#intersectionality and how racism applies to this

[wraithdance]

thank you for that amazing dating guide.

"A lot of dating coaches are parroting language/behaviors PROFESSIONAL sex workers use for working and that’s dangerous to not understand"

as someone who isn't even aware of what a dating coach is (????) can you share bit more bout this? no need to if you don't want to tho

I had a whole eloquent reply written but tumblr ate half of it smfh. I tried to edit it this down for readability but it's still hella long and doesn't capture the point I wanna make totally.

so if anyone is interested I can write an accompanying paper with my current class thesis to explain further with academic links in MLA format lmao.

(This is based off of cis hetero dating only because it impacts queer dating which is another beast I can't cover rn)

TLDR: sex workers have an understanding of the dangers of using a man as a trick/cash out that lover girls who listen to shera7 without critical analysis do not. That's dangerous because when you're male centered in dating you are a doormat and when using sex work theories as your basis you are prey for a predator (a cis man) who knows the game (patriarchy) better than you do.

you may or may not have noticed a shift in language towards women who are not sexually explorative 'freaks' and the teasing of those who happen to get played by a man.

Tiktok dating coaches have popped up to give heartbroken women hope in a world where they too, can get a man to cash out and live a soft life after dealing with a dusty. in the same vein Trad wife's who make baking and birthing children look fun have also popped up. (As a disclaimer I really don't care what ppl do with their lives I just like to understand the psycho/social aspect of human nature and there's an analysis on both I can't expound on rn because the length of this reply is crazy already)

as someone who very much so believes in sexual agency, taking money from a man if he plans to waste my time and actively dabbles in kink/sex work (Also got groomed on the internet when the whole 'I wanna be a sugar baby' tumblr bullshit happened in early 2013), I have to point out the hypocrisy of the dating coaches/women who hate 'sluts' who use the terminology and ideas of working sluts.

As the economy goes to shit and people lose hope over having property or living the 'american dream', we are going to see a steady rise of both red pill theory and trad wife ideology and its sister 'the man eater heart of gold who is liberated but not TOO liberated and gets flown out to miami'.

This is because people day dream about 'the good days' of the 50s or whatever fucking era in order to come to terms with the fact they can't afford toothpaste. What did the 50's and previous eras have besides dirt cheap housing? Strict gender dynamics that described a woman's 'rightful' place

Male centered people are going to cling to either the virgin madonna or whore frameworks of past to make sure they get a good seat at the table with a man because that's what those under gender socialization are taught to do.

You might argue 'oh how do you know its not what they want!! You're being judgmental!!' and I will say back, I know because if you have no desire to perform a certain metric if there's not a man to acknowledge or praise you then most likely you are doing this for someone else.

The main reason I point this out is that its created a shift that tightens the constraints of misogyny on two fronts for so many women and will continue to only work to demonize sex workers and the 'undesirables.'

I watched women who slut shamed anyone who didn't keep a penny between their knees transform over night to wear fishnets and poster girl dresses while singing megan thee stallion. We can say this was a personal growth period for them but if you asked them what they thought about strippers or even insinuate they looked like they got a trick they'd freak out.

Then on the other hand you get the people who think they know everything about sex work because of the city girls or Shera7, who don't understand those women are speaking directly to the women who de-centered men and don't want love they want monetary security only (which me core <3)

when lover girls start saying sprinkle sprinkle and don't do research or internal work she will fall for the trap of any man who gives her the time of day. a fattened prey to a predator the game was designed for! That is dangerous because that's how people end up in ditches or in abusive cycles. Its what makes sex work an incredibly dangerous job that requires a lot of research and precautions that people don't want to acknowledge out of purity culture/religious persecution. That's why I wrote my dating advice post the way I did to give a reality check as much as I could. You have to know the game!!

So yeah I got tired of typing so hope this makes sense to why I mentioned it in my dating post idk

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

copying anon over here because i went to save the ask to my drafts and tumblr sent it directly to the shadow realm, welp:

I dug through your rambles about Hermes, so I'm looking forward to thoughts on Erich with the ancient world's everything lol ~

ahhhh thank you, i'm glad you've enjoyed my rambles so far!! i've been taking the second half of the pandaemonium arc more slowly, partly because i'm been Out of It the last few days and partly because the direction the plotline with erich and lahabrea has taken a turn for has been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. i've been making my way through it, though, and percolating Deeply on the He and how he and pandaemonium as a whole fit into all this. spoiler alert i love him even more now

(on the one hand, it finally helped me articulate some points that imo make or break an 'abusive parent sees the error of their ways and apologizes up and down and swears to do better, and both that and the context in which the abuse happened leave their victim feeling conflicted about it' arc. so there's that! on the other hand it, uh. it did so by very much being the goofus here lmao, and erich deserved better.)

(the way the whole thing is played off is also just, deeply deeply misogynistic. athena is top-tier nastywoman and i love her for it, and 'mothers--in particular white women, especially to their children of color--can be shitty and predatory and abusive and are accountable for it full stop,' is great abuse rep but fucking WOWZERS)

(which like, i will say that the overtones are not at all lost on me that athena repeatedly goes out of her way to prey on, abuse, and violate not just men of color but black men; dehumanizes them and treats them and their bodies as her property; and is strongly implied to have sexually abused erich in particular. and how the one who gets the brunt of it is her biracial, very VERY not white-passing son, who she isolated from the black side of his family to do whatever she wanted with. it is insanely fucking refreshing to see that shit not cushioned at ALL, and it really sucks that that had to come bundled in with the abuse apologia and misogyny.)

(i am also realizing that this is one of the reasons erich whitewashing, and how common it is in the fandom as well as official art, bothers me so much beyond the obvious. while it's uncertain how much of it was intentional, his narrative evokes not just real-world racism but colorism, and a specific brand of it and how it intersects with abuse. even if just on a doylist level erich was abused for being as dark-skinned as he is, and erasing that is even shittier than your run-of-the-mill whitewashing.)

