Navigating New Identity Politics

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Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Luther Blissett » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:11 pm

As an anti-fascist and (yes, probably only as a result of privilege) pacifist all-around-trying-to-be a nice guy, I can find it disorienting that after all my time and effort devoted to activism and devoting my practice to ethical conduct to find that I would potentially be considered an oppressor to any endless number of groups. It's not something I've ever been directly accused of, but it's something I still consider on my travels. Having this PC check is kind of a good thing as it's taught me to avoid white saviorism and instead focus on a lot of the topics we cover here (mass power, oligarchy, organized pedophilia, the environment, wealth disparity, etc., i.e. those that privilege afford me the ability to tackle), but on the other hand, it's still a fascinating phenomenon. The piece below describes it far better than I ever could. And for something awful, follow the Something Awful link below that (actually not ALL that awful - some contributors offer a nuanced and informed critique).

I'd be interested in seeing some takes on this as it's something I've been seeing a lot of for the past half-year or so. I've been at turns encouraged and discouraged by it.

Pretending You’re Oppressed: The New Internet Fad
JUN. 12, 2012 By SHAE MCDONOVAN

On top blogging sites like Tumblr and Livejournal, the biggest new fandom is no longer anime or evening fantasy drama, but that of “SJ,” a nickname for “social justice,” which refers to discourse on equal rights and how to, essentially, be kind and respectful to all people. As a trans person of color, I have used these platforms as a means of communication, of activism, and a way to maintain my own sanity in one of the rare environments in which I can sometimes feel both safe and totally myself.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are many cases where it’s definitely needed. The recent shooting and death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman, who was initially let go on self-defense despite a recording of Martin screaming for his life and well-documented violence and racist comments, would be one of those cases. The still-existing legislation in the U.S. that makes it possible to fire transgender individuals for their gender identity would be another. There are legitimate issues that need to be addressed in our society, there’s no denying that. The need spawned things like Occupy Wall Street and SlutWalk, major movements evolving out of small internet conversations.

But as everyone on the internet knows, where there is light, there is dark.

What started as a movement by people who are suffering to try to help those of us who are privileged to understand their struggle has now become a mockery, hijacked by people whose only tangible shared problem could be described — and recognized by anyone with common sense — as social ineptitude.

They sit, watching equal rights discussions, hearing the terminology and logic, and take it for their own purposes. They quote famous activists far out of context to add that elusive air of legitimacy where it just doesn’t exist. By carefully and secretly treating their “fight” as equal to racism, transphobia, homophobia and classism, they worm their way into the real issues and cleverly tilt words designed to protect to disregard those who are at actual risk for losing their jobs and their lives.

The base of this false movement is “identity.” You’ve probably heard the term “identity politics” used to refer to people who believe that identity colors one’s experiences, and this idea is not without merit. Identity is an important concept, and is essential to the fighting of bigoted stereotypes and ideas about marginalized groups. It is very easy for people who have never lived or seen a certain kind of oppression personally to believe that it just doesn’t happen, even despite statistics. But people who seek to misuse the term take that concept all the way down the slippery slope. According to them, as long as someone identifies as something, it is true. No exceptions.

Think about that for a minute.

Do you identify as a butterfly? Then you are one. Do you identify as a pie? Then you are full of buttery, fruitilicious goodness. If you follow the “to each their own” philosophy, one could almost wave the basic idea as long as it didn’t interfere with, you know, reality. But this is the dark side of the internet, and it devours all common sense like a black hole eats light. And we’ve already crossed the event horizon. Anything not mainstream is “oppressed” in this wonderland. Wielding identity as a weapon, one can entirely remove themselves from personal responsibility for their part in harming others, and ultimately, any negativity at all.

Ever hear of otherkin, or otakukin? They refer to people who “identify” as animals or anime characters. I’m pretty open, do whatever you want as long as you’re not bugging me. According to some, though, lack of widespread acceptance of otherkin is contributing to mass otherkin oppression. Oh? Otherkin are being rounded up from their homes and killed? No? Are they being fired from jobs for being otherkin? Not that either, huh? Are they at least being disproportionately arrested and thrown in jail with sentences 60% longer than non-otherkin? Well then what IS going on? They’re… being ostracized on the internet. Oh.

