When someone accuses you of starting a race war, it’s obvious that the conversation of allyship is far from over. Team Blackness got some help with Daily Show creator and noted white woman Lizz Winstead (@lizzwinstead) and writer and creator of #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) as the group discussed what it takes to be a good ally, how to educate yourself about intersectionality, and why white women’s feelings are so darn important.
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henqiguai
Okay, *somebody* delete the other two versions of this post, below; *stat!!!*
geg6
Won’t be biting today. I learned yesterday that white feminists are history’s greatest monsters, so I’m done with discussing the issue. I’ll just quietly keep working for equality for everyone. And I’ll keep my mouth shut about it since that seems to be what everyone expects white feminists to do. At least no one told me to shut up and make them a sammich. Which is some sort of progress, I guess.
celticdragonchick
Mikki Kendall is exhibit #1 in the progressive museum dedicated to shooting every possible ally while conservative wingnuts point and laugh at the carnage.
henqiguai
@geg6 (#2):
Yeah, saw that. You were mistaken then, you’re mistaken now.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
FWIW, Arquette has said on Twitter several times since the backstage remarks that when she said “women,” she actually did mean “all women”:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/02/24/patricia-arquette-chided-on-backstage-oscar-remarks/23937935/
But I realize it’s easier to be outraged by what people assumed she meant before she was able to respond than by what she actually meant.
Alex
Elon, I’m happy you are able to broadcast TWIB on this forum, but you should have learned by now how to properly post here.
geg6
@henqiguai:
I’m always wrong. I’m a white feminist woman. It’s in the definition.
And exactly how am I wrong? White feminists are NOT history’s greatest monsters? Or that I should just shut up? Because I was told by my betters that both of those are true.
JPL
@geg6: lol… The important thing is that you are still loved within our community.
FlipYrWhig
Creator of a hashtag on Twitter? O brave new world that has such people in’t!
henqiguai
@geg6 (#6):
Stop it. I’m a (fairly large) black male. Wanna swap? Guess whose lot in life is more constrained.
The issue with Arquette’s (great, spaced on the proper spelling of her name) comment was the seeming demand that, now that white women have brought everyone else to parity, it’s time for them people to give back and help white women. Regardless of what she *meant*, what was heard, by ‘those people’, was the apparent demand that it’s time to *now* help out white women. On both sides, the whole thing was silly and a storm of stupid.
geg6
@henqiguai:
No, I don’t want to change places with anyone and I don’t claim to understand what it is to walk in your shoes. Unlike you just did with me.
And fuck you for the whole “stop it” and “those people” shit. Fuck you sideways. With a rusty chainsaw.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Obviously Ms Arquette should have written a thesis on Intersectionalty Theory* in a peer reviewed forum before having the termerity to speak about anything in a 2 minute presser after she got an Oscar. I mean…how fucking DARE she talk about women’s issues!
*and this is why I stay away from most of the humanities outside of history. I tend to look at “theories” that are unfalsifiable as potential bullshit for the most part and unprovable at best. Physical sciences sure as hell don’t work that way.
celticdragonchick
@henqiguai:
And how would you know that?
Personal situations don’t always fit so neatly into narratives, you may notice.
What’s your income? Where do you live? What do you do for a living? Self Employed?
You seem to assume geg6 makes more money…has more social influence and has better circumstances than you without having any data point beyond ethnicity and gender.
I know for certain that the female African American doctor my spouse and I went to see today about a medical issue is higher up the social and financial ladder then we are…and good for her! She fucking worked for it!
You simply have no basis to make accusations of this nature here.
Mike E
@henqiguai: Yeah? I look like a typical repub (white male 50+) and my butt hurts worse than botha yous. Both sides of my butt.
slag
Jay Smooth says it all here: http://youtu.be/E7c9CIHm09M.
Let’s not pretend that Patricia Arquette or anyone who stumbles into using pat language to describe a complex problem is a primary source of the problem. But let’s not ignore how WE ALL can be accidental contributors to the problem by not committing to the practice of learning the craft of being good. Self included.
Kylroy
“and why white women’s feelings are so darn important.”
Um…because if you want people to be allies, maybe don’t insult them the instant they open their mouths? No, sorry, that would be asking for the proverbial cookie, wouldn’t it?
