Anarchocyclist

I don’t feel particularly talkative today, but i’ve read a few blog postings that i thought were really insightful and interesting. I’ll post a few snippets below, but i recommend you check out the full text of each of them. They’re all on the theme of oppression (such as white-supremacy and patriarchy) being institutions rather than just individual flaws. Plus, it is possible to critique a behaviour as stemming from these institutionalized oppressions without it being a personal attack on someone. If i critique a racist behaviour that you did, it comes from an acknowledgment that we are all capable of such things rather than some idea that you are a hate-monger that is horrifically different than “us” magical non-racists or something.

First, an entire post from Yolanda at The Primary Contradiction:

In light of recent assertions and statements that I’ve encountered on comment threads, message boards, and in private conversations, I thought I’d just take a moment to relate the following observations:

1. You can be a good, decent, loving, caring person and be a white male supremacist.
2. You can be a hard-working, dedicated, self-sacrificing person and still have unearned privilege.
3. White male supremacy is a system of power, not a moral failing or an individual flaw.
4. Having a spouse of color and/or children of color does not make a person antiracist.
5. Working with, helping out, donating money to, or otherwise providing resources and services to people of color does not make a person antiracist.
6. Being a fan of, an expert on, or a scholar of Native American literature, Eastern religions, manga, Afro-Asian languages, jazz, reggae, anime, Bollywood cinema, hip-hop, or national liberation movements does not make a person antiracist.
7. Being a woman, lesbian, gay, transgendered, or poor DOES NOT negate one’s white and/or male privilege.
8. Even if most men are not rapists, 99% of rapes are committed by biological men. This is a political reality.
9. All human beings are equal. Men and women are not equal.
10. All human beings are equal. White people and people of color are not equal.
11. All human beings are equal. The rich and the poor are not equal.
12. One does not need to be a white person to be a white supremacist.
13. One does not need to be a man to be a misogynist.
14. One can be both antiracist and white supremacist (Example: yours truly).
15. One can be both feminist and misogynist (Example: yours truly).
16. Critique of privileged and/or oppressive behavior is not a personal attack.
17. Resistance to oppressive bevavior is not a personal attack.

And most important:

No matter how long you have lived, what you’ve experienced, what work you have done, you will never outgrow the need to change.

For those who might be confused by #14 and #15, Yolanda later clarified that although she is anti-racist and feminist, she cannot deny the effects of growing up in a white-supremecist misogynist society.

Next, a very interesting posting from Kai at Zuky called “The White Liberal Conundrum” (please go read the whole post):

Anti-racism is a rewarding but grueling journey which must be consciously undertaken and intrepidly pursued (both inwardly and outwardly) if one hopes to make serious progress along its twisting passageways and steep inclines. There’s no static end-condition at which an anti-racist can arrive and definitively declare, “Hallelujah! I am Not A Racist!” Rather, it’s a lifelong process of historical education, vigilant self-interrogation, personal growth, and socio-political agitation. Racism fractures our world and our own intactness; anti-racism seeks to proactively treat these bleeding wounds and restore the integrity of our humanity.

…

Countless blogospheric discussions on racism amply demonstrate the manner in which many white liberals start acting victimized and angry if anyone attempts to burst their racism-free bubble, oftentimes inexplicably bringing up non-white friends, lovers, adopted children, relatives, ancestors; dismissing, belittling, or obtusely misreading substantive historically-informed analysis of white supremacism as either “divisive rhetoric” or “flaming”; downplaying racism as an interpersonal social stigma and bad PR, rather than an overarching system of power under which we all live and which has socialized us all; and threatening to walk away from discussion if persons of color do not comform to a narrow white-centered comfort zone. Such people aren’t necessarily racists in the hate-crime sense of the word, but they are usually acting out social dynamics created by racism and replicating the racist social relationships they were conditioned since birth to replicate.

And finally, something i found on Slant Truth called The Common Elements of Oppression by Suzanne Pharr:

It is also important to remember that [the oppressing group] has to have institutional power. For instance, I often hear people say that they know people of color in this country who are racist. This is confusing racism with bigotry or prejudice or hatred. People of color simply do not have institutional power to back up their hatred or bigotry or prejudice and therefore cannot be deemed racist. In the same way, women do not have the power to institutionalize their prejudices against men, so there is no such thing as “reverse sexism.”

The full article is very interesting, if a bit long for a quick blog post. it seems that it’s actually an excerpt from a book: Suzanne Pharr, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism (Inverness, CA: Chardon Press, 1988) 52-64.

Ride hard, ride free

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 00:34 am and is filed under Front Page, MLP, Politics, gender, stuff to read. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.