#feminism is going against and refusing patriarchy and its hard fucking work

[endlessequity]

Here are two truths. Firstly, everyone has the power to change the world. Secondly, that change is unique to you; it is something that only you can bring to the table, which is all the more reason why the world is better for it and you. Audre Lorde not only exemplified this, but preached this sentiment through her life as a prolific writer in prose, poetry, and essays. A self-described black, lesbian, mother, warrior, and poet, her works reached many through her raw, thought-provoking, and utterly human writing. Her best known poems are her observations and resulting anger at the systemic discrimination she experienced throughout her life as a black lesbian. Her core beliefs were the celebration of rather than the condemnation of differences, as well as the integrality of intersectionality. She inspired writers and genres to come, set up/inspired foundations, wrote groundbreaking collections, and took strong political stances. She carved a space for herself in literature when one had not existed before. She made herself heard. She is proof that you can change the world in your own way and by doing what you love most. In her case, that was poetry. With a pen and paper, Lorde’s work revolutionized, changed, and bettered the world.

Audre Lorde was born on February 18th, 1934, in New York City. Born as Audrey, she dropped the last letter of her name as a child, preferring the symmetry it gave her full name. Lorde had a difficult childhood growing up. She grew up in Harlem, during the Great Depression, had eyesight so poor that she was considered legally blind, and had the condition often referred to as “tongue-tied” that altered her speech development. Poetry was what she used to express her thoughts, feelings, and emotions, often finding herself reciting poetry when asked how she was feeling or what she thought about something. When she could not find how she was feeling in the poetry she was reading, she began writing her own poetry. In eighth grade, she wrote her first poem, and in high school, she published her first poem in Seventeen magazine. From there, she earned her BA from Hunter College, got her MLS from Columbia, had two children, worked as a librarian, and began and fell in love with teaching. Teaching not only inspired a new generation of black poets, but Lorde herself; she wrote more and had anthologies published, and was encouraged to delve into and explore her identity as a lesbian. Throughout her career, she became well-known as a prolific writer and activist. She advocated for many social and political movements through her words, leaving a lasting impact with her groundbreaking contributions to not only writing, but activism, the civil rights movements, and feminism.

Lorde politicized and embraced every aspect of her identity, empowering herself and others. Like previously mentioned, her most well-known works were ones of anger at the social injustices she faced. She expressed her thoughts and experiences on a variety of forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and, towards the end of her life as she battled cancer, ableism. The first large aspect of Lorde’s writing and career was her work in combating racism. As a black woman, Lorde experienced racism; she often felt and wrote about feeling excluded in spaces such as white academia and lesbian bars. On the matter, she wrote: “It was hard enough to be Black, to be Black and female, to be Black, female, and gay. To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment, even to the extent of dancing in the Bagatelle, was considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicidal.” She wrote more about combating racism than her experiences with racism, however. For example, her essay collection “The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle The Master’s House” explored the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality, more specifically ideas of survival and what it means for each facet of her identity.

Lorde’s writing connects directly to the Critical Race Theory. She wrote greatly about race and her identity as a black woman, strongly believing in the power of embracing one’s identity. Her discussion and openness regarding how racism affected her life in all ways connects to the micro and macro social levels in which racism displays itself in. By reaffirming her identity, she took pride in her race and ethnicity as a black woman. This highlights once more her key values of celebrating oneself and what makes us different is what makes us special, but takes it another step forward. Lorde took the shame and inferiority that racism has attached to the black identity and openly refused it. Her love for her identity was in and of itself an act of revolution, as she explains in this quote: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” This idea spread, resonated, and inspired many to do the same. In specific connection to the Critical Race Theory, her work applies to the first tenet. The first tenet states that racism is ordinary in society; this can be applied to Lorde’s general work, as she wrote about her experiences as a black woman and the isolation, oppression, and discrimination she regularly experienced as a black lesbian. One of her most famous poems, “Power”, was in response to a police officer’s murder of a ten year-old black child and subsequent acquittal. This poem spread and became very popular. Through works like these, works that openly expressed anger and pain while condemning these racist acts, she sent her message to a bigger and international audience, and bravely and openly spoke against these vile and racist acts in a time where such a thing was not as common as it is today. Furthermore, she directly connected the first tenet of the Critical Race Theory that stated that racism is ordinary with this poem by showing how racism should not be ordinary and accepted as normal.

