sexgenderbody

Classist justice

myintersection:

Far too often, I’ve heard radical queers and feminists, in their hipster garb, talking their academic jargon about checking one’s privilege and being accountable, and in the same breath mocking poor people. It’s not always explicit. Actually, in social justice circles, it hardly ever is. Many of you know not to say words like ghetto or white trash, or at least I hope you do, because of its classist and racist implications, but that seems to be where the anti-classist work stops. So, let me help you.

• Every time you push your vegan/vegetarian/pescatarian diet on people, remember that your diet is a privilege that doesn’t make you superior or more of an environmentalist, food justice champion, animal lover or good human. I know you know about food deserts. Well, you don’t have to live in one to not be able to afford to have a restrictive diet.
• Furthermore, poor folks went green along ass time ago. I don’t get why you feel so special about your mason jars and bicycles. Oh good for you for taking the bus when you could’ve driven. Do you want a vegan gluten-free cookie?
• Yes, Wal-Mart is evil. So, is Urban Outfitters. Get over yourself. The only reason why Wal-Mart is singled out is because poor people shop there and it is easier to distance yourself from the problem. So, stop judging poor consumers who are just trying to feed and clothe their families, and start working to dismantle capitalism, or at least organize for workers’ rights (preferably in a non savior complex kinda way).
• Your shitty college dorm room, apartment or shared house, does not make you poor, neither does shopping at Good Will.
• There is a difference between being broke and poor, much like the difference between acute and chronic pain. Learn the difference. 
• For those of you who do work with poor folks, you are not special, and you are not a savior. Like I said before, drop the savior routine. It makes a big difference when you take the cues from the communities you are serving. And, just because someone isn’t a college educated career activist, doesn’t mean they don’t know what is best for them and their communities. So, don’t be a condescending ass when people don’t talk like you, and practice some real nonjudgmental allyship.
• Pro tip: classy, trashy, hood, ghetto, dangerous/sketchy/seedy (in reference to poor PoC neighborhoods), white trash, etc are all really classist terms and hella racist too. Think about it, why do we specify that the trash is white? Because all other trash must be brown, right? If you don’t have a claim to these words, don’t use them. 

Anyway, the examples could go on, and if anyone wants to add onto this, please do. I just don’t understand how a community that prides itself on fighting body-shaming and slut-shaming, could be so unequivocally class-shaming. In your own words, you better check your privilege.

How To Speak Of Sex-Selective Abortions In India Without Being A Racist Douchefuck.

With 2012 creeping in, it’s going to be a matter of time before feminist blogs from the Eur-Am belt are going to be worried about the declining child sex ratio — for the two weeks it takes to earn the year long ‘intersectionality badge’ — and it’s better to get certain facts straight before anyone *anywhere* starts to express grief and outrage over the number of missing girl children. 

— The census data is tweaked, sometimes there are whole communities who are not accounted for (that’s a whole another post on its own). Point is, even the data collected by the census is not free of its biases. 

— Having said that, it’s extremely important to not conflate sex-ratio with child sex ratio (children from 0-6 years to be precise). Sex ratio talks about females per 1000 men and child sex ratio counts the number of girl children (between ages of 0 to 6 years) per thousand boys. All of this data is in percentile, so if the stats show a drop of two points, these two points translate to thousands if not lakhs of people. 

— Due to better health care, better access to technology sex ratio shows an upward trend, i.e. women’s life expectancy is better, less maternal mortality rates. However, even in states that show high sex-ratio (like Kerala, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Nagaland etc), their child sex-ratio show a visible and sharp decline in the last decade alone. 

How to make sense of this data: 

— ‘Son preference’ is not a new phenomenon, not here or in any other part of the world. It’s not a surprise that structures accommodate and prioritise sons; it’s a little frustrating when people pigeonhole India to a land that craves sons and ignore that across the world the imagination of an “ideal” family has a son (one son and one daughter, or two sons. Rarely do we see two daughters as a prototype of an ‘ideal family’). 

