Appropriation Is Erasure

Preface:

Alright, let's get this out of the way.  I am a white person about to write about race. And I am scared to do it. 

You're more than welcome to skip this preface and proceed onto what this post is really about. Trust me, my clumsy thoughts on racism and appropriation and art are much more interesting than my fears. But I must speak them.

I have been afraid of blogging about race in the past. I still am. The only other times I have written about race I've either used a disclaimer, or not addressed it directly while making note of implications I was skipping. The fear I experience is complex (like most human emotions) but mostly boils down to three basic thrusts. 

1. I don't want to further enforce oppressive structures, and/or harm those whose experiences/cultures I'm speaking about. 
2.  I am afraid of bumping up against the spots in my world view that've been made blind by my privilege. I am afraid to find in myself those deeply lodged flecks of violence and oppression I've yet to eradicate.
3. I am afraid to have this process laid bare in public, because I ultimately want to be thought of as a "good guy". But giving up being the "good guy" is part of challenging power structures that put me and people who look/act like me in power (and gives us the freedom to call ourselves "good guys" and be believed). So here goes.

Before you read any of the following please at least skim  DEFINITELY READ ALL OF Nicholas Powers's Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit. In fact, if you only have time/energy to read one take on this topic make it his not mine.

I strode to the front, turned around and yelled at the crowd that when they objectify the sculpture’s sexual parts and pose in front of it like tourists they are recreating the very racism the art was supposed to critique. I yelled that this was our history and that many of us were angry and sad that it was a site of pornographic jokes.

Among the many thoughts and feelings I had after reading this, this is proof positive for me that more comprehensive interdisciplinary arts education is necessary. I want a clear connections drawn between art and social justice. There is such a fucking failure in our schools and at large to connect past atrocities and suffering to current occurrences and artistic trends.

Unfortunately Powers's experience is only a glaring example of how the centering of white folk's contexts for experiencing erases the culture and history of others. I mean look at how "exotic" art (whether it be foreign, "urban", Native American, or otherwise "tribal"/"primitive") is presented in film/tv. They're used as props or background and all too often end up as the butt of some throwaway joke. Those jokes as well as those photos people were taking of the Kara Walker exhibit are as naked a portrait of appropriation as I can imagine.

The very reason that experiencing art itself can be transformative at all this that it asks us to consider and in theory inhabit contexts other than our own. But so many white and otherwise privileged people have been insulated from this process. So much so that when they encounter anything that seems outside of their experience/history they assume that it must only exist for their entertainment. The viscous cycle of erasure and appropriation is fed by this consistent failure to connect with the cultural contexts of those either deemed "other" or simply not spoken about at all.

In one of the presentations at my residency last month someone said "people who have suffered are smarter". That phrase clicked with me then but I think only now am I understanding why. People who suffer and are made "other",  are forced to, and for their own survival, become adept at understanding contexts and experiences other than their own. This was the "smart"ness referred to.*

The mechanism of appropriation laid bare at the Kara Walker exhibit, is the process of reducing the art of "the other" to the frivolous, exotic, and/or racy/trendy (and usually profiting from that redefinition). And I am ashamed. But more important I'm livid.

Livid that the insular straight-up dumb assumption, that "if [x piece of art/culture] is not about me/my experience then it must not be that important (to anyone)." is part of my culture as an american and as a white person. The comfort of that privilege is NOT making us smarter, or better people. It only makes us more comfortable (at the expense, erasure, and discomfort of others).

*After drafting this I was informed that this context switching "smartness" is known as "outsider-within" perspective in feminist stand point theory. Source

Reclaiming the F word: one (trans*) fag's ethics of language reclamation

So I'm a genderqueer poet and a blogger who covers activist issues. It should go with out saying that I think about language at lot. But I said it anyway. That's the kind of person I am.

Full disclosure here: my being genderqueer means that I experience a range of genders from day to day (sometimes hour to hour) and sometimes I feel I have no gender at all. I feel the need for a decent variety of terms to describe my identity.

