Joshua: I was wondering, do you see anything disabled metaphory about Prisioner of Azkaban?
me: about who?
I mean, Lupin duh, do you mean other people?
Joshua: cos my favourite part of the book was hearing about how James, Sirius and Peter turn themselves into animagi to understand and help Lupin with his "condition" I thought it was really touching and poetic. But like, is that like magical crip drag or just magical.. being willing to see the world from a disabled persons perspective rather than trying to make them "normal"?
me: that's always been my favorite chapter in any of the books, I used to read it over and over when I was a kid
like, I think James and Sirius are kind of like Freddie and Cook
well, you won't get to this for a while
but I feel like Remus is often characterized as feeling like he doesn't have a right to his own opinions because he owes them so much
Joshua: ooohh I love that analogy
the Freddie/Cook/JJ one
me: well, I think given stuff Remus says later, it makes a lot of sense.
um...yeah
I wouldn't call it crip drag or anything like that
I think I wouldn't exactly call it goodness or kindness, totally--but maybe that's what Remus needed
Joshua: no, I didn't think it was, but I thought i'd speculate that possibility!
me: like, they were doing it for fun, partly. I think they didn't totally get it
Joshua: were James and Sirius kind of dicks when they were young? I haven't read to this bit but I've had some naughty wiki glancing
me: I may be projecting/imagining, but I feel like James and Sirius probably didn't understand how much Remus didn't think turning into an animal was fun
Joshua: weren't*
me: so, hm, maybe we will call it crip drag
yup!
and Remus was afraid to say anything
me: JK Rowling also said this: "Lupin’s failing is he likes to be liked. That’s where he slips up – he’s been disliked so often he’s always pleased to have friends so he cuts them an awful lot of slack."
(by the way, here is very long post/essay I wrote on the Skins livejournal community about my love for JJ, which at some points discusses JJ's unequal relationship with Freddie and Cook.)
31 March, 2011
30 March, 2011
23 March, 2011
I can hear the laughs
I know this is what tumblr is for, but I just covered one of my Lifetime Favorite Songs (literally since I was 12), and, because of the things I have been writing about the last few days, I have been thinking how disability, music, sexuality, and religion all feel to me like sort of the same thing, and this song covers it all which is maybe why it always feels to me like it contains everything I'll ever need to hear.
You can really fall, wake up in a ruined house,
wrapped up in a torn-down curtain.
And when I get to hell will the lovely girls come down
to the banks of that red, red river?
I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.
You can take a lot, put back not a thing,
still come home looking thinner.
And when I get to Oz, will the lovely witch come down,
kiss my pale, bleeding brow?
I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.
You can really fall, wake up in a ruined house,
wrapped up in a torn-down curtain.
And when I get to hell will the lovely girls come down
to the banks of that red, red river?
I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.
You can take a lot, put back not a thing,
still come home looking thinner.
And when I get to Oz, will the lovely witch come down,
kiss my pale, bleeding brow?
I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.
the ultimate (ridiculous) showdown
The reason I've been thinking about intersectionality even more than usual is that I keep seeing these little queer/trans (usually just queer, but trans, in this case) vs. disabled setups.
Sometimes the person doing it doesn't see it.
A queer person attempts to talk about intersectionality and they list race and class. Talking about situations where disability would OBVIOUSLY be an issue, they list race and class.
A guy wrote a column in the school newspaper saying that the "It Gets Better" project is comparable to telling someone to stay in an abusive relationship and it should be called the "You Can Make It Better" project. (Maybe I need to explain my reaction to this further, but--how does he know?)
Then these actual open conflicts happen. How dare anorexic cis people say they have body dysphoria! Or, my favorite--how dare Autistic people (assumed to be straight, usually wrongly, as the Autistic community is heavily queer) try to explain our situation by saying, "What if all the dialogue about gay people was controlled by straight people and was about curing homosexuality?" We obviously don't understand Their Struggles. After all, a gay person pointed out in this conversation, no one gets killed for being Autistic.