(anyway. ANYWAY. anyway. all that is a post of its own and i haven't even gotten to the parts about ancient society yet. you see what i mean by having a lot of thoughts about him lmao)

i'm hoping to finish the last leg of the questline tonight so i can start fully putting my thoughts together because god there is SO MUCH, and i'm excited even if i foresee having to grit my teeth through the rest of the moments between him and lahabrea lmao

[mmmetrulyhopefully]

I cannot imagine defending the usa military. The people in poverty who still rejected offers from those military scouting ppl care more about the rest of the world than yall lmao. Being in non combat positions doesnt change complicity when your job is to make it easier for said combat positions??? Like do you think the ppl in medical positions are for helping us? They're for making sure their murderers are okay 🤡

Anyway usamericans, especially white ones, making 'jokes' about how the usa destroys the rest of the world is not funny its fucked up. It's like when hets make 'gay jokes' that just shit on ssa ppl. You are not funny or relatable you are insensitive and making shit up so you can ignore your complicity and the part you play.

[man-squared]

[ ID: A reply from a user who's name has been marked out that reads "kind of in love with the concept of calling yourself and intersectional feminist here. Like that's literally just 'I care more than you do' as a self applied title. What does that actually do here?" End ID. ]

do……….do people not realize that intersectional feminism is an actual feminist movement with a whole framework and network of people who practice it.

[aretheyqueer]

Anyway I sent you that ask but I’m not like boiling over mad about it, it’s just like. The experiences of men and women are different but it is because a woman’s experiences breaks off from the default, which is the male experience. I do not think things can be that clean cut when it comes to gender identity but for cis men? The intersectionality of being black and disabled makes sense, the intersectionality of being black and a man doesn’t. That is called anti black racism. And it is foolish to act like the ways black men are seen, as violent, aggressive, poor, untrustworthy, older than they are as children, aren’t applied to black women too

what are you talking about

well its about this post and normally I try not to give attention to angry anons but I'll talk a bit about it

misandry. a difficult topic for some. it seems that a lot of people believe that in order for misandry to exist, misogyny has to not exist. but that's not true. both exist at the same time and both affect everyone.

men are seen as more violent than women, and if you combine that with the "black people are more violent" mindset, you get a violent black man stereotype, which is different from what a black woman experiences. doesn't mean one is more oppressed than the other. but one of them has been affected by misandry as well. one of the people I know is a black man and because we get "violent black person + violent man" together, people cross the street in order to not pass him on the sidewalk. he has been told to his face by women things like "you're actually cool, I thought you were going to hit me when I first saw you...", which they somehow think is a compliment. this is not only because of racism or misandry, but because of both at the same time.

generally speaking in the US, women get away easier with crime than men. there have been cases where all the evidence shows that the woman killed someone, only for it to be randomly decided that she didn't. this is a combination of pretty privilege, and difference in how men and women are treated. white people also get away with crime easier than black people. it's not ridiculous to think that these combine, that black+man (violent+violent) has different expectations of how much evidence is necessary and how harsh the punishment should be.

when a trans man transitions, it's likely that he will feel a change as he starts to experience male privilege. but things aren't as great as a man as they tell you on the internet.

men and women have different beauty standards. generally, it's seen as unattractive if a man is chubby, has acne, lack of muscles, beard growing in the wrong places etc. (even women who "like dad bods" often go for the conventionally attractive men). now, as a trans man basically going through your second puberty, acne, fat redistribution, hair growth - it can all impact your appearance in ways that you don't actually like.

and this happens. some trans men experience these "ugly" changes, and suddenly they go (literal quote) "people are so mean to me now!" becaaauseee... society has different expectations of men and women, and when men don't meet those expectations, they are treated differently. not only because they're "ugly", but because they are "ugly" men.

a lot of women don't like to admit it, but they can be really horrible to men. there's this assumption that men have it easy, which leads to a couple things:

"Ugly" men are treated horribly by women

Every ugly man is assumed to have worse morals than handsome white men

Women's abuse against men isn't taken seriously

Remember the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case? There was a lot of evidence that a man was being abused by a woman. Him literally taking her to court and showing the world that men CAN be abused by women and there are things you can do about it, was an inspiration to other men that had been abused. But then you open twitter, and... people are demonising him because he has "started a culture where men take women to court over every little thing". You hear that? That's misandry, baby. (btw, rape and abuse accusations have been used against men to take advantage of the "trust all victims" mindset. it's horrible to do something that causes distrust against women who speak up, but it is an unfortunate truth. this happens both off the internet and on the internet.)

Now...

It's important to step out of radfem and "hate all men" bubbles sometimes, because while their purpose is to support women, they are frequently spaces where misandrists thrive. there, it's normal to think every man you pass wants to rape and/or kill you, and it's normal to laugh at and make fun of ugly or weird men.

men and women have different experiences. disabled men and disabled women have different experiences. trans men and trans women have different experiences.

and that's ok. we don't need to have a competition about which one is worse. misandry being a problem doesn't mean that misogyny isn't. we can fight both at the same time.

I would encourage people to think about what they mean when they say they hate all men. if you tense up when you walk past men. how quick you are to believe that a man is a rapist before you've seen the proof. how you define an ugly man, and how you think about ugly and handsome men differently. if you've ever made fun of a man for having traits that you praise women for. if you've ever forgiven a woman for something that you would have never forgiven a man for. etc.

there aren't any titles or stuff in this post so I don't know how readable it is. but if you got this far, cool.

tldr: misandry is real and it is amplified to the max when a man is a minority or doesn't meet the expectations of what a handsome man is, go talk to a man in your life about it

[doberbutts]

One of the things that really confuses me (I'm a cis woman of color) is this doubling down on the idea that Black men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're Black, gay men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're gay, trans men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're trans, etc. It feels like people are being intentionally obtuse. You can't separate my identity as a POC from my identity as a woman. I am treated the way I'm treated because I'm a woman of color, those two things work together. That's where discussions of intersectionality originated. So to say you can separate a privileged identity from an oppressed one is just.... not how anything works?

