, they react badly. Some people react badly to any kind of challenge to their behaviour of course, but with respect and patience you're always going to win more people over.

Respect and patience of course, are not always easy to conjure up. Particular when dealing with disrespect shown by others.

e2a: Much of the content of that '10 things' linked to earlier is perfectly reasonable. But the tone of it is horrid. Maybe if you're in a real-time situation with real people it's understandable to get a bit worked up (christ knows I do) but if you're sitting down to write something and you've got the chance to read it back to yourself before anyone sees it...

 

[Vintage Paw]

Intersectionality to me means something different to how it's being used here. To me it's just a way of talking about the ways in which various (and oh how I hate this word) struggles are related to each other and how the people involved can support each other to achieve their various aims given that everyone is heading in broadly the same direction.

What we seem to be conflating that with here is privilege politics.

/mansplaining

I was about to say something very similar.

Privilege theory and intersectional theory are linked closely but not identical. The logical outcome of intersectional theory is that we become aware of where we hold privilege in certain situations, and where we don't in others.

For example, bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman is an example of intersectionality (although I don't believe she called it that) -- she looked at how her place as a woman was entirely subsumed by the rights of men in the civil rights movement, and how the challenges she and other black women faced were necessarily different to those that black men faced. Which wasn't to say the challenges black men faced weren't real or important, nor that the civil rights movement as a whole wasn't important, just that the civil rights movement wasn't working for black women, and that sexism still had hold over it. She was interested in understanding how her race and her gender intersected to provide a different set of challenges and obstacles than those men in the movement faced, and why, therefore, the civil rights movement wouldn't be the panacea for her and other women that it might be thought to be for black people as a whole.

Working through all of that necessarily leads you to a place where you have to understand a sort of privilege that black men held that black women didn't. As men, there were a whole host of things they never had to grapple with, and they would never face oppression for, even though they still lacked privilege in other areas.

When people bang on about privilege and don't take it any further than telling you to check yours, then the absence of any other politics is of course worrying. Nevertheless, that isn't all there is, and you can choose to either decide it's all bullshit, or you can learn more and choose to engage with it in a way that is positive. Or perhaps don't engage at all, but don't make every part of it your enemy because it really isn't.

 

[Citizen66]

I've never seen it in practice tbf other than online. It's reared its head a couple of times here. It has some very obvious anomalies such as white Irish Catholic heterosexuals are privileged. Fuck history. That's their identity.

 

[Treacle Toes]

It's all about how you talk to people.

...and how they talk and think about people/things outside of their own experiences....

 

[Treacle Toes]

s.

For example, bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman; Black women and feminism

... is the name of a/the book you are referring to.

The title...from here..

"Ain't I a Woman?" is the name given to a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth, (1797–1883), born into slavery in New York State. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, on May 29, 1851, and was not originally known by any title. It was briefly reported in two contemporary newspapers, and a transcript of the speech was published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle on June 21, 1853.

Ain't I a Woman? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A wiki link I know...but you get the gist:

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?"

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear de lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?"

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" ("Intellect," whispered someone near.) "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?"

"Den dat little man in back dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him."

"If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em." 'Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."

Translation here: "AIN'T I A WOMAN?" BY SOJOURNER TRUTH

 

[toggle]

Intersectionality to me means something different to how it's being used here. To me it's just a way of talking about the ways in which various (and oh how I hate this word) struggles are related to each other and how the people involved can support each other to achieve their various aims given that everyone is heading in broadly the same direction.

What we seem to be conflating that with here is privilege politics.

/mansplaining

/getting it fucking right

 

[tufty79]

Going back to the 'don't cry' bollocks, i have just read this and while not quite what was asked for, it intersects (sorry!) nicely with some of the discussion on here, SpookyFrank


7 'Positive Thinking' Phrases That Can Actually Cross the Line Into Gaslighting

 

[toggle]

You need to work out why then? Will working out why be all validating for you? Do you expect to discover anything that challenges why and how you think?...and what does intrinsic mean to you? Does that mean from your perspective and all else is wrong, because you don't feel or know it?

i've got ths far and decided that there's no point in writing out some of th stuff that's related to what Vintage Paw has written. or what you've said. cause i've had enough contrarian this week.

anyway, i'd rather actually read the copy of Black Feminist thought i got a couple weeks ago than watch someone butcher a butchered version of it.



etas.

bollocks. i lasted 6 mins.

the problem with the commentariat style priviligettes is that they don't fucking get this themselves. they are part of the problem this was designed to counter.

started off with black and white, male and female and black feminists pointuing out that they wer being forced to choose between fighting racism and fighting sexism. and for them, it wasn't 2 seperate things, it was all about their existance, not seperable into interest groups for 2 different goals. so if people bothered to listden to black women, then they could look at ways that feminists and anti racists could work together and back each other.

then extrapolate further. add in other catagories, nationality, family structure, . realise it's all one untidy mess. and realise that it has to be about working towards some bigger overall goals, but also about making sure you don't leave anyone behind. and it always did include class. because it came from black women, how in the fuck could it not include class.

this bears utterly fuck all relationship to privilage politics and identity politics.

and what intersectionality was originally was the thing that was supposed to make that shit fuck off. to get rid of th privilaged self appointed spokes arseholes who want to make it all about them. and their one single issue. if i yell loudly enough the privilagettes will hear me.

of fuck.

no they won't. becausethey use the name intersectionality to do all the divisive shit. igf they were actually capable of being intersectional, they would be fucking listening to poor women, minority women, unemployed white men, gay assylum seekers, people with mh issues. but they wont listen. and they certainly won't let any else speak. cause the only intersection is their privilage and their profile and their bank balence

and wot collins said.