Your points also raise some questions that I think about a lot, which I would like to explore further on this blog…as much as I can from my particular identity, etc.: namely, if we are interested in forming multiracial, multigender, cross-class alliances in order to transform this society (which I’m interested in, but won’t assume of you, P, because I don’t know you), then what are the implications of acknowledging different levels of oppression within our organizing? I’m specifically thinking about the vital work of trying to heal and also to validate each other in knowing that we’re not crazy in this world.

Let me be more specific: In my organizing in the Pacific NorthWest, I have worked with many white feminist women who have wanted to share the truth of their experiences and to be validated as a fundamental part of their organizing…it has been something that has been vital for them for their own sanity and ability to stick with the movement. I agree and have learned so, so much from their struggles to find that space in what are traditionally meetings and movements that are “all business.”

At the same time, many of these white women have been really reluctant, often annoyed at the idea of making space for white men’s pain in the process of organizing…because white men have taken up enough space, etc. A position I totally understand…but…I still need to cry somewhere. If not in the movement, then where?

Further, beyond my white background, I have seen and heard from women of color who I have organized with who have been frustrated with white women taking up space, crying, etc. when these women of color have wanted their space to speak out and be validated, as well.

So we have a situation in which those who are oppressed are often not interested in hearing or dealing with the oppression and pain that their oppressors have experienced. Yet, I believe that in the United States, as it is, to organize in effective, sustainable, revolutionary ways, this oppression and pain needs to be talked about by all of us. And probably, eventually, all of us together.

So what do we do (and at this point I’m not just writing to P, but just to anyone…I’m not asking you, P, to answer me or anything…)?

In the past my simplistic notion has been to work with a kind of intersectional theory that encourages us to recognize that we are all fucked up, in different ways, and on different levels, by this system…and that to change it requires a radical unity, which means learning to listen to each other and work together across the barriers that the system has built.

But at that level of simplicity, there is no recognition of levels of privilege, margins and centers, etc. It’s almost a guarantee that white folks, dudes will take up the space…so, clearly we have to acknowledge the specific contexts of privilege and oppression, and acknowledge that different folks have different responsibilities…but what does that look like in organizing, without creating fucked up, almost robotic structures of “oppressed people always in the lead” with people with privilege then in single-file behind them? This kind of organizing doesn’t work for me, although I appreciate the social analysis that spawns it…I just don’t think of leadership in that way.

So, do we just separate and decentralize? Do we just have movements of identity caucuses where the more oppressed don’t have to listen to the less oppressed, and the less oppressed don’t have to make space for the even less oppressed? So do I just try to find straight middle class white non-trans dudes to listen to me and validate me…and then be just “all ears” when I’m working with other, more oppressed folks? Does the deep significance of white supremacy in our society, and its uniqueness in relation to patriarchy, mean that there really isn’t a place for white women, for example, and women of color to both share their experiences together in movement space? Are the gaps between us too large? Or is it perhaps that we’re not there yet…that the more privileged folks need to get our shit together and get some of our shit out together before we go burdening other folks with it?

I’m not sure, but I think about it a lot. I don’t believe our movements will be successful until they are large and allied together…and I don’t think we’ll have movements like that until we have movements that we can bring our whole selves to…and that includes some kind of space for me to talk about what it was like being taught white masculinity by the older boys at school…etc.

So far, up here in Seattle, the answer has been that the gap between identities, especially racial identities, is too large…and so almost all the organizing is identity-based.

And, well, sometimes it just worries me. I don’t see much bold movement building happening here. I think we probably can come up with some better models.

Interested to hear what anyone thinks!

Overall, I think you pushed what I was saying in a better direction than where I was heading. I do agree with you that it is important to be able to acknowledge and be honest about where one oppression really is more significant than another, and that this can be done intersectionally, rather than arithmatically. I really appreciate you writing about this, because I think it pushes me toward that complexity of thinking that I was trying to model as well, but fell short.

It’s interesting because as I was writing the post I could feel myself with this urge to try to “make a case” that white women have had it bad, too, and that thus Chris Rock was mistaken…which is exactly the game that I was trying to argue against.

So yeah, I actually agree with each paragraph you wrote, including your points abut voting, sharing beds with the oppressor, etc. And fundamentally I agree with your last point, that oppression is contextual and we shouldn’t just horizontalize everything…

That is a tendency that I have definitely had, mostly from seeing the history of conflicts within movements and seeing conflicts between people I care about in my activist communities, and so having that dangerous tendency of wanting us to look past our differences and to unite against the system.

I think that tendency was evident in some of the phrasing of my arguments…so thanks for challening some things in there.

And just thanks for the response!

(With all due respect, your voting argument is pretty specious. Black men may have gotten the constitutional right to vote before white women, but, after Reconstruction, they weren’t actually allowed to vote until the Civil Rights Movement. So, white women were in fact voting for forty years while nary a black person could cast a ballot.)

Or, when you write: “To think that white women are loved and have it easy because they often share the homes and beds of the white male power structure is a mistake. Being closer to the oppressor doesn’t necessarily make one safer around the oppressor (as women of color working in white homes have known for centuries).”

It seems pretty messy to compare white women who have white power to women of color who don’t. White women are often loved and very often have it easy often because they share the homes and beds of white men. They are oppressed, sure, but the white power structure is also constructed in the domestic sphere. They’re experiencing both the oppression of patriarchy and the power of white supremacy in both the domestic and public spheres. You’re right that being closer to the oppressor doesn’t necessarily make one safer, but being the oppressor necessarily makes one more powerful. Your error is forgetting that white women have white supremacist power. You can be feminist-identified and get this point too.

My point is not that Chris Rock is right and black men have it worse than white women. That’s a silly claim and you are right to say that having a generalized argument like that is unproductive. But, I challenge the move to completely dismiss the option of critically comparing experiences and recognizing that some things are sometimes more significant than others. Life is contextual, oppression is contextual, it’s important to not just horizontalize everything.

Thanks for the post, though!

-P