I constantly see "masculinity isn't criminalized/demonized, Blackness, queerness, transness are" and it's like.... no, that's not how this happens. Marginalized men face specific oppression based on the intersection of their identities. It seems like lately people are willing to understand that for women but not willing to for men and I just don't know how we make any progress if radfem rhetoric has become so pervasive that people are refusing to see lived realities rather than some abstract hypothetical they've come up with.

Personally I think this is due to (white) people seeing and liking black theory that they personally agree with or that makes sense to be applied to their own lives, and then cut out all the parts that are inconvenient for them to have to reconcile. Much like how many, many, many black feminists who are cis women have said "hey, white feminists, stop it with the all men are rapists thing, it actively contributes to black men getting lynched for crimes they didn't commit because it gets weaponized unfairly against our brothers" and white feminists collectively forgot how to read and abandoned their listening skills while still praising other parts of black feminism that talk about domestic violence and sexual assault and oversexualization and reproductive rights and rightly taking black men to task for their continued complacency in this.

The phrase "intersectionality" originated in black feminist theory. I do not trust any white person to fully understand black feminism when they use it as a bludgeon to make the inconvenient bits be quiet. Much of what is on this blog is black feminism. It is inconvenient for white people to have to consider how their words and actions may harm people of color while still lifting themselves up.

As you have said, you cannot separate the "of color" from the "woman" parts of your identity. You are a woman of color. That changes how both sexism and racism works against you in a system that is both sexist and racist. I, in the same manner, cannot separate the "trans" from the "man"- if I were not a man, I would be a woman. I am AFAB, if I am a woman, I am not trans. There is no "you experience this because you are transgender, not because you are a man". In order to be a man, in my body, I have to be transgender*. Just like there is no "you experience this because you are black, not because you are a man". I am a black man. The black experience is inherently, often forcibly, gendered. I can tell you exactly how people treating me changed in a "before" and "after". I can tell you that yes, some of it absolutely stems from the "man" part, they treat me this way because I am a black man.

But people often misunderstand intersectionality to be, exclusively, axis of oppression. And so they say, well learn intersectionality, men aren't oppressed and thus it's not an axis of oppression to combine. But that ignores that some men are oppressed, marginalized men are oppressed and often with a very gendered slant. And it ignores that, like how you cannot separate the "woman" from the "of color", neither can you do that with men.

Men are not the default. They are slightly less than half the population, same as women.

*re: in order to be a man in my body I must be transgender; yes, I am intersex. However I have been out as transgender for 17 years, and discovered I am intersex 6 months ago. So for me, that is very much the case. For other intersex people who were assigned female at birth, that may not be the case. This is something that works on an individual level but cannot be broadbrushed as there are many different opinions among intersex people regarding our cisgender vs transgender status.

[fruitsofhell]

People shit on Elemental for its race/culture allegory looking even more reductive and rigid than Zootopia's on the service, but I think it actually used it super well. It feels a lot more like a very broad and fable-ish metaphor than the sort of hard world-building with direct racial parallels found in Zootopia. Zootopia aged poorly cause it was so fucking direct in its parallel imagery to real world oppression with the police angle, whereas Elemental is just generally about the experience of being an immigrant. The way it uses the infrastructure of the city being actively built for some and harmful to others is really clever, I adored how they used that.

It also helps greatly that Elemental was written by a POC from the perspective of the marginalized because it helps make the metaphors feel more cohesive. The choice to make Judy the main focus as a perpetrator of the systemic predator oppression that greatly mirrors real world anti-blackness aged like milk to me, it screams white guilt complex. And the fact it spends a lot of time not engaging with forms of prejudice besides the bunny oppression until it gets to that feels very flat. Elemental immedietly explains its main allegory very strongly and from the perspective of those it affects, so there's no fluff or time spent ignoring the issues from the privileged perspective.

Literally the thing that will instantly kill your fantasy oppression metaphor is being white guilty about it or not thinking super hard about what you're paralleling if you're going to be as blunt as Zootopia. Stuff like accidentally giving the oppressed group a reason to be oppressed as you do with the predator-prey dynamic. It's just the biggest fucking red flag and shows little understanding of why these systems exist irl. In Elemental the metaphor obviously uses a lot of imagery to show that the fire people are meant to be east asian-coded, but beyond that its content just being a story about class and immigrant families. About being from different worlds and feeling like they're impossible to combine, because of experiences and backgrounds, which is expressed as being fire and water.

Unlike being a bunny and fox, that imagery is a bit less loaded and can be turned into a sort of mutual harm as it is in the film with Wade being at risk of evaporating as muxh as Ember is at risk of being put out. And, in the end, it's found that water can just bubble a bit as the metaphor for a compromise. Which is fine enough and where the more fable-ish approach to the allegory became clear to me.

It's also used very cutely for their personalities too in a way that comes back to the background divide - Ember being fiery, anxious, and high-strung from pressures of supporting her community, and Wade being all blubbery and emotional but mellower because he lives in a supportive upper-class family. Its just a lot cleverer on a couple of levels than the bumbling between 'predators are black and brown people but also their oppression is bad but also they are dangerous but also its cause of a conspiracy, and also small prey are kinda like white woman and theres intersectionality but its shown horribly'.

Despite Ember's racial coding, no matter how you code Wade's family it doesn't matter because it is simply about - 'you live in a city that has integrated for you, and I don't' - which could apply to an upper-class family of any background, cause it's more of a class thing now. Even if he was black-coded (which Ive seen from fans likely because of his VA, I dont remember if he was in the films text), it still works cause their ARE affluent black families whom by nature of having been here and integrated are in that privileged role over a poorer immigrant family of any other race.

