#or individuals existing within multiple intersections of marginalization

[princessnijireiki]

now that I'm thinking about it some more, because... it's ultimately always this, the weird disjoint in the ways diff communities are talking abt shit like dei and rainbow capitalism and the old chestnut of slur discourse and even y'all's approaches to actions like boycotts and protest IS because all of you continually want to crib from black americans' notes with zero comprehension, having done none of the reading, and with a funky attitude and superiority complex, while also demanding an unearned inner sense of moral purity/condemnation of others on top of demanding to be fucking liked in the process.

[dipperdesperado]

An ecology of liberatory movements

TLDR: Understanding social movements primarily as an ecology of organizations allows us to (1) model organizations using a system that is living, complex, and adaptive, and (2) analyze the relationships between them for the sake of creating anarchic social change. With this knowledge in tow, we can become strategic, orienting to our surroundings to formulate strategies and tactics for the future. This modeling allows us to relate to ourselves and others non-hierarchically, filling our “ecological niche”, rather than trying to climb to the top of the “food chain”. If there ever was a time for domination and coercion as a modus operandi, that time has long passed. Cooperative models will allow targeted, small amounts of collective power to create outsized impacts, enabling spaces and zones of autonomy for the most dispossessed and marginalized.

Introduction

If social change happens through social ties, then organizing is the way that multiple ties knot together into a movement. The most common way to make these knots are are through organizations. I’ll define organizations in the most broad sense; a grouping of folks, created to meet (subjectively) specific need(s), want(s), and/or desire(s). I am a critical organizationalist—I hold that organizations are ultimately necessary vehicles to enable and cultivate spaces where revolutionary action, including spontaneity, is at its most powerful (applying maximal force) and effective (able to realize intent). I also hold a lot of the anti-organizational critiques of organization in mind, through integrating them or excavating and incorporating their underlying concerns. I strive to uphold individual autonomy within organizations, where one’s will is never subordinated, and radical informed consent is upheld. We use organizations to engage in struggle effectively. They, like any other tools, should shape us in ways that we are happy with. They should not exist for their own sake. 

Organizations can take many forms, but I am primarily interested in exploring organizations in a systemic way. I want to look at how social change & movement organizations relate to one another and how those relations can help actualize (r)evolution. For this, I want to bring together the disparate ideas of ecology, design (as a method), and game design. Ecology as a model will inform the point (how we look at organizations within a social movement along with the context in which they reside), and design practices will inform the view (how we interact with(in) it). This creates our point-of-view, the perspective from which we will explore our topic. We strive to apprehend both the “parts” and “wholes” of a system that we’re interested in exploring. That is how our mental models start to look like reality. 

The Broad Context & Our Orientation

Before we go any further, I want to contextualize the discussion some more. I want to explore the time that we find ourselves in so that we can relate our revolutionary activity to that context. This will, ideally, allow us to create bespoke responses to the issues at hand. We want to apply theories to our context and create new theories from that context. This will be a short, incomplete look at some of the main issues that we’re dealing with at present, in the US.

One of the biggest things to note is how unstable this decade has been so far. We’ve had a really wild past couple of years. It’s been HOT. Like, literally. Alongside that, we’ve had a pandemic that is surging up again(2nd worst one since it started!) with no response in sight. We are seeing mass abandonment from our civil institutions and from each other in a broad sense. American individualism (as opposed to individuality) and an adequate response to the public health crisis are like oil and water. This has also intersected with a rising right wing, resulting in COVID safety protocol becoming “political” (masking up, etc is seen as “leftist”(?)). 

The 2020 Black Rebellions rocked the country, radicalizing tons of people. After the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and others, there was a massive racial reckoning in the States. Riots abound – the movement could be best symbolized by the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct burning, and the mainstream conversation getting funneled into the slogan “defund the police” (after originally being the correct stance of “abolish the police”). Lots of anger and potential could be found in this moment–showing us a glimpse of what may be to come: radical action, reformist goals, and strategy, the likes of which are wholly unable and unwilling to adequately respond effectively. 

That stuff was just in 2020. After that, we saw the repression and clamp down. As the US empire enters its death spiral, and the organized left remains teeny, there is no incentive for anything besides austerity and power concentration from the State.  They are raising cop budgets as a counterinsurrectionary, reactionary ploy. Based on media reports, you might think that police were getting defunded, but the truth is that some depts quickly overturned defunding, if they ever did it at all. Most departments have waited for the storm to pass, using the fog of misinformation to their advantage, leading to more militarization and policing, such as all of the Cop Cities being built. Legislatively, there has been an extreme uptick of hateful energy and vitriol towards trans folks, with a massive proliferation of anti-trans bills getting proposed within the past couple of years (the pace of which is constantly increasing). This, paired with the movement towards banning “CRT” content has laid bare the emptiness of liberal conceptions of “equality” and “liberty”.  These issues are used as a wedge to cleave out the “neutral” political center and polarize folks rightward. Transphobia is highly effective for this. The far-right takes and takes, and the liberals complain but don’t stop them or fight them meaningfully. 

Economically, stuff isn’t looking too hot (as if the social issues weren’t enough). Inflation & instability have been the defining features of the decade so far, with the main pain points being fragile supply lines, hurting from climate change, the pandemic, and war, contributing to price-setters raising prices. Capitalism continues to claim victims the world over from its practices and policies, widening the gap between rulers and the ruled. 

All of these issues are animated by social hierarchies that uphold domination and coercion, facilitating oppression. We have to look at how these relationships of hierarchy manifest in some specific ways so that we can create specific responses. Some of these social hierarchies/systems of oppression are: 

(Cishetero)patriarchy: A system of oppression of maGes, perpetuated principally by cis men, though it has seeped into many aspects of life due to its longevity, and thus is something all have to constantly fight against (though cis men have the most work to do in this regard). 

Racism: A system of oppression of non-white people, perpetuated principally by white people, manifesting most saliently as antiblackness and white supremacy, though it can be perpetuated by everyone, and thus is something we all have to fight against (though white people have the most work to do in this regard).

Ableism: A system of oppression of “dis”abled & neurodivergent people, perpetuated principally by “able”-bodied & neurotypical people, though it can be perpetuated by anyone, and thus should be collectively fought against (though people who are “able”-bodied and neurotypical have the most to resolve in this regard).

Colonialism: A system of oppression of one group/population by a dominating group/population. Colonial relationships can be perpetuated by colonizers and the colonized, and as such should be constantly fought against (though the brunt of the responsibility lies with those descended from colonizers, occupiers, and settlers). 

Imperialism: A system of oppression that employs economic and political power over an imperialized nation or people. Imperial relationships can be reinforced by those living and imperial countries and those living in plundered countries (though the brunt of the responsibilities lies in those who materially benefit from imperialism.

Class antagonism: A system of domination that relies on the exploitation of workers for the sake of owners. Mainly perpetuated by bosses, but can be regurgitated by workers.

Those systems of oppression are just scratching the surface. And they all interconnect, intersect, and overlap with one another. We have to understand that hierarchy is the general concept that animates them, while specifically exploring how those specific hierarchies show up in social relations so that we can adequately address them. Staying zoomed out (where the level of “zoom” indicates specificity), just being “against hierarchy” does not make an actionable political program (nor does it ground us anything resembling useful ethics). 

To address these issues, we can create/employ a broad framework of analysis and action that allows us to zoom in and out, so that we can understand sites of oppression and struggle at multiple scales, for the sake of succeeding in overthrowing those oppressive orientations. I’ll describe a framework, in which our conversation about social movement ecologies would fit in, that might allow us to think about how to analyze and act against oppressive structures.

I imagine the general process for this being an oscillation between analysis and action, where the interplay between the two makes each more impactful. For this, we have what I’ll call gates; orientations to struggle that we can use to understand what is going on and figure out how to move forward. We are taking raw information and filtering it into something useful. These gates are: anti-authoritarianism/autonomism, transfeminism, anticolonization, and disability justice. We would put the issues we face on the path where they meet each of these gates, taking that gate’s perspective, so that at the end, once the issue has passed through all gates, we can have a response that takes those orientations into account. Here is how I’d describe each gate:

Anti-authoritarianism/autonomism: at its foundation, our approach must be non-hierarchical and horizontal. Everything that we propose should maximize the ability for folks to self-determine in ways that don’t perpetuate the harmful and oppressive systems and ways of relating that we’re fighting against. 

Transfeminism: We should have an intersectional feminism that understands gender, sexuality, and embodiment expansively–this will allow us to see the implications of patriarchal, sexist, and queerphobic ideas in our spaces and how much they prevent us from achieving liberatory ends. This also allows us to understand that we need to center the most marginalized, namely Black maGes and QTGNC folks, uplifting them into leadership/catalyzation/coordination positions, a necessity if we’re actually serious about liberation.

Anticolonization: We must understand our fight in the context of a colonial world-system, where the colonized take the brunt of the negative outcomes. With this in mind, we have to do the actual work to achieve our liberatory ends, and that means not tolerating bigotry and colonial logics. We have to understand the systems of oppression that we’re working against and center those at the bottom of the hierarchy in enacting the solutions. It can be easy to get stuck in theorizing and aesthetics, but the whole point of those things is to enable action. That should always be in sight. 

Disability justice: All of this work that we do has to be accessible, inclusive, and create a sense of belonging. I know this can sound toothless in a liberal context, but for us, it means taking seriously the idea of centering the most marginalized, by making sure that we can cede as much power as possible. There should be a constant effort to design processes, structures, and things of that sort to ensure that disabled folks are leading our revolutionary work.

All of these gates have to be passed through for our actions to even have a chance of pointing in the direction that we want (genuine, egalitarian liberation, where the most marginalized can self-determine). Once we act, we return and meet the gates again. We check our understanding against each gate, armed with the information gained from action. And we repeat the process. 

This context is greatly important if we want our social movement ecology to be cultivated towards liberatory ends. Our analysis means nothing if it can’t support the ends that we are trying to reach. 

Social Movement Categories

With some context, we can start to explore how different parts of a social movement can relate to each other, to achieve our ends. Looking at the whole of a social movement ecology (or, said otherwise, applying “ecology” as a model to social movements), there are three broad categories or levels of engagement that exist: the social base, the social-political intermediate base, and the political base.

The social base is where people tend to live, work, and interact daily. This is also where broad self-interests are responded to. For example, a big trade union exists at the social base because of the unifying factor being a social experience and/or condition (in this case sharing a trade).

The social-political intermediate base is where folks are meeting their self-interest in a more politicized way. An example might be that while a charity would exist at the social level, mutual aid, with the maxim “solidarity, not charity”, exists at the social-political level. This is an area with leverage, as it can shift the social base’s “common sense” due to its positioning relative to that base. Going from charity to mutual aid is a more tangible jump for many than jumping from charity to abolishing the commodity form. 

The political base can also be seen (in our case) as the revolutionary base. This is a space where folks are grouped based on a unity of political objectives and orientation, historically with an ambivalent relationship to member self-interest. Ideally, we rectify that as we move forward. This base’s importance lies in cultivating & encouraging liberatory radicalism within the other bases through mutuality, to foster liberatory tendencies. 

These bases are the foundations on which organizations exist, dictating their character and orientation. Generally, organizations as a whole operate at a single, specific base, with the possibility of having initiatives in other bases. An example might be a neighborhood assembly existing at the social base, with an anticolonial council existing more in the social-political intermediate base.

Social organizations build the foundation, through people meeting their direct needs, wants, interests, and desires. They have a low barrier to entry and tend to orient around unity, like a neighborhood assembly. Then, there are social-political intermediate organizations, where self-interests are being met in a way that has a more political and/or militant orientation to it, like the anticolonial council within that assembly. The final type of organization is the political, where groups of unified actors are moving in concert. This might be something like Unity & Struggle. These levels aren’t meant to indicate a hierarchy of importance. They are meant to distinguish and define relationships and positioning to struggle. Each level plays a part in keeping the ecology alive, functioning, and healthy. The organizations within shape what those parts are.

There are different “species” of organization within this ecology. These species fulfill certain “niches” or roles. An (aspirationally) expansive list of these species, adapted from and inspired by this list are: base-building orgs, popular organizations, activist collectives and affinity groups, dual power structures, political parties, knowledge mutualism spaces, media and culture/art institutions, syncretic organizations, and coalitions/alliances. Let’s define what those can look like:

Base-building Orgs: People with a common, broad interest that unites them, and a place to collectively fight, receive, and/or advocate for those interests. In our current context, these are generally service-based NGOs and nonprofit organizations that are pretty hierarchically institutionalized

Popular Organizations: Similar to the above, but may have a wider, more general cross-section of people, the affairs of which are managed by the people in that organization

Activist Collectives and Affinity Groups: Groups for activists to act towards the issues that they care about

Dual Power Structures: Institutions that meet needs, wants, and desires, defying the logic of liberalism, authoritarianism, and capitalism

Political Parties: Statist Governance bodies

Knowledge Mutualism spaces: Formations focused on building up the awareness, knowledge,  and confidence of people and organizations in a horizontal and mutualistic way. Spaces of popularizing knowledge 

Media and Culture/Art Institutions: Formations that create media and culture pieces from liberatory perspectives

Syncretic Organizations: Formations with members (mostly occupying the underclasses) united around liberatory vision and assessment; work to carry out a shared strategy for liberation. They syncretize learnings from across a movement and recycle them to offer a radical perspective on that movement – to move things forward 

Coalitions and Alliances: Ways for organizations to come together and work as a unit. Tends to be tenuous, and whether or not that is good is based on the context

These organizations comprise a range of formations, that could further be sorted into what base they arise from. This awareness of the species within the ecology allows us to start and imagine the different relationships between the species and how they inform the ecology. 

The Role of Keystone Species

Another useful concept is the idea of keystone species. In ecosystems, a keystone species helps disproportionately shape an ecology; it’s a little thing having a big impact. In this case, these keystone species would be the organization(s) that have a great impact across the bases, towards the ends of liberation.

We can pair this idea with keystone mutualism, where that keystone effect depends on how multiple keystone species symbiotically relate to one another. This creates force multiplication and antifragility, where there is no reliance on one keystone species to uphold a movement. It can also help with shaping that “common sense” we discussed earlier.

In our model, the keystone species are syncretic organizations and activist collectives/affinity groups. The positioning and potential of both of these species can help prop up, cultivate, and strengthen revolutionary potential across the ecology.