— Calling sex-selective abortions “female feticide” collides with very dangerous terrain and language pro-lifers use. ‘Feticide’ incorporates notions of murder of the fetus (and already the fetus is imagined into forms and discourses of personhood) and can be *extremely* easily co-opted to an anti-abortion campaign as many states right now are doing, where they argue that access to the right to abortion should be revoked to “correct” the skewed data. 

— In regions and states abortion, sonographies and other reproductive technologies are expensive, many communities practice infanticide. While the stories are true and disturbing (no matter whatever mode of infanticide is practicing), it’s important to place these stories in the contexts they belong to. In the early 70’s, the Govt of India came out with a population control scheme mandating that every couple should have two children and now that’s reduced to one child per couple. If the ideal middle-class family imagines only one space for a child, it’s understandable** that people who think girl children are ‘expensive’ (education, dowry etc), they would prefer a son. 

— Any article/post on sex-selective abortions on India that do not engage meaningfully with the efforts and standpoint of the various women’s movements across India are a little above racialised condescension disguised as global solidarity. 

——-

**Understandable doesn’t mean I condone it. Rather, that it makes sense in the context it springs from. 

~ Other sgb editor. 

Privilege within communities working to lessen privilege

sexgenderbody:

Audre Lorde once spoke at a feminist conference, noting that she was the only black lesbian there and one of only two women of color.  She was pointing at privilege and exclusion within a group formed to remedy and address privilege and exclusion.  In this address, she pointed to the language and organizational structure adopted by feminists to address patriarchy was formed by patriarchy to reinforce patriarchy.  That language and organization are the “master’s tools” she speaks of and her assessment is that by using them, privilege will not be eliminated, but instead renewed and sustained.  

That metaphor has resonated with me since the very first time I heard it.  I started blogging for a number of reasons, including identifying, owning and interrupting privilege.  I have come to some conclusions which I will share in this post, namely:

- Privilege is always happening, in everyone’s life and in every group.

- I can only interrupt, acknowlege and impact my own privilege.  This seems to be true for us all.  It is also true for groups.

- Denial sustains and reinforces privilege and honesty creates an opportunity to interrupt privilege.

The very instant any group or community is formed or declared, exclusion and privilege are established and instituted.  

Exclusion: some people are in that group and some are not.  

Privilege: the group has leader(s) / former(s) / administrator(s) / public & private voice(s) in some form or another who agree to their ability to declare the identity of that group.  There is also privilege in the selection of new members to the group or the expulsion of current members.

This can be problematic for any group whose stated goal is to address or lessen privilege.  This is often a group whose members and lives are often largely defined by their experiences of having been excluded by privileged persons and groups.  How such an organization or group addresses its privilege and exclusion will impact how successful they are in their efforts to impact privilege elsewhere and as a group or individuals.

Privilege does not go away.  

It’s baked into the language we use, the roles and identities we exchange and learn, the laws of the land, the conventions of speaking and gathering, the eating of food, the drinking of water and the air we breathe.  Privilege is a companion to every life on this planet from birth to death.  

Privilege materializes in many forms: economic, power, race, gender, class, caste, age, education and a myriad of “pecking orders” drawn up formally and informally.  

No group, whether seeking to benefit from privilege or to mitigate it, exists without its own privilege dynamics.  It is perpetuated and reinforced by all group members no matter whether they act / speak or are silent, whether they know it or not.  There is no moment when we can remove privilege and announce

“OK, we fixed privilege, so let’s move on to the next item.”

That does not stop some groups from trying to do exactly that.  It seems to be human nature to want to declare that something is completed and finished.  I think this concept itself is a privileged assertion by a human mind to declare to the world (in a language only spoken by humans) that something has ended because we said so.  Our language allows and supports this concept to be accepted, desired and re-stated solely because we all agree that’s what it means.

