I have decided it has been entirely too long since I wrote a giant-ass series. (Yes, people in the back, I can hear you groaning.) In short, I now think it is time for a giant-ass series about my premises and ideas on social justice and gender egalitarianism. Part One: The Kyriarchy!
The kyriarchy used to be called the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”, but that sounds kind of silly, and people remembered there were other oppressions and it would end up being “white supremacist colonialist ableist ageist lookist sex-negative heteronormative cissexist capitalist patriarchy,” and that is just too damn long. So kyriarchy it is.
Essentially, the kyriarchy is the set of all ways society can oppress people. For instance:
- Senior citizens face age discrimination in employment.
- People with physical disabilities have to endure a bunch of patronizing people being all “you’re so strong! And inspirational!”
- Black people in the US are more likely to be pulled over by police when driving than white people are.
- Fat people have their health problems ignored because doctors assume it must be because of their fat.
- Queer teens may be bullied.
- People with mental health issues are more likely to be victims of violence than people without mental health issues.
- People in developing countries may be enslaved to produce the tantalum in your smart phone, or the beans in your coffee.
Nearly every one of these oppressions can be broken down into several different kinds of suboppressions. For instance, racism includes colorism, the way that society tends to favor light-skinned people of color. The privilege of people in developed countries includes Americanocentrism, the way Americans tend to wander into every discussion (especially in the social justice world) and make it all about us. Transphobia includes binarism, the way that binary trans people are considered “realer” than those of us with weird-ass pronouns.
Sometimes the kyriarchy oppresses people of a certain group in really big ways, like it still being legal to fire people because they fall in love with people of the same gender or were assigned an incorrect gender at birth. Sometimes the kyriarchy oppresses people in really little ways, like Cosmo saying a woman’s sexual fantasies about another woman is a sign she should ask for more gentle, romantic sex from her boyfriend as opposed to being a sign she might want to try that most excellent sport of muff-diving. However, even the little things reinforce the whole crappy social structure.
One of the things people most want to do when they first discover the concept of kyriarchy is argue about who’s the oppressedest and therefore gets a shiny prize. This is stupid for a lot of reasons. First, it’s kind of hard to quantify. Is it better to be unable to shop in most stores because they won’t provide accomodations for your disability (ableism), or to have some asshole criticize you for using food stamps to buy your child a birthday cake (classism)? I don’t even know where you’d begin to quantify that. Second, it’s completely meaningless. Your bloody nose doesn’t hurt less just because I have a broken leg.
Third, a lot of issues are linked to each other. This whole idea that men are men, women are women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri causes not just sexism but a lot of homophobia and transphobia. Bodily autonomy, or the right for people to make their own decisions about their own bodies, is an issue that crosscuts race (the drug war), gender (reproductive rights, slut and virgin shaming), class (drug war again, policing poor people’s dietary habits), appearance (fatphobia), ability (criticizing people who stim), etc. It’s really stupid to compete who’s hurting the worse when we’re all fighting the same damn enemy.
Fourth, you know, people can be members of multiple marginalized groups at once. Liberating people of color and not anyone else doesn’t liberate people of color: it only liberates straight, upper-class, abled, cis, conventionally attractive, gender-conforming, developed-country-dwelling, etc. people of color. This is a very small percentage of people of color!
In fact, each person experiences their oppressions differently depending on which marginalized groups they’re a part of. (This is called intersectionality and is big with modern feminism in theory– less so in practice.) A self-harming or suicidal teenager will probably be told zie is “just looking for attention” or “an emo kid” or “just going through a phase.” A poor queer person not only can’t get married but might not be able to afford the forms to create even a facsimile of marriage.
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No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
Interesting stuff, though honestly the whole “archy” thing is just as tainted as “privilege.”
Kyriarchy, in particular, to me tends to sound like “I’ll accept being blamed for black peoples/disabled/etc problems so that I have more right to blame men for all my problems.”
I am not accusing you of doing this, but for others who make the arguments, guilt is a cheap sophists trick, because who in this world is innocent? I’m sure everyone has, at one point or another, neglected to shout down that crude, sexist dudebro throwing around gendered slurs. Therefore, we must shy away from blaming people for ‘passive complicity.’