This is why there is no currency in being an ally. You will be first in line to receive the (wholly justified) anger minority groups have been holding in for years because you look like you will care, and in return you will get nothing.
askew
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Has she apologized for what she actually said? Because her words backstage were women of color and gays need to get on board and help us women and made it quite clear that WOC and LGBT were not considered in her coalition of women. That’s the problem. You and others keep ignoring it and whining but Arquette started this shit storm with her words creating division between WOC and LGBT women and white women. That’s on her.
geg6
@Kylroy:
This. Every word of it.
geg6
@askew:
Is that what she actually said? “Women of color”? And “LGBT women”? That’s not what I read. I read what she said the next day and, like her, assumed that the word “women” includes both women of color and LGBT women. And since she has a transsexual sibling, I’m quite sure she isn’t biased against them.
askew
@geg6:
You can climb down from that cross any time now. This isn’t about you. This is about Arquette making a statement that divided women based on race and sexuality. She’s the one that created that division with her statement and people pissed at Arquette for her tone deafness and entitlement have every right to be pissed. Yes, now she’s trying to clean it up but I am not sure there is any way to fix the entitlement she was showing by saying that LGBT and minority issues have apparently all been solved thanks to white women so now WOC and LGBT need to fight for white women’s rights.
I am a fan of Arquette’s and a white feminist woman and I was appalled and outraged at what she said. It was tone deaf, elitist and frankly reminded me of the high-handness and out of touch nonsense that Hillary has been spouting for years. Blech. This white woman wants nothing to do with that shit.
askew
@geg6:
No, she said that minorities and LBGT need to help the woman’s movement. She created a clear line between the women’s movement and minorities and LBGT. Maybe that isn’t what she meant but that kind of BS argument is way too common among older, rich, white feminists and it is repulsive. And I am not sure that she even gets how offensive what she said is.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: Maybe when your emotions are wounded like this it is a good time to shut up and walk away for a while … go outside … take a walk … calm down … dial it down.
I’ve been there. Sometimes you need to take a time out.
schrodinger's cat
My outrage meter must have malfunctioned because I am bored to tears about this nontroversy. Can we move on?
ETA: Why post the same thing three times? Is it a magic spell?
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick:
Maybe she should have processed her seething resentment a long time ago, long before she opened her mouth. Or been more circumspect.
It’s not about academic theory. It’s the fact that she apparently can’t see Black feminists, forgot all about how Lesbians carried the women’s movement for years, and then threw shade on both groups so hard. If the problem she has is that men who are members of minority groups get director gigs before women do (dunno if that is factual or not) she should have said that … or if they get recognized more at the Oscars (probably true) she should have said that … but that’s not what she said.
geg6
@askew:
This whole argument is ridiculous. Way to buy into our common enemies plans. I’m done arguing about this. I really don’t give a damn about the criticisms of the people misunderstanding her (however inelegantly she may have stated her case). It’s all just a way of keeping us from working toward any achievable mutual goals. I’m more interested in actually getting progressive, liberal policies enacted. And I’ll ally with anyone, regardless of how insensitive they may seem, to get that done. I’m not interested in gaining anyone’s respect or checking my privilege or any other useless stupid symbolism. I want to get things enacted, not gaze into their beautiful minds. And I expect that most minority women and LGBT women would agree that my goal is more important than trying to police other peoples’ thoughts and speech. I couldn’t give less of a fuck for why a wealthy white woman wants to reach the same goal as me, any more than I could give a fuck for why a half-Black, half-Hispanic lesbian does. And I’m sure they agree that men, including minority and LGBT men, haven’t exactly been the greatest of allies to us as women, collectively. So I guess I’m willing to take allies where I can and you aren’t. Good luck with that.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: lol seriously, who can walk down the street of a shitty neighborhood and not get accosted? pretty sure that’s what he’s referring to.
or called back for interviews.
or accused of pilfering out of the register first. I used to be a cashier. Black men are the first to be accused of stealing, white women first to be shunted into cashier job (even if they would rather do a different job). It’s complete stereotyping.
henqiguai
@celticdragonchick (#13): No, I make no assumptions about income. I grew up with ‘lot in life’ referring to something other than straight income; I seldom default to that unless there is something to suggest that’s the topic in play. So, no, you are mistaken.