So, if we cannot make privilege go away (and we can’t), then what are we to do about it if we find ourselves in a group who would like to lessen some negative aspects of privilege and / or exclusion?  

1. My first suggestion and I think, the most important is to embrace the existence of privilege and exclusion from the very start of the group identity.  

The only way to keep something in the open is to avoid hiding it.  Denial of privilege is an act of privilege.  How a group chooses to address its privilege and exclusion is the first choice that group makes upon forming.  Denying, omitting, forgetting about, not thinking about..privilege are actions and choices just the same as talking about and creating a strategy.    

Compare privilege in this example to the water around a ship.  The water is always leaking in and if the crew ignores, denies or rationalizes about the problem being people talking about the water , then the ship will sink.  The only strategy to keep the ship afloat is to build the boat from the onset to be actively managing water from leaks.  

If a group starts out knowing full well that it will be addressing and managing its own privilege and exclusion, the group is giving itself the best chance to impact, interrupt and mitigate the effects of privilege and exclusion.  It creates access for all group members and external voices to engage on this facet of the group when it arises.  A group building on honesty and open communication is likely to endure longer than one build on denial, dishonesty and deliberately ignoring its own actions.  

For groups attempting to address privilege elsewhere, this strategy has the added benefit of providing experience in building the vocabulary, communications, customs and conventions consistent with addressing privilege in the areas and objectives they focus upon.  This is not only “building a muscle”, this is building the muscle critical to such a group’s success.

It will not be easier to handle later.  There is no better time than the beginning to address privilege and exclusion.

Dealing with privilege and exclusion involves effort.  That same effort waits for the group if they address it later, but is compounded with all the additional effort of drawing group energy and time from its ongoing efforts, cleaning up past acts of privilege and exclusion that the group cannot tolerate in its new form, repairing or addressing the denied communications and relationships between internal and external persons regarding privilege and exclusion.  

Further compounding this is inviting people that were excluded before into a group that in every aspect was created to exclude them specifically.  Why would anyone want to join a group that has been excluding / ignoring / silencing them?

It may be compared to knowingly building a house wrong, then redesigning it, cleaning it and rebuilding it while living in it - rather than spending the effort to build it the way it needed to be the first time.

2. Everyone in the group participates in the establishment of privilege and exclusion.  The appointed representatives, administrators, leaders and the “audience” of listeners, members, supporters, volunteers.  The group must be thorough and clear in terms of what, where, how and by whom the manifestations of privilege and exclusion will be addressed and communicated.

The hierarchy of a group breaks the group into definitions which each carry their own group agreed values and roles.  However, the privilege is only maintained so long as the group agrees to the definitions.  So, it’s not just the speaker at the head of the room, but the butts in the chairs of the audience that listen to the speaker in the privileged terms that both speaker and audience agree to.  

Silence is consent.

When a group does not address privilege, this is just as active as any role performed by leader or appointed representative of the group.  In fact, it is the silence of the majority on the topic of privilege that reinforces the message to leadership that the group approves of not addressing its own privilege.   

3. Privilege and exclusion reside in language.  

Every word we use in our daily life has been created within a system of privilege and exclusion.  This is also true for concepts, behavioral conventions, cultural traditions, verbal cues, gestures, looks, group and individual behavior.  A smile, a wink, a handshake, a word, a phrase, the structure of a sentence, seating arrangements, rank, status, possessions, agreement, disagreement - all of these things are communicated in language.  It does not matter which language.

The languages we share today were created in social structures that had clear privilege levels and exclusions.  Those privileges shaped, informed and chose by inclusion only the words that furthered the survival of that privilege structure an omitted any language that did not.  

Even as we speak toward lessening privilege or exclusion, we are reinforcing it with the very words we speak, the gestures we use, the places we sit and the order in which we gather.  This is true of individuals and groups alike.

We are stuck with language.  It gives us everything.  We do have a choice in whether we address the role language plays in our understanding and creation of the world we live in.  Ignoring this is also a choice, a privilege and an action with consequences.

