blev

redlightpolitics:

I see this cutesy thing (no doubt with good intentions) claiming that “today we are all Libyan”.

Not only we are not all Libyan but we all hold a degree of responsibility in the oppression of Libyan people. If you live anywhere in the Western world (as I do), you have…

Yes.

Thank you for this.

This is especially important to articulate in the face of comments like “reblogging stories about Libya makes me realize how lucky I am (to be American) /that even if I think my life is bad, someone else’s is worse.” Less sympathy grounded in racist colonialist and culturally imperialist attitudes and more analysis with understanding of how oppression and privilege actually function in today’s transnational neoliberal economies, please.

posted so I can find this article when I need it

Also for those of you who followed my honors thesis at all last year on the museum of immigration in France (covers 2 centuries of immigration in France, basically starting at the creation of nation states and citizenship, and therefore the invention of national borders across which people started to be regulated), I mentioned in my defense that one of the models for the French museum was the museum at Ellis Island, which was pretty limited in scope and function, but this here proposed museum in Washington DC (a National Museum of the American People) would cover 20 centuries of migrations in America, which has interesting implications for the way national history/identity/legacy could be articulated. So that’s a cool thing. Potentially. Also here’s the link to the group proposing this: http://www.nmap2015.com/index.html

This is interesting and important but not without its problems. I take issue with several claims/implied ideas at various points in this post, but these points don’t tend to be central to the argument she’s making here. Things that I think about:

• Is it characteristic of “third wave feminism”/post-identity politics to use testimony as a political/activist/critical text, and how is this new and how is it functioning within the intersections of academia and activism? I’m thinking about how many third wave anthologies (Off Our Backs, That’s Revolting, Listen Up, etc.) rely heavily on writings that blend personal experience and reflections with criticism/critical thinking and political/activist discourses, so then I’m curious about how these writings are used 1) by the writers (as processes of self-articulation, as manifesta, as theraputic/personal, as public, and (as I assume some of these came from undergrad work) as academic; 2) by readers with various relations to this group of writers (fellow feminists/scholars/activists, the “general public”). 
• How can I approach this in a way that is both critical and responsible, i.e. taking into account my position of privilege relative to the writer in this instance, without using my privilege as a way to assume that I have thoughts that are right, thus invalidating some of her claims, but without failing to react critically to points that I find problematic and uncomfortable (for instance, the way she seems to assume that “rednecks” are somehow inherently/more likely to be more racist than “(white) punk rockers”)?
• Considering these things that are true: 1) People in marginalized positions with regard specifically to a group working towards social justice should not be responsible for educating privileged people about their privilege, 2) Nor should these same people be held more accountable for their actions by virtue of the fact that they, as marginalized people, should “know better,” 3) “Inclusivity” is never inclusive enough; marginalized folks need to be at the center of activism, and 4) It is not okay for (especially privileged) folks to talk about issues that are not their own without the intervention/participation of those for whom they are issues (this is Susan Stryker’s idea) : in what ways am I (privileged in most ways) allowed to study/be activist about questions which I see as central to a thorough, coherent, radical critique of the way things are, without myself having the personal experiences that inform those questions? (I seem to have a lot of feelings about this, maybe I should write a thing that is less vague)
• Lastly, and this may be the only thing that is specifically related to this person’s post: She ends on a really interesting articulation of identity here: “Punk rock is mine, too. I am not a black punk - I am black, and I like punk. The two are mutually exclusive, and if you must use one, don’t use the other.” This seems to fly in the face of a lot of intersectionality discourse, and I’m interested in why. Is it because “punk” as an identity implies more of a choice than identities like race, ability, gender, sexuality? (Bad/complicated question also because I have more complicated feelings about the place of choice in gender and sexual identities). I guess she is also talking about “punk” as a thing that one can “own” and “like” (a commodity), but also in her post she elaborates on how punk is a movement or a culture with a particular set of ideologies and principles, and which makes assumptions/assertions about itself and “the rest” of society, which seems to me to function very much like identity politics.

So I guess all my thoughts are questions. Hello brain. Maybe I should not do this when I have class in an hour and I haven’t looked at the reading yet.