over privileged is the new phrase now, eh?
By shag carpet bomb • Dec 6th, 2008 • Category: Feminist Fight Club, Horseshittery, Identity Politics, QueerEven though the gay community is made up of people of different ethnicities, races, cultures, and class backgrounds, it’s public face is pure over privileged white male. Right after the passing of prop 8 all over the news the white male gay leaders came out in force to verbally protest.
honestly. I think, collectively, a sector of the blogsphere has gone batshit beyond the bend. In order to criticize another identity political group, to do that, you have to congeal them into the evilest of evil identity groups: white, male, privileged.
ahem.
apparently, it’s “over-privileged” — a term that completely fucking doesn’t “get” what privilege was supposed to refer to in the first fucking place.
this in turn makes it perfectly acceptable for over privileged straight white upper middle class women like shakes sis to criticize… without recognizing the identity “queer”.
cause, you see, the rules of how to talk from a position of privilege to folks from an oppressed position, or how to talke across position of oppression … they can go right out the window when we pretend that we can isolate some identity characteristics and make them out to be so bad and awful.
in short, folks, claims about “intersectionality” and what it supposedly means are pretty empty. people _don’t_ get it at all. people _don’t_ understand when they say they are opposed to playing the “more oppressedor than thou game.”
oh well. i’ll go finish reading these ridiculous posts. i’ll bet you one thing: no one read the actual article in The Advocate yet. *bitter laughter*
fucking lazy asses.
oh, and later in that post i read this:
Suddenly everything that I say is wrong. I am not allowed to question. I must openly say that yes master your struggle is all that counts, this uppity Negro is out of place. I am blinded by heterosexual privilege and that is why I cannot see the error of my ways. Any excuse that can be clawed together to silence POC is employed.
lol
first, she gives utterly no examples of this happening. where exactly did anyone say she can’t criticize? but be that as it may, what made me laugh is that she sounds like amanda marcotte and her buddy, leslie fieldler or whatever the hell he name was. the grad student at nyu, from canada, who got pretty offensive during burqagate.
at any rate, it just cracks me up. seriously. identity political powerlessness has its privileges. ha ha.
(by the way, a while back, a prominent point in various wars over white feminists racism was the very valid poisition that, just because you have been an anti-racist activist, it doesnt mean you get to trot that out in order to get a pass on being a racist asshat (or whatever). Same applies here. Not that I think you committed some heterosexist faux pas — since you never explained what you said and who criticized you as heterosexist and how they did so. hint hint.
shag carpet bomb is
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I’m right there with you. The major problem I think is the persistent power of the stereotype that gay people are literally all ‘over privileged’ — rich, no responsibilities, owners of hollywood/fashion/antique stores, carefree party-holics, etc. — and are therefore not really oppressed. It comes out in funny ways.
Oh, and if you read the thread on Gay Rights and Civil Rights, you’ll see what she’s referring to. It’s a tense discussion about the way she employs the closet to differentiate between the black struggle and the gay struggle… in not entirely productive terms.
Uhhhh….can I get a link from Shakes’ Sis for citing, please??
That would be so like her, anyway.
Anthony
murphy -
i’m not so sure it’s just that — the stereotype. but i’m biased b/c i’ve been spending that last, hmmm, just over two years critiquing this form of identity politics.
anthony–
the quotes aren’t from shakes sister. after reading the thread murphy told me about.. honestly? i am pretty sure you don’t want to get involved in it.
although, frankly, it was a relief to finally read some queer POC call this blog author out on bullshit cringe-worthy commentary. tragic, really.
anthony — that didn’t make sense.
my post wasn’t a criticism of shakes sister, though i think she’s somewhat guilty of making glbtq movement into white and male in order to get away with saying shit she wouldn’t get away with saying otherwise. shakes sis does.
the fact is, though, she’s simply following on the heels of what a woman of color blogger (straight) has done in far worse terms: she erased the queerness of gay white males in order to get away with saying shit she shouldn’t say — rather, saying shit she thinks because of what i’ve come to think of as a seriously flawed identity politics framework.
anyway, this is a tough nut to crack and i can’t fathom why you’d want to get in the middle of it all! :)
should also point out that i think one of the problems is that people truly don’t understand what structural oppression consists of. as a consequence, they can only think in terms of personal actions of individuals. which is why they don’t understand to what privilege refers and why no one should be called “over-privileged.”
(I’m reminded, btw, of talking about class privilege once. A white lesbian in the room said, but so what about class? You can always stop being working class and just act middle class. It’s not like it’s an oppression or something.
My point being that queers can say stupid ass shit about the closet as well. boy-o, boy-o can they ever. :)
My mistake, Ms. Shag…I saw Shake’s Sis on the byline and thought in the absence of any linkage to the quote that it was her who said that.
Anthony
But, I’d still like to see some linkage to the original post….you know how much of a sucka I am for diving into battles head first. Sometimes, without checking whether the freakin’ pool actually has water in it. :-)
Anthony