4. Results come after committed action.  

To quote Yoda:

“Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.”

Day in, day out - we choose how we deal with privilege.  Not all groups addressing privilege are starting from scratch.  I have encountered more than a few NGO’s, 501(c)3’s, blogs, magazines, educational institutions that have stated goals of addressing privilege which do not address their own privilege.  

When we look at the privilege we create and perpetuate, we will see the places where we see ourselves as different, where we fear others and where we enjoy the advantages of privilege.  We fear seeing this in ourselves and we fear being forced to own this in public - at least if we are investing our identity in unseating privilege elsewhere.

Conservative organizations often seek privilege out as a favorable outcome.  Groups  seeking to cement privilege and exclusion will often tell external critics to go “find their own group” and send them packing with a “fuck off”.  

 When a progressive / liberal / privilege facing group ignores external calls to its own privilege, it ends up delivering the same message as the conservatives but lacking the intellectual honesty.  The external complainants are led to believe that they are included, but left to figure out on their own that they have been excluded by a group claiming on the surface to be willing to address their concerns.

Whether they exist already or are starting from scratch, groups seeking to address and mitigate privilege will make their choices on how to deal with their own privilege and they will also live with the results.

In order for us to address privilege and effectively interrupt it, we must name it, know it, hold it out in the harsh light of day and in the process exposing our own blemishes.  Llinguistic privilige and exclusion are designed to flourish, prosper and perpetuate through silent assent and denial of existence…and not to your benefit.  I invite you to look at yourself, your groups and your language to see where these elements are playing out.  Look until you see what it costs you, those you know and the things that matter most to you.

We are not victims of language unless we ignore its singular role in defining who we are and who we are not.

Reblogging again for the day crowd. 

~The other SGB editor. 

Privilege within communities working to lessen privilege

Audre Lorde once spoke at a feminist conference, noting that she was the only black lesbian there and one of only two women of color.  She was pointing at privilege and exclusion within a group formed to remedy and address privilege and exclusion.  In this address, she pointed to the language and organizational structure adopted by feminists to address patriarchy was formed by patriarchy to reinforce patriarchy.  That language and organization are the “master’s tools” she speaks of and her assessment is that by using them, privilege will not be eliminated, but instead renewed and sustained.  

That metaphor has resonated with me since the very first time I heard it.  I started blogging for a number of reasons, including identifying, owning and interrupting privilege.  I have come to some conclusions which I will share in this post, namely:

- Privilege is always happening, in everyone’s life and in every group.

- I can only interrupt, acknowlege and impact my own privilege.  This seems to be true for us all.  It is also true for groups.

- Denial sustains and reinforces privilege and honesty creates an opportunity to interrupt privilege.

The very instant any group or community is formed or declared, exclusion and privilege are established and instituted.  

Exclusion: some people are in that group and some are not.  

Privilege: the group has leader(s) / former(s) / administrator(s) / public & private voice(s) in some form or another who agree to their ability to declare the identity of that group.  There is also privilege in the selection of new members to the group or the expulsion of current members.

This can be problematic for any group whose stated goal is to address or lessen privilege.  This is often a group whose members and lives are often largely defined by their experiences of having been excluded by privileged persons and groups.  How such an organization or group addresses its privilege and exclusion will impact how successful they are in their efforts to impact privilege elsewhere and as a group or individuals.

Privilege does not go away.  

It’s baked into the language we use, the roles and identities we exchange and learn, the laws of the land, the conventions of speaking and gathering, the eating of food, the drinking of water and the air we breathe.  Privilege is a companion to every life on this planet from birth to death.  

Privilege materializes in many forms: economic, power, race, gender, class, caste, age, education and a myriad of “pecking orders” drawn up formally and informally.  