As a trans* masculine person who is attracted to other masculine individuals I occasionally identify myself with the word fag (along with words like "sissy"). I recognize that “fag” has a history of being used violently and oppressively, and is very much so still being used that way by many. But I hope that fag can be reclaimed and used as an accurate identifier of people's gender/sexual identities.

The problem of hateful epithets is never with the words themselves (just like the physics that make them work are not responsible for the damage caused by nuclear bombs). The problem is the stigma, violence, and hate aimed at the behaviors and identities those words represent. In this case it's hate for the effeminate identities and behaviors of (purportedly)  men.

I take on fag as an effeminate guy who's attracted to men, but also because, as someone who has the privilege of not being oppressively coerced into (hetero) masculinity (like most cis men are) I can self identify with the word fag without personal consequence. If I'm mindful can use my this privilege to to change the conversation around “fag”, and hopefully to ameliorate some of its negative associations. That is exactly what I am trying to do.

I do this because I am proud of being an effeminate guy who likes other guys and I want to be recognized as such. I also think that the negative view of other effeminate masculinities needs to end. Bottom shaming needs to end. The negative use of the word fag needs to end. For me that starts with behaving as if there is nothing wrong with a word that means "effeminate gay man" and that instead there is something wrong with the people who would use "fag" with distaste, fear, and hate.

In my case, as with all language reclamation, privilege is the primary fuel. I receive support from my community when I name my identity and when I defend it. People will have my back if I decided to shout back at the haters: "You know what? I AM a queer/fag/slut/bitch and there's nothing wrong with that."

I recognize and love me. I know that my friends and family recognize and love me. Changing the meaning of words relies on the privilege of recognition, on the fact that at least some people will listen to the speaker, legitimize their words, and offer them leeway on their intentions. Community support and recognition is an essential ingredient to the reclamation of slurs.

This is exactly how words like “pervert”, “slut”, and “crip” have been reclaimed. And this community fueled privilege is exactly why language reclamation is so prone to becoming problematic when it goes viral.

Though these words have gone through a significant and largely effective reclamation, they aren't all accurate representations of everyone's identity. Unfortunately, some overzealous reclaimers attempt to ascribe their reclaimed slur to everyone wholesale. As if the oppression they faced though a particular word is the same and carries the same significance for everyone. This happened most flagrantly with the reclamation of word “slut” and was met with well worded and very warranted resistance:

What becomes an issue is those white women and liberal feminist women of color who argue that “slut” is a universal category of female experience, irrespective of race. -Crunk Feminist Collective

The messy reclamation of “slut” assumed that everyone would be able to find the same power and recognition with the new definition. There's a lesson to be learned here for those of us making efforts  to reclaim slurs.

In order to avoid erasing or minimizing other marginalized individuals we the need to keep our expectations localized to our own lexicons. We need to realize that we can't magically change people's hearts, minds, and histories with our shiny new intentions. We can't expect even some of our political allies to use or accept language in the way we envision. Because, whether we acknowledge it or not, trying to get others that others think of words in the way that we do it is an enforcement of cultural supremacy.

Some reclamation efforts have been too impatient, demanding that people immediately see a particular word differently than they have their whole lives. We need to respect the problematic nature of the words we choose to reclaim. Impatient language reclamation not only ignores both the lived cultural contexts others may have for a word, it also completely ignores the subtle nature of language itself.

Language and culture affect each other. Both are fluid and change, seemingly imperceptibly from year to year. Language and the cultural consciousness are generally slow to shift. I believe that a conscious, minimal, but consistent resistance to the problematic way in which some words are currently used can have some harm-reducing effect. But I try not to get too specific with my vision of "what this word should mean".

Language reclamation isn't about changing people's minds suddenly with a logical argument. It's not an activist effort you can "win" at. There are no significant victory points to be claimed. Your goal should never be for people to think exactly like you, only that they begin to think differently about the way a particular piece of language is used.

What we can do is ask to be recognized with the words we deem the most appropriate. Doing anything more than this runs the risk of erasing or minimizing other communities' history and current culture surrounding those words.