In any case, give men some credit. Regardless of how you want ‘privilege’ to be interpreted, it does tend to be used as “Original Sin for males/whites,” and we can see right through that. Only those who are easily shamed/guilted will accept it. If you want other people to pursue social justice, stop blaming them for the simple fact of being born male.
Again, not saying that you, specifically, do that, but disregarding the context and loading of words by society runs the risk of Humpty Dumpty-ing.
Cool post!
“I am not accusing you of doing this, but for others who make the arguments, guilt is a cheap sophists trick, because who in this world is innocent? I’m sure everyone has, at one point or another, neglected to shout down that crude, sexist dudebro throwing around gendered slurs. Therefore, we must shy away from blaming people for ‘passive complicity.’”
Would the world not be a better place if everyone did shout down the dudebro’s gendered slurs?
Or, you know, confronted the lesbian who says about bisexuals “people don’t work like that, she’s either seeking attention or in denial”. Because part of the point is that it’s not JUST rich white cis able-bodied men between 25 and 45 who are the problem.
Balconeyscene – I think the “passive complicity” thing is tough because on the one hand we all have done it…but on the other hand that doesn’t make it okay. I think we should all be striving more to not do it, and I don’t think calling someone out should not have to equal “I think you are a BAD person!”
The problem with a lot of the -archy and -ism concepts is that we are used to thinking about them in two dimensions: good guy/bad guy. Prejudice is hard to escape from and it takes a constant, active practice to live without it. But if you can’t think to yourself “wow, that thing I just said was really classist” because you think that means admitting you are the Bad Guy, we are not going to get anywhere as a society.
So, tl;dr, I think that calling people out on passive complicity is a good thing, but instead of it being framed in a blame and accusations sort of way it should be a community actively striving together to not contribute to the oppression of other people.
((Ozy, I miss your blog 😦 ))
Of course it would be. That’s not the point. The point is that passive complicity must be taken off the table precisely *because* everyone is, and therefore to use it as a weapon to hit people over the head with is just a cheap tactic of sophistry to win over the easily shamed/guilted.
“People with physical disabilities have to endure a bunch of patronizing people being all “you’re so strong! And inspirational!””
I’ve been told that for being trans, I was “so brave”.
Laplace: The problem is humanity.
If we were all robots who could take a concept and not twist it around to suit our egos and personal damages, then I might be more willing to see it your way.
However, on all sides, you see people taking truths and using it as a weapon for their own personal agendas.
So no, pointing out passive complicity should not amount to being called a bad person, but as long as people actually do that (and it’s happened to me just yesterday, privilege used for shaming rather than a mere statement of fact), I’m certainly not going to grant others the moral right to act against me. To suggest that I should is to say that I should be required to argue against myself.
Nearly every one of these oppressions can be broken down into several different kinds of suboppressions.
Is there going to be a quiz? Can we read this series pass/fail?
Huh. Do we need a thread on “privilege shaming?”
I know I’m certainly vulnerable to survivor’s guilt because I was born into a white upper middle class family, but I also feel that there’s no way for me to directly remedy some of the issues causing privilege except on a micro scale (e.g. shouting down the dudebro — which I have done before).
I’ve done plenty of dudebro shout downing in my day. But the point is, I’ve not shouted down EVERY instance of ‘gay’ or ‘cunt’ or ‘rape’ used in gaming contexts in my presence. Should, then, women be allowed to be smug and self satisfied in calling me part of the problem because of those times I’ve neglected to shout down every instance I come across?
Just thorwing in:
“A self-harming or suicidal teenager will probably be told zie is “just looking for attention” or “an emo kid” or ”just going through a phase.””
This is especially true if it’s a cis-female teenager… if she were trans it would gain more attention or sympathy, regardless of which direction, and a cis-male teenager who’s suicidal or self-harming is a lot more likely to raise alarm.
@SG
” cis-male teenager who’s suicidal or self-harming is a lot more likely to raise alarm.”
Says who?