No group, whether seeking to benefit from privilege or to mitigate it, exists without its own privilege dynamics.  It is perpetuated and reinforced by all group members no matter whether they act / speak or are silent, whether they know it or not.  There is no moment when we can remove privilege and announce

“OK, we fixed privilege, so let’s move on to the next item.”

That does not stop some groups from trying to do exactly that.  It seems to be human nature to want to declare that something is completed and finished.  I think this concept itself is a privileged assertion by a human mind to declare to the world (in a language only spoken by humans) that something has ended because we said so.  Our language allows and supports this concept to be accepted, desired and re-stated solely because we all agree that’s what it means.

So, if we cannot make privilege go away (and we can’t), then what are we to do about it if we find ourselves in a group who would like to lessen some negative aspects of privilege and / or exclusion?  

1. My first suggestion and I think, the most important is to embrace the existence of privilege and exclusion from the very start of the group identity.  

The only way to keep something in the open is to avoid hiding it.  Denial of privilege is an act of privilege.  How a group chooses to address its privilege and exclusion is the first choice that group makes upon forming.  Denying, omitting, forgetting about, not thinking about..privilege are actions and choices just the same as talking about and creating a strategy.    

Compare privilege in this example to the water around a ship.  The water is always leaking in and if the crew ignores, denies or rationalizes about the problem being people talking about the water , then the ship will sink.  The only strategy to keep the ship afloat is to build the boat from the onset to be actively managing water from leaks.  

If a group starts out knowing full well that it will be addressing and managing its own privilege and exclusion, the group is giving itself the best chance to impact, interrupt and mitigate the effects of privilege and exclusion.  It creates access for all group members and external voices to engage on this facet of the group when it arises.  A group building on honesty and open communication is likely to endure longer than one build on denial, dishonesty and deliberately ignoring its own actions.  

For groups attempting to address privilege elsewhere, this strategy has the added benefit of providing experience in building the vocabulary, communications, customs and conventions consistent with addressing privilege in the areas and objectives they focus upon.  This is not only “building a muscle”, this is building the muscle critical to such a group’s success.

It will not be easier to handle later.  There is no better time than the beginning to address privilege and exclusion.

Dealing with privilege and exclusion involves effort.  That same effort waits for the group if they address it later, but is compounded with all the additional effort of drawing group energy and time from its ongoing efforts, cleaning up past acts of privilege and exclusion that the group cannot tolerate in its new form, repairing or addressing the denied communications and relationships between internal and external persons regarding privilege and exclusion.  

Further compounding this is inviting people that were excluded before into a group that in every aspect was created to exclude them specifically.  Why would anyone want to join a group that has been excluding / ignoring / silencing them?

It may be compared to knowingly building a house wrong, then redesigning it, cleaning it and rebuilding it while living in it - rather than spending the effort to build it the way it needed to be the first time.

2. Everyone in the group participates in the establishment of privilege and exclusion.  The appointed representatives, administrators, leaders and the “audience” of listeners, members, supporters, volunteers.  The group must be thorough and clear in terms of what, where, how and by whom the manifestations of privilege and exclusion will be addressed and communicated.

The hierarchy of a group breaks the group into definitions which each carry their own group agreed values and roles.  However, the privilege is only maintained so long as the group agrees to the definitions.  So, it’s not just the speaker at the head of the room, but the butts in the chairs of the audience that listen to the speaker in the privileged terms that both speaker and audience agree to.  

Silence is consent.

When a group does not address privilege, this is just as active as any role performed by leader or appointed representative of the group.  In fact, it is the silence of the majority on the topic of privilege that reinforces the message to leadership that the group approves of not addressing its own privilege.   

3. Privilege and exclusion reside in language.  

Every word we use in our daily life has been created within a system of privilege and exclusion.  This is also true for concepts, behavioral conventions, cultural traditions, verbal cues, gestures, looks, group and individual behavior.  A smile, a wink, a handshake, a word, a phrase, the structure of a sentence, seating arrangements, rank, status, possessions, agreement, disagreement - all of these things are communicated in language.  It does not matter which language.