Brilliant, guys.
In terms of the Autistic community, at least, it just especially bugs me because...it's so queer, and not just because many of us are. A straight person in the Autistic community is so much smarter and more familiar, when it comes to queer stuff, than nearly any non-disabled straight person, because you just can't get away from queerness. So like, when a bunch of queer non-disabled people who know nothing about disability, the Autistic experience in particular, or our community, start fucking trying to educate us because they think we're cluelessly comparing ourselves to them, I just explode. My head explodes. There are little pieces of my skull and hair lying on the floor around me.
QUIT IT.
I'm taking a student-taught class where we watch Disney movies and analyze the portrayal of (mostly) gender and sexuality, but other stuff when it comes up. Most of the people in the class are queer. Someone asked me what my paper was on, and I said it was on non-humans trying to be human and how that relates to disability. "Oh, wow, disability?" the person said like I was so creative for thinking of such a thing.
Sometimes the person doing it doesn't see it.
A queer person attempts to talk about intersectionality and they list race and class. Talking about situations where disability would OBVIOUSLY be an issue, they list race and class.
A guy wrote a column in the school newspaper saying that the "It Gets Better" project is comparable to telling someone to stay in an abusive relationship and it should be called the "You Can Make It Better" project. (Maybe I need to explain my reaction to this further, but--how does he know?)
Then these actual open conflicts happen. How dare anorexic cis people say they have body dysphoria! Or, my favorite--how dare Autistic people (assumed to be straight, usually wrongly, as the Autistic community is heavily queer) try to explain our situation by saying, "What if all the dialogue about gay people was controlled by straight people and was about curing homosexuality?" We obviously don't understand Their Struggles. After all, a gay person pointed out in this conversation, no one gets killed for being Autistic.
Brilliant, guys.
In terms of the Autistic community, at least, it just especially bugs me because...it's so queer, and not just because many of us are. A straight person in the Autistic community is so much smarter and more familiar, when it comes to queer stuff, than nearly any non-disabled straight person, because you just can't get away from queerness. So like, when a bunch of queer non-disabled people who know nothing about disability, the Autistic experience in particular, or our community, start fucking trying to educate us because they think we're cluelessly comparing ourselves to them, I just explode. My head explodes. There are little pieces of my skull and hair lying on the floor around me.
QUIT IT.
I'm taking a student-taught class where we watch Disney movies and analyze the portrayal of (mostly) gender and sexuality, but other stuff when it comes up. Most of the people in the class are queer. Someone asked me what my paper was on, and I said it was on non-humans trying to be human and how that relates to disability. "Oh, wow, disability?" the person said like I was so creative for thinking of such a thing.
22 March, 2011
something just hit me!
privileged identities also interact with marginalized identities.
(gay is an example.)
we often describe ourselves by our marginalized identities because of course those are the ones we've been forced to think about. but white + gay is an experience. when people say, "don't talk about the gay experience as if everyone who's gay is white," what I think this should mean is that instead of saying gay when we mean white + gay, when we say gay we should mean a very specific isolated factor, and when we mean x + gay we say x + gay, and we are aware that there are so many "____ + gay" experiences and we try to talk about ours and not get in the way of other people talking about theirs.
I'm trying to articulate what bothers me about a particular way the term "intersectionality" is sometimes used, and I think what I want to say is that people sort of start using gay to mean "marginalized identity + gay," which, while obviously less harmful because it doesn't have the same oppression behind it as saying gay and meaning "white + gay," is also inaccurate and gets in the way of talking about The Whole Thing. I also think that people can kind of get on this track where it's like, being gay only counts as a marginalized identity if you have it with another marginalized identity. You have to have more than one to have any.
I hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying it about a lot of people because the post I'm making is basically about how much I love intersectionality. But I do think sometimes the word is used to mean something that actually makes things worse--and I think of intersectionality as this math that explains everything, but this misuse of intersectionality runs the numbers together and wastes the clarity of the idea.
