It’s pretty popular nowadays for radicals to dismiss analysis and arguments based around privilege. Especially popular in the wild forests of the non-tumblr internet, critiques often mix up ‘privilege use in theory’ with ‘my personal experience of how privilege is used in practice’.
Popular critiques are to attack:
- the more abstract theory of privilege
e.g. “psssh fuck identity politics”- how privilege theory is inherently middle-class/reformist
e.g. “it takes the focus away from class struggle”
e.g. “it stifles militant action”- how privilege used in practice
e.g. “it’s just used to stifle points of view you don’t want to hear”- the effectiveness of privilege as a tool
e.g. “it’s demoralising and makes people feel guilty and apathetic”
e.g. “it over-individualises everything and doesn’t focus enough on structures of oppression”I’ve broken my response down into five separate posts
You need the theory: the class struggle must be intersectional: why privilege is a key item in the class struggle toolkit.
Militancy: why privilege isn’t a toothless tool: the strategy of balancing anti-oppression thoughts with militant action.
The irrational fear of “check your privilege”: how ‘the privilege card’ only tends to shut down obnoxious dicks, and how to deal with being called-out.
Privilege talk just makes people feel guilty, right?: a short post bcs that’s obv bollocks.
The limits of privilege as a tool (some much-needed caveats): when privilege is useful as a tool, and when it tends to fall down.
Enjoy!
Wheeee!
THIS
Dear White People- (2012)
“four black students at an Ivy League college where a riot breaks out over a popular ‘African American’ themed party thrown by white students. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the film will explore racial identity in ‘post-racial’ America while weaving a universal story of forging one’s unique path in the world.”
Based on a similar experience, but that in Jr. high school, I can defiantly support this project. Also it is a satire, so I can defiantly defiantly support it. Also, the film is still in the pre-production stage, so the film crew is raising $25,000. Here is where you can learn more. http://www.indiegogo.com/dearwhitepeopledear white people movie more info | website | twitter | support (31 days left $25,000 goal)
“You guys get country clubs, and we get to say nigga”
WHY YES I WILL BE DONATING A FEW DOLLARS TO THIS FINE CAUSE.
Possibly the most worthwhile kickstarter I’ve seen yet.
Please donate to this! It NEEDS to get made! It looks fucking awesome.
Halp?
This is a serious question - and I’m open to any and all help available!
My 2 youngest children - and moreso the baby - are fascinated by Asian culture. (By Asian, I mean Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) It started with the discovery of Anime, and has ballooned from there.
That in itself? Doesn’t bother me. Anime may not be my thing, but if they like it, that’s all that matters.
What has started to bother me is the way they - and again, it comes more from the baby than her older sister, although they both do it - treat Asian people as if they’re some sort of exotic alien or something.
I’m probably not going to put this the right way, but I hope I get my point across: I feel as if their fascination (that’s not quite the right word but it’s the best I can come up with) perpetuates “othering” of Asian people - and all POC, as a knock-on effect.
It’s not the interest in other cultures, it’s the WAY they go about it.
Now I should also say that they’re only 10 and 11, so I DO realize that a lot of that is pure ignorance about how the world works. I can’t expect them to understand the concept of “white privelege” at their age. At the same time, I also realize that it’s my job, as their mother, to teach them how to interact and deal with people that are different. They have a bit of a head-start in that direction, having lived their entire lives with a sister with quite severe special needs. They’ve seen at least one version of different all their lives.
The problem is that I’m not entirely sure what to say to them. I want to do the right thing, but I don’t want to end up saying the wrong thing for the right reasons. If that makes any sense. For example, growing up I always tried to explain my acceptance of people of all races by saying something along the lines of “I don’t care what color they are. Black, brown, yellow, pink with neon green polka dots…” But I’ve come to learn from reading essays and blog posts from POC that that actually irritates rather than assuages them. I always thought I was saying the right thing, but it turns out it was wrong. But it was for the right reasons. I’d like to avoid making that mistake in whatever I say to them.
And since tumblr is such a large, varied place, and what with people answering and maybe reblogging… well, hell, I figured it was worth a try.
Y’know?
SIGNAL BOOST.
Black people are not the main consumers of hip hop
The Hip hop that you see on TV isn’t actually targeted or marketed towards black people, or even POC at all really. While many hip hop artists are black, and are presenting the construction of “authentic blackness” - we take for granted how commercial hip hop is a carefully structured entity.
Interestingly enough, hip hop is looked to as a musical representation of black culture and black people. People use hip hop as an excuse to paint black people as pathologically depraved and oversexualized… But these representations of blackness are created by white CEOs and sold to white youth in the suburbs.
Why is America obsessed with this idea of blackness that isn’t even real? (rhetorical question, we all know the answer) I’m tired of being told by white audiences who move to the suburbs to escape the “troubled” populations of people who live in MY neighborhoods, to then turn around and tell me what blackness should be. Are you serious? Really? Get the entire fuck outta here thinking that buying Odd Future and Watch The Throne makes you an expert on blackness and my experience. My life isn’t your commodity.
/end rant. Melissa Harris-Perry had a segment on Hip Hop today and got me in rant mode.
When you are talking about your privilege over me, when you’re talking about my life and my rights, I do not want a fucking ‘respectful debate’.
You’ve got privilege over me, you have no vested interest in this debate. So I’m gonna be fucking angry and emotional. It’s disrespectful in the first place to fucking debate with me over my own fucking life. You’re in a position of privilege, sit down and shut the fuck up and let us talk.
THIS x a million.
I hate when I’m going about my day, struggling to exist and function, all the while fighting for my basic human rights to be acknowledged, and some cis man wants to “debate” with me. No, I refuse to call my life a debate. No, I refuse to stroke your ego. And no, I don’t want to engage in mental masturbation for you. These issues will never affect you. The outcomes of this “debate” won’t threaten your livelihood or devastate you. You can afford to remain calm and smug. You can get pleasure from this. Me? I always end up feeling sub-human and unimportant. So thanks for that, but you can keep your “debates” to yourself.
womyn of the Black Panther Party…warriors
reblogging again cause it’s my favorite.
Power.
Women of the Black Panther Party
1. Dorthory Phillips & Leslie Booker - National HQ Oakland.
2. Kathleen Cleaver - Central Committee.
3. Safiya Burhari - Harlem NY.
4. Sisters working @ People Revolutionary Conference Washington DC (1970).
5. Tarika Lewis speaking @ Bobby Hutton Day (1999).
6. Varlie Douglas - Central HQ, worked on the first Liberation school staff (1968).
7. Candie Robinson - Washington DC/National Dist.San Francisco/Central HQ Oakland.
8. Shelly Bursey/Brenda Presley National HQ Staff (1969).
9. Barbara Easley-Cox S.F., Central HQ, Philly office (1969).
10. Cookie Hite S.F.Dist. (1969).
Photograph: Molly Riley/Reuters
We asked five black women to explain how they feel about the ‘angry black woman’ image the first lady says she has been saddled with. Extract by Angry Black Bitch:
There’s plenty to be angry about – the fact that black women in America are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, the race-baiting, anti-abortion billboard campaign in America that claims that black women’s wombs are the most dangerous place for black babies, the way that poverty is only worthy of discussion now that white, middle-class people are feeling the pain.
My father used to say that if a person isn’t angry then they aren’t paying attention. I say that if you aren’t angry, the odds are you are one of the people pissing me off.