Keith G
@henqiguai: Boo-fucking-hoo.
Complaining is easy, as is stereotyping, but emphasizing commonalities and building bonds is where success lies. That, of course, assumes one is actually focused on success.
kc
I agree with tbogg.
geg6
@Another Holocene Human:
I think you’re the one who needs to go take a walk. You are expecting an actress, immediately after winning the biggest possible honor for her art, to give a dissertation about the racial politics of feminism when all she was trying to do was get the male half of the country to get on board with the majority population in this country, women of all ages, socio-economic level, sexual orientations, races, etc. and treat us all equally to them.
This is about academic theory. You’re asking a fucking actress to walk back a powerful message that could benefit all of us because she isn’t up on the latest in feminist theory. It’s bullshit and now this is what the discussion is about, not about the reality that women of all colors, socio-economic levels and sexual orientations are marginalized and are paid less than men.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick:
You live in the South. That is a stupid statement. So a friend of mine about a decade ago was a doctor. She went to school here in Gainesville, actually, half Black, half white, born in Canada. She went to work in SC. We met up in Charleston, SC, which is always trying to sell itself as sooooo sophisticated. I am “thin skin” freckly pale and she, well, looks like her mom. I have never experienced so much fucking racism IN MY LIFE. We’re walking down the street, all these white folks are snubbing us, won’t make eye contact. We finally separated a bit and she was able to have a nice conversation with an elderly Black lady–the only nice conversation on the street that day. It was worse than when that racist lady starting screeching at my high school classmate in Brussels. This dude ran up and told her off and then apologized to us. Nobody in Charleston apologized for a fucking thing.
What we ran into (but probably a typical day for her in SC) is basically classic microaggression. She had her way of fighting back (like the day she went with a white boyfriend to BJU and started making out in public) but it also took a terrible daily psychic toll. She makes way more money than me but I would never trade places.
geg6
@kc:
Yes, so do I.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: It’s not about theory. Is Oprah not a Black feminist? Is Barack Obama not a Black feminist? Have both of them not been fighting for women–including white women?
kc
@geg6:
Bingo. Some people are heavily invested in misrepresenting her clear intent.
I don’t know what agenda that serves, but it isn’t a progressive one.
Karla
@Another Holocene Human: Um, maybe implying that women don’t need to be concerned about being accosted when walking outside of their home was not what you meant.
Another Holocene Human
@Kylroy:
Well that mirror reflects both ways, because Arquette went and insulted a whole bunch of people and then when those people cried out online, a whole bunch of people who were fist-pumping the original comment piled on the people who complained they were insulted … why didn’t they LISTEN to their ALLIES and try to understand WHY they were insulted? So “black” and “gay” feelings don’t matter, only the feelings of white women. Sure that’s not what you’re trying to say.
Imani talks about this with great sensitivity in the podcast today. I would recommend it.
kc
Why do all of Elon’s posts show up here two or three times?
geg6
@Another Holocene Human:
So what does that have to do with the social and financial ladder of the doctor in question? I don’t think this is a good argument that you’re making. Yes, in some parts of the south and in lots of places here in the north and everywhere else in this country, minorities and women have to live with microaggressions all day, every day. But it doesn’t change the fact that a black physician probably has more social and financial capital than I do, even though I’m white. I don’t get your argument.
henqiguai
@Keith G (#28):
Which, the ‘lot in life’ or the thing about some activists taking exception to Arquette’s off-the-cuff comment? Or both? Regardless, don’t really care. The whole ‘controversy’ is of little interest to me, except in observing the silliness of hurt feelings, misinterpretation, and the awesome power of social media to blow something up into a major storm.
geg6
@Another Holocene Human:
When the hell did I ever claim they weren’t?
Gex
Oh, I’m nervous to listen. I hope Liz Winstead doesn’t disappoint me. I’m checking comments first…
Another Holocene Human
@askew: She didn’t really make it better with her non-apology apology. Meh.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: If you’re going to join others movements you need to start with mutual respect. Arquette didn’t show that respect and got called out. How can we change society when we recapitulate the dysfunction of the greater society within the movement as well?