(gay is an example.)
we often describe ourselves by our marginalized identities because of course those are the ones we've been forced to think about. but white + gay is an experience. when people say, "don't talk about the gay experience as if everyone who's gay is white," what I think this should mean is that instead of saying gay when we mean white + gay, when we say gay we should mean a very specific isolated factor, and when we mean x + gay we say x + gay, and we are aware that there are so many "____ + gay" experiences and we try to talk about ours and not get in the way of other people talking about theirs.
I'm trying to articulate what bothers me about a particular way the term "intersectionality" is sometimes used, and I think what I want to say is that people sort of start using gay to mean "marginalized identity + gay," which, while obviously less harmful because it doesn't have the same oppression behind it as saying gay and meaning "white + gay," is also inaccurate and gets in the way of talking about The Whole Thing. I also think that people can kind of get on this track where it's like, being gay only counts as a marginalized identity if you have it with another marginalized identity. You have to have more than one to have any.
I hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying it about a lot of people because the post I'm making is basically about how much I love intersectionality. But I do think sometimes the word is used to mean something that actually makes things worse--and I think of intersectionality as this math that explains everything, but this misuse of intersectionality runs the numbers together and wastes the clarity of the idea.
notes for something longer
(This looks better in my notebook in a bunch of little squares and lumps and stick figures, but oh well.)
PRESCRIPTIVE IDENTITIES (this was a flow chart)
A. Identities which are based in transcending stigma.--->Not everyone can or wants to transcend.
B. Identities which are based on denying the reality of stigma, embracing stigma, and/or denying categories.--->Stigma is real. Not everyone can afford the consequences of embracing it. Some people need or want to think about their lives in terms of categories so they can understand the ways they are disadvantaged and try to function.--->B ultimately becomes a denial of difference and privilege
So, A and B, as descriptors for minority groups, fail because they make assumptions about members of the group. An A or B identity may pretend to mean one thing, but actually it means many unspoken things. More than one fact must be true for a person to belong.*
*"People whose favorite color is blue" comes to be synonymous with "people who have a blue car." John's favorite color is blue, but he doesn't have a car. Where does he go?--->Actually, it is worth discussing blue cars and maybe blue cars could be considered a blue issue or a bluish issue, but this must be done without erasing John.
(the other side of the page)
Intersectionality is sometimes invoked as a weapon and marginalized people are criticized for not having enough marginalized identities. In the most aggressive forms of this, the actual top-level oppressors disappear. "Gay white men," "disabled white men," etc., are responsible for the problems. "Gayness" or "disabledness" can't be discussed as individual factors. Sometimes people start to imply that you can't have real oppression unless you have more than one kind. To me this is a misuse of intersectionality and privilege/oppression thinking, which should be mathematical.
OPTION C--OPPRESSION MATH
Identities are facts. They're constructed, but presently they are real.
John has X marginalized identity. No matter how many other marginalized identities and/or privilege identities he has in addition to X, he has X.
JOHN<--------X oppression Say John also has Y marginalized identity. JOHN<--------X oppression JOHN<--------Y oppression is what we know for sure, and in various complicated ways, something like this is probably happening: X oppression-------->JOHN<--------Y oppression JOHN<--------X oppression + Y oppression JOHN<--------(X oppression)(Y oppression) JOHN<--------X oppression^(Y oppression) JOHN<--------(X oppression + Y oppression)(X oppression) The possibilities are endless. This was better as a drawing, by the way. But anyway, this is all we know about John.
To me, intersectionality means that we don't take X to mean anything else but X because there are so many other factors that work on an individual. X is not a prescription, it's a fact.