Syncretic organizations have an especially important role. These are the where folks that are most interested in revolutionary change from an active, intentional, organized perspective should be. To be abundantly clear, I believe that this can only happen though an anti-authoritarian, transfeminist, and anticolonial movement and liberatory culture, oriented around horizontalism and solidarity. Syncretic orgs should be facilitating that. To this end, here are some tasks for them:

Articulate liberatory theory and strategy that cultivates space for solidarity in pluralism

Facilitate and/or catalyze alternative visions for the world through practice

Empower the most marginalized from society & the most impacted by oppression

Link together formations and folks in the movement ecology to help create ties of solidarity

Continually analyze the current moment, stay up date with current context and news, share analysis widely for the sake of taking action (past-and-present, local-regional-national-global) as it is relevant

Record, catalog, disseminate, and archive movement history for the sake of analysis and remembrance

Help support the creation of new syncretic organizations, invigorating the movement and equitizing the labor required

Social insertion, where syncretic org members work at the social and intermediate levels, from the perspective of their revolutionary orientation, increasing capacity at all levels. This should happen at sites of struggle that affect those doing the insertion, or, if necessary, in an accomplice capacity. This is not a missionary's role. Rather than trying to “grow membership” of the revolutionary org, the revolutionary org’s members should engage in a principled manner in non-revolutionary spaces

Operate as a partner within social movements, focusing on distributed power over leadership

Guard the lane against reactionaries, opportunists, grifters, and abusers, including but not limited to: transphobes, racists, authoritarians, sexists, ableists, dominators, coercers, settlers, and other bigots

Strengthen social base through orienting around liberatory approaches to justice and an anticolonial commitment to liberation

So, this begs a central question: how do we create keystone species? I have two basic proposals. We (1) create those syncretic organizations, and (2) a specific kind of formation to facilitate effectiveness with affinity groups/activist collectives and other formations: insurrectionary councils.

Building Keystone Mutualists

To start syncretic organizations, there needs to be a coherent political frame and an orientation. The way I generally imagine this is as the end result of a clarification process of activist collectives and affinity groups, where they start to become more expansive, with a focus on analysis and multiple issues. These can maintain an affinity group model, operate in a federated council structure, or a stigmergic cell structure as I describe in my writings on organizational forms. Whatever form it takes, it should be in line with our goals. Basically, these kinds of organizations come into being through a process of gaining more political clarity and specificity, through engaging with social and other intermediate formations, as a revolutionary formation.

Insurrectionary councils are social-political intermediate formations that allow for there to be points of congregation to steer radical action. At the social level, there might be high levels of apathy towards radical change, especially if that change is scary. This is an extreme case of learned helplessness, where people both aren’t willing to make change and actively decry meaningful action that isn’t “respectable”. This can make social insertion difficult to the point of being ineffectual. It leaves rupture points as the moment that folks from the social level might take more radical action. The 2020 Rebellions are examples of that. This isn’t to decry social insertion; it should still be practiced. That work, however is the slow build-up towards more radical activity. It’s a process of evolution. Insurrection, on the other hand, creates spaces for revolution.

The insurrectionary councils are places where there is an alignment through points of unity and a commitment to direct action. This is a place from which folks can come from any organization or species of organization across the ecology, as long as they agree with the points of unity that animate the council. Through unification around liberatory values &  methods, the insurrectionary councils are an experimental space to create change through direct action. If someone calls themselves a liberal, but is willing to align with the council’s points of unity and tactics, there’s no reason to bar them at this level. Just keep an eye on them. The councils would operate on a spokescouncil model, where each organization and formation sends/has a delegate. They don’t have to be anarchist, but they do have to be radical. This is key. We don’t want to send someone who is (only) a massive letter-writing advocate to a space discussing disruptive direct action. These delegates build connections with the council, and plant the seeds of direct & militant resistance in their otherwise moderate/unaligned ‘primary’ formation. This allows for there to be a potential for popularizing direct actions, without obscuring the revolutionary development of the syncretic orgs, or alienating the social base through the “vanguardist” vibes that can arise through poor social insertion & entryism. Multiple tendencies can come together and engage, which widen the spaces for other formations to be more effective, and propagate principled discussion and deliberation. 

Syncretic orgs and insurrectionary councils can use that keystone mutualism to move things in a more radical direction through participation and practice, rather than domination and coercion. This will allow our movements to be strong and flexible, growing through collective intelligence.

Applying Strategy to our Ecology

With our social movement ecology as a foundation, we can get into conversations on strategy, applying some classic strategic ideas, through design lenses. Strategy, for our purposes, will be described from the perspective of our keystone mutualists, as it might not be as heavy of consideration for other formations, especially at this conjuncture. This is not a declaration on who has the “right” to create strategy. It’s just an observation on who might be willing to intentionally strategize, in an effective way. 

Let’s define strategy. I tend to think of this as fractal, which is a way to explain the fact that it can apply to multiple scales. Strategy is planning for the sake of liberation at the “highest” scale. It’s planning to reach our vision of change. It’s like a viewfinder that allows us, from where we are currently situated, to (1) apprehend our goal and (2) iteratively chart out a method to get there, through practice and reflection. Specifically, we will have to look at:

where our engagements, clashes, fights, and struggles will happen from a temporal and spatial perspective

our current and potential material(izable) strengths and weaknesses, along with how these can change to our advantage

the current and potential material(izable) strengths and weaknesses of our enemies, along with how these can change to our advantage

This information starts us on the path of being able to assess our conditions through theory and analysis.

Tactics are like strategy on a smaller scale. It’s a more concrete look. We ask the same questions but for a specific moment. If strategy is how we win the war, tactics are how we win the battle. To analyze our tactics, in addition to our previous strategic considerations, we can get more specific (using an Action Winnability Matrix):

Do we have a compelling narrative for the action? 

Are those most directly impacted invovled AND ready to act?

How materially easy is it for the target to capitulate/for us to recieve what we want?

How ideologically easy is it for the target to capitulate/for us to recieve what we want?

 Is the action is autonomous? Does it hold the threat of further disruption?

How SMART(IE) are our demands/goals?

Do we have the resources (people, power, process) to execute this action successfully, without exhausting those resources?

So if strategy is about moving towards our goals, and tactics are about a specific application of that strategy for a particular moment, there needs to be a way to make those plans materialize. This is where logistics and operations, an underrated part of strategic planning, comes in. With these, we answer questions like:

How are we keeping our people cared for? What are the ways in which we produce and reproduce/maintain things like food, water, shelter, and personal needs?

What does onboarding, engagement, and training look like, at each level of the movement?

What plan(s) do we have to acquire what we need?

What (tools, resources, materials + people, power, process) do we need to accomplish our (short term, medium term, long term, micro, meso, macro) objectives?

What is our positioning, at this moment, and in general? What about our enemies’?

What conditions (social, political, economic, ecological/environmental, technological) are we facing? How does that impact our capabilities?

In ways that fulfill these metrics (adapted from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff):

Responsive: support is provided when and where it’s needed.

Simple: planning and execution of action is oriented around solidarity and efficiency, as a counterweight to the friction and lack of information on the ground.

Flexible: can improvise and adapt on the ground to changing conditions.

Resourceful: only use what is needed to achieve objectives.

Attainable: can achieve objectives and operate with an acceptable level of risk (enough supplies, support, infrastructure).

Sustainable: can maintain the attainability of objectives for the length required to complete them.

Survivable/Antifragile: able to prevail, persist, and strengthen from adversity.

Having logistics and operations in place makes the theory of fighting material, and lets you know what the chances are of being able to succeed at the goals and objectives being set.

Zooming back out to strategy, there are different strategic orientations that we can take. We can approach things head-on, we can swarm/encircle our objective, or we can divide our objective/split it up. I recommend a general strategic orientation of encircling, with features of the other two as they are useful. In my conception, encircling is a strategy that sees objectives as having multiple sides. Essentially, the movement would try to achieve objectives by working in solidarity, through a diversity of tactics. There would be an effort through the keystone mutualists to mitigate unhelpful redundancies (redundancy can be insurance in many cases). Each type of organization in the ecosystem would approach the problem in a way that is grounded in their theory of change, all the while, radical elements are showing the importance of more radical action. It might look something like this:

At the social level, there might be a desire to do low-confrontation actions, where they appeal to authority. These are your letter-writing campaigns, phone banks, rallies, and marches. 

At the social-political intermediate level, there might be a desire to do medium-to-high-confrontations with authority. These are actions like civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts and other noncooperative forms of resistance, and “nonviolent” direct actions.

At the political level, there might be more of a willingness to have higher confrontation tactics. These would be actions that orient around crippling and destroying the ability for authority to function. 

Each higher level might engage at lower levels, and employ tactics from those levels. Each level will probably escalate over time, as lower confrontation methods yield less useful results long-term.

Encircling is a way that the disparate parts of a movement can co-create a “common sense” and act in solidarity. Multiple groups, in various overlapping and related formations, sharing objectives, and working towards them, with the radical elements shifting what’s acceptable in a more militant direction, can create higher chances of achieving social change.

In Practice

I want to try and bring everything together in a relatively tangible way. So, the organizations that we’ve discussed in this ecology can exist in different forms, but as we grow, we should encourage forms that support our content. For us, that means anti-authoritarian, transfeminist, anticolonial, and horizontalist orgs. This would allow the social, intermediate, and political bases to have a way to relate to one another that is based on mutuality rather than domination. Instead of leading the movement, the keystone mutualists can influence it and be influenced by it by proving themselves in practice. The radical tactics adopted at the social level should win folks over because they work, not because they were imposed from above. The social level will also innovate in ways that the two other levels can learn from. 

To understand how we might start preparing to cohere an ecology into a movement that can exercise force, we should target systems of oppression from the perspective of self-interest. 

Self-interest is expansive in my conception, where it recognizes that every individual has self-interest, so building a community that can self-determine is in the self-interest of those community members. Think of it as an ethical egoism, stretched to encompass the facilitation of communal, deep bonds with others. If I have a dream to be a musician, an alternative to seeing my self-interest being embedded in the dog-eat-dog world of the music industry would be to create and plug into networks of care and communal support for tours. We want to change the rules of the game and create a new game entirely, rather than taking the design of the game for granted. 

To find our primary target, we can orient around analyzing the pillars that hold it up and think of ways that our folks can respond. We can then find points of intervention, where we can exercise leverage. For sub-targets, it could be steps on the way to that final primary target, or specific leverage points that make it easier to hit the central node that will take down the primary target.

For the pillars, we can see if any of them constitute meaningful tertiary targets, which could be more manageable and isolate the primary target. It may be easier to cut off the circulation of resources than it is to strike directly. A ship or truck in transit is easier to impede than a shipping depot. 

We should approach these targets using encircling, with as much fidelity as we are allowed. An illustrative and contentious example of this orientation in practice is Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Alongside thinking about a diversity of tactics, happening in parallel, across a spectrum of confrontation, it would be worthwhile to consider tactics that work from the inside, outside, and alongside the target(s). Inside are things like spies and espionage, outside being the range of what we might normally imagine when thinking of attacks, and alongside being working on fortifying the other two, usually through networks of care, support, and alternative institutions.

A specific application for these ideas would be about community control. For more on these ideas, read the excellent community control of the poor community. Meeting personal (and community) self-interest would mean kicking the state out of the community. In its place, we might create things like cooperative housing, food, medical, rewilding programs, community & cultural centers, and more. We’d do this all in the frame of a liberatory approach to space, applying our principles to change the built environment. We would orient around the idea of survival programs (as in survival pending revolution), where everyone has an irreducible minimum (could also be seen as universal basic outcomes) for their life. To get to there from here, we could:

Collectivize everything we can, through collaboration, or seizure if we must, depending on the antagonism of the current owners. For example, businesses in our communities should be collectivized. We should, especially if it provides some benefit to its customers, try to bring them into the fold. We would try to encourage worker ownership structures and the like. If they refuse, then we can either leave them be, or decide how else to proceed. People tend to see small businesses as inherently less capitalistic, but systems have fractality. A small business owner, especially one who doesn’t challenge domineering paradigms, is still a business owner. As we transition our community to usage-based ownership models, in the vein of a library socialist economy, we should, (especially to folks who aren’t multiple strata above us in the hierarchy) make the case that socializing resources will bring everyone’s standard of living up, through proven examples, keeping their (expansive) self-interest in mind. In other words, we’re not going to be warlords with this shit, but we should be willing to fight so that spaces of self-determination can be found. We are going to work to get what we deserve and take what we need.

Create communal housing and spatial planning structures that maximize community input. Folks in a community should directly decide what goes on in their community. The design and usage should move from being static to being fluid and participatory, accommodating the needs of folks and other parts of nature, with an orientation around centering and uplifting those at the margins. For housing, slumlords will have their housing seized and collectivized, renovated to healthy living standards, or deconstructed to retrieve any valuable building materials. A combination of tactical urbanism, rent strikes, demonstrations, squatting, and other confrontational methods should be employed to achieve this.

Demand reparations, landback, and government concessions. We should bolster our solidarity economy, mutual aid, and dual power structures through funds and resources seized or conceded from the government. We should create popular pressure campaigns to this end, and use these concessions to reinforce our resolve toward self-determination (instead of seeing concessions as the ends themselves), through communal inoculation against statist promises of representation. We should employ strikes, targeting critical state functions, tax boycotts, and debt boycotts, all predicated on robust networks of care to support our people through the fight. 

Organize self-defense formations against the forces of reaction. We need to be able to practice self-defense against any of the forces that would wish to harm us. Communities should have a maximal permeation of fighting, combat, de-escalation, and liberatory justice training. Certain groups, such as cops and fascist para-militaries, shouldn’t even think about attacking. Internal threats, such as abusers, grifters, sellouts, and opportunists, should be handled appropriately, with a process decided that centers the needs of those that are harmed, and only goes towards rehabilitation/transformation if (1) that is something that the harmed folk(s) want, and (2) something that the perpetrator(s) of harm are willing to commit to with high levels of intentionality. Otherwise, it's time to run their pockets and kick them to the curb. 

Democratize and Popularize “professional” knowledge guarded by industries and academia. Anyone interested in a subject or profession should have access to the training to learn that topic, in a horizontal, autonomous, cooperative setting. Healthcare work, construction work, ecological restoration, engineering, and other professionalized fields should be accessible to all, with the end goal of having the skills in our communities to create things like free clinics, makerspaces, boutique engineering projects, spatial environment retooling and renovation towards community needs, and projects to increase ecological harmony.

Abolish all carceral systems. Jails, prisons, psych wards, non-free schools (by free schools I’m referring to freedom school/modern school), and any other appendages of the Prison Industrial Complex should be devoured and destroyed. Prisoners should be released, including political prisoners. Community programs, a distribution of the means of protection and violence, liberatory, horizontal approaches to schooling, and communal justice practices should be raised in the Prison Industrial Complex’s stead.