But otherkin and their ilk have been around for ever. Try googling “Final Fantasy VII House.” Pick a time to read when you have a few free hours and a lot of booze. Now, there are newer, even more mockable “oppressions” coming out. You’ve heard of transgender and transsexual, let me introduce you to the new trans people: transabled and transethnic. Transabled people are disabled people hiding out in perfectly working bodies. They “identify” as blind, deaf, paraplegic and quadriplegic despite having never been so a day in their entire lives, and are well-known for talking about how hard it is to want to be disabled but unable to be. Transethnic people are white people who “identify” as a non-white race or ethnicity. They’re weeaboos multiplied by a million, with bonus “I learned about your culture in a book I read once so I know more than you.”

But not all the ridiculous “oppressions” are this out there. What normal people call “mild inconveniences,” some have blown up into full scale witch hunts. Like “kinky oppression.” The belief that people thinking your love of handcuffs in the bedroom is weird is exactly the same as getting beaten in the street for being gay, which leads to the coined term “vanilla privilege,” the preference and favoring of those who don’t engage in any kind of kink in society. Or “body mod oppression” and “goth oppression.” Oppression is just as easy as shopping for overpriced skull-themed clothing at Hot Topic, hopping down to the local tattoo parlor, and getting that box of two dollar head dye from the corner shop!

My personal favorite of these new, ridiculous “oppressions” is when people cross so far into this realm that, to them, the norm is oppressed. Fundamentalist Christians have been complaining about their supposed oppression for years, how they are now the ostracized and marginalized in our harsh modern society, and some people have decided to take a page out of their book.

“Demisexuality” is part of the “asexual” grouping. I’d tell you what it means, but demisexual people are confused about it too (and you’ll find about 100 conflicting definitions out there), so I’ll give my understanding. Demisexuality is when people only feel sexual desire for those whose personality they like, or to whom they are emotionally attracted. In other words, they make up most of the population. But they’re very oppressed, if you ask some of them. Oppressed how, exactly? No one knows, but you can’t expect them to provide any evidence. That would be wrong.

Personally, I think they all suffer from plain old “being boring” oppression. You know, the kind where you’re dull and you watch too much TV and you feel a desperate need to be cool, different, part of a group. One could almost say that “interesting” people are oppressive, flaunting their interestingness in your face, telling stories of suffering and pain, while you know you live in a comfortable 2-bedroom apartment your mom and dad paid for, drive in a car that you’ve never had to personally get fixed, and the most harassment you ever received in your life was being told you were weird that one time you wore neon orange lipstick and spandex to your junior prom in high school.

But besides being all very ridiculous, it does have a clear-cut, damaging effect to legitimate oppression, those where people are actually dying, becoming homeless, being forced into prostitution, and living in dire poverty, unable to get a hand up. When you take the words of those who truly suffer, not because they feel emotions while sitting in their middle-class home behind their thousand dollar computer, but because they spent 15 years in jail on a trumped up charge they didn’t even commit, and are now unable to get a job due to stigmatization that doesn’t apply across the board, those people now receive less of the sympathy and help they need to survive. For every person that complains that a disagreement on the internet about their catbunnyanimusparklegirl status triggers them (despite them continuing the argument until the wee hours of the morning), someone who is so triggered they can barely breathe, curled up, reliving trauma, is invalidated, ignored, and not provided what they need.

Ridicule the silly internet people, make fun of and dismiss their claims of oppression as not worth your time, but remember as you do that they’ve stolen from people who do need your help. Just because everyone is shouting at once doesn’t mean there aren’t still real voices to be heard.


Something Awful: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3485867
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby American Dream » Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:40 pm

Hmmm, sounds like some of these folks may be competing in the "Oppression Olympics" for reasons of their own. Yes, the personal is political but this suggests that our personal hurts lead back to deep power, to the institutional forces that frame and define our personal struggles, our individual experience and our (various) identities.