I don't want people who have painful histories and associations with "fag" to give those up. Those histories and associations belong to them. What I do want is to build a future where the word "fag" and the effeminate/nontraditional masculinities it represents are talked about without shame and hatred.

Being Poor is Part of my Culture

Privilege check: There were some things my family didn't have when I was growing up: new clothes, fresh vegetables, access to the internet, cable tv, etc. but we always had an adequate amount to eat, our house held in the warm and out the cold, and even though it was cramped with six of us, my family was (and still is) a loving one. We also had a loving network of friends and extended family who shared resources with us when we needed. I am endlessly thankful for all these resources. Because of them, I didn't really know we were poor until middle school and I realized that "cool" was something my parents couldn't afford (esp since my dad's business just went under). The comfort of love went a long way. I was poor, in my mind I still am, but, when it comes to my family (both blood and chosen) I have always been fortunate. Being poor taught me how to recognize and respect this fortune.

In it, but also against it.

Recently in the zine Moonroutes I found this passage by Jackie Wang:

As a white, lower-middle class, gender-and-otherwise-queer, I'm struggling with how to remember to "Live in it but also: against it". As I fill out my applications for grad school part of me hungers for legitimacy; to be let into and recognized by the system. For an artist/writer such recognition is often crucial to financial survival.

But I will to work to ensure that my hunger for "success" is equaled by my hunger to understand "the hidden brutality" that my life depends on. I know that my ability to further my craft has been enabled by the resources I've personally been afforded. Such resources have not been given to others (who have creative and critical capacities just like I do) as a means of systematic silencing/erasure. I don't want to forget that I am lucky to have the chance to TRY and be heard. If I forget I will become more complicit in the oppression that I am living in.

Part of being "in it but also against"  for me it means remembering to trust that the people dehumanized by our culture are no less capable of creating incredible artistic and literary content than I am.

It's arrogant of me with all my privilege to assume I'm above oppression just by knowing that it exists. I need to actively talk about who we are leaving out and who has been left out historically.

When we leave out the historical and current realties of oppression the context is incomplete. Any art viewed or created without acknowledgment of how it fits into the oppressive systems of our culture is missing context. I can't always fight under the simple, safe, and vague banner of "equality". Sometimes I need to be against something. Because I am never not participating in the status quo.

There is a danger in thinking about equality for the less privileged in oversimplified terms. When those of us with a particular privilege talk about equality one of the things we are talking about is equalizing the distribution of that privilege and extending access to people without that privilege.

When those in power are afraid of sharing the privilege of deciding what is and isn't going to be part of our cultural future we/they end up replicating the current status quo. There may be a(n appropriated) veneer of marginalized culture in order to bill such efforts as progressive and "for equality", but the exclusion of oppressed voices is still happening under the surface.

Nowhere is this gatekeeping more flagrant than in the creative/artistic world. An unfortunate side effect of capitalism is the misconception that good art can only be created in environments of excess. While there is some merit to Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own in terms of people needing subsistence and access to seclusion for gaining and maintaining  mastery of artistic craft, it's foolish to think that good art is only produced the privileged.

To think that depth of experience and expression are only possible for people who's experiences include privilege further dehumanizes marginalized people and can even serve to justify the current dehumanization they suffer.

Those of us already privileged by the status quo who seek to end this and be advocates for equality need to remember that those we are advocating for aren't likely to want the exact same privileges we have. We should also remember that those we extend resources to aren't likely to use our now shared privileges in a way that is familiar or comfortable to us.

Practically advocating for people with less privilege means imagining and accepting uses of resources that differ from current or even currently imagined uses. The only way to forge a more equal world involves trusting in the creative and critical capacity of the oppressed. We must see shared privileges/resources not as a cost or even a sacrifice to the future of equality, but as a simple an necessary act of collaboration. In such sharing resources simply and freely it mean surrendering any expectations previously held about how such resources might be used. Equality won't look like what those in power think it will look like.