tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058072377999486184.post7519915115971167689..comments2023-12-29T18:13:21.495-06:00Comments on pink scare: Racism and Sexual Oppression, History and CoalitionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058072377999486184.post-18825738111220055182011-05-15T16:47:21.092-05:002011-05-15T16:47:21.092-05:00I really like the point about intersectionality be...I really like the point about intersectionality being about adding more specificity. That makes a lot of sense, and helps clarify things for me a great deal. I also like the emphasis on history. Systems of oppression, after all, only intersect inasmuch as they co-originated and co-evolved historically together in a particular way. It's a bold claim to say that slavery helped inaugurate modern racism, but I think it's the right one. The last thing we need is a timeless, ahistorical approach to racism- if we're ever going to end it then we'll need to get clear on why it developed when it did and how it is bound up with the history of the sort of society we live in.thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05268192967377248928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058072377999486184.post-30866334758852313702011-05-15T16:06:56.373-05:002011-05-15T16:06:56.373-05:00Glad you liked the post. And good questions. First...Glad you liked the post. And good questions. Firstly, I think McWhorter does a really good job of walking that tight rope of intersectionality. By the way, she actually says she is not doing intersectionality, which kind of reflects a division in women's studies about what intersectionality is. A lot of poststructuralist feminists distance themselves from intersectionality because they think it always entails beliefs in easily identifiable structures and that a clear structure to how oppression works (almost like they take Crenshaw's metaphor of the intersecting roads way too literally). Other feminists have come to see that intersectionality can make room for a whole lot of complexity and can be adapted to poststructuralism, so long as the theorist maintains that categories do not work independently of each other. There's a real debate about whether that's far too simplified a definition of intersectionality that could allow pretty much anything but vulgar identity politics to come under the tent. I just lay this out to iterate that McWhorter doesn't think she's an intersectional theorist, but I do. <br /><br />The label aside, though, you're right that there is a real risk of "papering over particularity"if you start to identify overlap instead of looking for departure. I think what I see to be one of the basic, necessary tenets of intersectional theory (as demonstrated best by the black and postcolonial feminists who first developed it)is that you're trying to be more specific about systems of oppression and identity categories than ever before. McWhorter is definitely sensitive to this. I think her argument is, ultimately, all about the need for specificity. It's historical specificity that shows her race and sexual oppression came from the same history, but it's also historical specificity that tells her it's dangerous to just lump them together.<br /><br />However, and this is a good segue to your question about normality and critical normality, I think her almost religious Foucaultianism (read her first book, Bodies and Pleasures for evidence of this) makes her fairly uncritically accept this idea that contemporary politics are all about creating and regulating the normal, and that almost all claims of deviance and appropriateness belong to this oppressive scheme. I don't think she would like the idea of a critical normativity. I think she thinks the normal is the problem. The problem is not just that it's an oppressive idea of normal.<br /><br />And here's how I think this ties back to your question of specificity: It seems to me the genealogical imperative for specificity runs directly counter to this idea that all social oppressions are about the normal and the abnormal. This categorization actually gets us much broader than race, class, sex, ever did! Suddenly it's not just a few big systems of oppression dividing us (which Foucaultians hate because it's a metanarrative!) but just some overarching paradigm of normal and abnormal. Is that really the best end goal we can reach for with McWhorter's painstakingingly detailed historical account? <br /><br />It seems a really tough balance between that close analysis to find the overlap in the specific and the conclusions it brings us too, which is maybe a wide net. This really leaves activism to simply the challenging of the normal. Isn't there another way to go? Can't we think instead about what it means to challenge each of these specific manifestations of abnormality?Arvillahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02966511261153415467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058072377999486184.post-11200563641388723092011-05-15T14:59:55.188-05:002011-05-15T14:59:55.188-05:00Super-interesting post! It's given me a lot to...Super-interesting post! It's given me a lot to think about, and I think it may be worth picking up a copy on the basis of your detailed look at it. <br /><br />One (half-formed) thought/question, though: Could McWhorter's focus on the marginalization of the non-normal catch too much in its net? For example, the danger with intersectionality theories is that we risk papering over the particularlities of various sorts of oppressions. Of course, I think this is a risk we just have to take. And as you put it, material history doesn't always draw the distinctions that theoreticians do (sometimes it's just a fact that two sorts of oppressions are mutually constitutive and deeply intertwined). So, of course, I'm on board with the project of constructing a sound approach to intersectionality. But the other horn of the dilemma, i.e. papering over particularity, is still a problem to be avoided. Might not McWhorter's position (i.e. marginalization of the non-normal) tend too much toward the latter? I don't know, but it's something that I thought of while reading the post. <br /><br />Also, does McWhorter leave room for a "critical" normality? In other words, is her view that all normality, as such, is oppressive? Certainly every consensus rules out certain alternatives. But aren't there cases in which that is a good thing? For example, sometimes sedimented gains from past struggles become normal just as older, oppressive practices get dismantled and deemed beyond the pale. Shouldn't critical theory strive to marginalize certain oppressive practices and make them non-normal? Again, it's not clear to me that McWhorter would even disagree here (my sense, from what you say, is that she wouldn't). I'd love to get your thoughts! Her position sounds extremely interesting and seems to get almost everything I would want to get out of a good theory of racial and sexual oppression!thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05268192967377248928noreply@blogger.com