Challenging Intersectionalist nonsense

[Calamity1971]

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.
Whinging bastards, give your tears a seat and let the nice people kill you. Really? Not long ago I burst into to tears in Asda in the pet food section, if someone had said that to me they would have been, A. fucking decked or B. Sent me even further into a snot fest. Luckily no one asked me where the fresh towels were, that could have sent me over the edge in disbelief.
Saying all that, when I was victim to domestic abuse maybe the crying thing annoyed him into hitting me more. Pfffft, if knew then eh.

 

[Calamity1971]

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

Good article. What your face does is largely involuntary.

 

[tufty79]

Yep

Largely, mind.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Another thing about intersectionalism, it can turn privilege into a positive thing; or rather it can subvert power dynamics instead of trying to invert them. Like when you can see how you might be able to to use an advantage you have to support someone who doesn't have it. And it's not all about identity, it can be something as simple as having more free time because you don't have to work every hour god sends or you don't have three kids at home.

Too much of privilege politics seems to be rooted in various ways of making people feel guilty about things they can't control, rather than seeing opportunities to use those things to benefit others. The trick of course is not to rock up and tell someone what you're going to do for them, but to ask them what they need from you.

 

[Calamity1971]

Ha. Ya reckon the guy who wrote the 'crying' thing would get a largley involuntary face if kicked him in the knackers, or give his tears a 'plethora of seats'

 

[tufty79]

The trick of course is not to rock up and tell someone what you're going to do for them, but to ask them what they need from you.

Amen.

Where have you been for the last three weeks and wherever it was, why weren't you on my doorstep as my Voice of Reason Consultant? I have been reduced to using kittens to facilitate

 

[SpookyFrank]

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.
Whinging bastards, give your tears a seat and let the nice people kill you. Really? Not long ago I burst into to tears in Asda in the pet food section, if someone had said that to me they would have been, A. fucking decked or B. Sent me even further into a snot fest. Luckily no one asked me where the fresh towels were, that could have sent me over the edge in disbelief.
Saying all that, when I was victim to domestic abuse maybe the crying thing annoyed him into hitting me more. Pfffft, if knew then eh.

A good rule I have, never say on the internet anything you wouldn't say to someone's face in real life*. Would the clown who wrote that article really tell a crying person to shut the fuck up and get over themselves? No, because everyone else in the room would think they were an arsehole. And because they'd be able to see with their own eyes that it wouldn't improve the situation for anyone involved.

*please don't anyone go through all my urban posts and find the many thousands of times I have failed to live up to this standard

 

[tufty79]

Amen.

Where have you been for the last three weeks and wherever it was, why weren't you on my doorstep as my Voice of Reason Consultant? I have been reduced to using kittens to facilitate

I can say that to your face if i ever meet you

 

[SpookyFrank]

Amen.

Where have you been for the last three weeks and wherever it was, why weren't you on my doorstep as my Voice of Reason Consultant? I have been reduced to using kittens to facilitate

I am always available via PM

 

[SpookyFrank]

I can say that to your face if i ever meet you

Did you mean to quote yourself there?

 

[tufty79]

Possibly. I may also have intended to edit in your say it to their face quote but you were too quick


And Ta. Was taking the piss out of myself more than anything.

One day I will do an intersectional hilarious urban grief porn memoir stand up set, i'm sure

 

[Vintage Paw]

Also, I wonder what happens when we start calling it intersectionalism rather than intersectionality? It's been a while since I've done any reading on it, but I don't recall it being an ism. Calling it an ism to me gives it some kind of discrete status it shouldn't have. To me it's something more like a toolbox, a bunch of things to think about and incorporate while doing other stuff. A bunch of things to think about and bring to the table in order to be more thorough when fighting the good fight and as toggle says, to make sure no one gets left behind.

 

[Athos]

Also, I wonder what happens when we start calling it intersectionalism rather than intersectionality? It's been a while since I've done any reading on it, but I don't recall it being an ism. Calling it an ism to me gives it some kind of discrete status it shouldn't have. To me it's something more like a toolbox, a bunch of things to think about and incorporate while doing other stuff. A bunch of things to think about and bring to the table in order to be more thorough when fighting the good fight and as toggle says, to make sure no one gets left behind.