Geg, this kind of battle does not seem like you. I’m sure in your IRL life you are a respectful, kind, empathetic ally. You would probably never say what Arquette said and wouldn’t mean it either, in fact, you charitably believe she meant something other than what her words meant. That reflects well on you.
Another Holocene Human
@Karla: Okay maybe accosted might not be the best word because that could mean catcalling or creepy attempts at pickups. I mean police harassment or some other young dude challenging you. Who is the biggest demographic of young person likely to be murdered? Not white women. Who is the biggest demographic likely to be hassled by the police? Not white women.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: What the hell do you mean by social capital in this instance?
I told you I wouldn’t trade places. So what about the money. Do you really think you would live that life just for the money? Is that it? She had to deal with the same shit professionally too, white patients.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6: Are you Patricia Arquette?
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
I am also a trans woman, disabled and living on federal disability and student loans.
Try again, genius.
Some people of color may actually have it better…and good for them. It’s about time.
henqiguai
@kc (#37):
I’ve seen it suggested that he is posting via a smartphone and he may be fat-fingering the controls when he posts. Since you asked…
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: OMFG. Please keep demonstrating all the ways you don’t get it. It’s instructive in its own way and therefore a worthy contribution to this discussion, if not exactly in the way you intended.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: OT but important, has your doggie’s wag radius finally returned to normal?
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: I’m trans and white and live in the South too. If your life sucks, great, but making a generalized statement about the situation that isn’t factually accurate doesn’t reflect well on you or us.
henqiguai
@geg6 (#38):
Haven’t lived down south in decades, but I think on point to your assertion, there is an old joke (was old when I was young) that went along the lines of “What do you call a black man with a PhD?”. So no, that doctor may in fact not have greater social capital than you. Goes along with the BJ meme about some being happy living under a bridge as long as those ‘others’ over there at least don’t have a curtain rod to roast *their* sparrow.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: What did I say that’s not factually accurate?
Jackie Chiles
@askew:
This.
Exactly.
It wasn’t about what “We” need to do together, it’s about what “You all” need to do for women. The subtext was WHITE women. Why?
Because the tenor of her remarks EXcluded ( LGBT folk and WOC) certain groups and was not Inclusive. Moreover, her indignant chastisement seemed to be directed towards other marginalized groups vs. the entrenched power structure aka the real problem.
As a thought experiment, I tried to imagine her delivering the same speech at any of the regular community meetings I attend, or even one of the more recent Black Lives Matter workshops I’ve been to.
At best, she’d get the side-eye (aka. what is this crazy person talking about?) at worst she’d get cussed the hell out.
Let me make it very plain for the butthurt people in this thread –
Wage parity for women is already on the agenda in my community. In fact, the marginalization of black men (not to mention other men of color) in terms of incarceration rates and labor market participation means that de facto, women of color are the face of the workforce in most black communities nation wide.
So when we talk about things like a living wage, the right to organize, healthcare and other related topics, the conversation is ALWAYS framed in terms of a cohort comprised mostly of women of color.
When I think about Patricia Arquette’s remarks, it appears that she is completely oblivious about any of this, let alone any of the realities the people she was scolding operate under.
As I said before, tin eared and entitled.
Another Holocene Human
45 minutes into the podcast they talk about how the privilege experienced by different groups is different … “if you’re not seeing the privilege you’re not seeing the experience of the people around you”
Some of you would do well to actually listen to the podcast instead of crying out your stung and wounded emotions.
geg6
@henqiguai:
Well, if you read what I wrote, I’m not discussing only the south. I’m talking about my own experience here in the north and, really, everywhere in this country. I know a lot of minorities (black, brown and LGBT) who have more social and financial capital that I do. Doesn’t mean that I think I’m better than anyone or that I think they are. It’s just reality. Yes, most minorities don’t but to say there are none, either in the south or anywhere else in America is hyperbole.
Allan
@Another Holocene Human: What, you actually LISTENED to the podcast before spouting off on the topic? What’s wrong with you?
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
How the hell would you even begin to know if my statement was inaccurate??!
YOU DON”T LIVE HERE WHERE I AM AND YOU WERE NOT IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE.