Establish communal and inter-communal food sovereignty. There should be campaigns employed to create sovereign food systems through collective associations and seizure of agricultural lands, transforming them into ecologically harmonious zones through methods found in agroecology, ethnobotany,  and permaculture.

Establish networks of liberatory school systems with liberatory pedagogical models throughout the community. We should enable our children to experience a learning model that engenders within them a sense of community-informed individuality, allowing them to self-direct their learning and growth with adults being support systems, like a net ready to catch them. This should also be bound to a movement to gain free college for poor folks, a movement on campuses for student & staff control, and continual experiences for adult education and older learners. Everyone should have methods and spaces to learn in the way that best suits them, to cultivate freer spirits.

Community control can create a base of activity for further revolutionary action — leading to a stronger movement ecosystem where forms like cooperatives and community-owned programs can be used to bolster liberatory outcomes. Creating more direct control structures in a community helps people meet their needs in ways that give them more space to do the other things that they want to do. A thing to keep in mind is that a cooperative, solidarity economy or things of that nature are not inherently liberatory, as in they challenge the logic of capitalism in a meaningful capacity. We create these survival programs so that we can have the logistical and operational bases that we need to be able to execute our revolutionary strategy and tactics. This allows us to expand our influence and activity inside and outside of our community. 

By crafting this ecological, designerly view of our social movements, we can read them as living networks and/or systems, discover what levels we need to engage, how we might relate disparate parts of a movement, and create a united front to bring about the world that we desire. This gives us direction, intentionality, and the possibility to bring about the kind of change that we want to see.

[theedgeofredemption]

What to expect after critical race theory

After critical race theory, the discourse might continue to evolve in several directions. Here are a few potential paths:

Intersectionality: Intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, explores how different forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, classism, etc., intersect and influence each other. It examines the interconnected nature of various social identities and how they shape individuals' experiences.

Decolonial Theory: This theory focuses on challenging colonial structures and ideologies, particularly in the context of post-colonial societies. It critiques the ongoing impacts of colonialism on social, economic, and political systems, and advocates for decolonizing knowledge, institutions, and practices.

Feminist Theory: While critical race theory intersects with feminist theory, there's room for deeper exploration of gender dynamics within racial discourse. Feminist theory examines power imbalances related to gender and advocates for gender equality and the dismantling of patriarchal structures.

Transnationalism: This perspective looks beyond national borders to examine how global processes, such as migration, globalization, and transnational social movements, shape racial dynamics. It explores how racial hierarchies operate on a global scale and how people navigate multiple identities across different contexts.

Critical Whiteness Studies: This field interrogates the construction and perpetuation of whiteness as a social category and power structure. It examines how whiteness intersects with other social identities and privileges, and it seeks to deconstruct the norms and assumptions associated with whiteness.

Legal Studies: Given critical race theory's roots in law, further exploration within legal studies could involve examining how laws and legal systems perpetuate or challenge racial inequalities. This could include discussions on racial disparities in policing, incarceration, access to justice, and the impact of legal rulings on marginalized communities.

These directions are not mutually exclusive, and scholars often draw on multiple theoretical frameworks to analyze complex social issues. Additionally, the evolution of critical race theory itself will likely continue as scholars engage with new developments, challenges, and perspectives in the study of race and racism.

Co-opting these issues for self-serving or harmful purposes, such as promoting a discriminatory agenda or exploiting marginalized communities for personal gain would be highly unethical and harmful. Here's how one might hypothetically attempt to do so

Misrepresentation: Misrepresent the goals and principles of social justice movements to advance a different agenda. This could involve distorting the meaning of terms like "equality" and "justice" to promote discriminatory or oppressive policies under the guise of promoting fairness or meritocracy.

Divide and Conquer: Exploit divisions within marginalized communities or between different social justice movements to undermine solidarity and collective action. This could involve pitting marginalized groups against each other or co-opting leaders to advance a divisive agenda that serves the interests of the oppressor.

Tokenism: Tokenize members of marginalized communities by giving them superficial representation or visibility without addressing the underlying power structures or systemic inequalities. This could involve using diversity initiatives or symbolic gestures to create the illusion of progress while maintaining the status quo.

Gaslighting and Discrediting: Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to make individuals doubt their own experiences and perceptions. Those seeking to adversely take over social justice issues might engage in gaslighting by denying the existence of oppression or blaming marginalized communities for their own marginalization. They may also discredit activists and scholars by attacking their credibility or spreading misinformation.

Selective Solidarity: Selectively support only those aspects of social justice that align with one's own interests or agenda while ignoring or opposing other forms of oppression. This could involve co-opting language or symbols associated with social justice movements to gain legitimacy or popularity while actively working against the goals of those movements.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wilfred Reilly

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Many studies that purport to find giant residual effects of race or sex are flawed from the outset.

‘Intersectionality” is just a badly done “woke” version of regression analysis.

The old feminist idea of intersectionality has been popping up across the mainstream media of late, as the latest round of the national debate over “DEI” (and CRT, ESG, SEL, NU-HR, and the rest of today’s insufferable corporate alphabet soup) rages on. Its resurgence seems like a worthwhile topic, while I am on a 3–4-week run of discussing academic issues for the gentle readers of National Review.

Per Merriam-Webster, which updated its definition of the term November 30, 2023 — the major dictionaries have been doing that kind of thing a lot lately — intersectionality is “the complex, cumulative way in which multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine . . . especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.” The United Nations’ Global Citizenship initiative has, also within the past year or two, adopted this concept as a primary analytical framework, and defines “intersectionality” as “how multiple identities interact to create unique patterns of oppression.”

“In the United States,” author and Global Citizen Sarah El Gharib declaims, “Women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man earns.” But, the situation is even worse for black women, who pull in “a mere 64 cents for every dollar a white man earns.” The reason for all of this? Obviously, oppression: The analysis almost invariably stops there.

The problem with all of this, which needs to be discussed if radical-feminist analysis — intersectionality as a concept was first outlined by UCLA’s Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s, and traces its roots back to “a Black lesbian social justice collective formed in Boston in 1974” — is now prevalent in the United Nations and around the Fortune 500, is fairly basic. The idea that multiple independent variables can influence a dependent variable like income is not exactly a new one. And, the actual range of potential “IVs” that can do so extends well beyond race and sex to include: age, the regions where people and groups live, test and IQ scores, patterns of study time, crime rates, desire to work at all (in the context of men vs. women), and so on down the line.

Simply put, racism or sexism can only be said to exist where we find that pretty much identical people, who differ only in terms of the characteristic of race or sex, are still being treated differently — after all of the other factors which might explain performance differences between them have been accounted for. This sort of real bigotry is, today, fairly rare. Many “intersectional” studies that purport to find giant residual effects of race or sex on some specific thing — individuals’ chances of going to prison, let’s say — literally just consist of unadjusted comparisons between citizens in two or more different groups.

This, however, is not how serious people conduct this sort of analysis. The pay gap between men and women, in fact, provides one of the best examples of an apparently giant gulf which vanishes almost as soon as anything but sex is competently adjusted for. As it turns out, one major reason that women make so little money relative to men — less than 70 cents per dollar, in some analyses — is that 39 percent of women “prefer a home-maker role” and about one-third are housewives . . . who often earn almost no money, but have access to all of the resources of what is usually a middle-class household.

Even if we focus only on working men and working women, it remains the case that males and females prefer to work different jobs, men work slightly longer hours, men took virtually no time off from work for pregnancy and child care until quite recently, and so forth. When the quantitative team at the PayScale business website took all of this into account and ran some models, they found that any actual gap in same-job wages which could be attributed to sexism would be on the order of –(1 percent). At some level, this is not even surprising: American corporate business is ruthless, and any trading floor or shark-tank start-up that could actually save 17–31 percent on labor costs by hiring only women would do so immediately.

Pay gaps between white and black guys, for that matter, do not survive serious analysis. As I have noted elsewhere, the labor economist June O’Neill attempted, back in the 1990s, to distinguish the impact of racism from that of plain human capital on the B/W wage gap. What she found was stunning, almost remarkable. An initial gap of 15–18 percent, which has been attributed to “racism” by almost everyone to write about it during the modern era, in fact shrunk to about 1 percent when adjustments were made for basic variables like the mean age of each racial population, region of residence, and IQ- or aptitude-test scores.

O’Neill and a co-author found almost exactly the same pattern to still hold more than a dozen years later, in 2005. As both she and I have pointed out, groups that are different as re very major traits such as race and religion also invariably vary in terms of other characteristics — and any effects of racism simply cannot be parsed out without adjusting for all of these important differences. Simply put, there is no reason to expect a 27-year-old black man living in Mississippi to earn anything like as much as a 58-year-old white dude with a residence in mid-town Manhattan.

What is true in the critical context of money is true almost everywhere else. For years, the “Black Lives Matter�� movement argued that young African Americans are being “murdered” or “genocided” by police officers, because members of this group are more likely to be shot by law enforcement than members of the general public. Again, however, there is an elephant in the room. As the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald has pointed out for decades now, the crime rate for black Americans — certainly before we adjust for age, or sex ratios, or living in mile-spire cities instead of Green Acres — is about two to 2.5 times that for whites. As an obvious result, we tend to encounter on-duty cops about that much more often.

Just adjusting for this one variable entirely removes the gap in rates-of-shooting. In the fairly representative year of 2015, which I select for analysis in my brilliant and best-selling book Taboo, there were 999 fatal police shootings nationwide — out of tens of millions of police/citizen encounters — of which 250 (25.1 percent) involved African Americans. That figure, which is 1.92 times the nation’s black population percentage, is almost exactly what any reasonably intelligent person would expect to see after taking a single glance at the crime statistics — if anything, a bit on the low side.

Entertainingly, the Reilly Rule about the impacts of the real, multi-variate version of “intersectionality” on day-to-day life applies even in the context of “white privilege.” As it happens, there exist several scales that attempt to measure personal privilege — such as this popular but quite empirical example, which several hundred thousand people have taken (a little bird tells me the average score is 43). When I have administered the 100-item ordinal survey, which includes Yes/No questions ranging from “I have never gone to bed hungry” to “I went to private school,” to sizable groups as a learning exercise, I do find that being white does have a small effect on ease-of-life: about two–three points, with all else adjusted for.

However, almost everything else has a bigger one. Other more influential variables recorded by myself and others to work with the test include female sex (yes, sure) — but also where people live (the suburbs as vs. the “hood or the “holler,” the North vs. the South), being gay rather than straight, and most notably plain social class. The largest chunk of “privilege” appears to be pure socio-economic status: crudely put, how much money a test taker and his or her family happen to make in a year. Across the aforementioned 100 questions, poor Appalachian or immigrant respondents often post “have not experienced” scores on the order of 17, while well-off ones “achieve” 69s and 73s.

At some level, none of this is particularly surprising, to the average human being with eyes. Of course, having wealthy parents, or not committing crimes, or not living on an isolated farm, or being a 6���4” blonde or black jock might sometimes help you along in life. However, this empirical point is a useful rebuttal to the much simpler standard idea of intersectionality — that what matters is race, or sex alone, or perhaps something like “being non-binary.”

In reality, conservatives don’t make fun of that simplistic concept because we are too unsophisticated to understand it, some pack of rubes who believe that only hard work and lovin’ America predict life outcomes. Instead, we do so because we recognize that many, many factors predict those outcomes. And, in the end, if dozens or hundreds of things predict where each singular human being will end up in life, we should turn our focus back to that smallest and most vulnerable of minorities: the individual.

[ Via: https://archive.md/2gJlH ]

--

By: Wilfred Reilly

Published: Feb 2, 2024

I'll do a quick response here, since this is my article.

Obviously, no one argues that "racism does not exist." The point is that you do not DETERMINE the existence of racism simply by pointing out "performance gaps" re something like income or police encounters - which is literally the level of a lot of 'woke' research....or by adjusting for sex as well as race (whee!).

As J. O'Neill pointed out 20+ years ago, most such gaps close or vanish after basic adjustments for things like age, region, any aptitude test score, etc.

(2) At some very basic level, it makes no sense to argue that, if a 27-year old Black Mississippian with a community college degree makes less money than a 58-year old white Bostonian who went to BU, the reason is "racism."

These are the sort of gaps political scientists often look at between large groups. More whites DO live in the US North (the boats landed further South). That IS the gap in at least modal average/most common ages between Blacks and whites...

(3) A common response from smart left-slanting stats folX, including Kareem, is that these other variables (age?!) could themselves just be measures of racism.

But, especially given that we can easily test for multi-collinearity and covariance, there is almost never any evidence presented of this. Aptitude test scores, for example, are higher for white kids from families making $40,000 per year than for Black kids from families making $200K per year.......and don't vary at all with reported racism. The obvious actual predictor here (attached) is study time.

The core point of my article () is quite simple - the "intersectional" idea that TWO or even THREE variables can affect a dependent variable is not very novel or original.

Of course both sex and race can influence your life outcomes - but so can social class (!!!), IQ, prey drive, attractiveness and fitness, age, level of education, being gay or lesbian, being from the country, hailing from the South, being white in the academic job market, just etc. Figuring all this out is the basic idea of multi-variate analysis.

We have to take some basic precautions as re how we model these things, but a researcher who finds that Black women earn 'just' 73 cents for every dollar white men do has not in fact "gotten to the bottom of the matter."

==

Kareem's bio claims that he's a stats PhD at Harvard.

Maybe he just "identifies" as a statistician.

[litcomp3]

I <3 MY...

This topic isn’t directly related to something we discussed in class, but I do think it is relevant. I want to tap into intersectionality. For those who don’t know, intersectionality is when multiple social categories can apply to an individual or group of people and produce a complex type of oppression. An example of this would be a gay black man. Gay men face discrimination and so do black men; however, when a person has both, the form of oppression they face will be different than what black and gay men suffer from, oftentimes worse. The intersection is important because that same black gay man may not be welcomed in the black community or LGBTQ+ community. With this in mind, I would like to discuss a group I’m most familiar with, black queer women. Black women’s intersectionality of their race and gender impacts them even within spaces that are considered safe. Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) are classified as safe spaces for Black people however, expectations and stereotypes still exist. Black women who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community feel as if they must dress a certain way in order to fit in with their peers or join organizations. 