It should be about social change, not personal ego or anything like that. I don't want to be too quick to dismiss anyone one but would like to hear a coherent argument from some of these people regarding the social forces which may be leading to their "oppression"...



.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby kool maudit » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:41 pm

in whose interests might it be to develop a taste for oppression among the people?
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby 82_28 » Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:50 pm

I am a leftist but am totally apolitical with a view towards idealism minus the politics -- hence the hopeless idealism. Has it gotten me anywhere at all? No. But, my motto has always been, if I don't do it, then who will? Yet, it's certainly hindered "where I am in my life" and how "successful".

Like, the other day, I felt totally stupid doing it from the pangs of once being a teenager who would get made fun of for doing such a thing. I walked past it and then thought better and turned around. Yay me. Anyways, it started raining cats and dogs on my way to where I was going and this place that's going out of biz had a bunch of shit, clothing articles, outside on the sidewalk. Like Turkish fabrics and shit. I said fuck it. Turned around and went in to tell them of the storm that had just rolled in and that they should bring their shit inside (I think exact words too). They hadn't even noticed it.

I didn't want to do it, in the sense of, hella dorkiness. Though I've never shopped there, I just thought, man, this is gonna make me feel bad for the rest of the night, just because, you know?

What am I saying? I'm saying fuck these people who feel entitled. Just do the right thing, as unto others as you would have unto you. Conservatives who have bought the lie are the worst offenders because frankly, they're stupid, yet don't need a "nanny state" but are the self same beneficiaries of said nanny state. Liberals, as so they go too.

I may sound caustic at times, but my rule of thumb is just always be kind and selfless. Stick up for yourself as you would stick up for somebody else.

Overall though, people in this society are just mostly flakes anymore.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby DrVolin » Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:08 pm

I'm daily accused of being a fascist oppressor. I'm daily accused of being a dangerous radical anarchist. But by different people. I figure I must be doing something right. If one side stops attacking me, then I'll start to worry.
all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

--Guns and Roses
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Sepka » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:25 pm

The entire argument reminds me a great deal of the rationale one heard constantly in the 70s and 80s from black 'civil rights advocates' that white gays weren't really oppressed, since they could pass for straight people. This is basically gatekeeping. If too many people can claim marginalized status, then the power of that claim, both socially and politically, diminishes.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Luther Blissett » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:04 pm

American Dream wrote:Hmmm, sounds like some of these folks may be competing in the "Oppression Olympics" for reasons of their own. Yes, the personal is political but this suggests that our personal hurts lead back to deep power, to the institutional forces that frame and define our personal struggles, our individual experience and our (various) identities.

It should be about social change, not personal ego or anything like that. I don't want to be too quick to dismiss anyone one but would like to hear a coherent argument from some of these people regarding the social forces which may be leading to their "oppression"...



.


The Something Awful thread is really long and goes a great deal into both sides: individuals who have experienced real violence (in the social justice sense - violence of words, fists etc) as a result of their marginalized status and examples of those who haven't, couldn't, or wouldn't. An example would be the rich, straight teenager who identifies as an animal or something.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby American Dream » Thu Jun 14, 2012 8:37 am

Makes me think of this:
“Privilege politics”... is basically the argument that we need to dissect our various privileges and oppressions, stack them one on top of another and compare them to other individuals. The result will be a giant game of oppression olympics. +1 for POC, -1 for whites; +2 for gender variant, +1 for women, -1 for cisgender men; etc. Whoever gets the highest number gets to determine how everything will run. Anyone who challenges hir will be smashed. This makes accountability very difficult.


http://werehirwerequeer.wordpress.com/2 ... -politics/
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:24 am

Rich and white . . . and oppressed

As a rich, university-educated middle-class white guy, I do it tough. I am, dare I say it, oppressed. There, I said it, so I guess I do dare. Oppressed by shrill and difficult harpies like Germaine Greer, who by her own admission just the other day is only interested in my penis.