You seem to be falisifying things based on “I sez so” and no much else.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: It’s what you completely miss about what women have to fear when they leave their homes. Believe me, it ain’t just “catcalling or creepy attempts at pickups.” About a quarter of us (women) will be sexually assaulted during our lifetimes.
Kylroy
@Another Holocene Human: Care to sum up Imani’s remarks for me? I can read at work but podcasts are right out.
geg6
@Another Holocene Human:
You’re welcome to your circular firing squad. I’m done with it. As I said last night, I’ll just go back to quietly working for equal right and opportunity for everyone and hope all the rest of you who want to kill your allies keep fighting it out amongst yourselves and that you don’t ruin it for the rest of us.
henqiguai
Yeah, well AHH (ETA #55; you people type too damned fast), the whole thing is *still* an exercise in the stupid. Arquette made an inartful comment, the inartfully[sic] targeted groups lost their minds, Arquette’s defenders lost theirs, and hilarity ensued (yes, I’m the lout over there in the corner pointing and laughing, apparently because I’m one of the few that seem to understand what happened and don’t see any intentional malice).
Another Holocene Human
Arquette’s remarks were so pernicious because not only does she separate the categories women – black – gay, as if these don’t overlap, but she expresses this resentment that “black” and “gay” haven’t been in her corner, that they need to come over and support her. But it shows that she CANNOT SEE the contributions of black and gay feminists in the movement over the years. Or right now. She completely fails to see or acknowledge the accomplishments of extremely famous, public, contemporary feminists. How dehumanizing is that? How pernicious is that to completely take credit as a white woman for all the progress advanced by people who were not white women? Like what the hell?
The first part of respect is to SEE the other person. To acknowledge that they exist. I don’t know how we build a movement without respect.
And for those on this thread trying to reduce privilege to income, that. That right there. You’ve completely denied that racism is a thing. Congratulations.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Some of us who have actually experienced that are here, but since I’m a clueless white feminist, it doesn’t matter.
–drops mike
Another Holocene Human
@henqiguai: I doubt there was any intentional malice either. I’m more reacting to the outrage to the outrage. Arquette gets nothing more than a lazy eyeroll from me.
henqiguai
@geg6 (#56): Concur; which is why I used the conditional.
Now, about those farm implements…
Another Holocene Human
@Kylroy: She talked a lot about that uncomfortable moment when you’re trying to be a good ally and somebody says something short to you and you’re stung emotionally and don’t understand why you’re being treated that way. That you have to push through a period of discomfort when you find out that you didn’t know as much as you thought you knew.
Kylroy
@geg6: Don’t do that to Mike!
But yeah, the lesson here is that if you are a white person, do not talk about race or sexual orientation or anything outside your experience. You will pay no price for your silence, and you will be attacked for any mistakes you make in your statement.
celticdragonchick
@Betty Cracker:
That’s the fun bit I got to learn about when I started transition.
That panicky feeling walking to my car in Raleigh at night at the Progress Energy Center after an Eve Ensler show…realizing that a black dress and black heels made me a target…
Standing outside a grocery store in Indianapolis waiting for a hotel van and wearing a grey skirt suit (law office type stuff) and having a skeezy guy pull up in a beater car and try to proposition me as a hooker…and reaching into my purse and grabbing a razor work knife since I knew there was no way in hell I could run away from him…
Fleeing from Indianapolis bus stops when some drunk white frat guys or annoyed young African American guys read me as trans and thought I needed my ass kicked…
Good times.
Jackie Chiles
@Another Holocene Human:
Let the church say Amen.
I make six figures (I have to work two jobs to do it but still) and I’m still a black man at the end of the day.
My income doesn’t insulate me from racism, it just allows me to recover from it more readily or in some cases “buy” myself some equality.
Kylroy
@Another Holocene Human: And at the end of that discomfort, you get…what?
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick:
You said it. Very glib.
Another Holocene Human
@Kylroy: Personal growth? You come back, listen to others and expand your perspective? Lizz Winstead talks about this too.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: Mostly indoors and by people they know, not by creeps in alleys.
Again, that’s based on facts.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
Your disapproval of a quantifiable and demonstrable occurence is duly noted. Please proceed.
