The one thing that stands out to me as being consistent among the three readings is the desire to eventually eliminate the class separation of humans. Whether it be by race, by gender, or by sexuality, the divisions that these distinctions create among us have a wide breadth of consequences. So, I definitely agree with Shayla in that I feel childish saying this, but redefining us all as "people" instead of as "white", "women", "straight", etc. would ideally eliminate a lot of social stratification.
Moving on, I thought La conciencia de la meztisa and Uses of Anger provided support for that which was the topic of my last blog post. The two both discussed how contempt between oppressed groups leads to stagnancy of progress for everyone. There was a great line in Uses of Anger about how competition between different groups of women wastes precious energy that they need to channel towards their collective cause. At another point, the author talked about how we must be able to recognize others within our group as other faces of ourselves. I thought this was especially relevant for more successful members of traditionally oppressed groups. While they think that they have evaded society's grip on their group, they must realize that so long as different members of the group continue to be oppressed, they too are having their identity infringed upon. Similarly, La conciencia de la meztisa emphasized the importance of being able to straddle too cultures, and create unification against a greater enemy.
(I have to apologize, this blog post is gonna be all over the place cause I simply can't figure out to connect some of my ideas to one another)
So, 1) From Uses of Anger, I particularly agreed with the notion that mothers will often "shush away" taboo topics, such as racism. That is to say, they will project the message to their children, "we don't talk about other races, because to do that is racist". I do not agree with this, for I believe education of racism and its evils are part of keeping it out of our society. In fact, I have a nice little story that shows how education of social mishaps of the past can pave the way for a better future.
I was at my friend Emma's house over the summer, right around the time that DOMA was repealed. Her sister, who is only about twelve, asked her father what DOMA was. Now, as mentioned above, a typical parental response may be to shush that away, and to recognize it as something about American past that is now meant to be an unspoken cultural taboo. On the contrary, he fully explained to her what DOMA was - who enacted it, what it defined, and why it was immoral. This is exactly how generations get trained to bring about positive change. This impressionable twelve year old is being told by the man that she most likely respects most among all in the world that she should not believe in this homophobic law. That is how you systematically expunge hate.
2) I did not agree with Lorde's assertion that racism is something that is not talked about. Perhaps this can be accounted for by the fact that the piece was written in 1997, but both the Trayvon Martin case as well as the whole Paula Deen fiasco show that racism is very much a big deal in the eyes of the public. While I do agree that on a national level, systemic racism is largely ignored, I do not agree that racism in the public sphere and within the workplace continues to go largely unnoticed.
3) I really hope I was supposed to hate Atkinson, because I did. Let me share my absolute favorite quote. (Okay, I guess I can't really read the piece with the perspective of how the world was in 1970. Still, I think it goes to far, far extremes)
"The combination of his power, her self-hatred, and the hope for a life that is self-justifying--the goal of all living creatures--results in a yearning for her stolen life--her Self--that is the delusion and poignancy of love. "Love" is the natural response of the victim to the rapist"
WHAT???
This completely undermines every genuinely romantic relationship ever to have existed. To ascertain that love is a relationship of rapist to victim infuriates me, as it destroys the sanctity of a beautiful and complex emotion. I think that Atkinson did exactly what causes the public sphere to criticize feminism, which is polarize the debate to a simple "men versus women" scenario. There is so much more at play, and to suggest that all men are inherently pitted against women in the battle for women's rights is not fair to those men who fully support the movement. Just as there were white abolitionists during the 1800's, there are today men that are more than in favor of full equality for women. Rather than writing with a style that invites men to entertain her ideas and support her cause, Atkinson writes in a way that alienates any male reading her piece, and furthers the divide between male and female. For someone suggesting so vehemently that the sexes combine to form one "human", she didn't do a very good job of including the other sex.
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