#structures of oppression

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Konstantin Kisin: This is one of the biggest problems with the position that we now find ourselves in, which is that anyone who in any way challenges the radical progressive leftist narrative in any way is automatically right-wing.

A lot of these narratives, whether it's intersectionality or these structures of oppression, all this stuff, they don't actually have any logical or reasonable underpinning. And so the only way you can defend them, the only way you can defend them is by shutting down people who don't agree with you Because if you have a reasonable rational argument, their views crumble like a house of cards, because they're not built on anything. They're built on fallacious logic and just assertions without any basis in fact.

So that's why I think now the left, the radical left, not all of the left, but the radical left, have come to this place where they have to shut down and label and smear anyone who doesn't agree with them, because their ideas are not based on anything.

But it boggles my mind that we are now in a position, John, that freedom of speech, which is a fundamental cornerstone of Western civilization, has become a conservative value. That is an absolutely insane position to me as someone who came from a society where freedom of speech did not exist.

And when I came here, my parents essentially sacrificed their life savings to get me here, right? They didn't move over. They sent me to boarding school here with the only money that they had. The reason they did that is so that I could be in a free society. And to think that that happened and now this fundamental principle of this country is a marginal issue that supposedly is right-wing at best, it boggles the mind.

We had Lionel Shriver on my YouTube show called Triggernometry recently, and one of the points that she made is the word racist has been used so much and so inappropriately. That is why we now use terms like white supremacist, because being a racist is no longer enough. You have to take it up a notch, and that's why the word of white supremacy has come back. The point that she made, which I thought was brilliant, was that in her childhood, white supremacists were people that if you walked up to them and you said, are you a white supremacist? they'd be like, "hell yeah," right? That was what a white supremacist looked like. Now it's these people who are undercover and pretend they're not, apparently, this is what we're being told.

--

Full interview:

[curiousemwanders]

However, with chronic pain, which has no obvious external cause and becomes a part of the phenomenological self, when others react with disgust, it is as though they are reacting with disgust towards the individual with chronic pain. This is especially the case when combined with wider ableist social structures that reinforce the ‘better dead than disabled’ message underlying ‘sympathetic’ statements along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t be able to cope if I were like you’.

Using Pain, Living with Pain, in Feminist Review By Emma Sheppard

[svtfoecritical]

I feel like a poc of color or lgbtqia person can be a villain just like anyone else.It all just depends on how the story is written.And how well the character is written.People have to know that not everything is black and white it comes to people.We’re complex,there’s more to a person than what identify as or what race they are.I apologize in advance if this offended anyone.And I mean no harm to anyone’s else’s opinion.

“Poc” of color is a bit redundant dude, since poc already means “person of color”. Anyways, I know you don’t mean any harm, but you’re failing to see the big picture… 

In an ideal world we could ignore someone’s identity when casting a villain, because there would be no history of oppression and discrimination. But in the real world, lgbt+ people and poc have been cast as villains way too many times. Many villains/antagonists are que*r-coded (A LOT of Disney villains fall under this trope) or explicitly lgbt+. Poc have been relegated to the role of villains for a very long time, too. This demonization of minorities has contributed to their oppression, as mass media painted them in a negative light (that confirmed existing negative stereotypes or even created new ones) to the general population. Sure, people are complex, but our actions don’t exist in a vacuum: you can’t just ignore the issues people face/have faced. That’s why, say, people would be pissed - rightly so - if you decided to cast a lgbt+ woc as the villain against a cis, straight white male protagonist

[clovesmokeanddecaff]

On unacknowledged privilege

This passage from Sarah Schulman's "Gentrification of the Mind" has helped me think about when I might be thinking about something from a privileged position, but confusing it/ignoring that privilege by focusing on my own identity as a queer/woman. "This interview [with Andrew Sullivan] is stunning on so many levels. It is an illustration of classic supremacy ideology.

First, Mr Sullivan does not understand that he is being elevated by a structure of domination. He believes that the selection system is neutral and merit based, and that he naturally rises to the top because of his superiority. He sees no relationship between the content of his argument and the reward of access.

The second, most indelible element of supremacy ideology is also present - feeling oppressed by being asked to be accountable... He laughs repeatedly and says that [the interviewer] is "PC" - the classic supremacy response to demands of accountability - because [the interviewer] doesn't want a corporate media appointed representative of gay people who is anti abortion.

The third, ever present element of supremacy ideology is the false construction of powerful people as victimised by their subordinates. He claims that gay republicans... are oppressed by those of us who created all the foundational structures of service and acknowledgement that form the base of the gay community... that he himself is oppressed by out gays, that it is us, and not homophobes or his family who kept him in the closet."

(Sarah Schulman, The Gentrification of the Mind, pg 129)

[thearbourist]

Things I Notice…

[mylatespring]

"This isn't an essay or simply a woe-is-we narrative about how hard it is to be a black boy in America. This is a lame attempt at remembering the contours of slow death and life in America for one black American teenager under Central Mississippi skies. I wish I could get my Yoda on right now and surmise all this shit into a clean sociopolitical pull-quote that shows supreme knowledge and absolute emotional transformation, but I don't want to lie..."

[mylatespring]

"Sure, you can't say racist things anymore, but you can pretend to say them! Which, it turns out, is pretty much the exact same thing."

Wow, this article was awesome. Such a clear, compelling explanation of something I have struggled to articulate (and, yes, something I too need to watch myself about). But is there any room for negotiation around those indie covers of hip hop songs? 

[fuckyeahsociologystudentsheep]

[Picture: Background: 6 piece pie style colour split with beige and woodland green alternating. Foreground: a head-on photo of a disgruntled looking white sheep. Top text: ""Black people can be racist too"" Bottom text: "STFU."]