Oppressed by a horde of uppity little groups, and races and culture gangs who, having inconsiderately thrown off my rich, white forefathers' oppression of their poor, not-so-white forefathers and, er, foremothers, now seem intent on getting some payback.

I am oppressed by the end of a long, happy history of rich white guys just going out into the world and doing whatever they damn well please. (Well, it was happy for us.)
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Oppressed also by a generation of pushy, overeducated women who turned up on campus and took all the good marks, before turning up in the workplace and taking all the nice corner offices with their bloody hard work and attention to detail.

Oppressed by a whole raft of anti-discrimination laws that prevent me and the other rich white guys from getting together in the last bastion of our rich white guy clubs to bitch and moan about how tough we've got it these days.

But at least I'm not a super-rich white guy. Because then I'd be oppressed by Wayne Swan. Just for being all super-rich and awesome and not at all an officially oppressed minority. Then I would be Clive Palmer.

Clive it was — poor, brave, super-rich Clive — who finally called out our bullying Dalek of a Treasurer, for being all racist and sexist against rich white guys. Clive, and Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, and Gina Rinehart (who, yes, is technically not a rich white man, but what the hell, she gets two out of three), they're as mad as hell, as mad as all comparatively rich white guys, and they're not gonna take it any more.

"All Australians have an inherent right to be treated equally under the law," thundered Clive, "regardless of our race or means or where we live."

And as a guy who lives in a very large house, on top of a high hill in an expensive suburb, I can only add, "Huzzah, for you Clive Palmer, huzzah!"

At last someone is speaking up for those of us who can't afford our own multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns to choke the life out of any government that passes any law with which we don't agree or, say, a mining tax in Clive and Twiggy and Gina's case.

I frequently sit in the larger of my two home libraries, seething with impacted, indignant rage that I have to pay some tax every now and then while writers who are nowhere near as good as me, as evidenced by their subsistence incomes, poor blotchy skin and distended "famine bellies", pay nothing. That's right! Nothing. Because they're too poor!

I ask you, and Clive asks you, does this sound like a country where all of us have the inherent right to be treated equally under the law, regardless of our bank balances and exclusive postcodes?

"We are one nation," says my man Clive, "with a diverse and rich background."

Some of us less diverse and a bit more rich than others, but that's the price you pay for freedom, people. And I do mean you. We rich white guys tend to get comped. I sometimes think, and I'm sure Clive would agree, that guys like Swan would actually make us less diverse and rich if they were given half a chance.

How fortunate are we then — we "of means" anyway, rather than you "of colour", or "of no means at all, save for the coins down the back of the couch" — that Clive has stood forth to secure our interests by ranking them with those of the various oppressed?

"To classify people by their means, race, class or gender is not a substitute for robust discussion about ideas or solutions to pressing national problems," he declares, and quite right too.

Right now, I'd like a robust discussion of the problem I'm having with you lot putting your hands out to snatch my hard-earned airport novel dollars to pay for your substandard state schools and aged parents' hip replacements. There is an Apple TV coming soon, you know. And I've already taken down some of my minor Whiteleys and Olsens to create a space on the wall in the second lounge for it.

But if Clive and I have to keep paying for everything in this country, and getting no respect in return, well, by God, we might just take our whole gig offshore.

I was thinking Paris, in the northern spring.


http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion ... 1uixk.html
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:27 am

Oh and here's Clive Palmer's original article:

http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion ... 1ub09.html
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby crikkett » Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:33 am

Joe Hillshoist wrote:
...Oppressed by a horde of uppity little groups....


http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion ... 1uixk.html


This made me laugh. Using diminutives like 'uppity' and 'little' is taking privilege, so unless this was a satirical piece the guy doesn't get it. Also, 'a horde' shows the privileged class' fear of swarms.

And then the blog is titled "Blunt instrument." What does that show, fear of intellect?
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Luther Blissett » Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:51 am

crikkett wrote:
Joe Hillshoist wrote:
...Oppressed by a horde of uppity little groups....


http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion ... 1uixk.html


This made me laugh. Using diminutives like 'uppity' and 'little' is taking privilege, so unless this was a satirical piece the guy doesn't get it. Also, 'a horde' shows the privileged class' fear of swarms.

