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chickenamu , b/c it intrigued me and I want to talk about it if you do. Also I owe bagheera_san for listening to me flutter about post reading and saying v. interesting things about how the German educational system fails to serve its immigrant populations.
"If feminism is about social change, white feminism -- a feminism of assimilation, of gentle reform and/or strengthening of institutions that are instrumental to economic exploitation and white supremacy, of ignorance and/or appropriation of the work of feminists of color -- is an oxymoron. And it is not a thing of some bygone era before everyone read bell hooks in college. It is happening now; you might be part of it."
From "On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists," by Jessica Hoffman
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/81260/?page=entire
An excellent distillation of why feminism is compelling (italics mine):
“What keeps me connected to feminism is a radical history of multi-issue, multitactic activism that goes by that name. I know of no other social-justice tradition that has so frequently linked so-called private with so-called public political struggles, art with organizing. And that is why I find politics of privilege that call themselves feminism -- those that would work uncritically within existing power structures, even strengthening them; those that co-opt the revolutionary work of feminists of color by superficially "including" them in a movement that leaves privileged women and their priority issues at the center -- so frustrating.”
Interesting thought re: the nature of critique:
“[1] In a recent radio interview with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, author Chip Smith talked about critique as a form of mutual support through which privileged people who believe in justice can hold each other accountable. My friend and collaborator Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, an activist writer, has called critique a form of love. The white-middle-class culture I was educated in frames it, especially among girls, as scary conflict to avoid at all costs. I'm writing this letter in part to unlearn that lesson, to learn instead to critique with love and hope, to put it out there and find out whatever that's worth.”
So:
This article's an interesting indictment of white upper-class feminism as a palliative tool of assimilation. She makes some points about immigrant rights and prisoner’s rights being central concerns of feminism. Fair enough. But then she goes on to talk about how necessary the destruction of the prison-industrial complex is, and likewise how necessary it is to recognize the illegitimacy of national borders. And I feel... a touch right-wing and stupid, here, but I'm kind of left questioning what far-left feminism's effective strategy is for disassembling those institutions and then going about the business of governance without them?
I should read more Chomsky or something, b/c to me the destruction of the nation-state isn't intuitive, or indeed immediately accessible as a natural concern of feminism. Though that, I suppose, is the author's point. I’m not disagreeing with her, I just want to read something that more fully explores these arguments, esp. viz a viz their relation to feminism.
I think it's historically unrealistic to currently work towards the demise of the nation state, though obviously that's an eventual ideal. It's like the PETA question. They can believe that all they like that any human appropriation of animal labor is wrong, but would they do animal rights more service by turning their resources towards obtainable objectives ('humanizing' the current industrial farming system, for example), and working from there, in achievable steps, with the support of less radically progressive groups? Maybe it's a better use of time to focus on immigrant rights and rationalizing immigration under the presumption of the current system's legitimacy? But does saying that make me ye olde prop of the system, etc.
Also, is my constant ambivalence characteristic of me, demonstrative of a willingness to explore and consider a variety of views, or just a means of couching myself in a constant unimpeachable, uncommitted position?
chickenamu , b/c it intrigued me and I want to talk about it if you do. Also I owe bagheera_san for listening to me flutter about post reading and saying v. interesting things about how the German educational system fails to serve its immigrant populations. "If feminism is about social change, white feminism -- a feminism of assimilation, of gentle reform and/or strengthening of institutions that are instrumental to economic exploitation and white supremacy, of ignorance and/or appropriation of the work of feminists of color -- is an oxymoron. And it is not a thing of some bygone era before everyone read bell hooks in college. It is happening now; you might be part of it."
From "On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists," by Jessica Hoffman
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/81260/?page=entire
An excellent distillation of why feminism is compelling (italics mine):
“What keeps me connected to feminism is a radical history of multi-issue, multitactic activism that goes by that name. I know of no other social-justice tradition that has so frequently linked so-called private with so-called public political struggles, art with organizing. And that is why I find politics of privilege that call themselves feminism -- those that would work uncritically within existing power structures, even strengthening them; those that co-opt the revolutionary work of feminists of color by superficially "including" them in a movement that leaves privileged women and their priority issues at the center -- so frustrating.”
Interesting thought re: the nature of critique:
“[1] In a recent radio interview with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, author Chip Smith talked about critique as a form of mutual support through which privileged people who believe in justice can hold each other accountable. My friend and collaborator Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, an activist writer, has called critique a form of love. The white-middle-class culture I was educated in frames it, especially among girls, as scary conflict to avoid at all costs. I'm writing this letter in part to unlearn that lesson, to learn instead to critique with love and hope, to put it out there and find out whatever that's worth.”
So:
This article's an interesting indictment of white upper-class feminism as a palliative tool of assimilation. She makes some points about immigrant rights and prisoner’s rights being central concerns of feminism. Fair enough. But then she goes on to talk about how necessary the destruction of the prison-industrial complex is, and likewise how necessary it is to recognize the illegitimacy of national borders. And I feel... a touch right-wing and stupid, here, but I'm kind of left questioning what far-left feminism's effective strategy is for disassembling those institutions and then going about the business of governance without them?
I should read more Chomsky or something, b/c to me the destruction of the nation-state isn't intuitive, or indeed immediately accessible as a natural concern of feminism. Though that, I suppose, is the author's point. I’m not disagreeing with her, I just want to read something that more fully explores these arguments, esp. viz a viz their relation to feminism.
I think it's historically unrealistic to currently work towards the demise of the nation state, though obviously that's an eventual ideal. It's like the PETA question. They can believe that all they like that any human appropriation of animal labor is wrong, but would they do animal rights more service by turning their resources towards obtainable objectives ('humanizing' the current industrial farming system, for example), and working from there, in achievable steps, with the support of less radically progressive groups? Maybe it's a better use of time to focus on immigrant rights and rationalizing immigration under the presumption of the current system's legitimacy? But does saying that make me ye olde prop of the system, etc.
Also, is my constant ambivalence characteristic of me, demonstrative of a willingness to explore and consider a variety of views, or just a means of couching myself in a constant unimpeachable, uncommitted position?
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-16 07:10 pm (UTC)Frankly, I think that the author was at the least skipping some steps, and at worst deluding herself that somehow, if we take away the constructions that currently trouble her, they will not simply be replaced with something else equally troublesome. Doing away with an institution like a nation or a prison won't magically fix any kind of human rights abuses. It will simply redistribute them according to whatever new structure comes to occupy the vacuum. (Hence the common statement, "(Fill-in-blank) rights are human rights!")
That comment on critique, however, interests and slightly confuses me--mainly due to that first quote: "critique as a form of mutual support through which privileged people who believe in justice can hold each other accountable". To what are they privileged, exactly? Is that quote meant to be an indictment or supportive? Is it good if you are a privileged person believing in justice and holding others accountable? At first glance it sounds attractive...but at second I wonder if doesn't imply that critique is something of a wank-fest.
In both cases, there's an element of truth.
At any rate, the rest of the passage is pretty nifty, and is at least how I had the concept of criticism beaten into me (with love!) during college. And while my mind immediately goes to literary critique, I can--given the whole RaceFail 09 debacle (as it's now quaintly named)--easily see how it's both pertinent to the issue at hand, and can or at least should be entirely true.