Allegories for class or upbringing usually age better, the systems that create those are a lot more basic and less loaded to parallel on a surface level than racism or misogyny. Not that they CANT go really deep, but it's easier to not come off as blatantly offensive as long as you're not like a eugenicist about it.

[olderthannetfic]

Kimberlé Crenshaw, who invented the concept of intersectionality largely to discuss the specific experiences of black women, would have nooooooo patience for the suggestion that black men don’t still benefit from male privilege in their own ways, lol. I think a lot of people in your anons need to understand the difference between suggesting that cis het white women don’t overall have it better on most metrics than black or trans or gay men, and pointing out that even marginalized men still benefit in *some* way from male privilege, and even very privileged women still experience misogyny. You’re not measuring them against each other by doing that; reduction of this discussion to a mathematics game of “who is the most/least oppressed” shows the person doing that, in fact, has not understood the point of intersectionality and therefore needs to stop smugly throwing that word at people who just give the definition of male privilege. What illustrates the point of “male privilege still benefits marginalized men, misogyny still hurts privileged women” is not comparing them against each other, but against people of similar levels of overall privilege/marginalization who are the other binary gender. Black men still generally benefit in some ways from being male in ways that black women don’t — if you need details on what that is, actually READ black feminists like Crenshaw and Lorde and hooks rather than just appropriate their arguments that you don’t understand, and lol, most black feminists would have WORDS for this bizarre idea that their femaleness somehow shields them from police and other institutional violence, and the numerous cases of black women being murdered by police put hard evidence to their critiques, too (the “innocence” granted to femaleness in white women just does not apply to black women in a white supremacist society) — and likewise, wealthy cishet white women still experience misogyny that wealthy cishet white MEN do not. (For evidence of that, just see… any cishet white female celebrity who has had any negative media attention ever.) I really don’t understand how people can do this same calculus with other forms of oppression — relatively privileged white cis gay men like Pete Buttigieg still experience homophobia, this is extremely obvious when comparing them with similarly-privileged straight people; and a poor person of color who is cis and straight still benefits from being cis and straight and their life would very likely be even worse if they were not cis or not straight, and cis and straight people in poor communities of color often perpetuate homophobia/transphobia to non-cis/straight people just like cis and straight people do in any other community — and yet not recognize that gender privilege vs. oppression works similarly. And there’s no excuse for men just deciding that’s not a conversation they want to have: not because it’s bad for cis het white women when they refuse to do that, but because it’s bad for women in their own communities who are similar levels of overall social privilege and marginalization to them. It does black WOMEN a disservice when black men decide that that’s something they can just opt out of entirely because they don’t like the way some white women have historically talked about it. And in general, white people and black men need to stop appropriating black women’s writing about feminism and racism without actually engaging with what they actually wrote, ESPECIALLY when it’s in service of ideas that those black women would very much not agree with at all.

--

[rebellum]

How do you know youre upper middle class? Isn't class related to race so like only white people are truly considered to be middle class to upper class. Intersectionality or whateva. We can be billionaires but since were POC we will never be seen as one of them because of our bloodline/descent/color etc

That's not really how that works. While someone who is white (or, of the most privileged race of the culture) has more social power than someone of colour who makes the same income, they still make enough money that they count as that class.

Intergenerational wealth also counts for something, which is why there are eg more white rich people than rich poc in the west.

Class relates to race in that different factors of oppression or privilege affect individuals differently, but class terminology is a useful tool for understanding how social power relates to wealth.

For example, I, a mixed race black person living in canada, absolutely have more power than a poor white person in certain situations. Other upper middle class people subconsciously recognise me as being of the same class, because of the way I dress (I have cool glasses, I wear gold jewelery with precious (semi-precious?) gems, the way I speak (which I would describe as "upper middle class canadian academic English"), and more. That class connection of "ah yes, we are both upper middle class and therefore are similar", that in-group affiliation, benefits me in many situations. It also doesn't benefit me...enough, I guess? in many situations.

I'm thinking now of the "cowboy church" incident. I won't get into the whole details, but this story includes me, my brother (mixed black), my friend (black), my dad (black), and my dad's girlfriend (white) walking into a small rural Texan church full of only white people. EVERYONE turned and stared. It was honestly so unnerving. You ever see the look in someone's eyes and just KNOW they're thinking the n word? It was like that.

In that case, people saw my skin colour. These were not upper middle class city folk, there was no group affiliation except for assumed Christianity. They did not see my outfit, and the way I spoke and carried myself. They saw my skin colour.

But could you imagine how horribly that would have gone had we appeared to be low income? If we walked in with idk sweat pants and a hoodie and no jewelery and speaking in AAVE? We would have absolutely been received in a much harsher way. So while there was not the benefit of in-group affiliation, my class still benefitted me because they saw my class as "neutral" kind of, rather than "poor person".

You're totally correct in that there will always be the dynamics of racism within same group class dynamics, that never goes away.

As for how I know I'm actually upper middle class, if that was a real question and not just a lead up for your ask that really meant "but are you really upper middle class if you aren't white?" Well, I haven't looked at class income demographics in canada recently, but I just kinda... know?

Guessing based on parental income (I have no income)(also yes that complicates class! I'm applying for welfare despite being upper middle class.)

Not the first generation to attend university

My parents and grandparents paid for my entire undergrad (to be fair, keep in mind I'm canadian, it was like $2000 a semester. We aren't talking american uni costs.)

We live in a house we own that has 3 floors, a front yard, a backyard, and a pool

I travel every year at least to other parts of Canada

My various family members and I have all been on international trips

I say things like "one must question the validity of their own argument" or whatever. Like, I use the pronoun "one". I also use more words of French and latin origin in everyday speech, like "ameliorate" or.. idk, other ones, it's like midnight here.