The languages we share today were created in social structures that had clear privilege levels and exclusions.  Those privileges shaped, informed and chose by inclusion only the words that furthered the survival of that privilege structure an omitted any language that did not.  

Even as we speak toward lessening privilege or exclusion, we are reinforcing it with the very words we speak, the gestures we use, the places we sit and the order in which we gather.  This is true of individuals and groups alike.

We are stuck with language.  It gives us everything.  We do have a choice in whether we address the role language plays in our understanding and creation of the world we live in.  Ignoring this is also a choice, a privilege and an action with consequences.

4. Results come after committed action.  

To quote Yoda:

“Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.”

Day in, day out - we choose how we deal with privilege.  Not all groups addressing privilege are starting from scratch.  I have encountered more than a few NGO’s, 501(c)3’s, blogs, magazines, educational institutions that have stated goals of addressing privilege which do not address their own privilege.  

When we look at the privilege we create and perpetuate, we will see the places where we see ourselves as different, where we fear others and where we enjoy the advantages of privilege.  We fear seeing this in ourselves and we fear being forced to own this in public - at least if we are investing our identity in unseating privilege elsewhere.

Conservative organizations often seek privilege out as a favorable outcome.  Groups  seeking to cement privilege and exclusion will often tell external critics to go “find their own group” and send them packing with a “fuck off”.  

 When a progressive / liberal / privilege facing group ignores external calls to its own privilege, it ends up delivering the same message as the conservatives but lacking the intellectual honesty.  The external complainants are led to believe that they are included, but left to figure out on their own that they have been excluded by a group claiming on the surface to be willing to address their concerns.

Whether they exist already or are starting from scratch, groups seeking to address and mitigate privilege will make their choices on how to deal with their own privilege and they will also live with the results.

In order for us to address privilege and effectively interrupt it, we must name it, know it, hold it out in the harsh light of day and in the process exposing our own blemishes.  Llinguistic privilige and exclusion are designed to flourish, prosper and perpetuate through silent assent and denial of existence…and not to your benefit.  I invite you to look at yourself, your groups and your language to see where these elements are playing out.  Look until you see what it costs you, those you know and the things that matter most to you.

We are not victims of language unless we ignore its singular role in defining who we are and who we are not.

musing on dr. who

I like my sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. as much as anyone else.  I even have read horridly sexist, racist tomes in the past and come to grow up / regret them.  I can accept that the original series had white, educated, British men as The Doctor.  It was the ‘60’s and sexism was in full swing on TV.  But, after all these years, cultural changes, evolving conversations about race, gender, identity and privilege, shows have evolved.  The Star Trek franchise branched out with female and black characters taking lead roles.  Battlestar Galactica was remade into entirely diverse casting and storylines. 

Yet Dr. Who continues to be a white, male who speaks like an Oxford physicist.  Why?  Will the fans run away if The Doctor’s next form is that of a fat, short Uighur woman?  It’s a British TV show, so the accent is understandable.  How about trans person?  Why not incorporate race & class into the storyline to illustrate how our individual and cultural assumptions shape our examination of the universe as we discover and experience it?  Is it the science and adventure they love or is it the patriarchy and imperialism of white male pax britannica?

A Critique of Anti-Assimilation, Part I

anothertheletter:

gravewisdom:

AKA “Why I hate the term ‘classism’”; “Why I hate inverted hierarchies” will be Part II

A really big, important concept in radical queer thought and struggle is Anti-Assimilation, which, at its most basic, is “we don’t want to elevate our position in the social order by becoming as much like the straights as possible”; clearly, there are a wide variety of possible positions that could be described as anti-assimilationist by that decision - from the communist position of “abolish the present state of things, the revolution is communization” to a very reformist view that just seeks to allow all genders, sexualities, expressions, etc, to be put on an equal footing. Between these two very different poles lie most people who would describe themselves as anti-assimilationist; in fact, I bet many who read this would point out that the very limited, reformist view of anti-assimilationism is not held by many who would use the term (which is true).

