I excerpted a quote from an old comment of mine when writing my most recent post on horizontal hostility. There was more there worth examining, but it wasn’t quite=exactly-directly germane as the original concept being discussed was horizontal hostility within LGBTQIA communities. (A topic suggested by Mano Singham.) I ultimately chose not to include it, but I could not ignore it, as it not only deals with feminists’ failings on anti-racism work (a topic I’ve covered before and will continue to cover) but this quote directly hits on a topic mentioned twice in the last couple of days, the idea that people calling our racism are the real racists.
It also shows how when [certain] existentialist feminists are called on, say, racism, they can so vehemently denounce an attempt to end racist behavior as siding with the oppressive powers that be. Paying attention to racism within women’s communities is “dividing us” when we are [supposed to be] all one, glorious, unified, colorless “us” of women. Did I mention colorless? Hmmmm, what’s a synonym for colorless???
Obviously this isn’t quite, “People who call out racism are the real racists,” but it would work if you substitute “oppressors” in for “racists”.
Paying attention to racism within women’s communities is “dividing us” …
Feminists parroting the male-run leftist/anti-war groups of a past generation who provoked the backlash that gave us the revival of organized feminism?!? Be still, my irony meter!
Also tangentially relevant: much of the most eloquent and fervent denunciations of capitalists’ treatment of workers in the 19th century came not from Marxists and labor organizers, but from defenders of slavery.
I’d forgotten that, or I guess it’s more accurate to say I had never really thought about the importance of that. I mean, I’d heard and read stories describing (or quoting) the arguments that slaves are better off enslaved because wage work was so brutal, but I hadn’t put it together the way you have here. Well done. Great insight, and one that I want to actually remember now that it’s been spoon fed to me.
Errr… clear? Transparent? Whatever it is, it sure as shit isn’t “white”, which unless I’m mistaken is the snide implication they’re going for.
Wish I had more to say on the subject, but the philosophy angle is way over my head at my current level o’ education.
@sonofrojblake:
Actually…
I’m going with:
sickly
anemic
ghastly
if I may have only three
😉
@ Pierce R. Butler
#1
Trigger warning on the link, but the work it discusses is a slavocrat attack on “wage slavery”. It’s not the link so much as the work it reviews.
https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughcan/summary.html
Thanks, in different ways, to Crip Dyke… @ # 2 & colinday @ # 7!