Almost all of my clothes I buy new, thrift shopping is a fun activity for me and not a necessity

My glasses are designed in France and the frames alone cost $300

Idk, I just know man. Insert Japanese shrug emoji here.

I hope this makes sense, it's late here and my brain has been a little funky today, so feel free to ask for clarification if needed

[neotrances]

terfs defending racist white women on the basis of them just being women proving again the terf ideology mainly serves and is used by white “feminist” who r unable to process let alone apply intersectionality, failing to see how a woman openly okay with dating a nazi is at fault for supporting racism as white women being the silent aids for their racist partners is a recorded phenomenon throughout history

[catgirlforeskin]

Hey, I just saw the "(Trans) Men are oppressed for being men. Its just that the most visible men in society usually aren't." post and I'm kinda confused by your response - can you elaborate?

My first impulse was to agree w the post and then I crashed into your reply at the end and wondered if I'd missed something important along the way

Yeah, my main issue with it is that it’s willfully misinterpreting how oppression happens so it can write misogyny out of existence.

No man is oppressed for being a man. Trans men are oppressed for being trans, gay men for being gay, disabled men for their disability, and so on and so forth.

Do gay men sometimes experience homophobia in a different way than lesbians? Absolutely. But the reason lesbophobia is a term is because homophobia and misogyny are intersecting forms of oppression that lesbians face, and that isn’t the case for gay men. They’re oppressed for being gay, not for being gay and for being men.

The same goes for misogynoir or transmisogyny. Black men experience racism differently than black women, but black women face racism and misogyny and those intersect and compound each other.

We live under patriarchy, men are an oppressor class and women are an oppressed class. We also live under white supremacy and in a systemically homophobic and transphobic society, so the same applies there, with white people, straight people, and cis people being members of an oppressor class.

The reason intersectionality is important is so we can understand how these systems interact with each other. Gay men and disabled men are still men and benefit from that, while gay women and disabled women don’t benefit from being women. But being white or able-bodied does give you benefits.

I assumed this was all like, basic stuff for activism, but a lot trans men on this site hate the idea of intersectionality because they benefit materially from patriarchy in ways that trans women don’t, and they don’t like admitting it, or admitting that they’re capable of being misogynist.

It’s the driving force behind all “men are oppressed too” “reverse racism against white people is real” type shit. It’s people who want the benefits of being an oppressor class but don’t want to admit they’re part of it or that it exists.

[tianshiisdead]

People who are accused of sinophobia for accusing random Chinese diaspora with 0 connection to China of being a gov shill (in this case despite 23049685908 evidence to the contrary), and told this rhetoric is not only racist but has caused direct violence to the Chinese person recently: stop making this about you! this is about your GOV (goes on a tangent about what the gov which has nothing to do with OP is doing) WHICH MEANS YOUR POINT IS INVALID!

like you are just proving the diaspo's point... they've provided you the proof your accusations are unjustified... and now you're doubling down and starting to talk about the gov... which proves you conflate them with the gov they have 0 connection to and do not benefit from, as are actively facing racist violence tied to this. If you didn't think all Chinese = gov, then why would you continue bringing up gov actions after this Chinese diaspo proved they were not connected to it? What do they have to do with it? Why is this relevant at all, if you don't in fact support the conflation?

Finally, you can't get out of racism charges by saying they live in America, or that their people (not them) are also racist against yours, or that their parents' country holds economic power over yours. All POC can internalize racist rhetoric, racism is not a thing more inherent to some groups, it's a structural issue based on not only international power dynamics but local power dynamics as well, and those on different rungs of that ladder under the top level can and do internalize racist rhetoric against each other, and that is not justified through being on a lower rung *in general*. Spreading racist rhetoric online, in an anglophone space, means your rhetoric is simply going to be taken the way all faceless online anglophone rhetoric is and feed into irl racism in the west. Online, you are not limited by region but by language.

This isn't getting into how diaspora face more racism in their day-to-day lives, and how for some of the people targeted, we also face islamophobia and persecution/racism both abroad as diaspora and at home as minorities, as Muslims.

In this case *we are not more privileged than you in a way that is meaningful or manifests irl where this matters*, full stop. Privilege isn't an abstract that always manifests the same way, and intersectionality must be taken into account. Class, location, and relationship to the state you are living in, all of that matters, which is why different groups/ethnicities can have WILDLY differing levels of privilege in different regions. This applies to Asians in the West VS Asians who are the majority race at home, migrant workers and rich gentrifiers who are the same race and from the same country entering the same country, etc. Both historical colonialism and economic imperialism notwithstanding.

Also, weaponizing Japanese imperialism against a Korean through framing it as Easian colonialism vs SEA colonized, therefore conflating Easians (in this case Koreans) as the perpetrators, victimizing yourself vis a vis Korea, is fucking *vile*. Korea was arguably one of the most and longest brutalized, some of the main victims, the country pieced together their freedom after decades of colonial violence and suppression.

Downplaying and even mocking/denying colonialism and racism faced by other POC is racist no matter what. It feeds into violent rhetoric that affects us as diaspora IRL.

Finally, how hard is it to accept you've said something racist and move on, or changing your angle of attack at least? Doubling down is crazy. I've absolutely said unacceptable things before because I as a part of society have also internalized many racist ideas, we ALL do, that's how racism WORKS. And sometimes those things are against people who are more privileged than me! Who's gov or people have/are perpetuating this or that against mine! And I fix my thinking, retract my comment, and move tf on, because NONE of that justifies feeding into racism that oppresses them under the white supremacist world and societal order. Do you think I'm new to this, as an ethnic minority of a racialized group?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer

Published: Feb 13, 2024

On October 7th, 2023, most Americans watched in horror as Israel experienced the deadliest terrorist attacks in its history. In the days and weeks that followed, some of that horror mingled with confusion.