OTHER NOTES
1. Obviously when I talk about the misuse of intersectionality (which actually isn't intersectionality at all)...well, if you think I'm insulting you or people like you, then I can't stop you. The misuse of intersectionality is like Oppression Olympics in that sometimes people really are engaging in it, and other times they're being accused of engaging in it by someone who is just an asshole.
2. What is the definition of a marginalized identity? Some axes that obviously count, like class and disability, are often ignored or even scoffed at.
2a. What about factors that interact with a marginalized identity, that can't really be called a marginalized identity, such as certain life experiences or subcultures? These things start to feel kind of political and intersectional when they mean that someone feels locked out of their identity because of them. I think these things are very important, but what do you call them?
PRESCRIPTIVE IDENTITIES (this was a flow chart)
A. Identities which are based in transcending stigma.--->Not everyone can or wants to transcend.
B. Identities which are based on denying the reality of stigma, embracing stigma, and/or denying categories.--->Stigma is real. Not everyone can afford the consequences of embracing it. Some people need or want to think about their lives in terms of categories so they can understand the ways they are disadvantaged and try to function.--->B ultimately becomes a denial of difference and privilege
So, A and B, as descriptors for minority groups, fail because they make assumptions about members of the group. An A or B identity may pretend to mean one thing, but actually it means many unspoken things. More than one fact must be true for a person to belong.*
*"People whose favorite color is blue" comes to be synonymous with "people who have a blue car." John's favorite color is blue, but he doesn't have a car. Where does he go?--->Actually, it is worth discussing blue cars and maybe blue cars could be considered a blue issue or a bluish issue, but this must be done without erasing John.
(the other side of the page)
Intersectionality is sometimes invoked as a weapon and marginalized people are criticized for not having enough marginalized identities. In the most aggressive forms of this, the actual top-level oppressors disappear. "Gay white men," "disabled white men," etc., are responsible for the problems. "Gayness" or "disabledness" can't be discussed as individual factors. Sometimes people start to imply that you can't have real oppression unless you have more than one kind. To me this is a misuse of intersectionality and privilege/oppression thinking, which should be mathematical.
OPTION C--OPPRESSION MATH
Identities are facts. They're constructed, but presently they are real.
John has X marginalized identity. No matter how many other marginalized identities and/or privilege identities he has in addition to X, he has X.
JOHN<--------X oppression Say John also has Y marginalized identity. JOHN<--------X oppression JOHN<--------Y oppression is what we know for sure, and in various complicated ways, something like this is probably happening: X oppression-------->JOHN<--------Y oppression JOHN<--------X oppression + Y oppression JOHN<--------(X oppression)(Y oppression) JOHN<--------X oppression^(Y oppression) JOHN<--------(X oppression + Y oppression)(X oppression) The possibilities are endless. This was better as a drawing, by the way. But anyway, this is all we know about John.
To me, intersectionality means that we don't take X to mean anything else but X because there are so many other factors that work on an individual. X is not a prescription, it's a fact.
OTHER NOTES
1. Obviously when I talk about the misuse of intersectionality (which actually isn't intersectionality at all)...well, if you think I'm insulting you or people like you, then I can't stop you. The misuse of intersectionality is like Oppression Olympics in that sometimes people really are engaging in it, and other times they're being accused of engaging in it by someone who is just an asshole.
2. What is the definition of a marginalized identity? Some axes that obviously count, like class and disability, are often ignored or even scoffed at.
2a. What about factors that interact with a marginalized identity, that can't really be called a marginalized identity, such as certain life experiences or subcultures? These things start to feel kind of political and intersectional when they mean that someone feels locked out of their identity because of them. I think these things are very important, but what do you call them?
so, I'll come out and say this: Christianity/disability = OTP for life.
Maybe I mean religion in general but I'm not going to assume I know other religions enough to make that judgment.
I know that a lot of disabled people are really offended by the idea that being around disabled people is a big spiritual lesson. But I feel that it is for me, and that being disabled is a big spiritual lesson, also.
