#the last thing i want is to contribute to these harmful cycles and rhetoric

[maxfew]

[tkrr]

The Left isn’t as progressive as it thinks it is

So Taylor Swift is a fan of Kamala Harris, who, let’s hope, will be our next Vice President. I just wanted to acknowledge that, and it really does show that Taylor’s serious about her feminism, because Harris is an absolutely fantastic choice for VP. She was my favorite choice out of the gate for president, but she dropped out before primary season... but here we are. 

I didn’t come here to talk about Taylor though. 

One of the most disillusioning things in my life was working as director on a public access talk show where a bunch of old New Lefties from the 60s sat around and discussed issues of the day. I did this for a couple of years until the producer and I drifted apart, at which point the 2016 campaign was in full swing and I was getting sick and tired of the constant Hillary-bashing. (She was “ambitious”, you know.) They rarely discussed social issues, and when they did it was usually related to some kind of international relief operation (like the one in Haiti a few years back) or castigating Democrats for turning away from the labor vote. (I don’t think I ever heard the phrase “identity politics”, but...) When Obergefell v Hodges came down from the Supreme Court in 2015, their first show after it happened was yet another rehash of the Israel/Palestine issue. As I was in the early stages of planning my transition, this didn’t go over well with me, but I kept my mouth shut and put up with it for another year. They were of course very concerned with corporate influence, with a regular set decoration being an American flag with the stars replaced by corporate logos. This was not the left I thought I’d be working for.

See, I’d done a lot of work with another producer on a show covering issues relevant to the homeless in our area. That felt good. That was, and is, how I see progressivism -- my contribution might have bordered on slacktivism from the outside, but I was providing a link in a chain for people who actually needed help. Similarly, the producer of the show I was talking about before had used me as director on a show about local public school issues; progressivism to me involves listening to people at risk and helping them reduce that risk. That was what the Civil Rights Movement did, and what groups like the Black Panthers tried to do. Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Amnesty international -- this is stuff that matters to people in their immediate, daily lives. I had kept the populist left -- call them Bernouts, fire baggers, the Green Tea Party, whatever -- at arm’s length, but I kind of assumed that these things were priorities for everybody claiming to be on the left. This... did not turn out to be the case. 

What I’ve learned, from that experience and from the last few election cycles, is that the populist left is not on the same page as the activists who are actually putting effort towards directly taking care of people. They talk about labor rights, which falls into that category, but they put other issues, especially civil rights issues, on the back burner. There’s a lot of emphasis on foreign policy, but usually in a very simplistic way that’s clearly still stuck in the Reagan era. (Which is jarring when you hear it from someone who was born after Reagan left office.) When Euromaidan happened in Ukraine in 2014, they bought the Russian government’s side of the story hook, line, and sinker, despite the people noting that the rhetoric came straight out of the USSR’s propaganda playbook. They treated Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden as gospel, but oddly enough I don’t remember them talking about Chelsea Manning much. (I wonder why. 🏳️‍🌈? Nah, can’t be...) The supposedly “progressive” populist left overall has this kind of tunnel vision, and I can’t help but notice they’ve been replaying the same scripts since the 1960s. The last time I looked at the Green Party USA’s platform, it was such a bizarre mix of things that actually make sense combined with things that were either wrong or outright insane that I realized I could probably never vote for a Green candidate. (That in and of itself is fodder for an article I do not have the time or the energy to write.) On top of all that, there’s the sheer self-destructiveness -- I can’t understand how someone can say that their conscience is clear for voting for third-party if the simple math means their vote made it harder to advance the agenda they say they want.

What it comes down to is that there are two “left”s, and they’re only just barely compatible. I wish I didn’t have to concede the word “progressive” to the populist side, because fundamentally, no matter to what extent they manage to diversify their own base, they wind up sidelining the concerns of marginalized people (particularly black and Jewish people; there’s a link at the bottom of the article written by a black writer for a Jewish audience that I found very enlightening) in favor of centering a “generic” narrative that ultimately comes down to “things white people worry about”. The scary part of this is that because they’re basically reactionary, they don’t realize that the economically-centered message they’re pointing out is not actually as helpful for all citizens as they think it is, and will never admit it. One particular point I’ve made occasionally -- the class narrative is irrelevant for most African Americans. Shows like “The Jeffersons”, “The C*sb* Show”, and “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” were all about wealthy, successful black families; there were working class black sitcoms as well (I wish “227″ had the same staying power as “Golden Girls”), but the ones we remember were all about black families that made it, and one of the stinger lines from the pilot of “The Jeffersons” was Marla Gibbs’ character Florence saying “How come we overcame and nobody told me?” Yes, I’m white. But this is stuff that other white people could find out if they bothered to look into it.

In the end, though, the worst aspect of all of this is the reductionism. It becomes an argument over who’s lefting better than all the other lefties, to the point where “liberal” has somehow become synonymous in some circles with “anyone right of Bernie Sanders”. (Which is really ironic given Kamala Harris’ voting record in Congress, running left of Bernie.) I don’t see too much of the crowd doing that going out and trying to do the things that make people’s lives better directly; it all amounts to telling people how much better things will be Come The Revolution™, but any efforts that fall short of total societal reform *right fucking now* are seen as worse than failure. Once in a great while, some will admit that they think that these are just bribes to the proletariat to stave off the revolution, but to be honest, I don’t think most of them have put that much thought into it. This isn’t the left I want to represent. If your plans don’t start with “first do no harm”, they’re going to have an opportunity cost far too high to be morally acceptable. And if standing on principle means giving up your opportunity to advance a progressive agenda, your “progressive” principles are worthless. 