For example, on Oct. 8th—before an Israeli counteroffensive was launched—BLM Grassroots issued a “Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” writing that they “stand unwaveringly on the side of the oppressed” and “see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people.” Two days later, BLM Chicago posted a graphic featuring a paraglider with a Palestinian flag and the text “I stand with Palestine” (terrorists had used paraglides to attack a Music festival on Oct. 7th, killing over three hundred civilians). Even more bizarre posts began turning up on social media. The Slow Factory, a progressive group with over 600k followers on Instagram, posted a graphic stating “Free Palestine is a Feminist issue. It’s a reproductive rights issue. It’s an Indigenous Rights issue. It’s a Climate Justice issue, it’s a Queer Rights issue, it’s an Abolitionist Issue.” The group “Queers for Palestine” began showing up with signs at various demonstrations. A banner hanging from a building at the University of British Columbia announced, “Trans liberation cannot happen without Palestinian Liberation.”

What explains these signs and sentiments, which seem to be springing up organically around the country and other parts of the world? How is the Hamas-Israel war connected to climate change? Why is it a feminist issue? Why are “queers” standing in solidarity with Palestine when Israel’s government is far more permissive than Palestine’s (for example, same-sex activity is criminalized in Gaza)? What has inspired an outpouring of egregious and unconscionable antisemitic rhetoric and behavior in various cities and on a number of college campuses?

The answer is, in a word, intersectionality. In this article, we’ll explain the intersectional framework that undergirds these phenomena and will then offer a brief reflection on how it can be resisted.

* * *

Intersectionality was a term coined by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. She used it to describe the discrimination faced by Black women, whose social location (that is, their relationship to power within U.S. society) was predicated on both their race and their sex simultaneously. In other words, a Black woman’s experience cannot be reduced to merely the sum of her race and sex experiences. Instead, she occupies a unique (and uniquely marginalized) category that is shaped by both her Blackness and femininity.

Although Crenshaw’s first examples focused on race and gender, intersectionality was rapidly applied to other categories like sexuality, class, and disability, just as Crenshaw intended. Indeed, precursors to Crenshaw’s conception of intersectionality can be found in other Black feminist writings. For example, the Combahee River Collective Statement insisted in 1977 that it is “difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because... they are most often experienced simultaneously” and feminist Beverly Lindsay argued in 1979 that sexism, racism, and classism exposed poor Black women to “triple jeopardy” (see Collins and Bilge, Intersectionality, p. 76).

So in what ways does intersectionality shape progressive views on the Israel-Hamas War?

First, through its embrace of the social binary; second, through its implicit adoption of the category of “whiteness,” and finally through its commitment to solidarity in liberation.

The Social Binary

While the concept of intersectionality can be understood narrowly to refer to the trivial claim that our identities are complex and multifaceted, Crenshaw intended a far more robust understanding rooted in a prominent feature of critical social theory, what we call the “social binary.” The social binary refers to the belief that society is divided into oppressed groups and oppressor groups along lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability, religion, and a host of other identity markers. Crenshaw did not merely believe that Black women (and White men, and Hispanic lesbians) all had different social locations, but that they had differently-valued social locations.

In a 1989 paper, Crenshaw asked the reader to “[imagine] a basement which contains all people who are disadvantaged on the basis of race, sex, class, sexual preference, age and/or physical ability” and who were then literally stacked “feet standing on shoulders with the multiply-disadvantaged at the bottom and the fully privilege at the very top.” This understanding of intersectionality necessarily assumes a hierarchy of oppression and privilege such that people can be ranked in order from most to least oppressed.

Although Crenshaw didn’t discuss “colonial status” in the body of her paper, she did state in a footnote that Third World feminism is inevitably subordinated to the fight against “international domination” and “imperialism.” It is at precisely this point that intersectionality affects progressive understanding of Israel-Palestinian relationships.

Later critical social theorists, and especially postcolonial scholars, believe that colonialism—like white supremacy, the patriarchy, and heterosexism—divides society into oppressed and oppressor groups. Because the Israeli government is positioned as a “colonizing foreign power,” it is therefore necessarily oppressive. Conversely, Palestinians are then necessarily positioned as a colonized, oppressed group. Never mind the spurious assessment of both. Note here that critical theorists make these judgments not on the basis of the actual history of the region (which is complex) or a careful analysis of particular Israeli policies (which are certainly open to debate). Rather, the mere identification of Israel as a “colonial power” is all that is needed to set up a social binary between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The social binary then explains why some progressives make such a quick, simplistic analysis: intersectionality deceptively primes them to see the world in these black-and-white terms.

Whiteness

A second factor that contributes to a reflexive pro-Palestinian perspective by some in the U.S. is the ascendance of critical race theory and an attendant understanding of “whiteness.”

CRT, which was birthed concurrently with intersectionality in the late 1980s, conceptualizes whiteness not as a skin color or even as an ethnicity, but as a social construct that provides tangible and intangible benefits to those raced as “White.” (Notwithstanding that white skin and whiteness are often conflated when it serves the interests of progressives). Whiteness as a social construct signals that “whiteness” is fluid and malleable and need not only include people traditionally understood as White. For example, in his important 2003 book Racism Without Racists, sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva hypothesized that America could develop a “triracial order” consisting of “Whites,” “Honorary Whites,” and “Collective Black.” On Bonilla-Silva’s reading, Whites would include not just Anglo-Saxons, but also “Assimilated white Latinos,” “Some multiracials,” “Assimilated (urban) Native Americans,” and “A few Asian-origin people.” On the other hand, the “Collective Black” category would include “Vietnamese Americans,” “Dark-skinned Latinos,” and “Reservation-bound Native Americans” (see Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists, 228).