She also gave more platforms to women of colour, opening doors that had not existed before. In 1981, Lorde and one of her friends, fellow writer Barbara Smith, founded Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press. The first of its kind, it was dedicated to including, promoting, and encouraging the writings of women of colour. Lorde then became more concerned about black women’s plight in South Africa in regards to apartheid, leading to her creation of Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa. She remained an active voice for these women for the rest of her career. Lorde also critiqued second wave feminism for its homophobia, racism, and lack of inclusion of all types of women. She stressed the need for intersectionality, reiterating many times in her career that gender oppression is inseparable from other forms of oppression, and highlighted that feminism at that time only examined the white, heterosexual experience, thereby othering LGBTQ women and women of colour. She believed that women were taught to, in her exact words, “either ignore our differences or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change” which was a result from the patriarchy. The unity of all women would help overcome this social injustice. Combatting this through understanding and empathizing with one another’s differences in circumstance, identity, and experiences was essential. She addressed that a tool of patriarchy is the separation of women, countering that with stressing the importance, once more, of unity, and a core aspect of feminism that women are stronger together. She aimed to use her voice for women without voices, “ … I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t.” Her criticisms shone a light on the problematic and exclusive nature of feminism and strongly impacted the waves of feminism to come. Closer to the end of her life, Lorde spoke about disabilities as well with her ongoing, fourteen year-long battle with cancer. In terms of the Critical Disability Theory, Lorde herself was representation, showing multidimensionality through her openness about her health and her account of her experience with breast cancer and her mastectomy in her 1980 The Cancer Journals. She broke the silence and stigma around physical illnesses, linking her experience with cancer back to her central idea of the celebration of differences.

In 1992, after an open battle with cancer, Lorde died. She was survived by her partner and two children, surrounded by her family and friends in the comfort of her New York home. Her legacy will always live in not only from her seven collections of poetry and essays, topics ranging from lesbian relationships, parenting, violence, racism, homophobia, and love, but also her various speeches, teachings, and her longlasting impact on activism. Her words brought light to civil activism and helped reshape feminism into a more intersectional and inclusive movement. Her ideas on using empathy, love, equity, and understanding as tools to combat social injustice live on in today’s social justice movements, inspiring today’s writers and activists, political theories, and social movements. She took pride in every aspect of identity; her poetry will always live on and encourage more people to revolutionize against inequality through self-love, speaking up, and celebrating one another. Audre Lorde changed the world in a way only she could do, with beautiful and honest prose. She remained an active fighter for the rest of her days, even through cancer, shown in the last ever entry of her diary: “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose-holes – everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I am going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

[dictacontrion]

On the one hand, perhaps this will prevent any messages to the effect of “but Dicta, you’re overreacting, sympathy towards these two things don’t go together.”

On the other hand, this is the most appalling pile of garbage I’ve read in a good long while and needs to be taken apart with a fucking scalpel.

Milo is not evil any more than Draco in the books - Maybe, maybe not, but Milo is a real person whose actions affect real people, and his actions are therefore in an entirely different ethical category.

not everyone in the world is altruistic... - No, but the existence of bad behavior neither justifies nor excuses bad behavior.

...They are still seen as “good people” because they were on the side that won, the side that thinks itself morally superior.  - No. They are seen as good people because they seek to decrease harm, rather than increasing harm.

Other peoples opinions do not hurt you, other peoples actions do. - Expressing an opinion is an action. Expressing an opinion that is intended to incite others to exclusion and violence is an action. Expressing the opinion, as Milo did, that people should “catcall at least five women” in celebration of “World Patriarchy Day,” is both an action and a call to action. Even in the United States, which takes one of the (if not the) world’s most hard-line positions on free speech, speech that is meant to incite people to harmful action (a la yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, which will cause a stampede) can be restricted, precisely because the expression of ideas can cause harm.

You have nothing to fear from a calm discussion with someone you disagree with. - You do if that “calm discussion” is not, was never intended to be, an exchange. You do when it’s one-sided and broadcast to an audience who the speaker knows will act against you, as was the case in Milo’s criticism of Leslie Jones.

You do from anyone who gets angry when their point of view is challenged, because they are intolerant, they want to shut down discussion of a topic - Not all ideas ought to be tolerated. Free speech principles and laws mean that almost any idea can make its way into the world, but people are not obligated to, and should not, give them all equal consideration. As a society, we should not tolerate the idea that “Women are...screwing up the internet for men by invading every space we have online and ruining it with attention-seeking and a needy, demanding, touchy-feely form of modern feminism that quickly comes into conflict with men’s natural tendency to be boisterous, confrontational, and delightfully autistic” or that “all heads of diversity and indeed every employee of any diversity or equality department should be white men—the more privileged the better. After all only rich, well-educated, well-connected heterosexual white males have the required detachment and lack of emotional connection to the issues at hand to make the right calls.” Milo has the legal right to say these things. We might have something to fear from people who want to remove that legal right, but that is not and has never been part of this equation. He has, and there has been no attempt to abridge, his legal right to say just about whatever he wants. Those who disagree with him have a legal right to respond, as well as an ethical obligation to refute ideas that seek to impugn the worth, intelligence, politics, rationality, and agency of women, people of color, and non-neurotypical people. Of our fellow humans.