And then the blog is titled "Blunt instrument." What does that show, fear of intellect?


I don't know my way around Australian politics that well but I do have to believe that it's at least half-satire, or some kind of performance art. Can people still use "uppity" with a straight face? I always thought that was a needle-scratching term.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sun Jun 17, 2012 9:20 am

That John Birmingham article is definitely satire, tho he does have an ongoing feud with Germaine Greer.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby wordspeak2 » Sun Jun 17, 2012 9:21 am

Half-satire is how I read it. Thanks for the original piece. Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder.
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Re: Navigating New Identity Politics

Postby Luther Blissett » Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:13 pm

wordspeak2 wrote:Half-satire is how I read it. Thanks for the original piece. Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder.


Did you check out the Something Awful link after the article I posted? This list almost reads like what we might call a limited hangout for the patriarchy. Did you know that otherkin erasure contributes to the kyriarchy?

i believe it is important to investigate the systemic natures of oppressions in order to stop them. i am invested in recognizing and being accountable for my privileges and my fuckups, acknowledging and valuing and appreciating and validating marginalized identities, respecting complex intersections, and resisting, naming, challenging and overthrowing kyriarchy in its various forms.

some of the oppressions and systems that kyriarchy is composed of:
(some of these things are restated in different words, and this is by no means a complete list)
------------------->
ableism. abuse culture. academic elitism. ageism. adultism. ahistoricalism. allism. anthropocentrism. antisemitism. antiziganism. appropriation. asexual hate. atheist dogma. audism. authoritarian models and hierarchies. bdsm hate. binarism. body modifications hate. body policing. bullying. capitalism. cartesian dualism. casteism. christian supremacy. chronologism. cisgenderism. cissexism. classism. coercive diagnosis. colonialism. colorism. communalism. compulsory schooling. conservatism. cultural appropriation. cyber / online / internet culture hate. democracy. determinism. diet shaming. drug use enforcement. drug use & culture hate. educationism / educational institutionalism. elitism. enforced silencing. enforcing and policing dichotomies. enforcing attitudes. enforcing the self / body and self / mind dichotomies. environmental destruction. erasure. ethnicism. ethnocentrism. eurocentrism. evolutionary psychology. fascism. fat hate. food policing. fundamentalism. furry hate. gender policing. genderizations. genderqueer hate. generalizations. globalization. government ideology. grammar / spelling policing. gridmapping. GSM / GSAM (gender and (a)sexuality marginalized) hate. healthism. heightism. heteronormativity. heterosexism. hierarchalism. hindutva. hueism. imperialism. individualism. islam hate. jingoism. kink hate. kink policing. language(s) policing / imposition. liberalism. libertarianism. linearity. logocentrism. looksism. majority rule. marginalization. marriage as an enforced norm. militarism. misogyny. monoamorism. monogamism. monosexism. nation-state ideology. nationalism. nazism. neocolonialism. neoliberalism. nerd / geek hate. nonconsent culture. nonconsensual / coercive fetishization. nonconsensual / coercive sexualization. nonhuman hate. normativity. objectivism. oppression of undocumented beings. oppressive family structures. oppressive notions of science. oralism. orientalism. otherkin hate + erasure. parentism. patriotism. policing. policing selfhoods. privatization. progressivism. property ideology. queer hate. racism. surprise sex culture. rationalism. republicanism. religious / spiritual discrimination. reproductivism. revisionism. saffronization. scientific dogma. sectarianism. sex work hate + shaming. sexism. sexualism. shaming in general. singletism. sizism. speciesism. standardized work and education. statism. stealth shaming. stigmatization. the academic industrial complex. the adult / child dichotomy. the "all dichotomies must be false dichotomies" philosophy. the bigoted myth of neutrality. the prison industrial complex. therian hate. totalitarianism. transabled hate. transmisogyny. trans (*) hate. universalism. victim blaming. war. zionism.
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