Kylroy
@Another Holocene Human: See, the primary effect of that expanded perspective is finding a whole lot more ways to feel bad about the world and yourself. So going through mental suffering to open the door to more mental suffering doesn’t seem like a good trade for most people.
I’m not denying that this is unfair and racist/sexist/whateverist as all get-out, but given the choice between exposing themselves to a world of awfulness that doesn’t personally affect them and just not talking about certain topics, most people will just avoid certain topics.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
Interesting…since I have never been assaulted by anyone I know indoors(or elsewhere)…and I have had 4 “creeps in alleys” experiences…
But maybe that is just my basic “tranny”* thing…
*used sarcastically, since I loathe the epithet “tranny”.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, but now we’re trying to get her back to a normal weight. She fattened up while recovering!
@celticdragonchick: The fact that even well-meaning guys so often don’t get that women have to live in a near-constant state of hyper-alertness and sometimes fear because we’re typically smaller and less aggressive has been instructive for me as a white person, though. It inspires me to try not to be as clueless about racism and related issues as men so often are about sexism. I don’t always succeed, but I try, which is all you can do, I suppose…
not my real name
@Jackie Chiles:
I’m about to lose my house. Be happy to trade places with you.
Another Holocene Human
celticdragonchick, maybe I jumped on you too quickly. I thought what you said about the doctor was really tone deaf and glib. However it seems like you would personally trade places given your personal experience of transitioning and living with a disability. That’s valid. I can’t say I feel your pain, I can only try to conceptualize it and imagine that I would feel the same desperation.
But precisely because your personal circumstances are so unique and so personal they don’t generalize easily. I’ll leave it at that. I don’t think anybody wins a game of oppression olympics and I feel terrible that you feel the need to enter the lists on this thread.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Maybe, trans people have different life stories than cis people.
Most women who have been raped were raped by somebody they know. A huge number of these rapes actually happen before the age of 18 and a sickening number are perpetuated by family members.
There’s also a silent epidemic of minor males being raped that our society doesn’t acknowledge.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Did she say, “If I were you I’d trade with me too”?
I mean, you never said. You said that was YOUR perspective. What’s HER perspective. You keep alluding but never share. Hard to engage with a phantom here. Frustrating for both of us.
celticdragonchick
@Betty Cracker:
Yep.
When I started transition, my counselor had me read about male privilege to better understand just exactly what I was going to be giving away. I started noticing things like body space, attention given in restaurants etc etc etc that I had been oblivious to before and that I now would be letting go of forever.
The best illustrative incident I had to learn of the humiliations African American men experience with law enforcement was back in the mid 90’s in north Florida after I go out of the army. I was working with Jensen Civil Construction out of Jacksonville and we were on a contract where we lived out at a motel all week and drove home on the weekend. I was giving a good friend and coworker a ride home on the 10 freeway who happened to be African American (a good enough friend he was considering setting me up on a date with his sister)
FHP pulls me over for an expired tag, and I show the officer I had a 30 day grace period to fix it. No problem, right? He wants to know where we are going. Where did we come from. Why are we in the car together.
He keeps us for nearly half an hour trying to figure out if he can bust us on something.
I remark out loud something like “What the hell is up with this guy?”.
My friend just looks resigned and tells me “It’s a black thing”…
and I understood. I got it. I finally realized just what the hell my African American friends and co workers (and supervisors for that matter) in the Army had been talking about.
I never forgot it.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: Thanks for the mansplanation. I can see now that it’s just typical female hysteria that prompts fear of walking alone in dark allies.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
You nailed it right there.
One of the issues I have with intersectional theory is that it does not do a good job of accounting for individual experience, nor can it be quantified and evaluated.
Pain is also deeply subjective, but it is something I experience every day, and it is utterly demoralizing (and humiliating when on a really bad day you have to use a motor scooter at a grocery store when it is obvious you are in your 40’s and dont look disabled)
So from my perspective, if a 30 something professonal African American woman asked me if I want to trade places, I would want to jump on that in a heartbeat (but me being me…I also wouldn’t really want to saddle anybody with a degenerative pain issue)
Now maybe you are right about me not knowing her private thoughts and she might have a different opinion of the matter…but I would question her sanity on that.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
Also, thank you for a truly thoughtful and engaging reponse. It is far too easy to reach for the rhetorical nukes here at Balloon Juice, and I am no better then anyone else here when it comes to offending.