that is fascism, restriction of the free movement of ideas.  - no. Fascism refers to a set of governing ideals that include legally sanctioned violence, legally sanctioned restrictions to freedom of movement and expression, total or near-total control of economic systems by the government, nationalistic ideals that rely on othering minorities in order to form a sense of national cohesion, and anti-liberal rejection of disagreement. Everything about this circumstance is the very opposite of fascism. Milo is legally allowed to say what he likes, where he likes, and to earn money from it however he likes. Other people are allowed to respond however they like, including by refuting his ideas, not listening to his ideas, working to restrict the available private venues in which he seeks to spread his ideas, and making it harder for him to earn money off of them. That interplay between speaker and audience, and the freedom of both sides to express what they believe constitutes acceptable public discourse, is completely consistent with democratic liberalism.

Someone like Milo, who is throwing opinions out there with jokes is not a bad person. - Neither opining nor joking makes someone a bad person.  If your jokes consist, as Milo’s do, of calling someone “a typical example of a sort of thick-as-pig shit media Jew” or attending an anti-rape march with a sign that reads “Rape Culure and Harry Potter: Both Fantasy,” then you’re into bad person territory - the problem is not that someone tried to make a joke, but that that “joke” depends on devaluing, belittling, and hurting people.

To take that freedom away would be Fascism. If he and other people who think like him are prevented from sharing their ideas that is censorship. - No. You misunderstand the difference between public laws and private individuals or companies. If the government takes away freedoms of speech, expression, and movement, then it’s censorship and perhaps, depending on circumstance, one component of authoritarianism. If private companies, like twitter, refuse to give him a platform they are well within their rights to do so, because they are not bound by the same mandates as the government. If private individuals, individually or collectively, refute, protest, or refuse to listen to a set of ideas, that is itself a form of free expression. The ability of audiences to object to what Milo says is evidence of the absence of fascism or censorship.

if they want to hear him speak at a conference/buy his book/read his twitter they should be able to. At the moment they can’t. That to my mind is evil, it’s like living in China where people are censored because of their beliefs. - They can’t because a preponderance of people, including people on the political right, have agreed that his ideas are harmful, stupid, and intolerable, and have made it economically and reputationally non-viable for private venues to offer him a platform. That is the result of free expression and a free market responding to feedback from a bipartisan majority. That is how free market democracies work. Note, too, that people who want to hear his ideas can still seek them out easily and at low or no cost with a simple google search, and that he can continue to speak through whatever venues will have him. This, again, is exactly how free market democracies work.

Those principles [free speech and expression, minimal government interference, and democracy] are what have allowed gay rights, rights for women etc, because it was government restrictions that prevented these from occurring before. Government restrictions to women voting, government restrictions to marriage etc. It was the removal of these laws that allowed these freedoms of individual expression to occur. - This is so profoundly historically wrong that I am cringing on behalf of every teacher you’ve ever had. Unpacking this knot of wrongness would require explaining the difference between positive and negative liberty, the different between principles and the people who work to make them meaningful, different types of social movements, federalist government, international conventions and different country’s relationships to them, the interrelationship between representative and judicial branches of government, and the philosophical and legal history of both political and human rights, and frankly, I can’t fit those several semesters worth of lectures into a tumblr post. I can say, though, that you owe it to yourself, and to your fellow citizens, to do some reading or take some classes and learn how governments work.

[writermanabeng-blog]

