antioedipal

[antioedipal]

“I share this story at the insistence of my daughter who thinks my immigration story is worth telling, especially in the light of events since the election. I jokingly, refer to myself as a professional immigrant, continuing in the tradition of a long line of immigrants. I have immigrated three times. Twice to the United States, once to Canada. My grandfather, born in St. Petersburg, immigrated to South Africa to escape the threat of the Russian Revolution. His siblings scattered more widely; Japan, Australia and the US. My father was born in South Africa. My children were both born in the US. So, in the last century (perhaps longer), we never seen more than two generations thrive in one country. My wife’s family has a similar story. We’re Jewish and, to borrow a phrase from Roger Cohen, “Other people have roots, Jews have legs.” It’s as if we’re genetically uncomfortable wherever we go, constantly looking over our shoulders. My experiences of anti-semitism in the South African army and workplace gave me ample cause for discomfort. I recall news stories of swastikas painted on synagogues, but I didn’t see latent anti-semitism as reason alone to leave. I had other motivations. I wanted a future for my family outside of a hateful brutal regime. I wanted them to know the freedom I believed only America could and always would provide. I can’t say my experiences compare to the hardships many immigrants endure, but I think we share one common feeling. When you pull up roots, the resulting sense of dislocation seeps into your marrow and stays there. It gnaws and never leaves. On the rare occasions I return to South Africa, I feel a momentary familiarity when I land, a feeling that dissipates in as quickly as the drive to my destination. Then it strikes me that I am the perpetual other. Not of Africa, nor America. On the other hand, the dislocation had a strangely motivating effect. My wife arrived six months pregnant. Within a six month period, we dealt with the challenges of a new country, new job and the birth of my son. I recall our first apartment in Baltimore, furniture courtesy of Aron Rents and a TV we perched on the box it arrived in. Our kitchenware consisted of a few pots and pans my mother-in-law wisely stashed in our luggage. Looking at our circumstances, I recall saying to my wife, “This is not the American Dream I came for”. I constantly had to remind myself that I didn’t fly seven thousand miles to fail. I think a lot of Americans believe immigrants come to live off welfare State of America. Truth is, we had no concept of a social safety net in our own country. We arrived armed with nothing more than self-reliance. I am pretty certain immigrants from most countries see it the same way. I still remember a joke a friend share with my on my arrival: An immigrant fresh off the boat arrives in America and, walking down the street, notices a $5 bill on the ground. He leans to pick it up, stops himself and says, “What the heck, I’ll start work tomorrow.” Like all jokes, there a truism at work. Immigrants see America differently. We really see that opportunity abounds. We believe there’s an American Dream. And unlike the guy in the joke we know we have to work fucking hard to achieve it. Which is not to say that Americans don’t work hard, they do. It’s just that the experience having your past completely erased instills a motivation like no other. To succeed is to survive. Succeed I did. I came here to work with the best, to be the best and I lived the dream. I enjoyed modest success at my first job and had the rug pulled when my visa expired. Once again we pulled up stakes and moved to Canada. I came back because I was not going to rest until I realized my dream. A dream that is at once heartening and hollow. For many Americans the dream never was, and never will be achievable. My only privilege is believed naively that it did. My kids are grown. They have had the rare privilege being educated at great public schools and universities. They are well versed in art, literature, music and theater. Sadly though, I don’t know if I see a future for them in Trump’s America. And then there’s this: According The New York Observer: “There has been a 115 percent increase in bias crimes in New York City following Election Day, with Jews being targeted in 24 of the 43 incidents. The anti-Semitic incidents represented a threefold increase from November 2015.” I can’t say I blame my kids for looking elsewhere for a save haven. Maybe Scotland. Maybe South Africa Maybe, above all, Germany. They have inherited the Jewish immigrant gene. Mentally I see them stretching their legs”

— This is my dad’s immigration story, shared with his permission (via lifetimeinafist)

[antioedipal]

Does Jeremy Corbyn, like, do stuff apart from antisemitism? I mean schedule-wise, is there time?

[antioedipal]

passing isn’t something to be complimented on

[antioedipal]

the moon is queen of everything. she rules the oceans, rivers, rain. when i am asked whose tears these are i always blame the moon.

— lucille clifton, moonchild

[antioedipal]

“This transformation of the body into predictable and controllable operations is absolutely central to the naturalization of the category of sex. The uterus becomes a machine—controlled by the state and doctors—for the production of new bodies. The incomprehensible diversity of the human body becomes reduced to a simplistic and quantitative relation between various chemicals and hormones. Certain shapes are deemed healthy while others abnormal, and in need of surgical intervention. The binary of the so-called sex organs is almost achieved through this ongoing mutilation. Certain ratios of the distribution of fat, hair, bone structure and other occurrences come to be immutable proof of the eternal existence of the social prison of sex. In order for this prison to be totalizing, our conception of ourselves must be debased to these material operations. The engendering of humanity into the rational sexual body required the destruction of magic precisely because a magical view of the world holds that it is animated, unpredictable and that there is an occult force in plants, animals, stones, the stars and ourselves. Within this animist worldview, our individual capacities are not limited to the supposed biological destiny of sex; instead we can create, destroy, love, and take pleasure in an infinity of situations. This anarchic, molecular diffusion of powers throughout the world is antithetical to a gendered and social order which aims at capturing and dominating all life. The world had to be disenchanted to be dominated.”