On TikTok, I heard about these two authors who conducted two separate studies. One focused on female HBCU alumni concerning their views on black womanhood. This study allowed seventeen participants to share their opinions and experiences. Then the other study focused on researching black lesbian, gay, and bisexual students attending HBCUs. The analysis focused on participants’ sexual identities as lesbian and bisexual and the filtering of their voices, both broadly and specifically, within HBCU environments. By conducting their separate studies they found together that respectability politics do feed into controlling stereotypes of black womanhood on HBCU campuses. This is not only done by students but also by faculty and staff. The authors then break down their findings by allowing the participants to tell their experiences. Black respectability is a set of behaviors and attitudes that were considered acceptable by white society aka the dominant society in the United States. This concept was largely shaped by the middle-class black community who believed that by following these standards, they would gain acceptance and respect from the dominant white culture. Now you might be wondering, “ok what's the point of this conversation?” Well, the idea of respectability politics places the burden of change on the oppressed group, rather than the oppressor. This mindset suggested that if black people could simply change their behavior and attitudes, they could overcome racism and discrimination. Have you ever heard an older person talk about how they “accept” queer people, but just don't like how we “force” it on them. Respectability politics is the reason why some queer black people don't feel comfortable at HBCUs because instead of blaming the oppressor and welcoming all black folk, some decide to push aside other marginalized groups and feed into intersectionality. Black people would judge and shame other Black people as a part of the LGBT community because they feel as if they are hindering the progression of our society. 

-N. Beamon

[joannaceja]

Essay 2

Joanna Ceja 

Dr. McCoy 

MCJ 175 

May 19, 2022 

Stereotypes: Black Buck and Asexual Asian 

In today’s society, a vast majority of people use stereotypes, a widely held but fixed generalization of a particular type of person or thing. There are many kinds of stereotypes for race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, age etc. The categorization of such groups makes it easier for society to predict norms in our day to day lives. It is often used to quickly identify and generalize people we see every day, having acquired these views from multiple institutions. It is prominently vivid in institutions like schools, churches, childhood upbring, and social media. The homogenization of these characteristics deprive individuality within a person, operating with certain notions and mental schemas that have been consistently shaping our view over time. Stereotyping has long history with creating barriers that prevent a nuanced way of thinking, the cultural fixations that were meant to be placed on a certain group considered to be “universally valid”.  

Stereotyping, as previously stated, is consistently used to marginalize a specific group of people as means to justify certain preconceived notions. In the 19th century, the stereotyping of Blacks and women were used to “[bolster] the sense of superiority [, validating] an existing social order or cultural hierarchy” made specifically for the white man (Pickering 7).  Race, gender, and sexuality are generally the types of stereotypes that are most accentuated when it comes to categorizing someone; paired along with the consideration of when and where to apply this stereotype at a particular setting. This is especially true when accessing the history of racism and sexism in the last centuries and how it is currently playing a huge role in deciding the way American society and hierarchy is functioning now.  

For this essay, I will be talking about two predominately old-age racial stereotypes: Black Buck, or more nuanced “Black Rapist”, and the Asexual Asian male. The Black Rapist was used to categorized black men as primitive savages that had “the urge to rape white women” to enlist “the great white fear that every black man longs for a white woman” (Morse 68). The Asexual Asian man stereotype desexualizes Asian male and deems them undesirable even to Asian women; despite being the “model minority”, they are more than often compared to eunuchs, castrated males. Black buck is a sex-crazed, dangerous male while the asexual Asian is desexualized and undesired; Asian male actors were rarely considered sex icons (McCoy Lecture 11, 2). I considered these terms to suit well in comparing and contrasting minorities who were and still are being categorized by modernized, age-old stereotypes. The intersection in racial, sexual, and gender is “conditioned by sociological, biological, and anthropological sciences by the dominance of liberal ideology” (Morse 69).  

The Black Buck (Rapist) stereotype, a “violent, black sexual predator” that is “sexual, dangerous, and impulsive” came to fruition and was introduced in Birth of a Nation, a film that narrated an American Society ran by black men; they played on fears of the white audiences to serialize the idea that American society is in danger if black men came to power (McCoy Lecture 9, slide 20). This reinforcement of the white American world view provided rationale for the enslavement of blacks, not to mention segregation and other inequalities in education, employment, and housing (McCoy Lecture 9, Slide 5). The rationale behind the creation of the Black Buck (Rapist) is what I assumed to be another way to legitimize the lynching of the Black man; in congruence with establishing another means to keep up the racial status quo. Forged from racial, gendered, and sexualized social structures, black stereotypes paved way into discourse every time a white supremacist racial order is threatened (Morse 74). As outdated as it is, the concept of Black Buck, a black man who yearns for white women, is still prevalent in today’s time.  

However, the primordial reasoning behind the use of Black Buck isn’t held true in modern society in terms of being used to justify lynching. It is, however, used for a certain quota in a dominate part of media: the Porn Industry. Interracial porn intertwines sexism and racism, a controversial yet popular viewership in the industry.  The fetishization of interracial porn and the racist nature of the overall subgenre is concerning, especially with the previous mentioned Black Buck term; it is almost like we have modernized the term in ways that “suits” our current society. More often than not, porn companies are very selective on the number of times their white actresses are allowed, if any at all, to star with black porn actors and often are paid more in commission fee because of it; it does not help the fact that black actors/actresses can rarely find roles/gigs that are not racially targeted, such as aggressive behavior and/or dominance over white women/black actresses being overpowered by white men.  

The Asexual Asian Male stereotype has been historically depicted as being smaller in stature and having more “feminine/delicate” nature as opposed to Western men, as well as being less desirable and unable to have romantic/sexual relations (McCoy Lecture 11, Slide 12). This stereotype was mainly expressed in secondary Asian actor roles, either for comic relief or a side kick (The Take 1:01-1:20).  Hollywood has history in underrepresenting all Asian people as multifaceted. Popular tropes were often falling into “yellowface”, white men dressed as Asian men, to which mocks Asians with broken English and their inability to assimilate into American culture (The Take 1:40-1:59). Another ideology they fall behind in the model minority: competitive but lacking creativity, goal-oriented but lacking in charm/humor, hardworking but lacking in sex appeal; they were never established a romantic interest (Johnson 32). The desexualization of Asian men is still present to this day, often times reverting back to old tropes even with actual Asian actors playing their respective role.  

There has been effort to represent Asians in media accordingly in media, but the realistic view here is that it has become such a paradox movement that it has become normal for Asian men to degrade themselves due to the stereotypes held on them. An example being the ideal “Asian” type that western woman seem to prefer, such as K-pop idols; this makes it especially hard when the “competitive market” in dating for within their race seems to be against said idol standards as well. Social media tends to favor baby-faced Asian men/women, pretty boys and girls, etc. The favorability of Asian women and the fetishizations made outside of their race increases “competition”. Pairing this much and the asexual Asian male stereotype, the modern Asian male is generally more likely to feel emasculated and pressured; this concedes with the trope that Asian men being seen as “feminine”, being “undesired” by women because of the multitude of categories they consistently go against.  

There are certain times where my faith in humanity being able to progress far beyond the scope of race, gender, and sexuality is slowly recuperating and progressing. But when things like lifting the abortion law and the recent terrorism that is constantly plaguing easily accessible media, it gets harder and harder to envision such an idealized society. From the amount of research, I have gathered about stereotypes within the minority groups, and the sheer amount of influence certain industries and platforms carry, I do not feel hopeful that we will ever reach a place as a society where we are no longer bound by them. So many cases based on stereotypes alone, along with the volume of how media plays a role in educating, there’s only so much one can do in becoming a progressive society. Maybe over the course of a millennium, but I feel as though it is beyond our nature to really consider unifying one singular ideology together as humans. There will always be something to fix with the “more progressive” we strive to be. Educating the younger generation could suffice, but the gradual breakage away from these stereotypes is a long procedural process that requires systemic change.  

​​Works Cited​ 

 McCoy, Kelly. Lecture 9 & 11. Fresno State: Canvas & IT 288, 2022. Web. 

Morse, Jason H. Promiscuous Contextualities: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Problem of the Stereotype in the Politics of Representation. University of Washington: Department of English, 2013. Web. 

Johnson, Laura Renee. Asian and Asian American Representations in American Film, Washington University: Western CEDAR, 2004. Web.  

The Take, “The Asexual Asian Man”. YouTube, uploaded by The Take, 12 Aug. 2021, https://youtu.be/2k82hlqd1Os  

[sophiegold123]

In Lorde's essay’s “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” she discusses the concept of a “mythical norm” which encompasses the norms within identities in America that are privileged and have some sort of power.  She states “ Those of us who stand outside that power often identify one way in which we are different, and we assume that to be the primary cause of all oppression forgetting other distortions around difference, some of which we ourselves may be practicing.” (1) Essentially, Lorde is highlighting how marginalized individuals may focus solely on one aspect of their identity (such as race or gender) without considering the intersections of oppression. This narrow focus overlooks other forms of marginalization that individuals face based on multiple aspects of their identity. A prominent example of this in the reading is that white women ignore their privilege of whiteness and assume the experience of all women as the same as their own. They think that as women, by following certain expectations and behaviors,  all women “will be allowed to co-exist with patriarchy in relative peace.” (2) They do not recognize the violence or other forms of discrimination that Black women constantly face. Differently from the white community, power structures affect Black women within their own communities in other ways. For example, within a systemically racist society, Black women are often used against Black men because they are Black and not because they are men. Lorde argues that “for Black women, it is necessary at all times to separate the needs of the oppressor from our own legitimate conflicts within our communities.” (3) She goes on to explain that within Black communities, recognition of the ways racial oppression is faced differently by men and women is necessary as this shared oppression has lead to both “joint defenses and joint vulnerabilities to each other that are not duplicated in the white community.”(4)

In order for social change, Lorde urges women  to recognize oppressive patterns within ourselves as well as relate across differences. She states “we must recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each other's' difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles.” (5) By valuing and integrating diverse perspectives, experiences, and contributions, women can strengthen their solidarity and effectiveness in advocating for social change and advancing justice. 

According to Judith Butler in “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” cultural, societal, and media representations support gender performativity by reinforcing and perpetuating traditional gender norms and expectations. Through various forms of media certain gender performances are highlighted, while others are marginalized or deemed unacceptable. These representations contribute to the idea that gender is performed through repeated actions and behaviors that conform to societal norms. What Butler calls the “performative” is the “slippage” between the “discursive command and its appropriated effect” (6).  In other words, if an individual refuses the “laws” of ideology, they enact they “confound” the law itself. For Butler, the performative offers possibilities of “resignification”: “there is no subject prior to its constructions, and neither is the subject determined by those constructions” (7).  Gender norms are complicated through the concept of performativity as it opens up spaces for resistance and subversion within our performances of the cultural, political, and social ideologies that seek to interpellate us into subjectivity.

 Butler discusses how heterosexuality is upheld as the normative and dominant sexual orientation within society. This produces the effect of realness as realness  is determined by “the ability to compel belief, to produce the naturalized effect. This effect is itself the result of an embodiment of norms, a reiteration of norms.” (8) Butler uses the concept of drag to show how heterosexuality is a performance as drag “reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself produced and disputes heterosexuality's claim on naturalness and originality.” (9) Butler's exploration of heterosexuality as a performative act challenges its perceived naturalness and originality, highlighting how societal norms and expectations compel individuals to conform to hegemonic gender roles and sexual orientations.

Footnotes: 

 Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 116. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 2007.

Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." 119. 

Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." 118. 

Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." 118. 

Lorde, Audre. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." 122. 

Judith Butler, “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” in Feminist Film Theory a Reader (New York: Washington Square, 1999,) 337.

Butler, Judith.  “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion,” 338.

Butler, Judith.  “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion,” 341.

Butler, Judith.  “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion,” 339.

Reading Notes 8: Lorde to Butler

In our continued discussions, Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” and “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” and Judith Butler’s Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” provide further introspection into systems and definitions of gender and sexuality.

How do power and privilege impact the relations people have with each other and with institutions, and how can we acknowledge, examine, and remedy oppression and marginalization using oppressive and marginalized systems?

How do cultural, societal, and media representations support gender performativity and in so doing complicate gender norms, and in what ways is heterosexuality a performance?

@theuncannyprofessoro

[writingwithcolor]

Working Through Identity Issues and Other Pitfalls With Representation

We get a lot of asks from people with lived experience in one aspect of marginalization— LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, physically disabled, ex-religious people—and the asks boil down to, essentially: can I take all of my own trauma and put it on someone multiply marginalized?

This question has many facets, which this guide is set to outline.

Power Dynamics and Intersections

Within any space centred around a marginalized identity, white supremacy and colorism still play a very large part within those spaces. Imani Barbarin of Crutches and Spice observed that white disabled people can only exercise the full extent of their white privilege within disabled spaces, because white supremacy has ableism built in and views disabled white people as lesser; white people are denied the ability to be completely white in abled society. As a result, the only opportunity they have to exercise the full extent of white privilege is disabled spaces.

The same goes with LGBTQIA+ spaces; they can end up colonialist because of white people in those spaces assume that their methods of coming out and living in their identity are the only way that exist, when people of colour can (and often do) have totally different but still perfectly valid ways of living in their identity. Again, white supremacy has homophobia built in, so white LGBTQ+ people don’t have full access to white privilege unless they’re with other LGBTQ+ people.

As a result: if you pick an identity that you have power over, you are bringing all of those power dynamics to the table in your representation. Even if you share a marginalization with the character, one aspect of discrimination does not an understanding of all discrimination make. Identities are all intersectional. 

Representing multiple axes of marginalization is much more difficult, because you will have to unpack your own power, realize how many other ways of existing there are, and leave your own ideas for how the story should go at the door in order to respect experiences you don’t have in full.

You have to listen to the people you’re representing, or else you won’t be writing representation for them. 

The Bias Game of Telephone

Insiders to any given group are taught a lot of “truths” about outside groups without spending much time listening to those groups, which results in a lot of problems. What might have been said or observed once or twice travels around people in a game of telephone, fanning xenophobia because it’s so much easier to critique people over there than ourselves.

So yes, you heard that Over There, the practice is x. Apply some stereotypes, spread it around as a societal “everyone knows”, and suddenly you think you know a lot more than you do about any one group. 

For example: the Public Religion Research Institute polled over a dozen religious groups in the United States on whether they support LGBTQ rights in 2019, and the results were that people who are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and basically every religious group you could think of except Jehovah’s Witnesses were in favour of legal LGBTQ+ protection. They even polled in Christian denominations separating out white, Hispanic, and Black—and all of them agreed: LGBTQ+ rights needed to be put into law. (Source: Broad Support for LGBT Rights Across all 50 States: Findings from the 2019 American Values Atlas )

Throws a wrench into “everyone knows that [insert group here] is homophobic”, doesn’t it?

The problem is, these biases are going to colour your initial research stage. If you “know” that x group believes y, then you’re going to “naturally” slot them into that role in the story, then come to us asking if that’s okay.