I agree. Although, in practice, too often the means becomes the end - diverting attention and activity from the real goal, and dividing people in the process.

 

[captainmission]

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

The Idea behind this is that white women's tear are used as a defense mechanism against discussions racial privilege. That they are useful (whether acknowledged or consciously or not) because they refocus attention on 'aggression' of the person raising the issue. There's various academic papers written on the issue, and due to the heavy cross over of academic and activist online intersectionality, I'd assume that's where it's coming from.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The Idea behind this is that white women's tear are used as a defense mechanism against discussions racial privilege. That they are useful (whether acknowledged or consciously or not) because they refocus attention on 'aggression' of the person raising the issue. There's various academic papers written on the issue, and due to the heavy cross over of academic and activist online intersectionality, I'd assume that's where it's coming from.

If that's what the person who wrote the article meant, then they should have said so. Just saying 'stop crying' without any of that context doesn't get us anywhere.

 

[captainmission]

If that's what the person who wrote the article meant, then they should have said so. Just saying 'stop crying' without any of that context doesn't get us anywhere.

Well quite, but like a lot of political or activist writing it seems intended for internal audience who already understand the basic tenents of the arguement already.

 

[Odrade]

I definitely see where you´re coming from, having come from the same place myself when I first started reading up on intersectionality theory. I was tired of the internet version of it, which to me had become a search for the the poor sod that is «the most oppressed» person in the universe, to find, from this oracle of soothsaying, the absolute truth. With the purpose of writing an article to attack what the internet had presented to me as «intersectionality theory» I was prepared to find a post-structuralist theory that romanticized oppression as some kind of exalting experience. What I found in the source material was something completely different, and a theory that is useful, materialistic, realistic and insigthful about structures of power and oppression. I would recommend reading Kimberle Crenshaw and bell hooks on this subject. They are right on.

When it comes to a lot of the internet-chatter that claims to be coming from intersectionality theory: Every theory that becomes fashionable at the same time becomes massively misunderstood. Just think about marxism for the last 15o years or so, and what massive amounts of bullshit floating around out there claiming to be marxist. It has not yet been fashionable in the internet age, but when it arrives, the idiocy will be mildly entertaining, and vastly annoying. (My article about intersectionality turned out to be very positive about the venture. I learned a lot.)

 

[toggle]

I would recommend reading Kimberle Crenshaw and bell hooks on this subject. They are right on.

where would you suggest i start with crenshaw's books/papers?

 

[Odrade]

I think this is the best start. This is where it all starts out - it´s long, but totally worth the read.

 

[toggle]

I think this is the best start. This is where it all starts out - it´s long, but totally worth the read.

not that long.....

 

[toggle]

I think this is the best start. This is where it all starts out - it´s long, but totally worth the read.

definately.

very useful link.

particularly in destroying the claims that intersectional analysis is not class conscious. it's not when its its done by the privilagettes, but is a key part of the actual theory

 

[Vintage Paw]

I came to it through Patricia Hill Collins' Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology, and a few snippets from some of her other books (since I was specifically researching intersectionality in African American fiction).

I've always been suspicious of the blanket statement that identity politics is dreadful. Identity politics and/or for want of a better term identification with an identity (or multiple identities) is a fact of our lives. Better to engage with how identities are constructed and constituted and understand how they intersect with class than ignore they are a reality because you wish it wasn't so. They are how a large number of people understand their realities, and they are how structures and systems of power work on us. You don't abolish that kind of identification by sticking your fingers in your ears and ignoring it. Nor by just saying, "it's shit." Just like intersectionality is practiced in some not great ways, so too is the idea of identity politics (since they're linked). But in my very simplistic mind, at its root it's about providing a way to describe different social locations people find themselves in, with intersectionality further describing and investigating how those locations, well, intersect to produce unique places that require more understanding than is given when assuming everyone inhabits the same location and will have the same needs and the same things acting upon them.