The Darker Brother

This blog is not for the white man or the white woman. It is not meant for the Indian man nor the Indian woman. It is not even for the coloured woman, or not even the mighty black woman. It is not being written for the fuck-boy, charmer boy or whatever kind of boy. It is not for the dead beat fathers or the black person who is hater of his own skin. I do not expect this too relate to anyone except the minority, the few true brothers left in society. The one's who still carry themselves in a respectable way, who take care of their responsibilities and are leaders of their own lives. The one's who are learning to develop a solid foundation of a family structure, the one's who dedicated their lives to taking care of what's theirs and their own. The honest one's who are cursed with the image of having hidden intentions because society no longer accepts extraordinary characteristics such as truth and honesty. These are the brothers that have it rough and hard. The world has been prejudice against us, labelled and categorized us as a group, which has left society exhaling soft forms of discrimination, racism and injustice against us. Whether it's non- verbal communication like women and men feeling threatened when we walk behind them, the way eye's follow us in certain shops, too unfair treatments and/or restriction of promotions at work. Dealing with bullies in blue uniform, institutionalised racism and economic instability is enough too break even the strongest of man. Black men are stereotyped and projected negatively, many perceptions have repeated especially in the middle and lower class where we are looked at as lazy, do not want too work, dropout fathers, criminals, uneducated (thus the accent when he speaks). We are viewed as violent, sexually and emotionally aggressive. We brash women and are always ''up to no good'' Since the rise of masculinity and patriarchy, male dominance and stereotypical behaviour have become the norm. Gents,Hypermusculanity is : ¤ A term used to describe or emphasize and highlight the physical strength and sexuality of a man ¤ The belief that violence is manly ¤ That being feminine strips you entirely off your masculinity ¤ Avoiding behaviours and attributes such as compassion and emotional expression The media has a great impact on Hypermusculanity by not only having the power to reflect cultural norms and making certain behaviours normal but also translating social reality. Racial profiling, targeting people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin by law enforcement officials also affects the subconscious of how society sees us. With the rise of feminism our black mothers, sisters, and daughters see us as a threat too them. The entire structure of our everyday lives seems to be racists against us. It wasn't until I read a speech by Willie Lynch about controlling black slaves that I was convinced that the system is racist.( I erg everyone and anyone reading this to read the entire speech, I have summarized it for this blog's purpose) Willie Lynch's speech at the Riverbank’s 1712 ''¤ I have full proof, method for controlling your black slaves, I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly, IT WILL CONTROL THE SLAVES FOR AT LEAST 300hundred years. ¤ I use fear, distrust and envy for every control purpose. ¤ Distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation, respect or admiration ¤ Don't forget, YOU MUST PITCH THE OLD BLACK MALE vs THE YOUNG BLACK MALE, THE YOUNG BLACK MALE vs THE OLD BLACK MALE ¤ You must use THE FEMALE vs THE MALE, THE MALE vs THE FEMALE ¤ If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful ¤ We need a black nigger man, a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. ¤ Reduce them from their natural state in nature. • ¤ Nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, we break that by creating a dependency status so that we may be able to get from them useful production for business and pleasure. KEEP THE BODY TAKE THE MIND. In other words break the will to resist ¤ You must keep your eye and thoughts on the female and offspring of the nigger. If you break the female mother, she will break the offspring in its early years of development and when the offspring is ready to work she will deliver it up to you for her normal female protective tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. ¤ When in complete submission, she will train her offspring in the early years to submit to labour when they become of age. ¤ We have reversed the relationship in her natural uncivilized state she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized nigger male and she would have limited protective tendency toward her independent male offspring and would raise it to be dependent like her. ¤ By her being left alone, unprotected with the male image destroyed, the ordeal caused her to move from her psychologically dependant state to a frozen independent state ¤ In this frozen state of independence she will raise her male female offspring in reversed roles. For fear of the young males life, she will physiologically train him to be mentally weak and dependent but physically strong. Because she has become physiologically independent she will train her female offspring to be psychologically independent ¤ What have you got? You’ve got the female woman out front and the nigger male behind and scared. This is a perfect situation of sound sleep economics. ¤ By throwing the female nigger savage into a frozen physiological state of independence by killing the protective male image, by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nigger male slave, we have created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis '' As much As I support the fact that women dersve the rights to be treated equally in this male chauvinistic current day, we cannot be blinded by the disadvantages that feminism has birthed. It has cut communication between black men and women. Women have more rights then men since the woman's liberation they have not only gained economic equality but have surpassed us. Raising a child by herself is not a natural state of a family which erects the difference between raising a child and maintaining one. Not justifying or pushing blame away for our current state as young black men, I am simply highlighting the fact that the seems to be an invisible and war waged against us and we are not turning the other cheek or fighting back, we are simply accepting these hardships which I think is wrong. We need to stop accepting them and confront them. The white man feels threatened ( as he should) by our physical and mental capabilities. Throughout history the leadership, bravery and courage of the darker brother has proven his superiority that has not been surpassed by any other civilization. Even the great racist Mahatma Ghandi was against us (research Ghandi racist speeches against black South Africans)so why should we care for any other race before our own? How can we accept others if we have not as of yet accepted loving ourselves enough to reject, refuse the way we are treated. Brothers, everyone including our own women have been turned against us. With external opinions and comments from outsiders telling us what a man is and isn't, what we should and shouldn't be. What happens to our confidence and self esteem when brothers wear dresses and call it fashion? What happens when pants live underneath buttocks? Subconsciously revealing the buttocks, a diluted invitation too homosexuality. What happens to your identity when every positive black male you see, has made it in the ''Western'' society, with nothing resembling his blackness ( facial hair, hair, beard, demographic and standard of living) We have been silenced for far too long, we have been kept suppressed, jailed, tortured, mocked, insulted, beaten and humiliated for far too long... ''We don't want to be forced into your society. I am going to be me as I am. You can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I am not going to be, what you want me to be'' Bantu Biko