Instead, what you need to do is poke your own assumptions: 

Why did you make this situation happen that way? 

Do the numbers support this assumption? 

Have you actually spent any time in groups with these individuals to see how they live? 

Did you read even one multiply-marginalized person’s social media feed to see what they believe? Preferably multiple?

Once you’ve done those steps, you’ll be in a much better place to see if you’ve even made something realistic, or if you’re projecting your experience too much as a 1 to 1 in situations where it just wouldn’t happen that way.

White is Not Neutral

Any identity you have as a white person is going to look different for someone not white. Being queer, Muslim, and Black in America looks a lot different than being gay, white, and Protestant in America. Those combinations of identities will look different again if you’re in a Muslim-majority country vs Muslim-minority, Christian-majority vs Christian-minority. 

The traumas of being a certain identity in a society that doesn’t like you are racialized. White is not the default experience of how life happens, and a Hindu person with a strong connection to their family and wants to maintain some connection, just with boundaries, will have a much different set of priorities than an exvangelical who wants to get away from their family the minute they turn 18. 

Even if you get a Hindu person who wants to get away from their family the minute they turn 18, the logic for getting there and the hurdles to overcome will be different, because they’ll have been raised differently. If you start to assume that you know how they’ll reach that logic, then you’re probably playing a game of bias telephone, as detailed above.

Mental illness, gender, disability and basically any identity under the sun will have a different expression in different cultures. A cross-cultural study on schizophrenia’s auditory hallucinations showed that the voices people hear are shaped by culture. In Accra, Ghana and Chennai, India—people mostly reported their heard voices as a positive thing. Meanwhile in San Mateo, California, not one person did the same. (source: Hallucinatory 'voices' shaped by local culture, Stanford anthropologist says)

Different cultures will define “man” differently. Cultures might have third genders that are more widespread and accepted than non-binary people in North America and Europe. Expectations for a parent will be different. Expectations for children will be different. Expectations between friends will be different. Disability (physical and/or mental) accommodations that are built into culture will be wildly different depending on cultural values. Wealth and class struggles will also be different.

All of these things will deeply impact a majority* character from a marginalized group, let alone one multiply marginalized. If you can’t answer how a majority character would behave based off cultural practices, then answer that before you work on a multiply marginalized person from that group.

* majority= cis, het, pale, financially stable, aka, somebody who has the most institutional power within that group even if they are marginalized in broader society (if they’re in a society where they are the dominant group, then they are privileged)

Healing, Distance, and Diversity

I know many marginalized people use fictional stories to be seen on paper, especially in a society where the stories for us just don’t exist. And you’re also aware of how white the representation of otherwise-marginalized people is, so you want to do your part to change that.

There are three paths you can take with this:

1- You are writing a story primarily for others, and have worked through your own stuff enough that you can use it as an influence instead of a story basis.

You realize you might not know exactly how a Buddhist East Asian person in a supportive family feels, but you know what it’s like to feel supported growing up and want to pull from that experience to show a loving Buddhist East Asian family. Or maybe you know what it’s like to love your parents but never, ever, ever feel safe coming out to them, and you want to show other people stuck in that place it’s okay, and it just so happens that the character this time around is Black.

This is a place where you can put aside your own desires and really dig into the research. Because it will take a lot of research. There will be so many little things that you don’t know. It will be diversity on hard mode. 

2- You are writing this story primarily for yourself, but it’s just so emotional to think of your own context you want to make it Different, somehow

If you are in this position, consider keeping the story private. Not a judgement, at all—we all need private stories. But until you’ve worked through your own pain, you’re going to be relying a little too heavily on assumptions and your own experience to do respectful research.

That emotional situation you want to write about is going to look so different once you change the racial demographic, you probably won’t get the catharsis you want while writing it. Which means the story and your healing will suffer, because you’re not able to do research and you’re not able to work through all of your feelings from running into cultural roadblocks.

Get catharsis first, then consider doing diversity once your emotions are less intense. You need to be able to put “you” aside, and when your feelings are too big, that just is not happening. That’s okay! Not all of your representation has to be perfectly done for others to consume. 

But that also means, you don’t have to ask WWC about it. Because you’re not writing a story for public consumption—you’re writing a story to process your own trauma.

3- You are writing this story primarily for others, but you’re simply trying to toss as much diversity in to “fix” the “everyone is white” problem and haven’t really stepped back to ask yourself if you’re representing them, or if you’re trying to show off.

This is a place you can very quickly be accidentally hurtful, because you don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe you’re wanting to toss in some background flavour, have some experience with death, decide to change the character’s race because they’re a smaller background part… and then you don’t look at what grief norms are in their culture over yours.

You could also find out that your experience has a lot of similarities and get lucky! Or you could get a few things wrong but at least you tried. Or, worst case, you could get it completely wrong and end up not representing anyone.

When in doubt, ask. If you’ve never seen x group handle y, then look it up before you go writing about it—same way you’d research any other component of your plot. Fear is not the place to write diversity from.

TL;DR

No matter how many marginalizations you have, it’ll still be different if you don’t share race

Marginalized spaces are often the only spaces where marginalized white people have full access to white privilege, so they can be extremely hostile to PoC

Groups grow, change, and evolve, as time goes on. Don’t assume that you know how they’ll actually handle any given marginalization unless you’ve listened to them at length.

Context matters; the same identity will have a different experience depending on their level of privilege within their society/group

There are limits to how much you can extrapolate your experience to relate with others who share an identity (chronically ill, LGBTQ+, etc) with you

If you’re just taking PoC to make the story different from your lived experience, keep the story private and heal before you start to write for others

Simply trying to avoid criticism of writing all white people is a poor place to start writing diversity, and you need some basic research before you polish things

~Mod Lesya

[hillbillyoracle]

Witchblr (for the Most Part) Doesn't Have the Gatekeeping Problem It Thinks It Does

I've been seeing this crop up in more and more posts, bios even - anti-gatekeeping statements. And I've tried to keep an open mind about it, to go "well maybe I'm just not seeing what they're talking about" but as I run into actual posts where gatekeeping is claimed, I'm really starting to think that Witchblr might not fully understand what the term means and why it's essential we don't adopt it from the groups who need it to articulate a very specific experience, one that Witchblr isn't capable of having just within itself as far as I can tell.

I don't know for a fact where the term originates but my first introduction to the term gatekeeping was through the trans community. A friend of mine was having to see a therapist, weekly, for 6 months, before she could get her therapist to write a letter that would enable a doctor to prescribe her the hormones she wanted to take. She'd researched them thoroughly, knew the risks and benefits very well, was fully consenting - but was being denied a substance vitally necessary to her mental, physical, social, and emotional well being.

Gatekeeping usually best describes folks who are not a part of a group getting to decide who is a part of said group. In this example, cis doctors and therapists getting to decide who is trans enough to access medical care they need. This is especially potent when other folks outside the group have easier access to the means than the group being gatekept. Such as when cis women have an easier time accessing HRT than trans women. That doesn't seem to mirror what I'm seeing in Witchblr posts where the word is used.

The power behind gatekeeping requires a level of organization that Witchblr as a community doesn't seem to have. And what's being denied are not things that are vital to folks' material well being but rather recognition and validation. I understand the confusion on some level. When forces with organized power deny folks validation and recognition, it often comes with the denial of material and social goods they need to survive. But the individuals out here writing their blogs largely cannot withhold what is vital and necessary to your continued existence. While we all do better with support, not everyone owes us that support and it requires an exchange to make it sustainable. Reading someone's work, even regularly, doesn't fit the bill. In my book, if you're in need of validation and support, you go to those people who already do or cultivate new reciprocal relationships with people who will.

The few cases where I've seen gatekeeping used to describe intracommunal affairs is in cases where the community is not equally privileged. And while there are a mix of privileged and marginalized folks in the Witchblr community, as far I can tell there's not a cohesive group that is considered more acceptable by folks outside of Witchblr who, through that acceptability, are shielded from the full weight of community specific oppression and ostracize less acceptable folks from collective resources to maintain that sheild. The closest I've seen to this (that isn't rooted in other intersections of identity) is that folks who who maintain a psychological view - "It's all in our heads but isn't that still real?" - of deities, magic, and divination seem to get a better reception than those who believe in other models and sometimes distance themselves from folks who believe otherwise but even then...doesn't quite fit the bill.

For internet communities in particular, I have a very hard time seeing the structures in place needed to enforce gatekeeping. Someone doesn't agree that you are [insert term]y enough for the [insert term] group they're personally a part of? Well there are likely a bunch more groups already established who would accept you. You also have the power to create, grow, and maintain your own. You have both resources and agency.

What I think Witchblr's usage of gatekeeping more often speaks to is many folks crave the validation of other people. They stake their worth and well being on disproving people. When someone says "you're not a witch if you don't do xyz" = they don't stop to think about what power that person has over their power or their practice. They just react. Someone is wrong on the internet and it's perceived as a threat.

Part of the issue is that Witchblr has a tendency toward projecting a practice rather than actually practicing. It's been my experience that when you spend more of your time doing your practice and you have a deep sense of your foundations - whether someone agrees with you or not quickly becomes irrelevant. What so many of the conversations on gatekeeping show me is that many folks do not have a strong enough foundation in what they believe and what they practice to understand who they are and what's relevant to them. They're filling that void with external validation.

Where Witchblr's "gatekeeping" usage becomes outright destructive or even dangerous is with it's continual insistence that people articulating positions well grounded in research and primary records are some how gatekeeping other people they don't agree with. Previous education does help but acting like every person who can defend their positions with source texts automatically has a degree or several is weirdly classist to me.

I went to rural schools the vast majority of my life. I have multiple learning disabilities, struggled hard, and never completed a college degree despite attempting twice. Money and my health stopped me. I was working class and now unemployed. I did not have internet at home for most of my adult life (and only part of my childhood). Like I am so close to the examples I see thrown around in these conversations and yet I have been told that by citing reliable sources that I'm elitist and classist.

Something we don't talk enough about as a community is that expertise has a lot less to do with privilege and a lot more to do with sacrifice. I chose to spend what free time I could practicing and researching. I could have spent that time watching Netflix, hanging out with friends, going hiking, etc. While it was also out of poverty, I chose not to accumulate things in my home that would take a lot of time to care for. I had a second hand hospital mattress on the floor and that was it - that was a sacrifice of comfort. I did not have a pet for the majority of the time I did my most intense studying so I could focus on my work - that was sacrifice. I did not have internet at home, largely because I couldn't afford it, but I embraced it as it created the ability to download a work at a public connection and take it home and sit with it deeply so that I couldn't reach out for other people's comments to filter it through. I only maintained romantic relationships that were low energy input and were thus less satisfying or close so that I could focus on my work - that was a sacrifice.

All this is to say - you don't see half the sacrifices people who have a level of expertise make. There's an assumption of ease where there absolutely should not be one. No one is asking you to sacrifice like that. No one is saying you're lesser for not making that sacrifice. What folks are saying is respect the sacrifices they made to get the knowledge they're trying to share with you. They're often trying to give you what they had to pay with a good chunk of their lives for. Take it or leave it, don't attack them. It is not gatekeeping to recognize that, where spirituality overlaps with history and other topics, there are correct answers that can be found if you look. That's just reality.

Also learning on your own is not the same as having access to an education or to the internet even. Our ancestors did not always have people to study from. Practices like spirit work, divination, and magic developed independently all over the world. There were plenty of interrupted lineages in there too. I think people forget that you can learn these skills through experimentation and observation. People literally can't keep you from this path of learning. Whether you choose to take it is up to you. Whether it's worth the sacrifice - only you can say.

So vast majority of ways I’m seeing people use the word gatekeeping just do not meet the criteria. Watering that word down robs it of it’s ability to name a very specific threat which is especially damaging to use trans folks who use it to call out medical discrimination. The vast majority of instances I see it used in are where someone is expressing an opinion. They may be wildly off base but as long as they’re not spreading truly harmful ideologies, they're entitled to it. Different opinions are not gatekeeping - they’re a natural part of any community and we have to have a level of tolerance for that. That discomfort you feel is an invitation to meet your shadow, understand your discomfort, and prioritize what actually moves your practice forward.

[vtori73]

Content warning for Biphobia, also mentions of (but no actual details or anything) of harassment, assault etc.

Also the MAJORITY of this post will focus on Biphobia only because it's easier for my brain to stay on topic if I do that but I do get there are multiple intersections that can happen/that I could go into but at moment I am just choosing not too because it's just easier.

Something I wish that could be talked about more is how the first two, LG, within the LGBTQIA+ acronym can and often do weaponize their identities & the marginalization they face to use against any other marginalized identities they don't like (especially when it's involving LGBT BIPOC).

This is specifically something I've noticed happen often when Bi+ &/or mspec individuals talk about the rampant ongoing biphobia we have to face within these spaces but no one really seems to care. Even our own who tend to be less marginalized or are internalizing that discrimination will go to bat for LG who are being bigoted and use their identity as a a way to shield them.

This is specifically in reference to discourse around Bi lesbians but I'm also talking about ANY Biphobia I see which I have PERSONALLY been more exposed to by Lesbians then any other Queer identities. It's not even overt half the time, other times it subtle but pervasive & I & many people still notice it but try calling it out & you get nothing but "you're Lesbophobic" "stop bullying Lesbians" "that doesn't exist/that isn't a thing/your making that up/making up problems" etc.

Now this part is going to be "problematic" but I've honestly in recent years have become very uncomfortable around most cis Lesbian ONLINE communities because of this. I've blocked or muted multiple who are straight up biphobic or are more subtle such as hating Bi/Pan Lesbians & arguing "Bi's have no say on this" & using horrible ahistorical arguments or the good old victim blaming narrative of "well if BI Lesbians are allowed to exist men are going to harass US even more!" not only horribly wrong because men with boundary issues never gave a shit before about labels so why would they now all of a sudden? It's not like that kind of narrative can't at all backfire and be used by them if they find out about it as a way to excuse their shitty ass behavior (*cough cough* gay panic*cough*) but the also NOT so subtle insulting insinuation that Bisexuals (even straight women tbh) deserve/should expect the harassment just for being Bisexual/having the possibility to be attracted to men (& as an extra layer of "fucked up" statistically speaking Bi+ people have MUCH higher rates of violent/sexual harassment/assault against them then other sexualities & obviously gets much worse if you're also Trans so I don't trust ANYONE one who uses that as an argument against Bi Lesbians, ESPECIALLY Bi+ MSPEC individuals).