I feel that a lot of radical queers (and even anarcho-queer tendencies) tend to fall somewhere in the middle; there is the realization that things other than heteronormativity need to be abolished, but, there is a serious lack of class struggle content that stems from a poor understanding of very basic concepts we use when we speak of class struggle. The root misunderstanding is not getting what class is, which is a social relation, in particular, the relationship to the means of production.

At the most basic, we have the proletariat (the working class) that has no access to the means of making/acquiring the necessities of life, and thus must sell their labor power (go to work each day) so they can acquire said necessities, and we have the bourgeoisie (capitalists), who own the means of production, and buy the labor power of proletarians so that the labor is used to transform commodities into other commodities; they sell the commodities, and out of that, pay their workers some of the value of their labor and keep the rest of it. We call this last bit exploitation, as the capitalists take surplus (in the sense that the worker can survive to the next day on the value they are paid in wages) labor value from the workers. Sure, we can talk about stratifications in classes, petite vs. grande bourgeoisie, etc., but that’s really not important to the very basic understanding we’re going for here.

Okay, as time goes on, I’ll try not to repeat the prior paragraph too often in this blog, but it’s pretty central to the critique of the concept of “classism” and, if you come from an anti-oppression/social justice background, nothing like the definition of class you’ve seen over and over. That definition revolves around sociological factors: amount of education, type of work done, cultural cues, etc; often times we’ll see the small business owner and the office worker both placed in a “middle class” and “working class” as code for working poor. While stratifications within classes are meaningful and worth talking about, particularly those in the working class - they’re not the core of what class is about. By ignoring the relationship to the means of production, the sociological model of class naturalizes the capitalist organization of society.

The deployment of a sociological definition of class lets one talk about classism, the idea that class is nothing but systemic prejudices where there are a hierarchy of classes going on, each one privileged over the ones below it and oppressed by the ones beneath; and that class is reducible to something much like race or gender or sexuality, making it one more thing to try and undo oppression in, rather than abolish.

Thus, we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what class is leading to a massive strategic error in what to do about it. A strategic error that has us set aside the central goal of the communist movement: the working class, through its self-directed struggle, as a class stepping outside of capital and destroying it. We replace this with the much less inspiring goal of getting one social stratification to be nicer than another.

The more important effect of this, for purposes of this discussion, is that now class can be “safely” ignored for most or all of the time, or reduced to some anti-oppression speak. This allows us to construct an anti-assimilationist politic that doesn’t include whether mass organizations are mainly serving bourgeois interests or proletarian interests. For instance, two short critiques of the classic assimilationist LGBT organization, HRC.

First, the “classism” critique:

“HRC seems to really only represent the interests of white upper middle class gender normative cis lesbians and gays. I think it’s classist that even when they talk about the economic benefits of marriage, they assume either partner actually has health insurance. They don’t seem to present any options for queer youth who have difficult times in their families of origins and now have to resist the military being presented to them as a way out. As an organization, HRC is pretty classist.”

Now, a more class struggle critique:

“HRC is clearly an organization that represents bourgeois interests. Their agenda comes from the top down, and they don’t offer opportunities for working class queers to participate in decision making processes - just raise funds and market a brand. While marriage presents real economic benefits to some working class queers, the way HRC has made all queer struggle about marriage, and channeled that struggle into electoral and legal campaigns, where it is controlled by politicians and big law firms, has sapped a lot of the energy to struggle from a lot of working class queer communities, and taken away from attempts to gain survival and moderate term needs of working class queers: access to health care, strong self-organization of the working class to help protect ourselves from homophobia and transphobia in our workplaces and neighborhoods, networks of mutual support, and so on.”

In Part II, we’ll talk about how inverted hierarchies arise in anti-assimilationist politics, and how anti-assimilation often has no idea what it is struggling against.