Critical race theorists have long wrestled with the place of Jewish people within their racial hierarchy. On the one hand, Americans did not traditionally consider Jews “White” and the U.S. has explicitly discriminated against Jews in the recent past (Jewish admission quotas at Ivy League Schools being one glaring example). On the other hand, many critical race theorists today believe that most Jews have assimilated to whiteness and benefit from “White privilege” and therefore should be classified as White. In her chapter “Whiteness, Intersectionality, and the Contradictions of White Jewish Identity,” Jewish psychologist Jodie Kliman writes that,

As European Jews have slowly ‘become’ white over the last three generations (Brodkin, 1998), we have internalized White supremacy in general and anti-Black prejudice in particular...Immigrant Jews and their descendants assimilated into US society, becoming white, or sort of white...

Unfortunately, to the extent that American Jews are viewed as “White adjacent” while Palestinians are viewed as “Brown,” the former are members of an oppressor group and the latter of an oppressed group. This categorization adds another layer to knee-jerk progressive support for Palestinians.

Liberation

Finally, the glue that binds together pro-Palestinian, pro-LGBTQ, and feminist activists is a shared commitment to mutual liberation. Again, this commitment is not new; it is found in the earliest texts of critical race theory, including those authored by Crenshaw herself. For instance, in the 1993 anthology Words that Wound, she and other co-founders of CRT wrote that a “defining element” of CRT is the commitment to ending all forms of oppression: They write: 

Critical race theory works toward the end of eliminating racial oppression as part of the broader goal of ending all forms of oppression. Racial oppression is experienced by many in tandem with oppressions on grounds of gender, class, or sexual orientation. Critical race theory measures progress by a yardstick that looks to fundamental social transformation. The interests of all people of color necessarily require not just adjustments within the established hierarchies, but a challenge to hierarchy itself (Matusda et al., Words that Wound, 6-7).

This last point is crucial to understanding the automatic solidarity between, say, LGBTQ activists and decolonial activists. One could, in principle, accept that both LGBTQ people and Palestinians are oppressed groups and still conclude that their goals are mutually exclusive. For example, most Palestinians are Muslim and traditional Islam rejects the sexual autonomy demanded by LGBTQ activists. Yet an intersectional framework insists that homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism are all “interlocking systems of oppression” that can and must be overturned simultaneously—never mind the details.

Lest anyone worry that we’re misinterpreting or overstating the degree to which popular progressive sentiments surrounding this issue are shaped by a fundamental commitment to intersectionality, consider the article “Palestine is a Feminist Issue” from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. It begins with a quotation from Mariam Barghouti “Fundamentally speaking, feminism cannot support racism, supremacy and oppressive domination in any form” and immediately explains intersectionality in its opening paragraph: 

Intersectional feminism is a framework that holds that women’s overlapping, or intersecting, identities impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination. Intersectionality rejects the idea that a woman’s experience can be reduced to only her gender, and insists that we look at the multiple factors shaping her life: race, class, ethnicity, disability, citizenship status, sexual orientation, and others, as well as how systems of oppression are connected... When we look at the world through an intersectional feminist lens, it becomes clear that Palestine is a feminist issue.

Conclusions

While the reaction of some progressives to the Hamas-Israel war took many people, especially Jewish people, by surprise, it was largely predictable given the powerful influence that intersectionality exerts on our culture. Intersectionality can lead to a grotesque moral calculus that justifies Hamas’ rape of Israeli girls as an understandable response of the oppressed lashing out at their oppressor. It has caused university presidents at our elite institutions to shamefully equivocate and prevaricate when given opportunity to unapologetically condemn antisemitism. Unfortunately, these examples are natural outworkings of the intersectional worldview.

For those who are alarmed by what seems to be growing acceptance of anti-Semitism within some segments of the left, we offer the following action items.

First, we should resist critical theory’s simplistic moral categories of Oppressor vs. Oppressed. To the extent that we see every conflict as a battle between innocent victims and cruel victimizers, we will gloss over the moral complexities of reality.

Second, we need to see people primarily as individuals rather than as avatars of their demographic groups. It’s much easier to dehumanize abstract categories than the nervous old woman across the street or the energetic cashier at the grocery store. Personal connection is an antidote to demonization.

Finally, we need to be realistic about the perniciousness of “woke” ideology, which has been infiltrating our institutions, universities, businesses, and places of worship for decades. Many social movements have waved the banner of progress and justice while slaughtering tens of millions. If we don’t learn from history, we very well may repeat it.

[faloverfae]

I've seen some people use the "Gaza doesn't support LGBTQ+ people" as an argument for why they don't deserve our support and it's such a scary reason. The demographic arguing this is the same one that doesn't "agree with our lifestyle" and they seem to believe that we think anyone who doesn't support us deserves to die.

Obviously, this is fucking bullshit.

But the clear lack of empathy is INSANE, and it is honestly terrifying to see what their beliefs truly are. Bear with me here.

People approach life through the lense of their own experiences. They can agree with others, and understand them to a degree, but they will never have the experiences that another person has. Because we can only see things through our own lense, it is even more important to listen to other people, to learn and educate ourselves on topics and experiences we do not and will never have.

However, this is a realisation that is unfortunately not super commonly occurring (at least in my experience this far) as most people are content to simply believe that everyone sees things the same way they do instead of looking inward and grappling with their own experiences and resulting prejudices. The group that makes this argument, that we should not support Gaza because they don't have LGBTQ+ rights, is the same group of people that do not do this inward reflection.

They believe we think like they do. They believe that we, like them, are unwilling to show empathy in situations where it is very important to show empathy, simply because we disagree on a certain point. They think we don't believe that people are complex and ever changing, that countries can grow and progress and improve given time. They believe we can be convinced (tricked) to agree with a fucking GENOCIDE because the Palestinian people don't have LGBTQ+ rights yet.

They already believe that there are some people in the world who are less human than themselves, so it can't be a surprise that the same logic applies here. The people of Palestine are far away, therefore whatever comes of this "conflict" (genocide) will not affect their own lives. To them, the children in Gaza are not human. They do not have complex lives, they do not have hopes or dreams, they simply exist as shells. And as such, they are not real people, and therefore they are not important.