There are no solid arguments I've heard so far against Bi+ lesbian identities besides "Lesbians should be allowed to have their own thing!" Which... I mean... I guess? I just feel like I've RARELY heard this sort of thing from any other group, Gay HAS become an umbrella term whether Biphobes want to admit it or not. I don't feel like I've heard gay men go as hard as some Lesbians have about wanting their own space away from the "icky" Bisexuals. And I can say I don't see that talk really from other groups a whole lot either, occasionally of course it does happen bi/pan spaces against one another but I feel it's a bit more rare compared to how often I see exclusionist Lesbians not wanting ANY sort of contact or community space with people who don't exclusively use the Lesbian label so yeah i find it hard to not see this as more then respectable/rebranded Biphobia.

I'm just tired of it & wish Bi+ & MSPEC individuals could just catch a break for once & not have to deal with this FUCKING bullshit, we honestly deserve much better.

[woman-loving]

Selection from "Widening the Dialogue to Narrow the Gap in Health Disparities: Approaches to Fat Black Lesbian and Bisexual Women's Health Promotion," Bianca D.M. Wilson, in The Fat Studies Reader, ed. Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay, 2009.

Although the relationships between weight and health are unclear, major systemic factors experienced by many Black lesbians and bisexual women, such as racism, anti-fat discrimination, sexism, poverty, violence, and heterosexism, are powerful detractors from health (physical, emotional, and mental) and should be considered in a meaningful way as targets for public health intervention. The health consequences of various intersecting oppressions on the lives of Black lesbians and bisexual women can be understood and addressed at individual, interpersonal, and systemic levels. At the individual level, it may be fruitful to examine empirically the moderating effects of psychological stress due to the experience of intersecting forms of oppression on the physiological health of fat Black lesbian and bisexual women. That is, what are the psychologically mediated health effects of discrimination due to being a fat, Black, sexual minority woman? Drawing from the broader research on the psychophysiological effects of stress, Black scholars have studied the direct relationships between racism and various indicators of health among African Americans (see Bowen-Reid & Harrell, 2002, for review; see also Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams,1999). Through these studies, they have illustrated that in addition to genetics and behavior, structural forces such as discrimination and systemic oppression affect health, potentially through the physiological effects of stress (McEwen & Seeman, 1999). An ecologically valid approach to fat Black lesbian and bisexual women’s health would avoid a narrow focus on weight loss and expand the levels of analysis to identify additional important factors affecting health within this community. Once we commit to studying the effects of contextual factors on health in African American and lesbian/bisexual women’s communities, thereby expanding a medical model that is currently neither focused on nor equipped to address systemic factors associated with health, we will increase our capacity to develop effective health promotion programs. Public health researchers and interventionists can work with community, health, and social psychologists, as well as community organizers, to promote oppression coping and  resistance strategies that optimize our chances of buffering the physiological effects of systemic discrimination due to size, sexuality, race, and gender.

Research that accounts for the effects of oppression on the lives of fat Black lesbian and bisexual women through physiological responses would the hopefully also lead to contextually focused interventions that directly target structural roots of oppression that serve as barriers to those women’s wellness. Such interventions may be in the form of legislative and political action, such as targeting discriminatory health insurance company policies that deny insurance to people who are categorized as overweight or obese regardless of other markers of health. These policies leave many fat Black lesbian and bisexual women un- or underinsured (which is particularly troubling because these individuals are already at high risk for being underinsured as Blacks, sexual minorities, and women). Other forms of structural interventions include culture work through the arts to raise awareness and encourage critical dialogue about the ways that fat Black lesbian and bisexual women exhibit health in their everyday resistance to oppression. Although suggesting these strategies for social change is not in and of itself innovative on my part (as I have borrowed these ideas from the many activists in my life), it would require a radical shift in current public health strategies to view environmental, power structure, and cultural change as equally, if not more, important work than discrete health behavior change. For example, over twelve years ago Angela Davis (1994), in her essay “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: The Politics of Black Women’s Health,” advocated for structural health interventions that increased access to health care and opportunities for overall well-being, such as the eradication of poverty and the creation of a universal health care system. Specific to the effects of racism on health, but relevant to the study of the effects of multiple forms of oppression on Black lesbian and bisexual women’s health, Krieger (2003, p. 197) similarly argued, “The point is that neglecting study of the health impact of racism means that explanations for and interventions to alter population distributions of health, disease, and well-being will be incomplete and potentially misleading, if not outright harmful.”

For fat Black lesbian and bisexual women, it is important to note that in addition to racism, we must also negotiate the realities of heterosexism (Eliason & Schope, 2001), sexism (Krieger & Fee, 1994), and anti-fat bias (Harvey & Hill, 2001) within the health care system. The fact that fat Black  lesbian and bisexual women sit at the intersections of all these marginalized identities cannot be overlooked in our efforts to acknowledge the ecology of our health care experiences. Typically, however, larger-than-average weight among Black women is viewed as  a symptom of the deleterious effects of other forms of oppression, and the effects of anti-fat bias within society (including within the health professions) on Black women’s health are often ignored. I have heard numerous fat Black lesbian and bisexual women say that health providers willingly ignore their reported symptoms and concerns, choosing instead to reduce all health complaints to symptoms of their weight or a combination of being Black and fat. Anecdotally, this type of dismissive and frustrating experience that fat patients have with their health providers appears to lead to poor care, and in many cases patients eventually choose to stop accessing the health care system altogether. Research claiming that weight is highly predictive of the health statuses of people of any group systematically discriminated against by health providers is incomplete without an analysis of the confounding effects of low-quality healthcare. To what extent does poor treatment in health care systems due to size, race, gender, or sexuality account for previously identified correlations among weight, disease, and death for fat women? How do problematic, as well as positive, experiences with health care providers affect health care access rates among fat Black lesbian and bisexual women? In turn, do limited health care access behaviors in response to negative experiences with providers predict future health problems? These are some of the questions that researchers would be asking if they approached the study of health among fat people without an anti-fat bias and if they considered the full ecology of fat Black sexual minority women’s health care. Research addressing questions like these can also help inform health provider–focused interventions designed to reduce negative biases against any and all of the communities to which fat Black lesbian and bisexual women belong.

Currently, there are various forms of cultural competency trainings that have been designed to address heterosexist, racist, and sexist policies and procedures in the health care system. A next step would be to develop and disseminate trainings that also address the stigma experienced by fat people, particularly because contemporary fat prejudice is partially justified through medically based arguments (Campos, 2004). With adequate health care and freedom from oppression, what would fat Black sexual minority women’s health look like? A paradigm shift whereby health is truly constructed as a sociocultural phenomenon as much as a physiological one would lead to systemic-level interventions in which social justice work becomes a viable form of public health intervention.

Neither Placating nor Destroying Black Lesbian Women’s Culture

Though moving toward a social change paradigm in public health is an ideal that I hold, I recognize that this may be, at the least, a slow-moving shift. Given this, we still must determine appropriate ways to pursue various forms of individual-level interventions that promote health and well-being in Black women’s communities. I argue that our efforts to target health behaviors, however, should be grounded in the cultural values of Black sexual minority communities. Research suggests that both African American and lesbian communities, separately and at their intersections, have greater appreciation for women of larger-than-average sizes than that of the dominant, patriarchal, Euro-centered, heterosexist society. African American women have been found to exhibit lesser levels of body dissatisfaction as compared to White women, despite being generally heavier than White women (Celio, Zabinski, & Wilfley, 2002; see also Lovejoy 2001, for review). Also complementing the perspective that “big” is or can be beautiful, my own anecdotal experiences in Black communities have illustrated that heavier women have often been noted to be associated with health by the use of the term “healthy” to describe larger-than-average, attractive women. Similarly, lesbian participants in body image research have reported lower levels of body dissatisfaction as compared to heterosexual females (Owens, Hughes, & Owens-Nicholson, 2003; Rothblum, 2002). Although these studies’ representations of African American and lesbian communities as accepting of large body sizes may not fully capture the complexity of esteem and body image among these groups, the empirical literature does suggest that there may be existing cultural values among these minority groups that support a higher value of body size diversity than found in mainstream U.S. culture.

As such, the relationship between the public health industry and African American and lesbian communities’ culturally based values regarding body image is at a contentious place. Although many African American lesbians may appreciate body diversity and even view larger bodies as healthy, we are constantly confronted with the medical industry’s view of our large bodies as inherently diseased and problematic. Several researchers examining weight among African American women and lesbians have called for culturally specific approaches to health promotion efforts that take this tension into account, but their intent appears to be to identify ways to sensitively get Black women to be thinner (Lovejoy, 2001; Yancey, Leslie, & Abel, 2006). Yet scholars have not adequately provided evidence that smaller bodies will equal greater health among African American or sexual minority women, which would justify the risk of changing a community’s healthy norms toward body diversity. Though the practice of culturally grounding health promotion work may involve challenging cultural norms and values that promote illness and disease transmission (Wilson & Miller, 2003), the goal of public health work should not be to convince a group of people that their sense of themselves is inherently unhealthy and problematic. Rather than a focus on weight loss, an approach that balances cultural beliefs of beauty and health with well-intended health promotion messages to encourage healthy nutrition intake and physical activity would be most appropriate. For example, health promotion programs that facilitate all Black lesbian and bisexual women, not just those who are fat, to maintain physically active lives and to eat foods that help them maintain that lifestyle would be a start in the right direction. This type of program communicates the importance of nutrition and activity in the lives of all people, and does not make erroneous assumptions of health status based on weight, categorizing fat women as “needing” healthy foods and exercise while categorizing thin women as “fine the way they are.”

[ravencromwell]

Disability Wealth Gap in the U.S.

Have been pondering the U.S. disability wealth gap a lot over the last few days while simultaneously realizing the lack of familiarity around disability finance outside the fairly narrow disabled community. So here's the disability wealth gap breakdown in the U.S. no one asked for.

Let's get a couple terms out of the way first, on the understanding these are fairly generalized explanations--the accompanying links will give you more broad information.

SSDI is social security disability insurance, available only if you've paid taxes into the social security system, usually for at least five years.

SSI is supplemental security income--a needs-based program for low-asset holding disabled folk, that requires no taxes having been paid into the system.

But! unlike disability insurance, where there's a fairly generous yearly earned income cap and no asset cap, both those things exist with SSI--one of the reasons means-testing is one of neoliberalism's worst evils

Essentially, SSI is the greasy spoon compared to the meat & 3 that's available if you've paid in the system. Your only criteria is being born disabled and low-income. And then are promptly kicked off of if you have assets over $2,000. Yeah, you read that right: no fluffy college degrees if you're disabled. You better make damn sure you get something that'll keep you employed come hell or high water

You'll notice that both the source links are to breakdowns regarding income; I'm not the person to ask about eligibility, particularly when it comes to Social Security disability insurance, having never been one of those lucky tax-paying folks. I'm here to talk assets and economics if you're born disabled and poor. More specifically, how disability--especially when viewed intersectionally with other isms--makes it damn near impossible to escape poverty

So, you're allowed to have $2,000 in assets as a single person and qualify for SSI. Assets, as defined by the social security administration include:

cash

money in a checkings or savings account

cash value in life insurance policies (over $1,500)

stocks and bonds

vehicles (they grant us the grace of one for transportation)

real estate (except our house)

(Source link)

Do a real slow once-over of that list. Barely any life insurance; no easily accessible investment opportunities, and most of all, no easily accessible savings or checking. And this's a flat rate, assessed yearly; your accounts can never, under any circumstances, go over $2,000 in a year. (Easily accessible is an important caveat here, because there are beginning to be some legal work-arounds which I'll address later)

And the SSI payment itself? I'm on the upper-most end, and it comes in at about $800 a month, which you'd better spend within that month, cause remember, no accumulating over $2,000. Average one-bedroom apartment rent in the U.S. in the year of our lord 2019? $1,078. This rent report, while capitalist as hell, in that it celebrates the growth that's sucking everybody dry, is a very good overview of just how bad the rent situation is. If you're insanely lucky, you can scrape an apartment at $601, and if you're shit out of luck, you'll end up at $2,311.

I specifically mention one-bedrooms because disabled folk tend to be shy of apartment-sharing arrangements. There're a lot of reasons for this, from needing to carefully organize our refrigerators by memory to avoid expensive labeling technology (if you really want a trip, go look up the price of a roll of Dymo tape, which's the best kind of tape for inserting into a brailler for labeling.) to serious concerns on the part of nondisabled folk about rooming with us. The fear of being asked to change your life in significant ways or take on responsibilities outside those normally expected of apartment-sharing agreements is one I heartily sympathize with.

And then, there is, of course, disabled folks' healthy fear of crime. This isn't a topic I want to linger over, particularly because I think there is a real danger of inflating carceral myths around crime that've already ravaged poor, majority-minority communities. But it is a reality that disabled folk are three times more likely to be victims of violent crime than their nondisabled counterparts. Just as with many other marginalized folk, we need to take care in our housing situations etc. etc.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that the low-wage work that many marginalized folk rely on for survival is barred to us, especially if we have significant physical or visual disabilities. As a blind person with cerebral palsy, for example, cashier and receptionist are out for me.

There're two vitally important discussions that need to be had that don't fit neatly into this 101 post where I'm specifically using the most universalist language possible to encompass the broadest cross-section of the disability community, but which I want to acknowledge nonetheless: the complete lack of a social safety net, and the fact that even as a dirt-poor white, I'm farther up on the privilege ladder than most people of color.

One of the most enlightening passages of Brittney Cooper's Eloquent Rage is the following:

Skyrocketing childcare costs continue to disadvantage Black families, particularly in households like mine, headed by a single breadwinner mother. According to the Institute for 206Women’s Policy Research, 60.9 percent of all Black families are headed by a single mother who is the breadwinner for the family. Another 20 percent of Black households rely on a married mother as the breadwinner. In every state in the United States, there are more single than married Black mothers. In every state in the United States, there are more married white mothers than single ones. In twenty-four states, the cost of childcare exceeds the cost of rent, and in many states the cost of childcare exceeds the 10 percent income-affordability threshold established by federal agencies.

Consider that many of those single women are also disabled--a definition complicated, I'm beginning to learn, by the racism of the white disability community and many black folks' distrust of identifying with any term that harkens back to eugenics. Especially as utterly baseless, slanderous filth about intellectual or physical inferiority is still propagated as one of the multiple cudgels of racism to this day. (which is one of the reasons, honestly, that I'm doing this post; because disability, and the financial limitations thereof, often intersect with the movements against police brutality in ways not immediately apparent. If we as disabled folk are three times as likely to be victims of violent crime, you know! black disabled people, be that an identity they embrace or no, are going to be more vulnerable.)