So much of what we think we want and need, or need to be, are just things we've constructed. So when we can't do the things we think we must do, then we have to see that all of this is not objectively real. In the most terrible periods of my life, my eyes have had to unfocus to survive and it becomes all about color, sleep, crushes, laughing for a minute, the sky, finding something on the ground, really small pieces of Love.
As I have said, I can often hold on to what I'm told I need to be, which is I guess um--what an embarrassing phrase--my blessing and my curse, and I guess the curse of the "hf," the "barely disabled," the "invisibly disabled," blah blah blah. I don't have to let go of all of it although of course this puts me into a constant state of panic because holding on is almost impossible for me and I can feel myself almost losing it, and maybe I'll never let myself lose it, I don't know, or maybe I'll find a life that I can actually live.
I am glad that I have gotten to know people with severe and profound disabilities because I have learned that people who cannot do and/or have some of the things that are supposed to be mandatory are still people, and their life is still life; and then I see what's actually real, which is, you know, real life, not "success." So yeah. I have learned spiritual things from being around disabled people. Which I guess I'm not supposed to say. But it's difficult to avoid.
Something about being queer and disabled (and specifically Autistic) and Christian and semi-synesthesiac and whatever else is just that really brief connections and experiences always continue to exist for me after they're gone. I don't see there as being an end other than Love--many of the "means" are really that end, and the ends are just means to throw us into Love and sometimes tear us away. So I can keep my pieces of Love with me because I can always see them in time even when they are gone.
One of my classes in the UK was taught by a professor who kept making fun of Christianity and religion in general. She said, "You never see people wearing a gold electric chair around their neck."
Well, the thing about me is, of course I would. That's why I'm Christian. I know perfectly well that's what it is. And maybe being disabled has put me in this kind of twee-pop place of wanting to say, "Fuck yeah failure." Yes? Maybe?
Maybe I mean religion in general but I'm not going to assume I know other religions enough to make that judgment.
I know that a lot of disabled people are really offended by the idea that being around disabled people is a big spiritual lesson. But I feel that it is for me, and that being disabled is a big spiritual lesson, also.
So much of what we think we want and need, or need to be, are just things we've constructed. So when we can't do the things we think we must do, then we have to see that all of this is not objectively real. In the most terrible periods of my life, my eyes have had to unfocus to survive and it becomes all about color, sleep, crushes, laughing for a minute, the sky, finding something on the ground, really small pieces of Love.
As I have said, I can often hold on to what I'm told I need to be, which is I guess um--what an embarrassing phrase--my blessing and my curse, and I guess the curse of the "hf," the "barely disabled," the "invisibly disabled," blah blah blah. I don't have to let go of all of it although of course this puts me into a constant state of panic because holding on is almost impossible for me and I can feel myself almost losing it, and maybe I'll never let myself lose it, I don't know, or maybe I'll find a life that I can actually live.
I am glad that I have gotten to know people with severe and profound disabilities because I have learned that people who cannot do and/or have some of the things that are supposed to be mandatory are still people, and their life is still life; and then I see what's actually real, which is, you know, real life, not "success." So yeah. I have learned spiritual things from being around disabled people. Which I guess I'm not supposed to say. But it's difficult to avoid.
Something about being queer and disabled (and specifically Autistic) and Christian and semi-synesthesiac and whatever else is just that really brief connections and experiences always continue to exist for me after they're gone. I don't see there as being an end other than Love--many of the "means" are really that end, and the ends are just means to throw us into Love and sometimes tear us away. So I can keep my pieces of Love with me because I can always see them in time even when they are gone.
One of my classes in the UK was taught by a professor who kept making fun of Christianity and religion in general. She said, "You never see people wearing a gold electric chair around their neck."
Well, the thing about me is, of course I would. That's why I'm Christian. I know perfectly well that's what it is. And maybe being disabled has put me in this kind of twee-pop place of wanting to say, "Fuck yeah failure." Yes? Maybe?
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