POWERLESS SOCIAL JUSTICE PUSSY

I worked like a fucking animal this week, probably not a lot happening here until maybe Sunday when I expect to be recovering from a two-day hangover and hide indoors.

Awesome post by someone who seems to be an awesome lady:

“I just discovered the world of social justice on Tumblr”

…and I just FUCKING HATE EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW.

Okay. Okay. I can’t even…bourbon. Where is my bourbon.

OKAY!

Anyway. So. It is times like these I am grateful for my intelligent, politically aware friends I know in real life, and for the work they do and the discussions we have. I am really, really happy that most of these awful “social justice” blogs seem to be created by shut-ins who do nothing but yell at each other on the internet, about two main subjects:

1. Hijacking the language used by groups that are actually oppressed and applying it to their decidedly non-oppressed identity categories. My previous entry refers to the appropriation of queer politics by asexuals, and I won’t repeat myself here…but guess who also is fighting the Man who is keeping them down? PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT THEY ARE FUCKING HALF-ELVES WITH GODDAMN CYBORGS AND VAMPIRES LIVING IN THEIR HEADS I am not joking, not even a little bit. For the record, in case I did not make this crystal clear: Yes, I am making fun of you and your identity. And if you think having the cast of a B-list sci-fi movie inhabiting your brainspace is something that other people are bound to respect, if you think that it OPPRESSES you when people maybe don’t think that’s anything other than a delusion…um, sorry? I don’t care. I don’t know when “social justice” became the same thing as “not mocking my tender feelings,” but I am decidedly not on board with that particular line of bullshit. I don’t wish to minimize the effects of bullying, but I will say this: someone telling you off for appropriating the identity politics of an actual marginalized group (and yes, identity politics have their drawbacks of course, but that’s a lengthy diatribe in and of itself which I will spare you for now) is not the same as someone being gay-bashed. Jesus shit, internet, REALLY?

2. Head-scratching debates over language. I guess the current thing is “-phobia” and how that is ableist, apparently? This about sums up my feelings on that issue. I would also like to note that while exploring the etymology of words is important (there’s a reason I don’t say “hysterical”, for instance, unless I am making a sarcastic reference to Womb Furie or what have you), it can also be used as a derailing tactic. If someone calls you out on something, pick out a word they used with arguably shady etymology, and let’s spend the rest of the time discussing THAT! WHEE. Or, you know, not. I would also like to point out that some of us don’t spend 99.9% of our time on the internet, or we use most of our internet time watching ’80s metal videos and Drunk History episodes (Oney Judge FTW!) and thus are not up on the evolution of language debates in the feminist/social justice internetosphere, and acting like everyone is familiar with all this crap is a totally obnoxious assumption to make.

Careful, jaded. If “the revolution” starts at your home, there’ll be no servants around to cook your meals.

By the way, how can someone constantly be so “low on spoons”, when they do almost nothing?

jaded16india:

I know I’ve been sounding like a billboard for The Revolution Starts at Home (and full disclosure: no, I am not a contributor or in any other way affiliated with the book or zine), but ^THIS^ is exactly what I loved about the zine (book is in the mail on its way to me). Because it’s all about how to hold us all accountable while still believing that we can all heal and be transformed, that we are all worthy human beings.

(via diggingforroots)

(Source: loveletterwritten, via oncejadedtwicesnarked-deactivat)

jaded16india: “my cook thinks it’s so funny she’s famous on the internet”

weexist-weresist: “i used to live in pak and i had servants, but it was more of a kinship thing than a labor thing”

George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All!: “Our slaves till the land, do the coarse and hard labor on our roads and canals, sweep our streets, cook our food, brush our boots, wait on our tables, hold our horses, do all hard work, and fill all menial offices.  Your freemen at the North do the same work and fill the same offices.  The only difference is, we love our slaves…”

So all of the sudden, India IS the same as the TEH WEST? That’s fucking convenient.

Invisible, unregulated, poorly paid, even a definition of domestic servant proves elusive and contradictory.

“Those who benefit from domestic labour are liable to delusion. First of all, they tell themselves they are charitably ‘giving’ work to women who would otherwise be without an income. Many like to think of themselves as benefactors of those they employ, and pass on to them clothing and food from the family. Some pride themselves that they are ‘friends’ of the maidservant, taking an interest in her children, advising her how to deal with a husband who drinks, sometimes helping out with medical or educational costs. It is not unusual for a woman to say of her maid ‘She is like a daughter to me’; it is rare to hear a maidservant describe her employer as a mother.”

jaded16india:

“Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it’s exploitation”

Nevermind that employment is itself exploitation but who gives a shit about that. Nevermind that the “employment” these Nice Rich People provide their servants is essentially (despite their presumption to speak for their servants and tell us how nicely they’re treated) indentured servitude - rich people in TEH WEST have house servants over here, too, we know what their lives are like.

So let’s talk about some other historical and cultural phenomena to which jaded16india has no connection or membership and by her own logic cannot therefore criticize:

• American slavery
• forced genital mutilation
• residential schools
• apartheid (South African or Israeli)
• rape being an essential and inalienable component of what could be termed “male culture”
• child pornography (pedophiles are, after all, classifiable as as “GSM”)
• burning witches
• the need for lebensraum
• the Mobutu regime

These are cool, too, right? Because if you have shit to say about them, you’re fucking racist or a “douchefuck” or erasing people’s identities or something.

lookoutsideyourself asked: Just wanted to say that your blog just made me LOL like fifty times. :)

Thanks very much! Glad to hear it.