 

[Dowie]

Can anyone give me a few pointers on the main issues with it, standard lines that are trotted out and good rebuttal's to those lines?

eh? sorry but this seems like the completely wrong approach - if you instinctively think something is wrong but you can't put together a coherent argument as to why you believe that then maybe you should question your initial instincts and re-evaluate your position

asking for canned arguments in favour of some position you've arrived at though your own instinct and personal bias probably isn't a good approach

 

[Jon-of-arc]

eh? sorry but this seems like the completely wrong approach - if you instinctively think something is wrong but you can't put together a coherent argument as to why you believe that then maybe you should question your initial instincts and re-evaluate your position

asking for canned arguments in favour of some position you've arrived at though your own instinct and personal bias probably isn't a good approach

Your probably right bruv. Was lazy posting on my behalf. Just seeing shit on Facebook and wanting it challenged on urban. The two don't mix. Lives and learns, donchya?

 

[Jon-of-arc]

It was lazy posting on my behalf, and perhaps I misunderstood the term I was using to describe a certain sort of aggressive, identity led, combatitive posting style I think many of us have seen in various forums over recent months/years, but I guess the question that the thing that i want to ask is how do I challenge certain posters who will instinctively tell me that I am not in a position to challenge them because as a white middle class male my perspective is too clouded by privilege to have any opinions of worth on the matters that they often deem themselves arbiters of theory and practice on. Bahar, and people who stand with her. Those sorts of twats.

 

[SpookyFrank]

... but I guess the question that the thing that i want to ask is how do I challenge certain posters who will instinctively tell me that I am not in a position to challenge them because as a white middle class male my perspective is too clouded by privilege to have any opinions of worth on the matters that they often deem themselves arbiters of theory and practice on.

It depends on the subject at hand. If you're offering an opinion on something you're genuinely less equipped to understand than someone else, like the experience of women in society for example, then it's entirely fair for others to feel that their opinions should carry more weight. If you're talking about something you do understand well, you can still talk about it in a patronising or demeaning way. So there's another reason people might object to your opinions.

To be honest I doubt it's the case that nothing you say is taken seriously because you're a middle class white male. I too am a middle class white male and I find that almost everyone is happy to listen to me provided I am respectful, I listen when other people talk and I don't try to tell people about stuff they know better than I do. I really don't think I've ever been ignored or shouted down just because I'm a white man or whatever. That doesn't happen to middle class white men, but it does happen to everyone else in some form or another.

Basically, any middle class white man who thinks himself in anyway mistreated because of his station in life needs to take his head out of his arsehole.

 

[Citizen66]

It was lazy posting on my behalf, and perhaps I misunderstood the term I was using to describe a certain sort of aggressive, identity led, combatitive posting style I think many of us have seen in various forums over recent months/years, but I guess the question that the thing that i want to ask is how do I challenge certain posters who will instinctively tell me that I am not in a position to challenge them because as a white middle class male my perspective is too clouded by privilege to have any opinions of worth on the matters that they often deem themselves arbiters of theory and practice on. Bahar, and people who stand with her. Those sorts of twats.

Tell them you're actually working class, gay and Irish.

 

[Citizen66]

It depends on the subject at hand. If you're offering an opinion on something you're genuinely less equipped to understand than someone else, like the experience of women in society for example, then it's entirely fair for others to feel that their opinions should carry more weight. If you're talking about something you do understand well, you can still talk about it in a patronising or demeaning way. So there's another reason people might object to your opinions.

To be honest I doubt it's the case that nothing you say is taken seriously because you're a middle class white male. I too am a middle class white male and I find that almost everyone is happy to listen to me provided I am respectful, I listen when other people talk and I don't try to tell people about stuff they know better than I do. I really don't think I've ever been ignored or shouted down just because I'm a white man or whatever. That doesn't happen to middle class white men, but it does happen to everyone else in some form or another.

Basically, any middle class white man who thinks himself in anyway mistreated because of his station in life needs to take his head out of his arsehole.

Out of curiosity, is anyone involved with intersectionalism not middle to upper class?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Out of curiosity, is anyone involved with intersectionalism not middle to upper class?

Go back and read all the posts about what 'intersectionalism' means and where the idea of it comes from.

 

[Citizen66]

Go back and read all the posts about what 'intersectionalism' means and where the idea of it comes from.

I know what it means and where it comes from. Actually it has been pointed out that I mix it up with safer spaces, but it means the same to me. My limited knowledge of it thus far is that it's practiced in Goldsmiths and practiced in Yale.