06-19-2017, 10:41 AM
(06-18-2017, 12:21 PM)smc Wrote: your philosophy about "labels" is also a luxury you're able to have - because you're not in a targeted/villified group (I presume?)
sure - a world without 'labels' would be peaceful... but tell that to the haters - not the hated...(or their supporters)
Isn't it possible to simultaneously have compassion for the situation in which people find themselves without attributing to that situation some sort of special, absolute significance? Ultimately, all of the identities to which we cling, those that define us both socially and individually, are features of the map and not who we really are. There's a difference between seeing labels as constraints on another's identity and seeing labels as simply partial, incomplete expressions of it. And to the extent the "haters" cling to the former usage -- that all those victims were were gay people, and that because of that label it's ok to kill them without regard for their greater uniqueness and humanity -- I often wonder like the OP whether identity movements on the other side don't feed into this.
Now, I don't think it's my place to tell marginalized people how they must proceed in their own liberation. I do, however, believe that we all need a healthy dose of critical thinking (I've certainly appreciated yours, SMC). Pointing out a downside to an approach is an act of support, not of rejection, and there are downsides to identity politics as they are typically realized in our political context, downsides the OP accurately pointed out. And indeed I think much leftist activism suffers from thinking on purely tactical terms without a broader strategy, so that activist priorities seem to perpetually orbit the news cycle and reactions to the latest outrage, instead of building the groundwork for the world we wish to see emerge in the less public, more intimate spaces of our lives.
In my opinion, "pride" and identity movements serve their most valuable purpose when they are morale boosters for folks who have been historically downtrodden. What I would think we want to avoid is the old in-group/out-group sociology that seems to prevail throughout history, where former out-groups get power and just turn the tables and make the former in-group the new out-group. Thus while I recognize the appropriateness of a certain amount of "stridency" in the activism of marginalized populations, and while I think it's important that we let the marginalized know in concrete terms that our hearts are with them, I don't think that means we have to construct our politics as an exact replica of theirs. Yes, I have lots of luxuries, lots of privileges, and the point should be to work for a world where I necessarily give a lot of that up. But the only way to do this is to change structural factors, and while we celebrate other identities let's not let symbols trump material conditions.
I found this recent article really good on this point. Here's a great excerpt:
Quote:…you cannot be polite enough to black people, as a white person, to undermine white supremacy. You cannot be respectful enough to women, as a man, to dismantle patriarchy. You cannot celebrate LGBTQ people sufficiently, as a straight person, to reduce homophobia. Instead, tackling these things requires fighting for changes that will actually cause you real diminished status, as a member of a dominant group — reparations, equal pay laws, legalization of the undocumented.
I get that it's important to educate straight, white males on their blind spots, but let's not forget that that's a means to an end; me being a kinder, gentler holder of privilege isn't really going to change material conditions in a way that allows marginalized people to thrive on their own terms. Thanks for reading this!