So the argument then is not that we should not support Palestine because they don't support the LGBTQ+ community. It is that we should not support the people of Palestine because they are not actually people.

And then we have to grapple with the implicit racism that is contained in that statement; how this dehumanising is not at all new and the people on the recieving end of this treatment are nearly always people of colour; how there can be parallels drawn from the current genocide through every genocide in history, and how it all traces back to colonialism, but that is far more intersectionality than most people are ready for in a Tumblr post, and honestly I am too tired to try and write that essay right now.

Anyways.

Do your daily clicks!!! It literally takes 14 seconds (I counted)

Here is the link to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund!

https://www.pcrf.net/

That one vice article in case anyone doesn't know about the TLOU shitshow yet

A link to a website that lists resistance rallys for Palestine! It has days, times and places so if you are interested in attending the ones in your area but don't know how to find them this is a wonderful source!

A resource on intersectionality! I suggest listening to this series, it is very informative and although they don't talk about Gaza directly, much of what is said about other situations (or simply the ways things are spoken about) can be applied here too!!! I wish I had more resources to add about intersectionality but I'm just starting out in the activism world, so please feel free to suggest any you know of!

Free Palestine. We will not stand by as the Palestinian people are slaughtered. Do research. Inform yourself.

[jorgielua101]

Blog Post Week 4: Due 9/19

How do algorithms perpetuate existing biases in society?

Algorithms perpetuate existing biases in society due to a system that his made with biases from humans. Biases within the algorithm is a deep-rooted issue of discrimination towards gender, race, sexuality, and class. This can also cause stereotypes within minorities. For example, an algorithm is made when people are applying for jobs. People with white-sounding names receive 50 percent more callbacks from employers rather than black-sounding names. Some computer scientists from Princeton examine a popopular algorithm, trained on human writing online, to see if it would exhibit the same biased tendencies that psychologists have documented among humans. The results came back that algorithms associated with white-sounding names were more pleasant words rather than black-sounding names. 

How does the "new Jim Code" create racial biases in technology, especially regarding names? What are the wider effects of these biases on society?

The new Jim Code creates this new version of discrimination systems within technology. These modern technologies and systems unintentionally and intentionally reinforce racial discrimination, which highlights how algorithms and data can cause biases against marginalized groups. This can impact law enforcement systems. For example, in a recent audit of the California gang database not only did blacks and Latinxs constitute 87 percent of those listed but many of the names turned out to be babies under the age of one, some who were supposedly “self-described gang members”. This database associates names with gang member names that are in the system causing a false algorithm that discriminates against people of color. 

How does intersectionality shape how people experience discrimination?

Intersectionality has a major impact on people's experience with discrimination creating multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage that sometimes compound themselves and they create obstacles that often are not understood within conventional ways of thinking about anti-racism or feminism or whatever social justice advocacy structures we have.  Not understanding certain problems when it comes to social justice issues is not understanding intersectionality. Mainly people fail to understand the overlapping of discrimination when it comes to race, sex, and sexuality. For example, Crenshaw states that African American girls are 6 times more likely to get suspended than white girls. The intersectionality in this is that race and gender are overlapping each other. This type of discrimination creates a lack of visibility and support for marginalized groups. 

Does intersectionality impact experiences of discrimination in a work environment?

People face intersectionality in work environments due to discrimination being shown within race, gender, and class. More especially women of color face an overlap of discrimination due to being black and women already having a disadvantage in society. For example, Emma D faced gender-race discrimination, this is double discrimination. She claims her work environment does not acknowledge double discrimination due to not understanding the intersectional approach and how it impacts policies and discrimination.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology.

Crenshaw, K. (2016). The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o&t=3s

[vzyt]

Blog Post Due 9/19

What is intersectional feminism? Intersectional feminism focus on the “intersectionality” of the movement’s struggles. When looking at things through an intersectional lens, we need to recognize the historical context of an issue. Each individual or group may experience oppression differently – the intersection of the systemic social institutions in which they live. For example, a woman of color may not have the same experience as a White woman or a higher class White woman. Intersectional feminism center the voices of disadvantaged people who experience multiple layers of oppression rather than suppressing or marginalizing them.

2. How does intersectionality help us better understand the experience of women of color compared to White women?

Intersectionality is a term that has been highlighted by Kimberle Crenshaw in “Dermanalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” Women of color believe that their life experiences are different from those of white women, and they do not agree with the definition of gender equality that white women have created. Their needs and worldviews are different from those of both black men and white women because their identities are both women and people of color, they face disadvantages that come from racism, sexism, and classism in white supremacy. For women of color, their experiences are shaped not only by sexism but also by racism. In the TED Talk of Crenshaw, she take Emma’s story as an example of intersectionality when Emma experienced both gender discrimination and race discrimination at the same time when she applied for for a job and wasn’t get acceptance while that job hired both men and White women. 3. How do biased algorithms affect society? Biased algorithms affect society in various ways such as discrimination, distorted information, increasing inequality, etc. Algorithms have the potential to perpetuate prejudices towards specific demographics, such as those based on age, gender, color, class, or religion. This can lead to disadvantages in terms of employment, education, or service accessibility. Technology affect society when people using social media pretty much nowadays. The social media algorithms may prioritize some contents, leading to the leaking personal information without conscious. The biased algorithms also affect the society by increasing the inequality when it exacerbate wealth gaps biased toward large corporate and powerful individual, creating even broad loop of inequality. 4. Can technology ever be completely unbiased? Technology would be unlikely that it can ever be completely unbiased because algorithms reflect to the its data system that got influenced by human biases.

Reference:

Crenshaw, K. (2016, December 7). The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED. YouTube. https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o?feature=shared

Crenshaw, K. (2018, June 22). Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ViDtnfQ9FHc?feature=shared

Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. Race After Technology.oble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press.