Comments on: When GLBT Groups Advocate for Bashers…

By: naamenblog

naamenblog — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:59:39 +0000

Ico:
You bring up really good points and a lot of these issues are why I think intersectionality gets blown off a lot because it is hard to trace all the impacts and get people to open to the idea that all oppressions intersect. It’s easier for these groups to focus on the mainstream and the best way to do so is to ignore anyone who doesn’t fit into a narrow view of the world.

Meep:
Wow…I’ve had similar interactions in groups where race is simply brushed off as not mattering when there are POC in the group. It’s just so completely disrespectful that I find it so amazing that the same organizations will turn around a second later and expect you to toe the party line. It’s a sign that just because people are activists for one cause doesn’t mean they’re safe.

bankuei:
That’s a issue I’ve had with some animal rights groups as well. I agree with a lot of their politics and stances but the blase attitude towards human rights bothers me. And in PETA’s case their use of sexism and racisl propoganda to promote their cause while ignoring the grops their exploiting makes them even more heinous in my eyes.

Less Lee:
No problem I really enjoyed your post and the breakdown.
Yeah, the whole Seal Press/BrownfemiPower/Marcotte could make a book on it’s own.

By: Less Lee

Less Lee — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:24:46 +0000

Hey, thanks for the link and quotes to my Not Proud of Being White Piece.

This is a good post. It seems more and more that this type of intersectionality between and among oppressed groups is being ignored. The whole Seal Press/brownfemipower debacle is a great example, but one which I won’t even get into because I’ll be here all night.

By: Ico

Ico — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:47:24 +0000

For the record — I’m an animal rights activist. ^^ And the campus group I worked with did lend cages (for demos) and sometimes office space to the campus Amnesty International group; there was some crossover. This was even more true at my sister’s school, where the animal rights group is the same group that also worked on sweatshop issues (they just had one activist group and tried to address everything they could).

I’ll definitely agree with you, though, that racism is a problem in the movement (along with classism, sexism, and a lot of other things — actually there’s a post on this over at Vegans of Color): http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/the-cult-of-veganism-or-sit-down-shut-up-little-brown-girl/

By: bankuei

bankuei — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:58:08 +0000

Nowhere to the same level, but this is what bugs me about animal rights activists- I never see them standing up for human rights at the same time.

My good friend Les just sent me an article about someone hunting pigeons with a blowgun up in Seattle- theres a $2000 reward. How often do these same people put up rewards when one of our kids goes missing?

Oh, that’s right, sky shitters are worth more than POC.

By: Meep

Meep — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:44:53 +0000

It reminds me of when I was involved in a transgender group and the leader told us (while looking at me), “But there are only white people in this group!”

Nothing like a little lip service from your fellow transfolk.

By: Ico

Ico — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:36:12 +0000

*sigh* Yeah… the LGBT stuff is something I’m actually doing a bit of research on right now. It’s funny, I wish I’d read this post of yours three months ago. I’m looking at the subject of queering teacher education classrooms, and out of 50+ articles I’ve read on the problems of homophobia, almost none of them mention intersections with race.

But when I first started looking into it, I was only looking at what was on the page, not at what was *missing* from the articles. Finally it hit me that there was an implicit assumption of whiteness. That categorizing sexuality as an issue separate from race and gender did the same thing to queer people of color that mainstream feminism does to women of color. It ignores/eliminates intersections of oppression and perpetuates the structures of privilege that are in place, homogenizing heterosexism into this essentially white issue. And it seems like the LGBT movement as a whole does this. Battling heterosexism first — not recognizing that racism and sexism are intertwined with it and that you can’t compartmentalize oppression or ignore the effects of other sorts of privilege in a movement. Because then you have that “all the women are [straight] white[s], all the blacks are [straight] men,” all the gays are white (men) sort of thing going on.

… and then stuff like this happens.

But, when people have a very narrow focus (for example: say professors exploring homophobia), how do you convince them that racism/sexism/etc *are* LGBT issues? That it’s not just a side problem — that you can’t separate your race from your queerness or only look at one type of privilege at a time?

Just thinking/wondering aloud…