Challenging Intersectionalist nonsense

[Jon-of-arc]

Yes she is. That was the basis of her book about class.

I think the last few posts have demonstrated the confusion. The founding text of the tradition was the legal stuff mentioned above (thoughts on a challenge to general motors) but has itself came from a series of prior battles, experiences and reflections on them.

The question emy asked is very relevant. And reading the document itself clears away so much...shit. I posted it on here before and begged people to read it but it doesn't seem many bothered given the round and round.

I think I did read it first time round, but what I (and, I think, others) have an issue with isn't what it was intended to be, but what it has become, or what people think it has become. I mean I really am absolutely all for oppressed groups taking the initiative and expecting my backing, and yeah, race and sex issues can be brought into play in class politics, preferably by those women and those ethnic groups that have been on the receiving end of the oppression. And I'm happy to take a back seat and listen when they tell me the issues that we need to confront. But then...

Don't worry lads we will give you and allies things to do.

FUCK OFF!

 

[butchersapron]

I think I did read it first time round, but what I (and, I think, others) have an issue with isn't what it was intended to be, but what it has become, or what people think it has become. I mean I really am absolutely all for oppressed groups taking the initiative and expecting my backing, and yeah, race and sex issues can be brought into play in class politics, preferably by those women and those ethnic groups that have been on the receiving end of the oppression. And I'm happy to take a back seat and listen when they tell me the issues that we need to confront. But then...



FUCK OFF!

I don't think that you have read it Jon. You seem to be imagining a polemical or similar piece. It isn't. Is nothing like you imagine. Reading it would make clear the gap between that and the use of the careerist individualistic opportunistic use (again, rarely read) by some posh people on the internet.

 

[toggle]

Fair point and I agree with you. I don't agree with top down trades unionism but if they're already established its sometimes all you have. My point was more that I don't see these big advocates of intersectionalism out on the street as part of the labour movement. Offering excuses of top down malpractice isn't a good enough excuse to not offer practical solidarity with those at the bottom.

no. it's not. and i am not rejecting the ideas of unions. but there are failures and the movement as a whole and its leaders need to address those failures, discuss them and why they happened. they need to fix the fucking problems that caused the failures. and discuss how they can do better.

and i don't think the loud advocates of intersectionalism are intersectionalist. they use it because it lets them claim to speak for others. ffs, go look at what ive said recently in the commentariat thread about that kind of shit, counting non-priv points. you and i are speaking from the same page on that.

but if you have a union movement, dominated by the least marginalised, then it's effectively repeating the same faults as identity politics. in alienating the people who most need support. in creating seperate interest groups, led by other more privilaged speakers, all clamouring for attention, to increace their own following.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

I don't think that you have read it Jon. You seem to be imagining a polemical or similar piece. It isn't. Is nothing like you imagine. Reading it would make clear the gap between that and the use of the careerist individualistic opportunistic use (again, rarely read) by some posh people on the internet.

I just went to down load it on my phone and it tells me I already have the file, so it's likely I started reading it when you first posted it. Whether I finished or not, I have no recollection. Will read over the next 24 and return to the thread.

Again though - I'm not sure I'm arguing with the theory, but with the expression of the theory as seen on t'internet in 2015. Will come back to this tomorrow, though.

 

[eoin_k]

Yes she is. That was the basis of her book about class.

I think the last few posts have demonstrated the confusion. The founding text of the tradition was the legal stuff mentioned above (thoughts on a challenge to general motors) but has itself came from a series of prior battles, experiences and reflections on them.

The question emy asked is very relevant. And reading the document itself clears away so much...shit. I posted it on here before and begged people to read it but it doesn't seem many bothered given the round and round.

You still got a link to the GM paper?

 

[toggle]

I just went to down load it on my phone and it tells me I already have the file, so it's likely I started reading it when you first posted it. Whether I finished or not, I have no recollection. Will read over the next 24 and return to the thread.

