Unintended Truths

[alexandraerin]

So, commentator Glenn Beck has said, in response to President Obama's comments about Profesosr Gates's arrest, that the president has shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture".

I'd like to argue with this, but unfortunately I agree. Mr. Beck is exactly right: targeting official suspicion at minorities is part of our culture.

Comments

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

All of those things are correct, and I appreciate you taking the time to spell it out.

But Dr. Gates also did feel that the race issue is important - because that's what influences his interactions with the police, that's a reasonable fear for people of color, and one he thought he was shielded from by class privilege until it happened to him. And I don't feel that he, or anyone else, should not talk about it because of the fear that if they do discuss the issue of race, no one will talk about other issues of concern.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Oh most certainly he should talk about it, as it is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the incident. The fact that he even felt the need to bring it up says much about how he personally feels he has been treated by the police. But in bringing it up, that means that the entire incident needs to be gone over with the investigative equivelent of a scanning electron microscope to be sure that all the other factors are not glossed over or forgotten about, and to determine the validity of the charge and the culpability of the offers involved on each factor, as a seperate issue.

In short, it's a huge tangled knot that needs to be sorted out before anyone starts jumping to conclusions. Race is one issue amongst many, one thread in the tangle. As Derrick Jensen says in his book "The Culure of Make Believe (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Make-Believe-Derrick-Jensen/dp/1931498571/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248898591&sr=1-1)" (Published in 2004): "When you pull on the thread of racism, you find the 3 or 4 other threads in the knot move in response which you hadn't thought were connected to it, which you then have to go investigate." As I've mentioned before, it is Jensen's theory that hatred felt long enough and deeply enough by a culture, no longer feels recognizable as hatred, but becomes disguised as tradition, which makes it difficult for those under it's influence to recognize it for what it is. Hatred clouds our perception of reality and prevents us from seeing the world as it really is.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Yep. Intersectionality is a bitch of a problem, anyway you slice it.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of the term "intersectionality" before in all my reading. Or if I have, I haven't caught it's meaning from the context clues.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Intersectionality tends to refer to the intersections between class, race, gender, disability, sexuality - all the axes of privilege along which we move and which shape our experiences, specifically. Googling "intersectionality" along with anti-racism or similar terms may turn you on to good reading, and probably the IBARW Delicious archive as well (which you can access from the IBARW link in the post IIRC.)

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Did you know that there is no definition for "intersectionality" in the online Webster's Unabridged Dictionary? The next listing I found was for Wikipedia, which everyone I know has said is suspect for it's authenticity since anyone can post anything in it, and the moderators often take months or years to catch errors.

The serach continues

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Oooh I found an article on Intersectionality that is really speaking to me on many levels! "Patricia Hill Collins: Intersecting Oppressions (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/13299_Chapter_16_Web_Byte_Patricia_Hill_Collins.pdf)"

In particular, what the author is describing in this paragraph on page 9:

"The hegemonic domain legitimates oppression. Max Weber was among the first to teach us that authority functions because people believe in it. This is the cultural sphere of influence where ideology and consciousness come together. The hegemonic domain links the structural, disciplinary, and interpersonal domains. It is made up of the language we use, the images we respond to, the values we hold, and the ideas we entertain.
And it is produced through school curricula and textbooks, religious teachings, mass media images and contexts, community cultures, and family histories. The black feminist priority of self-definition and critical, reflexive education are important stepping stones to deconstructing and dissuading the hegemonic domain. As Collins (2000) puts it, “Racist and sexist ideologies, if they are disbelieved, lose their impact” (p. 284)."

This sounds incredibly similar to what author Daniel Quinn has identified in his books "Ishamael", "The Story of B", "My Ishmael", and "Beyond Civilization" as "Mother Culture" or the phenomenon that helps to perpetuate the ideas, or memes, that make up a given culture. That constant droaning voice that speaks incessantly to us to lull us to sleep, to not think about the obvious and blatant inequalities in our society. Surface ideas come and go, but the core principles of a culture are always transmitted faithfully in pieces, as a mosaic, through popular media such as TV shows, nursary rhymes,novels, radio jingles, and a myriad of other avenues to be assembled subconsciously by the listener which along with their experiences in life helps to determine their world view.

If these two explanations are indeed referring to the same thing, as I think they are, this means I have been studying and trying to make sense of this "Intersectionality" issue for the last 17 years all on my own without realizing that other people have been working on it at well. In short, I now know what terms to look for in my research to aid me in unraveling the tangle!

You've given me another piece of the puzzle that I've been trying to solve for half my life! Elizabeth, Thank you! A thousand blessings upon you and your house! I'd hug you if you I could right now!

This is exciting stuff to me!

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Well, this is a pleasant surprise, in that usually when I tell someone they need to look up intersectionality they're pissed as hell at me. :d

Ishmael was an amazing book, as are the sequels, and it provided me with a lot of useful tools of understanding when I came to learn about anti-racism and similar progressive efforts to untangle the various ways humans shit on each other while pretending they're pudding wrestling.

If you've never encountered it, bell hook's wonderful Feminism is for Everybody is a fabulous little handbook on feminism from an intersectional perspective, including a brief history of how ignoring intersectionality has affected the history of mainstream feminism. bell hooks in general is marvelous, but if you want things broken down into generalities with lots of references to other source material, that's the best tool in my box.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I will have to look for that book to add to my library. And again, thank you. Thank for being a mirror for me.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Do it. Consider purchasing it from a feminist bookstore, there are so few left and most of them do internet ordering. And you are welcome, and thank you for listening.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

As soon as I have some spare cash, I will try to find it. Money is extremely tight right now. I'm hoping there is enough work at the second job I just had to take to make it through the year. It's a substitute position, which means on-call when they need someone to fill in when one of the regulars is sick or goes on vacation. Things are really not good in Southern California right now. Everyone is hurtin' and they still haven't really settled the budget issue successfully.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Understood. We do what we can. Don't hesitate to ask the library. :D