Okay, so I’ve left my anti-radscum kick and gone onto kick about how much I thoroughly dislike anti-sj bloggers. Here’s my deal with them. (If anybody knows of someone writing a better article than this, send it my way because this is just a rant putting together my thoughts.)
Prefacing all of this by saying I’m white. Any bullshit showing through on that, please feel free to let me know.
I don’t engage anti-SJ bloggers very much because, frankly, they do some of the most incredible mental.gymnastics I’ve seen out of serious, serious self-righteousness, and I’m not equipped to deal with it yet. Cue all the anti-essjay crying that the SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS are the self righteous ones! We’re just responding!!!!!!!11 but no, I’m sorry, you don’t get to be self-righteous about somebody else’s pain.
Because essentially what these blogs boil down to is power tripping and tone policing. They typically tend to be run by the party in power, complaining about the actions of the groups they oppress. Cismen complain about misandry, white people about reverse racism. They yell that nobody should be ~impolite~ when fighting against racism or even worse. They paint “social justice warriors” as too sensitive, maniacal, illogical, crazy, absolutely anything they can to detract from the statement that the marginalized group is trying to make.
Problem is, they’re missing some of the biggest points when it comes to oppression. Namely, the party in power not only oppresses marginalized groups, but it very often attempts to control how said groups should feel about their own oppression.
Let’s think about that.
Anti-SJ bloggers are part of a system that essentially ignores what an entire group tries to tell them about their own life experiences. They substitute their own reality, how they feel the world works based on their own life experiences, and refuse to listen to anyone who attempts to tell them that not everyone lives that way.
“This is what I’ve experienced in my life.”
“No, it isn’t, you’re wrong.”
White people, for instance, largely do not believe that POC are telling the truth or adequately interpreting their own life experiences. Essentially, they are saying that People of Color are either largely liars or too stupid to know what’s going on in their own lives.
Which, of course, makes them feel entitled to tell POC how they should feel about their life experiences, and how they should react.
Bullshit. I’m a woman, and if any man ever tried to tell me how I should feel about misogyny, I would be pissed because he has no idea what it’s like to go through every day judged by the value of your sexuality to men, to be held against all other women, to be treated as though men own your sexuality. And if a straight person tried to tell me to calm down about the fight for marriage equality, I can guarantee I am going to immediately lose some respect for them.
Again, I’m white. I have no idea what it’s like to grow up as a POC in this society. That’s why I try and shut the fuck up and listen to POC about their life experiences and take their fucking word for it because they are people worthy of that level of respect. And you know that doesn’t even make me an exceptional person. That doesn’t make me special. It’s just me trying to learn how to be less douche-y. So why do people act like it’s absolutely impossible to shut the fuck up about shit we know nothing about?
So when I see anti-SJ blogs going on about how you “shouldn’t fight fire with fire”, it blows my mind. On top of making fun of very valid points brought up by bloggers fighting for equality, they feel the need to control how people feel about something they’ve never experienced themselves. I have no idea what it’s like to be Native American, that is not something I’ve ever experienced, so why the fuck would I find myself to be an expert on how Natives should feel about hipsters wearing head dresses? When my partner gets pissed about someone on her dash wearing a head dress, I’m not going to pat her on the shoulder and say, “dear it’s just a fashion statement, let it go.”
Because essentially racism stems from thoughts of white supremacy, misogyny from male superiority, etc., and if you think your opinion is more valid than the opinion of the person who has actually lived those experiences, you are subscribing to those ideas and contributing very, very directly to systematic oppression.
And the fact that these anti-SJ bloggers create entire blogs for this just takes it to a whole new level. One anti-SJ blogger told me they don’t “devote their whole life to this”, only maybe twenty minutes a day, but that’s still twenty minutes more a day than anyone should. If you spend any time running an anti-SJ blog, you need to look at yourself and your motivations. If you are actively trying to control how someone responds to their own oppression, you are contributing to the system that oppresses them. You are not special. You are not unique. You are not some brilliant special snowflake who has all the answers and owe it to the world to prove these social justice warriors wrong. You are just doing the same shit that oppressors have been doing for generations: trying to control whole groups of people and take away their own agency. Because that’s what racism, sexism, cissexism, homophobia, etc., is all about. Control. Keeping people their place. Telling them how they should feel about their place below you. Period. End of story.
Read up, assholes.
If it was confusing for anyone at one point.
This is the post.
Basically
(Source: lesbiansofficial, via darkpuck)
The Hypersexuality of Race: Reading and Discussion Panel
Professor Celine Parrenas-Shimizu, Asian American Studies, UC Santa Barbara is the author of the recently published book, The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene. This book analyzes the production of sexuality for Asian women in western modern moving image visual cultures such as early cinema, stag films, contemporary pornography, Hollywood blockbusters, musicals and independent sexually explicit media by Asian American women.
“Asian American women didn’t have access to being the lead in a Hollywood romantic Hollywood movie…So these women were somehow fighting for access to representations that better reflected their realities? And somehow wanted to contribute to those representations, and those representations were somehow engaging sexuality?
So they were somehow saying that ‘yes indeed, sexuality(/stereotypes) that somehow imposed upon me, or a sexuality being demanded of me. But I’m going to engage it somehow and converse with it and try to author it in my own various ways’ “.
Start at 5:00!
OH MY GODDDDDDD MY HEAD IS EXPLODING I CAN’T
So basically this badass lecture by FILIPINA-AMERICAN (<333) professor hits ALL THE POINTS of issues having to do w/:
-feminism, sexuality, sexualization, representation, power of images/media/imagery/the consumption of such images, racism, and agency.
Give it a listen if you have time. SO GOOD.
(Source: youtube.com, via racebending)
