Libby Anne on not reinforcing other axes of oppression

[2xx1xy1JD]

I liked this post from Libby Anne (Love, Joy, Feminism): www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2 ... ng-up.html

Sometimes, when it comes to social justice issues, she has a way of explaining thing that is just really logical and reasonable.

She's making a simple point. If you are going to snark/criticize, attack the stuff that is actually offensive. Don't actually contribute to oppression by attacking someone over a characteristic which isn't related to the offensive stuff, since that hurts other people.

I remember suddenly losing a ton of respect for a blogger once her husband, in response to a vile commenter who claimed to be Jewish, wrote, "It's Jews like him that made people think, "Hey, Hitler might have a point..." For the good of all of Jewmanity, he should just Masada himself." I don't care if you were provoked, if you thought that insulting someone was some chivalrous act, or if you expect others to take your comment as some sort of asshole humor.

I found this quote was just bang on:

We have learned from intersectionality that people can be oppressed along more than one axis, such as women of color or trans people of color. But intersecitonality also means that people can be both oppressed and oppressors at the same time, along different axes. For example, a white woman has white privilege but may be disadvantaged by her gender. A poor white man may be white and male, but he may be disadvantaged by his class status. An overweight middle class white man may face fat phobia. The word cannot neatly be divided into oppressors and the oppressed.

If we want to dismantle certain structures of oppression (say, gender), we need to not reinforce other structures of oppression in the process (say, appearance, or class). We need to take down all the structures of oppression, whether based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender preference, or appearance.

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfem ... z3NsVh3t2j [Not breaking the link because the link pops up when I cut and paste, so I assume that including it is a condition of my using her quote.]

It just addresses so many issues that I've had with the topic of racism and oppression in general!

[StacyW]

Yes times 1000. It's so disappointing to read a criticism about someone that would otherwise be valid, but that takes cheap shots about things like someone's weight or cultural tastes.