(I had some other points to make involving cancel culture, but it’s 2:30 AM and this is already a rather long post. Maybe I’ll do a second one that includes it.)

The link I mentioned above: https://forward.com/opinion/435826/why-the-left-has-failed-with-black-voters/

[silver-and-ivory]

hello! I saw your recent posts and thought, I've read an article on that ever! "But Why Can't I Wear A Hipster Headdress?" by Adrienne Keene brings up some specific points for a specific example of cultural appropriation. I'm not sure I grok all of them, but I do get the idea of people who survived recent cultural (and other) genocide being frustrated by religious and cultural artifacts used for profit when bans on some of their religious practices were lifted in living memory.

Yeah, me too.

http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-a-hipster-headdress.html

Interesting article. Vaguely stressful to read.

> Headdresses promote stereotyping of Native cultures.

>The image of a warbonnet and warpaint wearing Indian is one that has been created and perpetuated by Hollywood and only bears minimal resemblance to traditional regalia of Plains tribes. It furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. We don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but we still exist and are still Native.

Endorsed.

> Headdresses, feathers, and warbonnets have deep spiritual significance.

>The wearing of feathers and warbonnets in Native communities is not a fashion choice. Eagle feathers are presented as symbols of honor and respect and have to be earned. Some communities give them to children when they become adults through special ceremonies, others present the feathers as a way of commemorating an act or event of deep significance. Warbonnets especially are reserved for respected figures of power. The other issue is that warbonnets are reserved for men in Native communities, and nearly all of these pictures show women sporting the headdresses. I can’t read it as an act of feminism or subverting the patriarchal society, it’s an act of utter disrespect for the origins of the practice. (see my post on sweatlodges for more on the misinterpretation of the role of women). This is just as bad as running around in a pope hat and a bikini, or a Sikh turban cause it’s “cute”.

It’s not wrong to wear a pope hat and a bikini, or a Sikh turban because it’s cute. No one is obligated to obey other people’s religious traditions.

But yeah, it’s pretty disrespectful and is a good reason for other people to dislike you or to reprimand you. Probably a lot of people who do things like this don’t even realize that they’re being disrespectful or how sad/disrespected this makes other people feel, and it’s good to tell them about it.

> It’s just like wearing blackface.

>”Playing Indian” has a long history in the United States, all the way back to those original tea partiers in Boston, and in no way is it better than minstral shows or dressing up in blackface. You are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing upon stereotypes to do so. Like my first point said, you’re collapsing distinct cultures, and in doing so, you’re asserting your power over them. Which leads me to the next issue.

Yes. In many cases it asserts power over others, and certainly it Others and mocks them, which is morally wrong.

> There is a history of genocide and colonialism involved that continues today.

>By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you’re standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally so your ancestor who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to you.

Not wild about this. Really, really not wild about this. This point isn’t even relevant. You can’t alter the fact that you live in America and that your ancestors colonized America by *not wearing headdresses*.

So why is it here? My cynical side says that it’s to make people feel like they have an infinite debt to repay to American Indians.

> Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? yes. absolutely. but by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.

What a clever rhetorical move. The author dismisses the statement that they also benefit from American colonialism by bringing up something completely unrelated.

Whether the author involuntarily benefits from a history of American colonialism or not is irrelevant to the piece, but acknowledging this would also require acknowledging that everyone else’s involuntary benefiting is also irrelevant.

Anyway, the last part is just reiterating the same points as before: that wearing these shitty approximations of headdresses feeds into continuing power dynamics that are rooted in a history of colonialism.

> Yes, absolutely. But, I’ll paraphrase Jess Yee in this post, and say these are very real issues and challenges in our communities, but when the only images of Natives that Americans see are incorrect, and place Natives in the historic past, it erases our current presence, and makes it impossible for the current issues to exist in the collective American consciousness. Our cultures and lives are something that only exist in movies or in the past, not today. So it’s a cycle, and in order to break that cycle, we need to question and interrogate the stereotypes and images that erase our current presence–while we simultaneously tackle the pressing issues in Indian Country. They’re closely linked, and at least this is a place to start.

Excellent point. It’s a bit short on evidence, which is fine because it’s paraphrasing a different article it links and which I don’t want to bother reading. (And it’s not difficult to imagine a good case for this.)

> Ask yourself: if you ran into a Native person, would you feel embarrassed or feel the need to justify yourself?

Well, this is not a metric that will work for everyone, because some people have social anxiety and get embarrassed about everything. I wore a Hopi-made ring to school and felt anticipatorily embarrassed about if a Hopi person saw me.

But probably for most people this isn’t the case!

> As commenter Bree pointed out, it’s ok to own a shirt with kimono sleeves, but you wouldn’t go out wearing full kabuki makeup to a bar.

I have to admit when I read this my eyes nearly rolled out of my head. This is the kind of false equivalence that makes the concept of cultural appropriation such a convoluted, overreaching mess.

To my (limited) knowledge, kabuki is just a kind of traditional Japanese theatre without an especial spiritual or cultural Significance. It’s not actually disrespectful of Japanese culture to wear kabuki makeup and the average Japanese person is not going to be offended at it.

Morally speaking, you shouldn’t wear it to encourage stereotypes of Japanese people, or while acting like a stereotype. But just wearing kabuki makeup is neither morally wrong nor antisocial.

— Anyway. Good article. Makes lots of common sj mistakes, but succeeds in articulating actual concrete harms. I like the blog and appreciate your recommendation!