— Against the Gendered Nightmare: Fragments on Domestication

[antioedipal]

catch me gardening topless at 5am telling my baby tomato plant about my bad dream

[antioedipal]

life hack

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if anyone wants me ill be in the dirt thinking abt love

[antioedipal]

if you’re not standing barefoot in the heart of a foreboding forest and chanting to the old gods as the moonlight tangles its fingers in your messy hair and caresses your dirt-streaked cheeks what even is the point

[antioedipal]

Building in Kyoto. [OS] [836 × 1024].

[antioedipal]

there’s a lot to unpack here

[antioedipal]

a portrait of the jewish-french gender-defying lesbian surrealist claude cahun, 1927

[antioedipal]

i’m pretty confident the moment my interest shifted from sociology to anthropology was when i realized how sociological theory was less compatible with my anarchism than anthropological theory was, primarily due to sociology’s negligence to examine agency and its occasional denial of its existence. the functionalism and conflict theory that has defined sociology until recently often leads the individual’s agency to be written over, their actions being attributed to the social structure instead. 

when i was reading abu-lughod’s ‘writing women’s worlds’ i think it fully clicked for me that, first in feminism and then in other contexts, anthropology’s concept of agency was more radical and anarchist. sociological feminist writing too often describes women as subject to the social structure; they’re imprisoned in a world of misogyny and violence, individually powerless against institutions. but this deprives women of their agency, to make this analysis (as true as it may be) does nothing to grant women power, it states that women are oppressed and then suggests structural deficiencies that lead this to be so. anthropology sort of does the opposite though. anthropological analysis tends to depict the oppressive structures but then highlights how the individual exerts their agency within it. it doesnt say that a woman is powerless against violence, it describes a woman experiencing violence and then examines how she resists it— and that resonates with me. throughout the abusive relationships i’ve been in i’ve exerted my agency to minimize violence, and later to escape. 

like the sociological writing on sw that i’ve read has been great, but often restricted to identifying the violence in sex work and what structures enforce the violence (i.e. police, misogyny, swerfs, etc.) but hasn’t asked the questions the anthropological works i’ve read have: why does someone become a sex worker and how is that an exertion of their agency? how is a strategy of resisting capitalism or violence? how do sex workers use their agency to create safety in their work and protect each other, how do they understand themselves and portray themselves, how does the culture (vs. the society) understand sex work? 

i have so many articles in my head spinning around!! none of this is strictly along the lines of these disciplines, i’ve just felt let down by sociology at times. it tells me i experience violence and asks what enforces the violence, instead of asking me how i am actively resisting it. anthropology in turn fails to look at the enforcing structures of violence, but it listens to my personal stories and experiences (through ethnography or otherwise) and doesn’t turn my identity into demographics or my experiences into categories of existence.

[antioedipal]

“When we learned that man had landed on the moon, we were kind of…a little disappointed in the moon. We drew pictures of the moon, and we tore them up. It just seemed like the one good thing about it had been that it had kept us out.”

— a man being interviewed in my dream (via gynoidwren)

[antioedipal]

I’m more upset about this than I need to be but honestly it’s ok, I can be upset about something so important to me being revisited in a way that will affect my perception of it. it’s a very distant example but it’s like how I gardened as a kid and made my corner the way I wanted it, then my mom would add more plants, which was a good thing and an improvement but it messed with the arrangement and upset the view of it I had developed,, I feel rly stupid abt this idk everything is very overwhelming rn and i just want to escape

im really happy Avatar: The Last Airbender’s live action Netflix reboot will have a complete cast of color but this doesn’t make me any less ROYALLY PISSED that they are going to be making a live action of the series… i was upset enough about the movie and then korra (which ended up alright but still …) i am not in a place to handle it being ruined like this ,,

[antioedipal]

im really happy Avatar: The Last Airbender’s live action Netflix reboot will have a complete cast of color but this doesn’t make me any less ROYALLY PISSED that they are going to be making a live action of the series... i was upset enough about the movie and then korra (which ended up alright but still ...) i am not in a place to handle it being ruined like this ,,

[antioedipal]

cognitive dissonance is my limitless disgust/dissapointment in people juxtaposed with my neverending love and appreciation for all that is manifest and incorporeal alike. it is a sharp pain in every muscle and a cloud over each thought, i love my ability to hold contradictory thoughts without them clashing, but it so easily can slip into cognitive dissonance and oh boy is it scary when that happens