Liberals/progressives/the Tumblr Social Justice Crew/etc. need to read this. 

Because so many people I follow have an incredibly flawed concept of what class is.

(Source: anarchistnews.org)

“Things I Don’t Have to Think About Today” by John Scalzi

Things I Don’t Have to Think About Today

Today I don’t have to think about those who hear “terrorist” when I speak my faith.
Today I don’t have to think about men who don’t believe no means no.
Today I don’t have to think about how the world is made for people who move differently than I do.
Today I don’t have to think about whether I’m married, depending on what state I’m in.
Today I don’t have to think about how I’m going to hail a cab past midnight.

Today I don’t have to think about whether store security is tailing me.
Today I don’t have to think about the look on the face of the person about to sit next to me on a plane.
Today I don’t have to think about eyes going to my chest first.
Today I don’t have to think about what people might think if they knew the medicines I took.
Today I don’t have to think about getting kicked out of a mall when I kiss my beloved hello.

Today I don’t have to think about if it’s safe to hold my beloved’s hand.
Today I don’t have to think about whether I’m being pulled over for anything other than speeding.
Today I don’t have to think about being classified as one of “those people.”
Today I don’t have to think about making less than someone else for the same job at the same place.
Today I don’t have to think about the people who stare, or the people who pretend I don’t exist.

Today I don’t have to think about managing pain that never goes away.
Today I don’t have to think about whether a stranger’s opinion of me would change if I showed them a picture of who I love.
Today I don’t have to think about the chance a store salesmen will ignore me to help someone else.
Today I don’t have to think about the people who’d consider torching my house of prayer a patriotic act.
Today I don’t have to think about a pharmacist telling me his conscience keeps him from filling my prescription.

Today I don’t have to think about being asked if I’m bleeding when I’m just having a bad day.
Today I don’t have to think about whether the one drug that lets me live my life will be taken off the market.
Today I don’t have to think about the odds of getting jumped at the bar I like to go to.
Today I don’t have to think about “vote fraud” theater showing up at my poll station.
Today I don’t have to think about turning on the news to see people planning to burn my holy book.

Today I don’t have to think about others demanding I apologize for hateful people who have nothing to do with me.
Today I don’t have to think about my child being seen as a detriment to my career.
Today I don’t have to think about the irony of people thinking I’m lucky because I can park close to the door.
Today I don’t have to think about memories of being bullied in high school.
Today I don’t have to think about being told to relax, it was just a joke.

Today I don’t have to think about whether someone thinks I’m in this country illegally.
Today I don’t have to think about those who believe that freedom of religion ends with mine.
Today I don’t have to think about how a half-starved 23-year-old being a cultural ideal affects my life.
Today I don’t have to think about how much my life is circumscribed by my body.
Today I don’t have to think about people wanting me cured of loving who I love.

Today I don’t have to think about those who view me an unfit parent because of who I love.
Today I don’t have to think about being told my kind don’t assimilate.
Today I don’t have to think about people blind to the intolerance of their belief lecturing me about my own.
Today I don’t have to think about my body as a political football.
Today I don’t have to think about how much my own needs wear on those I love.

Today I don’t have to think about explaining to others “what happened to me.”
Today I don’t have to think about politicians saying bigoted things about me to win votes.
Today I don’t have to think about those worried that one day people like me will be the majority.
Today I don’t have to think about someone using the name of my religion as a slur.
Today I don’t have to think about so many of the words for me controlling my own life being negatives.

Today I don’t have to think about still not being equal.
Today I don’t have to think about what it takes to keep going.
Today I don’t have to think about how much I still have to hide.
Today I don’t have to think about how much prejudice keeps hold.
Today I don’t have to think about how I’m meant to be grateful that people tolerate my kind.

Today I don’t have to think about all the things I don’t have to think about.
But today I will.

Who owns “up”?

We survive as a species when we question our assumptions.

Maps tell stories that favor the storyteller.

More such maps and thoughts about them.