Intersectionality

[J Ed]

Yeah, would be good to see them if you don't mind. Thank you.

Honestly, these examples aren't really all that out there or unusual, they aren't the worst, there is much worse out there. Politics beside, once you start looking into this stuff it's hard to know where it ends - people claiming to be oppressed because they are white people in black people's bodies or even people who claim that they are oppressed because they are actually elves. People who claim to have phantom tails...

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/27973/Egypt:+Faith+in+the+revolt

If you think Islamophobia is on a worrying rise in Europe, you should have seen the Egyptian Twitter-sphere during the week of the sit-in. Liberals and leftists were reacting in the most disgusting way

 

[tufty79]

I suppose if someone was forced to break kosher or halal cos of a regime like say in a jail where they were cunts it could be so. But surely that would just count as religious persecution

never heard a vegan complain about prison grub/police cell food? dietary oppression.

 

[J Ed]

also im can imagine lots of human resources departments adopting "non oppression practice" or whatever it is as a policy, cant you?

It's all so devoid of any actual substance you can appropriate (lol) it to anything really.

Take the 'culture not a costume' thing from the blog I linked above. Here's the far-right take on that

 

[frogwoman]

It's all so devoid of any actual substance you can appropriate (lol) it to anything really.

Take the 'culture not a costume' thing from the blog I linked above. Here's the far-right take on that

ugh

 

[BigTom]

I think people should make this explicit in criticism.

This is p&p not theory/philosophy/history so discussion here should be about real world practice not academic theories, it's the people discussing from academic references that should make that explicit, not the other way round!

Honestly, these examples aren't really all that out there or unusual, they aren't the worst, there is much worse out there. Politics beside, once you start looking into this stuff it's hard to know where it ends - people claiming to be oppressed because they are white people in black people's bodies or even people who claim that they are oppressed because they are actually elves. People who claim to have phantom tails...

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/27973/Egypt: Faith in the revolt

Except she explicitly says that she doesn't think a white person having a mohawk is racist, but that it is oppressive towards native americans and damages anti-racism:

So i’ve been asked “Does this mean that wearing Mohawk is racist?” Well, I don’t think that was what the zine was trying to say; the zine is talking about how cultural appropriation is received and how it could affect the anti-racist movement:

By wearing “Mohawks” and dreadlocks, white people demonstrate they are unaware of anti-racist struggles and deteriorate trust between white people and people of color/non-white people.

Being an anti-racist white person is counter-culture. Trying to present a countercultural image by appropriating other cultures is not.

I still think it's pretty it's not as bad as this image, which I've only seen intersectionalists post in earnest:

 

[Wilf]

Also, anyone up for forming an intersectional metal band called "Axes of Oppression"?

At the end of each gig they'll deconstruct the drum kit (inc. the symbols natch).

 

[Wilf]

What about liking/not liking Phil Collins? I'm just keen to sneak a binary in that puts some distance between me and Stephen Gerrard.

 

[cesare]

also im can imagine lots of human resources departments adopting "non oppression practice" or whatever it is as a policy, cant you?

I doubt it. It's hard enough to get them to include no discrimination on the grounds of non/membership of a trade union & ex-offenders. As little as they can get away with on the grounds of not providing possible grounds for complaints if a line manager fucks up.

 

[belboid]

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/27973/Egypt: Faith in the revolt

that isnt 'accusing Muslim liberals/non Salafis of Islamophobia for criticising Salafism'

 

[JimW]

What about liking/not liking Phil Collins? I'm just keen to sneak a binary in that puts some distance between me and Stephen Gerrard.

Trouble is, not liking him is both a pleasure and a privilege, and arguably in fact a duty.

 

[J Ed]

that isnt 'accusing Muslim liberals/non Salafis of Islamophobia for criticising Salafism'

Okay, sure, the Muslim Brotherhood isn't Salafist, Islamist would have been the right word to use, it is still just as ridiculous.

 

[belboid]

it isn't really. but thats another thread

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

What about liking/not liking Phil Collins? I'm just keen to sneak a binary in that puts some distance between me and Stephen Gerrard.

How about 'would get done for beating someone up in a bar' v 'seemingly immune from the law.'

 

[Wilf]

How about 'would get done for beating someone up in a bar' v 'seemingly immune from the law.'

I like that, but my team of theoreticians are going with 'punches DJ just of camera shot' v 'doesn't'.

 

[frogwoman]

I doubt it. It's hard enough to get them to include no discrimination on the grounds of non/membership of a trade union & ex-offenders. As little as they can get away with on the grounds of not providing possible grounds for complaints if a line manager fucks up.

i didnt really mean adopt it, but just pretend to

btw this the fash equivalent of intersectionality?

 

[SpineyNorman]

Is being a hippy a privilege or an oppression?