Again though - I'm not sure I'm arguing with the theory, but with the expression of the theory as seen on t'internet in 2015. Will come back to this tomorrow, though.

the loudest voices claiming to be intersectionalist have a vested interest in protecting a system that silences the marginalised. they collect claims of how they are oppressed, to claim further and further distance from the centers of power, to lend authority to their voices and increace their audience, salary and privilage. that isn't intersectionalism. that's identity politics. and it's frustrating bullshit that moves us further away from actually hearing and responding to the voices of the most marginalised, the peole who most need support.

suggest you go to the commentariat thread. and you will find a lot of people ripping 7 shades of shit out of that crap.

 

[butchersapron]

You still got a link to the GM paper?

Apols, I meant you earlier not emy. Yes I have but can't do it tonight, I assumed it was the same one linked to before (but not read).

 

[friendofdorothy]

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

Well if thats intersectionism thats what I supported back in 85 - but I didn't know it was intersectional. We were just trying to survive in a hostile world and do the right thing. Trade unions back then didn't give a shit about sexism or homophobia, just jobs for the boys. They have changed since, may be because of a load of women and queers did something.

I haven't read it but promise I will. What gets on my nerves is at a time when class organising is at an all time low, whilst attacks against the working class are at an all time high, is that this shit is being wheeled out and is something that the state doesn't fear as it fits perfectly with how liberal protest should form and be ineffective. Because as far as I can see this isn't happening in work places. It isn't happening in housing estates. It's happening in academia. What did that ever change?

I understand a lot of shit I we lived though is now accademic theory and is written and discussed about in queer theory or womens studies - maybe in universities around the world - which doesn't make it any less valid. It started in living rooms, meeting rooms and protests on the streets.

How many minimum wage, precarious employed people are even in a union these days? I dont think that any of my co-workers are, I mean I don't see unions seeking to include the low-paid, female immigrant workers. Are unions reaching out to them? Do the marginalised of our society have a voice in the unions? I'm a TU member but don't know much about the hierarchy or membership and feel fairly isolated. Class organising maybe at an all time low - and tory shits want to go further than Thatcher when she stomped on the unions in the 80s - but how is attacking this theory/set of ideas helping?

 

[Citizen66]

no. it's not. and i am not rejecting the ideas of unions. but there are failures and the movement as a whole and its leaders need to address those failures, discuss them and why they happened. they need to fix the fucking problems that caused the failures. and discuss how they can do better.

and i don't think the loud advocates of intersectionalism are intersectionalist. they use it because it lets them claim to speak for others. ffs, go look at what ive said recently in the commentariat thread about that kind of shit, counting non-priv points. you and i are speaking from the same page on that.

but if you have a union movement, dominated by the least marginalised, then it's effectively repeating the same faults as identity politics. in alienating the people who most need support. in creating seperate interest groups, led by other more privilaged speakers, all clamouring for attention, to increace their own following.

Tbf, the union rally last week didn't seem to contain any workers either. That was the Achilles Heel in my point. But I digress.

 

[Citizen66]

Well if thats intersectionism thats what I supported back in 85 - but I didn't know it was intersectional. We were just trying to survive in a hostile world and do the right thing. Trade unions back then didn't give a shit about sexism or homophobia, just jobs for the boys. They have changed since, may be because of a load of women and queers did something.


I understand a lot of shit I we lived though is now accademic theory and is written and discussed about in queer theory or womens studies - maybe in universities around the world - which doesn't make it any less valid. It started in living rooms, meeting rooms and protests on the streets.

How many minimum wage, precarious employed people are even in a union these days? I dont think that any of my co-workers are, I mean I don't see unions seeking to include the low-paid, female immigrant workers. Are unions reaching out to them? Do the marginalised of our society have a voice in the unions? I'm a TU member but don't know much about the hierarchy or membership and feel fairly isolated. Class organising maybe at an all time low - and tory shits want to go further than Thatcher when she stomped on the unions in the 80s - but how is attacking this theory/set of ideas helping?

That's a bit of a chicken and egg question tbh. Workers movements don't occur as top down entities otherwise they wouldn't occur. They become top down to control them. The same must be said for every other bottom up movement? Did Rosa Parks become a leader?

 

[Citizen66]

So you can't blame unions if there's no organisation in your workplace or neighbourhood. That blame belongs to yourself. People can help though.

 

[eoin_k]

the ideas came out of a the work of a black feminist collective,



The Combahee River Collective Statement

Thanks for the link to the Statement. There is a lot to agree with in there (e.g. the critique of radical feminism for essentialising gender difference and not dealing adequately with the relationship between sex, race, and class).