But I also bring up Cooper's point above because it highlights the scarcity of resources and general social mobility. I've been trying to obtain a housing voucher for years. This would allow me to set aside some of my SSI money--in those legal work-arounds I'll touch on in a moment. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to build on a slight savings foundation. As a person with disabilities, I'm even considered high-priority. But there simply are no openings. The waiting list is lengthy, and gets lengthier every year. Because the people reliant on said vouchers can't gain better-paying employment. * So they need those vouchers, and the state and federal government refuse to create more. (And understand, this goes beyond simple dem or gop administration categories. I was as thoroughly fucked, housing-voucher wise, under the Obama admin as the Trump one. There is a fundamental housing crisis HUD has failed to grapple with, of rising rent and shrinking availability for low-income individuals. This failure has been a long time in the building, and just happens to disproportionately impact those of us with disabilities.)

In a system where the statistics Cooper cites are a grim reality for so many black women, it is absolutely no surprise the system is gridlocked, especially when you look at Cooper's elucidation that in 2011, median wealth for white families was over $141,000 while black families' rested at $11,000. And single black women: had a net wealth of $5, while single white women had an average of $42,000.

I may be dirt-poor, but I recognize that my ability to be left a tiny nest-egg of an inheritance is a massive fucking white privilege, and I want to make clear again that a lack of spots on that voucher list is absolutely not the fault of anyone but the folk in power. But when you can't get an entry-level job, and you! can't get a voucher, having anything to build on is insanely tough.

Especially because: the first legal work-around to SSI didn't arrive until the year 2014. Yeah, you fuckin read that right: six years ago. Known as the Able, or A Better Life Experience Act, this let us create savings accounts. We can--and are expected to--sock money away in those for investments in housing, education, etc. etc.

And look; it's revolutionary, ok. It lets me have a tiny nest-egg without having my SSI snatched away. But when your SSI is $800 a month, it's essentially eaten up by expenses. If and when disaster makes that nest-egg dwindle, there's nothing to replenish it. And understand: this is significant progress. Remember that $2,000 SSI asset limit? Until March 9th, 2005, household resources were counted towards that total. (Yeah, that means everything from furniture to your cell phone counted towards your assets, and then people ask why there's a disincentive in the disability community towards employment when your SSI is so often tied to decent, affordable insurance.)

There is progress made, but god there is so much more to be made. I didn't even know about the trusts until two years ago. Until this week, I didn't know that friends could gift directly into the trust, when I went looking after generous people offered help and I went: but can I take it without fucking up the SSI, cause god knows I desperately need replenished savings, but can't possibly get kicked off that, too. There are so many people who have no idea Able accounts exist, or the means to fill them.

Disabled people who aren't employed in white-collar jobs and want to get married? are absolutely fucked. If you have SSI, you can only have $3,000 in assets between you and your spouse, excluding some pensions etc. etc. Exceed that limit, and poof, you're done. So if you're born disabled, better either go to college or have a spouse who makes enough to support two. (These restrictions are slightly less onerous with Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, but as I've said before, I'm not the one to speak to that.)

Part of making that progress is being well-informed. Start understanding how race and disability are woven together--something I'll freely admit I'm just learning. Start understanding that programs like a child allowance? are simultaneously some of the best antiracism and antipoverty work we can be doing, and would be revolutionary for parents with kids with disabilities.

Even more revolutionary, and the program I hear no one talking about? baby bonds!

You have to understand: there is a lot of shit Senator Booker and I disagree on--google his notorious charter school support. But this program? was one of the best things to come out of the 2020 campaign--aside from Warren's wealth tax, and the entire policy page which's just a well-constructed dream suite of proposals.

Booker's baby bonds program makes me do the delighted flaily hands. A. the strides it would make to reduce the black and white wealth gap between young people are just phenomenal. B. it would so radically reshape the landscape for disabled folk I haven't even entirely managed to wrap my head around all its implications. But let me give you an example.

As members of the disability community, there is some limited aid available to us for college. States will usually pay the amount of tuition for an in-state student at a local university of their choosing. So let's say $9,500. Now, we all know that's not going to go very far at all, particularly if you go out-of-state for college. And considering the steep unemployment rate in the disability community--most reputable studies put it at around 70% in the blind community. Well.

Even taking into account methodology concerns e.g. not necessarily surveying whether someone wants a job or are cognitively capable of job performance, but instead relying on whether they have one, those statistics are fucking grim. (I try really hard not to ponder it; the only way to pursue my ambitions is to believe, with either mad optimism or bulldog stubbornness, in my chances of success.)

When you're looking at those steep odds in a world where networking is already hard for non-disabled professionals: you need! the burnished credentials of a fancy school. You oftentimes need that gloss just to get you noticed as a blind individual. And that? means a lot steeper tuition than what the state departments of rehabilitation will fork over.

If you're straight out of high school, you have some real hope of scholarships for your undergrad. If you are, like me, a nontraditional student, things get...complicated.

Current plan looks something like: take advantage of the free 2-year-college that just! got passed in my GOP state about a year ago. And have the amount of a semester's tuition (so around $16,000) in savings by the end of that. After that first semester, I'll use internships and work study and fuck knows what else, but I need that first semester: to undertake the arduous task of learning routes as a blind person. To understand what my resources are on-campus as a disabled person and how to utilize them.

Booker's baby bonds? An account worth tens of thousands by the time I was eighteen? would've erased so many of those obstacles. By now, I'd be out of college, out of law school, gainfully employed. The possibilities are almost too vast to contemplate.

So, yeah. I have no neat conclusion to this. Start understanding disability issues as critical intersectional issues. Fight for economic equality, understanding that you're fighting, in large part, for disability equality. Ask questions. I'm open to them. I suspect you have other disabled friends who are, too

*There's a whole discussion around incarceration crippling employment, especially in majority-minority communities. Follow any good decarceral thinker, from Chris Hayes to Josie Duffy Rice to Ruth Wilson Gilmore (the latter understands disability as a crucial part of the struggle in ways I deeply appreciate) to understand the issue better.

[wovetherapy]

The Importance of BIPOC Mental Health

In the last decade or so, attitudes in the US regarding the importance of mental health have shifted. According to a 2019 study by Universal Health Services, a large majority of Americans (71%) agree that mental and physical health should be considered equally important. In fact, nearly all respondents (96%) agreed that mental health conditions represented legitimate medical illnesses (United Health Services, 2019). This attitude shift is significant, and yet, despite the public's recognition of the importance of mental health, BIPOC and other marginalized communities are often left out of the conversation.

Lack of awareness regarding BIPOC mental health further reinforces racial inequity by ignoring significant systemic issues that hinder equitable mental health treatment. As a result, it is crucial to acknowledge and address the unique mental health challenges faced by BIPOC and other marginalized groups. Recognizing the importance of BIPOC mental health and taking steps to prioritize it is essential for fostering a more equitable and inclusive society.

Understanding Mental Health Disparities

BIPOC individuals experience mental health disparities due to various factors, including historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, and ongoing systemic racism. These factors may contribute to higher rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other mental health conditions within these communities. Although anyone can experience mental health challenges regardless of their ethnic or racial background, racism and discrimination can make receiving appropriate mental health care more difficult (Gurley, 2022). Additionally, experiencing racism and discrimination, whether overt or as a microaggression, can lead to higher levels of stress. Two separate analyses of existing studies examined the link between perceived discrimination and various physical conditions. Both analyses concluded that discrimination was a stressor that negatively impacted health and morbidity, particularly hypertension and cardiovascular disease. The studies showed that discrimination is associated with an increased incidence of mental illness, violence, poverty, and inequities in the quality of treatment and access to healthcare, all of which impact physical and mental health (James-Bayly, 2022).

It is also important to understand that many members of BIPOC communities deal with stress and trauma stemming from specific socioeconomic struggles that impact the everyday lives of the community. In a 2021 report by HHS, it was found that persistent systemic social inequities and discrimination worsened stress and associated mental health concerns for People of Color during the COVID-19 pandemic (Gurley, 2022). However, the stigma surrounding mental health within many cultures can discourage individuals from seeking help, further exacerbating the problem.

The stigma toward mental health treatment among many marginalized communities is another barrier that contributes to mental health disparities. These negative stigmas can make it difficult for people to feel comfortable discussing and exploring personal feelings or experiences. Because these communities have had to historically overcome adversities such as slavery or colonization, it is often expected that one should address issues such as anxiety and depression with resilience and perseverance. Even though efforts to destigmatize mental health have been ongoing, there is still a lot of work to be done within the BIPOC communities (Gurley, 2022). These hurdles further highlight mental health disparities in the US.

The Intersection of Identity and Mental Health

BIPOC individuals often face the intersectionality of multiple identities, such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, which can impact their mental health experiences. For example, women within the BIPOC community may face additional challenges and discrimination as a result of sexism, leading to higher rates of mental health issues. Recognizing and addressing these intersecting identities is crucial for providing inclusive and comprehensive mental health care.

Breaking Down Barriers

To prioritize BIPOC mental health, it is essential to identify and dismantle the barriers that prevent access to equitable and quality care. These barriers include cultural stigma, linguistic differences, lack of representation in mental health professionals, and financial constraints. As previously mentioned, stigma toward mental health treatment may cause a barrier for people who need help. However, differences in language and cultural beliefs may also act as a deterrent for people seeking treatment. It can be frustrating trying to communicate or understand various medical and mental health terminology that is not a familiar part of a person’s cultural background. Terms like “anxiety” or “depression" do not always translate well in other languages. In fact, these words are absent from many Native and Indigenous languages. However, other expressions, such as "ghost sickness" or "heartbreak syndrome," are used instead (Gurley, 2022). These cultural and linguistic differences may be challenging to manage if the provider is unfamiliar with specific cultural norms. For this reason, representation and cultural competence among mental health professionals are sorely needed (Gurley, 2022).

Other barriers to mental health care include systematic racism and discrimination, which have caused a lack of access to care and treatment throughout BIPOC communities. For example, poverty and unemployment are often a direct result of racial bias and discrimination. These issues can lead to several challenges, including lack of health insurance, limited availability of providers, lack of transportation to therapy appointments, and the full spectrum of mental illnesses that result from living in poverty. These factors highlight the direct impact that lack of access has on the mental health needs of the community (Gurley, 2022). By increasing diversity in mental health providers, promoting culturally competent care, and offering affordable services, we can begin to bridge these gaps and provide equitable support for BIPOC individuals.

Culturally Competent Mental Health Care

Culturally competent mental health care involves understanding and respecting the unique cultural, social, and historical backgrounds of BIPOC individuals. Cultural competency requires mental health providers to be aware of the cultural factors influencing their clients' experiences and tailor treatment approaches accordingly. Culturally appropriate care helps build trust, improve communication, and ensure that mental health services are effective and relevant to the specific needs of BIPOC individuals.

Additionally, having broader representation and providers that are a part of BIPOC communities is crucial for providing patients with an empathetic understanding of their unique experiences. It is also essential that all counselors have cultural competence training to close the gap between diverse providers and the BIPOC communities they serve. When providers begin to explore and understand how cultural identity and intersectionality factor into providing the best level of care, it can empower BIPOC individuals to seek mental health treatment.

Promoting the mental well-being of the BIPOC community is an essential step toward creating a more equitable and inclusive society. By recognizing the mental health disparities these communities face, breaking down barriers to care, and providing culturally competent support, we can address the unique challenges faced by BIPOC individuals. Prioritizing BIPOC mental health not only benefits individuals but also contributes to a healthier and more compassionate society. By fostering understanding, empathy, and support, we can work towards a future where everyone has access to the resources and care they need to thrive mentally and emotionally.

Check out some of the resources of BIPOC Mental Health here.

If you’re interested in scheduling an appointment or you’d like more information, please contact us.

[xeno-aligned]

copy & pasted under the read more in order to have a local copy.

A Brief His and Herstory of Butch And Femme

BY: JEM ZERO 16 DEC 2017

When America’s LGBTQ+ folk started coming out of the closet in the 1950s, the underground scene was dominated by working class people who had less to lose if they were outed. Butch/femme presentation arose as a way for lesbians to identify each other, also serving as a security measure when undercover cops tried to infiltrate the local scenes. Butch women exhibited dapper and dandy aesthetics, and came to be known for being aggressive because they took protective roles during raids and other examples of homophobic violence. The image of the butch lesbian became a negative stereotypes for lesbians as a whole, leaving out femme lesbians, who are (pretty insultingly) considered undetectable as lesbians due to their feminine presentation.

In modern times there’s less need for strict adherence to these roles; instead, they become heritage. A great deal of political rebellion is wrapped up in each individual aesthetic. Butch obviously involves rejecting classically feminine gender expectations, while femme fights against their derogatory connotations.

But while butch/femme has been a part of lesbian culture, these terms and identities are not exclusive to queer women. Many others in the LGBTQ community utilize these signifiers for themselves, including “butch queen” or “femme daddy.” Butch and femme have different meanings within queer subcultures, and it’s important to understand the reasons they were created and established.

The Etymology

The term “lesbian” derives from the island on which Sappho lived—if you didn’t already guess, she was a poet who wrote extensively about lady-lovin’. Before Lesbos lent its name to lesbians, the 1880s described attraction between women as Sapphism. In 1925, “lesbian” was officially recorded as the word for a female sodomite. (Ick.) Ten years before that, “bisexual” was defined as "attraction to both sexes."

In upcoming decades, Sapphic women would start tearing down the shrouds that obscured the lives of queer women for much of recorded history. Come the ‘40s and ‘50s, butch and femme were coined, putting names to the visual and behavioral expression that could be seen in pictures as early as 1903. So, yeah—Western Sapphic women popularized these terms, but the conversation doesn’t end there, nor did it start there.

Before femme emerged as its own entity, multiple etymological predecessors were used to describe gender nonconforming people. Femminiello was a non-derogatory Italian term that referred to a feminine person who was assigned male—this could be a trans woman, an effeminate gay man, or the general queering of binarist norms. En femme derives from French, and was used to describe cross-dressers.

Butch, first used in 1902 to mean "tough youth," has less recorded history. Considering how “fem” derivatives were popularized for assigned male folks, one might attribute this inequality to the holes in history where gender-defying assigned female folks ought to be.

The first time these concepts were used to specifically indicate women was the emergence of Sapphic visibility in twentieth century. This is the ground upon which Lesbian Exclusivism builds its tower, and the historical and scientific erasure of bisexual women is where it crumbles. Seriously, did we forget that was a thing?

The assumption that any woman who defies gender norms is automatically a lesbian relies on the perpetuation of misogynist, patriarchal stereotypes against bisexual women. A bisexual woman is just as likely to suffer in a marriage with a man, or else be mocked as an unlovable spinster. A woman who might potentially enjoy a man is not precluded from nonconformist gender expression. Many famous gender nonconforming women were bisexual—La Maupin (Julie d'Aubigny), for example.