 

[tufty79]

Is being a hippy a privilege or an oppression?

it's either an oppressive privilege or privileged oppression.
don't choose the wrong one though - they'll kick you out the movement

 

[frogwoman]

time to check your privilege with that "a fist a boot and a baseball bat" song tufty79

 

[tufty79]

time to check your privilege with that "a fist a boot and a baseball bat" song tufty79

it's on my 'got arrested privilege' playlist

 

[SpineyNorman]

it's either an oppressive privilege or privileged oppression.
don't choose the wrong one though - they'll kick you out the movement

Shame, I was hoping it was an oppression cos they fucking deserve it

 

[FNG]

This is p&p not theory/philosophy/history so discussion here should be about real world practice not academic theories, it's the people discussing from academic references that should make that explicit, not the other way round!


Except she explicitly says that she doesn't think a white person having a mohawk is racist, but that it is oppressive towards native americans and damages anti-racism:



I still think it's pretty it's not as bad as this image, which I've only seen intersectionalists post in earnest:

There is only one way to trump that image in Intersecioanalist top trump

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Sorry if I was a bit off.

I was sceptical that intersectionality sees things as universals. Nobody has so far provided anything to back up this claim.

I just think, of course this type of thing matters. Why are most anti-fascists/ hard-left/ anarchists white? It's something I've always wondered.

Are they...worldwide?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Idris2002]

vampires go last because they are always white aristocrats

You reckon?

 

[ViolentPanda]

so, in summary, Intersectionality is:

• a series of trite binaries
• reducing the complex spectrum of human experience to some bad labels that we should all wag our finger and tut-tut at
• a shouty all-placard-no-practice political profile, somehow hoping that lived experience can be fitted to slogans just by shouting a lot and fapping out 2,000 words of unreadable guff, daily, on a blog
  
• the latest mechanism by which white middle class students and liberal academics can somehow delude themselves that they are "on the right side" in a sharply polarising world
• a theory and set of notions founded purely in western universities and by fellow-travelling commentariat, with little profile or application outside those marginal subsets of the Venn diagram
• an oh-so-convenient "cutting edge" platform on which to build an academic career (the fact that it seems to be regurgitated identity politics shite from the worst of the 1980s won't matter, if it attracts research funding and Masters fees)
• the "professionalising" of notions of privilege by, er, privileged professionals
  
• a hilarious inversion of actual vs imagined significance
• a further means of shutting down debate in terms of shrieking disapproval of some "heresy", rather than engaging with the content of said alleged heresy.

Isn't it better just to leave people like this, who usually have the luxury of Being Right On Twitter sixteen hours a day, to it? It's not like anyone outside their marginal sphere of influence is paying any attention.

I mean, really.

The problem arises when that marginal sphere of influence expands. We used to think that identity politics would never take hold back in the '80s in any significant way, but it did, and we're still living with the consequences both for mainstream politics and for individuals and communities. Best to slay the dragon now, not wait around for it to raise a brood.

 

[ViolentPanda]

(Inter)sectionality
Strong and warm and wild and free...

Damn you and Frogwoman! I've had Billy Bragg singing that in my head for 2 days now!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think people should make this explicit in criticism.

Because not being able to cite Vries on intersectional identities, or Crenshaw on intersecting oppressions makes your criticism entirely invalid, doesn't it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

The picture that is painted of intersectionalism is so absurd that I make the assumption it's a parody. A brief google seems to back this up.

Are you not going to give me a list unless I give you a list?

Being somewhat of a social scientist (by qualifications, if not by employment), I can state (having actually read a double handful of supposedly-seminal texts cited by intersectionistas in the commentariat) that the picture painted accurately reflects the political USE to which intersectional issues are put by some in academe, and by those of the commenteriat purporting to have a grasp of these issues.
The thing is, most of the texts cited deal with specifics of intersecting identities in particular populations, and the knowledge produced isn't really transferable to a "general law of intersection" in the way that many pundits imply.

 

[coley]

Jeez, this thread has left me brain hurting, thanks to steepljack@ for the only post that made any sense to me

 

[andysays]

Honestly, these examples aren't really all that out there or unusual, they aren't the worst, there is much worse out there...

http://marxistqueen.wordpress.com/2...g-the-struggle-of-native-american-liberation/

Is there any irony in the title of MarxistQueen?

I can't see any myself, but maybe it's a sign that I need to change the batteries in my detector (again!)

If not, maybe someone should critique the author for oppressing the aristocracy by appropriating the language of their traditional practice, under attack as it now is by the cultural genocide of democracy...

 

[DotCommunist]

Jeez, this thread has left me brain hurting, thanks to steepljack@ for the only post that made any sense to me

this is what passes for politics among the commentariat