Hopefully, the rhetorical flourish with which the piece ends provoked a healthy debate at the time:

We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice. In her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful Robin Morgan writes:

I haven't the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power.

As Black feminists and Lesbians we know that we have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.

Are we meant to agree with the white, radical-feminist Morgan on this point?

I wonder how many working-class, white, heterosexual men (or their allies) read far enough to get irate and/or engage in a bit of self-criticism in response to that bombshell.

Crenshaw didn't carrying out research funded by the US military, as I suggested in my last post. The link is less direct. Here is the post that started me down that chain of thought years ago:

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

sihhi also displayed a bit of rhetorical flourish, but maybe this post also raises some issues that are worth exploring. Particularly, given that there seems to be more than a decade between this Statement and the different context in which the term intersectionality was coined.

Apols, I meant you earlier not emy. Yes I have but can't do it tonight, I assumed it was the same one linked to before (but not read).

There I was looking for a particularly insightful question raised by 'emy'. - But yeah, a link would be appreciated, as the only one I've spotted on this thread is about sexual violence against black women (which I will now read).

 

[butchersapron]

Crenshaw-Demarginalizing.pdf

 

[butchersapron]

I mean that's it. What else are we talking about?

 

[butchersapron]

You still got a link to the GM paper?

You asked the question (well, it was more than that, it was an attack on them and their arguments) about the author before reading the content right?

 

[eoin_k]

Yeah, I'm reading it now.

ETA i.e. Yeah I am reading it, the questions were genuine, rather than an 'attack'.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Nobody's heard of bell hooks. I work with students who I doubt have heard of Peter Hook, even. This stuff may well be useful in analysing one's place in the scheme of things and how multiple oppressions and pressures can work at once but it's really not well-known at all, and even among people who I HAVE seen who've known about it, it's been largely used in an oppression olympics kind of way.

I disagree. The fact of intersecting oppressions is well-known enough to be sociology "A" level material. Back in the day we used to refer to the intersection as "cross-cutting" or (perhaps more accurately) "cross-fertilising" oppressions. The difference between then and now, is that a sensible and rational way of talking about how different people experience some similar and some different oppressions, based on class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc, has been appropriated by some people who use their "collection" of oppressions in order to close down debate by those they see as less oppressed than they are.

 

[friendofdorothy]

So you can't blame unions if there's no organisation in your workplace or neighbourhood. That blame belongs to yourself. People can help though.

yet you blame others for not supporting the TU's demos...

 

[Orang Utan]

I disagree. The fact of intersecting oppressions is well-known enough to be sociology "A" level material. Back in the day we used to refer to the intersection as "cross-cutting" or (perhaps more accurately) "cross-fertilising" oppressions. The difference between then and now, is that a sensible and rational way of talking about how different people experience some similar and some different oppressions, based on class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc, has been appropriated by some people who use their "collection" of oppressions in order to close down debate by those they see as less oppressed than they are.

i've got kids' books at work that mention intersectionality in easy to understand detail

 

[J Ed]

Diversify These Workplaces!

 

[Pickman's model]

i've got kids' books at work that mention intersectionality in easy to understand detail

lucky you

e2a: i see we have some books on intersectionality too. but the titles don't sound too much like children's books.

 

[Pickman's model]

i've got kids' books at work that mention intersectionality in easy to understand detail

pm me an email and i will sent you gail lewis, 'celebrating intersectionality debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies', in european journal of women's studies 16:3 (2009), pp. 201-210.

 

[Sea Star]

Should she, as someone who was not in the same situation as you, have not given any advice at all? She was in a place of privilege, after all. Best to not speak at all...

There's something in the link about not advising queer/trans people to come out. Should one advise them not to come out? Should we just keep our opionions to ourselves?

Sure, sometimes advice is ill considered, may not take into account things you don't know, or know but don't fully understand as an issue, but that can happen no matter how privileged or not you are.

just let them know that if they come out you will support them. Coming out can wreck lives. Needs to be thought about!

 

[Orang Utan]

I think i'll give it a miss

 

[J Ed]

 

[Celyn]

Very strange little video.