Most records describing sexual and romantic attraction between women were written by men, and uphold male biases. What happens, then, when a woman is not as openly lascivious as the ones too undeniably bisexual to silence? Historically, if text or art depicts something the dominant culture at the time disagrees with, the evidence is destroyed. Without voices of the Sapphists themselves, it’s impossible to definitively draw a line between lesbians and bisexuals within Sapphic history.

Beyond White Identities

Another massive hole in the Lesbian Exclusivist’s defenses lies in the creeping plague that is the Mainstream White Gay; it lurks insidiously, hauling along the mangled tatters of culture that was stolen from Queer and Trans People of Colour (QTPOC). In many documents, examples provided of Sapphic intimacy are almost always offered from the perspective of white cis women, leaving huge gaps where women of color, whether trans or cis, and nonbinary people were concerned. This is the case despite the fact that some of the themes we still celebrate as integral to queer culture were developed by Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ folk during the Harlem Renaissance, which spanned approximately from 1920 to 1935.

A question I can’t help but ask is: Where do queer Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color fit into the primarily white butch/femme narrative? Does it mean anything that the crackdown on Black queer folk seemed to coincide with the time period when mainstream lesbianism adopted butch and femme as identifiers?

Similar concepts to butch/femme exist throughout the modern Sapphic scene. Black women often identify as WLW (Women-Loving-Women), and use terms like “stud” and “aggressive femme.” Some Asian queer women use “tomboy” instead of butch. Derivatives and subcategories abound, sometimes intersecting with asexual and trans identities. “Stone butch” for dominant lesbians who don’t want to receive sexual stimulation; “hard femme” as a gender-inclusive, fat-positive, QTPOC-dominated political aesthetic; “futch” for the in-betweenies who embody both butch and femme vibes. These all center women and nonbinary Sapphics, but there’s still more.

Paris is Burning, a documentary filmed about New York City ball culture in the 1980s, describes butch queens among the colourful range of identities prevalent in that haven of QTPOC queerness. Despite having a traditionally masculine physique, the gay male butch queen did not stick to gender expectations from straight society or gay culture. Instead, he expertly twisted up his manly features with women’s clothing and accessories, creating a persona that was neither explicitly masculine nor feminine.

Butch Queens Up in Pumps, a book by Marlon M. Bailey, expounds upon their presence within inner city Detroit’s Ballroom scene, its cover featuring a muscular gay man in a business casual shirt paired with high heels. Despite this nuance, butch remains statically defined as a masculine queer woman, leaving men of color out of the conversation.

For many QTPOC, especially those who transcend binary gender roles, embracing the spirit of butch and femme is inextricable with their racial identity. Many dark-skinned people are negatively portrayed as aggressive and hypermasculine, which makes it critical to celebrate the radical softness that can accompany femme expressions. Similarly, the intrinsic queerness of butch allows some nonbinary people to embrace the values and aesthetics that make them feel empowered without identifying themselves as men.

Butch, Femme, and Gender

It’s pretty clear to me that the voices leading the Lesbian Exclusive argument consistently fail to account for where butch and femme have always, in some form, represented diverse gender expression for all identities.

‘Butch’ and ‘femme’ began to die out in the 1970s when Second Wave Feminism and Lesbian Separatism came together to form a beautiful baby, whom they named “Gender Is Dead.” White, middle class cis women wrestled working class QTWOC out of the limelight, claiming that masculine gender expression was a perversion of lesbian identity. The assassination attempt was largely unsuccessful, however: use of these identifiers surged back to life in the ‘80s and ‘90s, now popularized outside of class and race barriers.

Looking at all this put together, I have to say that it’s a mystery to me why so many lesbians, primarily white, believe that their history should take precedence over… everyone else that makes up the spectrum of LGBTQ+ experiences, even bi/pan Sapphics in same-gender relationships. If someone truly believes that owning butch/femme is more important than uniting and protecting all members of the Sapphic community from the horrors of homophobic and gendered oppression, maybe they’re the one who shouldn’t be invited to the party.

As a nonbinary lesbian, I have experienced my share of time on the flogging-block. I empathize strongly with the queer folks being told that these cherished identities are not theirs to claim. Faced with this brutal, unnecessary battle, I value unity above all else. There’s no reason for poor trans women, nonbinary Black femmes, bisexual Asian toms, gay Latino drag queens, or any other marginalized and hurting person to be left out of the dialogue that is butch and femme, with all its wonderful deconstructions of mainstream heteronormative culture.

It is my Christmas wish that the Lesbian Exclusivist Tower is torn down before we open the new chapter in history that is 2018. Out of everything the LGBTQ+ community has to worry about already, petty infighting shouldn’t be entertained—especially when its historical foundation is so flimsy. Queering gender norms has always been the heart of butch/femme expression, and that belongs to all of us.

[stamproject2023]

Introductory Post

Hey there!

✨️Welcome to our Tumblr blog!✨️

The purpose of this blog is to talk about the concept of historical intersectionality and how it has shaped the experiences of marginalized groups throughout history.

Intersectionality is a term that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, but its roots can be traced back to the early 19th century black feminist movement. It recognizes that our different social identities - such as race, gender, class and sexuality - interact in complex and interconnected ways to shape our experiences and opportunities in society.

Historical intersectionality recognizes that these social identities have not existed in isolation, but rather have been deeply intertwined throughout history.

✨️But what actually IS intersectionality?✨️

Intersectionality is a way of understanding social relations by examining intersecting forms of discrimination. This means acknowledging that social systems are complicated and that many forms of oppression like racism, sexism and ageism might be present and active at the same time in a person’s life.

Everyday approaches to building equality tend to focus on one type of discrimination – for instance sexism – and then work to address only that specific concern. But while the career of a young, white and able bodied woman might improve with gender equality protections, an older, black, disabled lesbian may continue to be hampered by racism, ageism and homophobia in the workplace. Intersectionality is about understanding and addressing all potential roadblocks to an individual or group’s well-being. But it’s not as simple as just adding up oppressions and addressing each one individually. Racism, sexism and ableism exist on their own. But when combined, they compound and transform the experience of oppression. Intersectionality acknowledges that unique oppressions exist, but is also dedicated to understanding how they change in combination.

The roots of intersectionality lie within the black feminist movement, with legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw originating the term. Crenshaw felt that anti-racist and feminist movements were both overlooking the unique challenges faced by black women. She stated that legislation about race is framed to protect black men, and legislation about sexism is understood to protect white women. So simply combining racism and sexism together does not therefore protect black women.

Intersectional theory is now applied across a range of social divisions and also to understandings of domination such as those associated with whiteness, masculinity and heterosexuality. Intersectionality is not only about multiple identities, and it’s not a simple answer to solving problems around equality and diversity. It is, however, an essential framework as we truly engage with issues around privilege and power, and work to bring them into the open. Intersectionality means listening to others, examining our own privileges, and asking questions about who may be excluded or adversely affected by our work. As importantly, it means taking measurable action to invite, include and centre the voices and work of marginalised individuals.

✨️HOW is intersectionality still relevant today?✨️

Intersectionality is an important concept in the fight for social justice today. It recognizes that our identities cannot be separated from one another, and that our experiences are shaped by a complex array of factors. By understanding historical intersectionality, we can better understand the ways in which oppression and privilege have operated throughout history, and work towards a more just and equitable society for all.

Intersectionality is still very relevant today as it provides a framework for understanding how different forms of discrimination and oppression can intersect and impact individuals and communities.

One of the key ways in which intersectionality is relevant today is in the fight for social justice and equality. By recognizing that people may experience discrimination and oppression in multiple ways, intersectionality helps advocates and politicians to develop more inclusive policies and practices that address the complex and interrelated forms of oppression that people may face.

Intersectionality is also relevant in areas such as education, healthcare, and employment, where individuals from marginalized groups may face barriers to accessing services or opportunities due to their intersecting identities. By taking an intersectional approach, organizations can identify and address these barriers more effectively, leading to greater equity and inclusion.

Overall, intersectionality remains an important concept for understanding and addressing the various forms of discrimination and oppression that exist in society today. Throughout the next few months we will explore all of it's facets and discuss it's more in-depth aspects.

Here are the Sources used:

[arcticdementor]

Social Justice, in its current form, has a structural anti-Semitism problem. It’s not that the Social Justice people hate Jews. At least I don’t think they do, as far as I’m aware. It’s deeper, because it results from the structure of some of the indoctrinations within Social Justice itself. Let’s look closely at some of these indoctrinations, see how they interact, and draw up some possible ways the Social Justice tribe might fix the problem, structurally speaking.

Puzzle Piece #1: “You Didn’t Earn That”

“You didn’t earn that” is an indoctrination deeply steeped within Social Justice, and it erupts in many different forms, which all tend to reinforce each other. Please note, I’m not talking about the Obama “You Didn’t Build That” argument, which simply states that independent business owners are actually quite dependent on the government. Nor am I referring to the Animal Farm style Marxists who don’t think rewards should be meritocratic at all, because these are rare outside of secret Antifa dens or the streets of Portland. I’m referring specifically to the mainline Social Justice approach, which is more layered.

First, they adopt the position that people are blank slates, and all features of personality or competence are installed by society. This leads to the belief that IQ isn’t real, or at most is simply the result of a racist test. It also leads to the belief that differences in socioeconomic outcome between races must be due to environmental factors, since no other factors exist. These environmental factors are defined to be “privilege.” You didn’t earn that wage gap, you were given the wage gap because you are male, or white, or similar.

…

Puzzle Piece #2: “Racism = Prejudice Plus Power”

This stipulative definition of “racism” was first postulated by Patricia Bidol-Pavda in 1970, six years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and two years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. It is now the dominant definition employed by Social Justice. By this definition, a prejudiced act isn’t racist unless the prejudicial person wields power over the person they’re prejudiced against. We might call this the Sarah Jeong Defense

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Puzzle Piece #3: “Intersectionality”

The roots of modern intersectionality come from Kimberle Crenshaw, and in application, work somewhat like this. Print the above grid. Circle the “identity” that describes you on each line. The more circles you have on the right-hand side of the grid, the more marginalized you are. This approach is already deeply baked into academia, and rolled out for freshman orientation at places like Cornell.

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Build the Puzzle

The theory then goes like this. IQ isn’t real, or if it is, it’s just a result of a racist test. You didn’t earn that. Socioeconomic outcomes are due to privilege. Marginalized people have less privilege. People who are marginalized in multiple ways have even less privilege than people who are marginalized in one way, and theoretically have even worse socioeconomic outcomes due to the intersectionality of their marginalization. But like all theories, this theory is testable, and falsifiable, and when you start testing it on Ashkenazi Jews, you get problems.

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Does this trend of largely vandalistic hate translate to worse economic outcomes? Definitively, no. Jewish people earn more money than any other religious affiliation, including whites of European descent. An astonishing 44% earn six figures, over double the national average. They also make up 25% of the 400 wealthiest Americans despite only being 2% of the total population.

As someone who has adopted the indoctrinations of individualism, I don’t find these numbers difficult to explain. The Jewish folks I’ve met are usually smart, funny, successful, responsible, good looking, healthy, and good with the money they earn. But this doesn’t fit the Social Justice worldview, which equates marginalization with worse socioeconomic outcomes. The theory fails the test.

When a theory fails a test, the theorist adjusts the theory, and it won’t take too much longer for Social Justice theorists to adjust this one. When they do, they’ll have three possible paths to resolve it, and I fear they’re already heading down the worst path.

Path #1: Jew Privilege

I don’t like this one. Not one bit. But it’s the easiest one they could adopt, because it requires very little re-working of their belief system, and they seem to already be going down this path. The resolution works like this:

Move Jews from “marginalized” to “privileged” in the intersectional matrix of oppression.

This allows the Social Justice tribe to keep all their other indoctrinations intact, and their theory matches the data. They can say Jews have better socioeconomic outcomes because of their “Jewish Privilege,” instead of the measurably higher IQs Jews have, or other racial traits which don’t fit the tabula rasa ideology. And it’s already happening. You can see it in the ongoing drama with the Women’s March.

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“Jews as white people” is language that clearly intends to adjust the Jewish position on the intersectionality matrix.

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This is very bad, because the Bivol-Pavda racism definition would mean anti-Semitism suddenly becomes “woke,” and Social Justice, to borrow from their own lexicon, will itself become Literally Hitler.

But there are some other options they might use to avoid their anti-semitic fate, if they take a wider look. As we mentioned before on HWFO, Social Justice is a religion-like-thing with the unique and captivating feature of being crowdsourced, which means that the crowd can monkey with the indoctrinations however they like, to fix the system if it’s broken. They need to start doing this more intelligently, and with a systems analysis approach. Here are two alternate options.

Path #2: Dump Bivol-Pavda Racism

This would be the hardest one for Social Justice to adopt, but would be the one I would personally prefer. If the Social Justice crowd were to pivot away from the idea that “racism” is only something that privileged people do to non-privileged people, and instead acknowledge that racism is a universal condition that any race or group can apply to any other race or group, then anti-semitism would always stay “racist” and never gets “woke,” no matter how much privilege the Jews are assigned in the matrix of oppression.

This would pivot the rules of behavior for Social Justice away from where they’re at today, and back towards “judging people not by the color of their skin, nor their intersectionality-matrix-location, but by the content of their character.” I think this would make the world a much happier place. I speculate that MLK would also agree.

But I don’t anticipate they’ll do this, because they’d have to give up their own racial prejudices to do so, and giving up racial prejudices is hard. It would also deprive them of one of the weapons in their arsenal, namely their ethos that it’s okay to be racially prejudiced to white people in the name of equity.

Path #3: Acknowledge the Jews Might Have Earned That

Another way for Social Justice to avoid becoming Literally Hitler would be to acknowledge the science that IQ is heritable, and that IQ is heavily responsible for socioeconomic outcomes. Further, that races have different median IQs, and Jews are at the top, followed by Asians.

This will also be a tough pill for Social Justice to swallow, because it opens the door to the possibility that not all racial inequality is due to systemic racism, and that universal racial equity may not be a realistic objective. But it’s still probably an easier pill to swallow than giving up their racial prejudices, and at least it doesn’t lead to them becoming “Literally Hitler.”

Or they could bail on the whole program, but I don’t consider that to be particularly likely.

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What Social Justice needs now, more than anything else, is a new leadership to rise which A) understands Social Justice’s religion-like nature, B) understands systems analysis, and C) is brave enough to tinker under the hood and fix some of the broken things within it. It needs reform. Badly. The “Woke Anti-Semitism Paradox” is only one example of many.