I don’t want to sound like I am actually oppressed (right now…although things got real dicey a few times while working in Indianapolis and I avoid public transportation now like the plague because of my experiences).
My spouse and I have had some stalker incidents because of my transition, and I tend to dress very neutral in public when I am with my family because I dislike the attention and it isn’t fair to my spouse and our kid. It is annoying, but I keep it in perspective.
My pain is a huge daily issue (but I can’t say that it is an oppression..’elp, ‘elp…I’m being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!!)
Living on a fixed federal income for disability sucks (but starving sucks worse).
Now…because I am white…I know that I can walk into a Wal Mart and pick up an air rifle without having the fucking SWAT team blow me away. When I was a kid, I played with toy guns in my neighborhood all the damned time and I never worried about idiot cops rolling up and shooting me before the car even stopped moving.
As far as employment, being GLBT is not protected in North Carolina.
You really do start looking at trade offs.
Is a white skin worth having the other problems I have? Not sure it adds up, but others might disgree. For my own two cents, I wouldn’t wish degenerative disc disease on my worst enemy.
Gotta leave for now, since my kid is home and homework demands computer time…
Thanks again for the discussion. I learned something from you and reconsidered.
askew
@geg6:
You are certainly showing yourself to be clueless at best in this argument. You haven’t listened to one thing anyone has said and lashed out at anyone who disagrees with you while whining that people are being mean to you. It’s embarassing.
askew
@Kylroy:
Wow, did you learn the wrong lesson and that is coming from a white woman. The lesson is that when you offend someone instead of lashing out and playing the victim, you stop and consider their arguments, learn something and work forward together as allies. Arquette shouldn’t have created that division between white women and WOC/LGBT women and when called on it, should have offered a heartfelt apology that showed she understood what she said was wrong. Instead she and her allies, lashed out, played the victim and started off a who is discriminated more contest that no one but white, straight men are going to win.
Kylroy
@askew: So, you think if she hadn’t mentioned gay and black people at all, she still would have been attacked?
Uncle Ebeneezer
@askew:
Bingo. If there’s anything I’ve learned with just some meager toe-dipping into SJW-worlds, when you fuck up (and that’s inevitable) the worst thing you can do is double-down and claim that whoever criticizes/calls you out/takes offense just doesn’t understand!! and then claiming victimhood. Telling them that they failed to interpret your crystal clear words (or that they don’t understand satire or any other variation) is just disrespectful. Everybody hears/reads/interprets things differently based on their personal experiences/culture among other things. If a large swath of people are offended by something you said just accept that you probably misspoke, apologize, listen to their critiques and either agree with them or agree to disagree with the humility to admit that maybe this is just something you can’t see right now for whatever reason but who knows, maybe you will get it in the future. Accept the fact that, even if you still disagree with your critics, their views are valid and not to be hand-waved away. And don’t use their criticism as evidence for Liberal Failures/circular-firing-squads/voter turnout or any other of your Progressive disappointments/hobby-horses.
geg6
@askew:
Fuck off. I’m not embarrassed at anything I’ve said. I understand where Patricia Arquette was coming from and I certainly empathize with anyone who, because of who they are or what they make or both, experiences discrimination. I can understand why people get upst by badly worded but well meaning statements. But to see some of the vitriol that’s been sent Arquette’s way and to insist that anyone who then empathizes with her and thinks she never meant the things being ascribed to her must agree she is some sort of racist/homophobe/transphobe or be labelled the same is really not very productive to any liberal or progressive goals. Which I, personally, consider to be the more important task at hand. You disagree. And still, I’ll work with you any time to advance the rights of women and men, LGBT persons, the middle class and working class and the poor, all races…all of us who aren’t white wealthy straight men. I don’t have to like you or agree with you about everything. But I’ll be happy to help you anyway. That’s how you get things done.
jackie chiles
@not my real name:
You have know way of knowing that. (I’ve already lost a home, thus the two gigs)
And that’s the point. Just as Patricia Arquette doesn’t know what the hell is going on with the people she chastised.
Perspective is important.