This may (or may not) be true when it comes to things like cutting (I confess ignorance, I’ve never been aware of any male cutters) but that’s not the only type of self-harm. Frankly it’s been my experience that the general reaction to cis-male suicide is “quit your crying,” “quit being an emo-loser” and “what the hell do you have to complain about?”
YMMV, I guess.
@Paul, the oft-quoted stigma of “men actually commit suicide, women only try” is the example there.
@ superglucose
“the oft-quoted stigma of “men actually commit suicide, women only try” is the example there.”
Except it’s statistically true. The fact is I bet more men effectively committing suicide then women could easily be an artifact of our socialization. We don’t see men’s vulnerabilities and we’re not keyed to notice when they need help, so maybe suicidal males drift through all the ‘practice’ stages suicidal females do but never get any help.
@Superglucose, Typhon
Isn’t it kind of speculation whose suicide ideation and attempts are taken more seriously?
@Ozy
Regarding the original post: I’ve thought more about this topic, and in some ways am beginning to question the idea of unifying all of the respective “social justice” movements under one umbrella. While I would concede it is counterproductive to be progressive minded in one area only to be a bigot in another – I believe that anyone who is interested in these types of subjects will end up gravitating toward one area or another, rather than all of them at once.
To keep track of the biases, prejudices, and misperceptions of one, two, three, four, many different groups is beyond difficult. Then, when it comes down to teaching people to be conscious, respectful citizens, I think it is more important to teach empathy and critical thinking, then go from there.
Another thought that comes into my mind is that kyriarchy is a thin paper-over of the concept of patriarchy. Sometimes I wonder if the concept of patriarchy – turned kyriarchy is like a huge obelisk standing in the room – indecipherable, a different meaning for each person, and thus, a concept that is very hard to actually apply. Do we do ourselves a disservice when we bring up this concept, only have to the weight of it stifle other ideas that could take its place? What illumination does it provide that simple human morality and sympathy cannot?
Ozy, you’re about 99% of the way to the place where I’m at.
Which is that “archy” is a null concept; it has no meaning.
There are human rights issues. Full stop, period. That’s all that exists.
That’s why I’m a libertarian, that’s why I reject both feminism and masculinism. Sorting people into victims and lesser-victims and non-victims achieves nothing; it’s pursuit of validation through persecution. (There’s a comparison I frequently use which would be unwelcome on this blog, which I suppose I’m grateful for in some respect.)
Feminism failed, and failed badly, the moment its name was chosen. Masculinism has precisely the same fault. We are all human. Full stop, period. I wrote a short post on one of my own blogs on this topic, but this seems an appropriate place to repeat myself: Feminism permits people to argue that circumcision is morally justifiable because uncircumcised men are more likely to pass on HPV. That’s a fundamentally feminist perspective; circumcision is a moral good. There’s no getting around that.
There are equally horrific views implicit in masculinism, incidentally.
This concept was huge to me when I first discovered it. Because as a wee bebe social justice initiate, I knew Sexism Is Bad, and Racism Is Bad, and all those things. But I kept running into all the places it just wasn’t so simple – how do you tell a poor uneducated white man with no job, no prospects, and no opportunities that he’s a privileged majority when he sees Michaelle Jean on TV, rich and respected, while people turn up their noses and call he and his “white trash”? How can you reconcile the need to promote educational opportunities for First Nations kids with a white girl getting told to shut up and stop making problems for the Native boys when she complains of harassment and abusive language? How is it that the poor are the only ones affected by economic oppression, when the rich kid’s poorer friends use his wealth to silence everything he might say as worthless? Nothing was as simple as the slogans and anti-discrimination posters made it out to be. I say from experience, it is really hard to try to understand these issues, to try to fight for the right, when every time you think you’ve got it figured out, you turn around and find another invisible oppression that makes it all murky again.
And the answer is not to say, “these examples means racism/sexism/ableism doesn’t really exist,” which was the only guidance I ever got. It was “Affirmative Action, so racism is bullshit”, it was “Women get a break in the courts, so sexism doesn’t exist” (the idea of how gendered politics harm both men and women was something not discovered until much, much later). It was “I’ve never seen anyone hating on QUILTBAG people, so that fight is over”. I knew those statements were wrong. I could see and feel the way people of every kind were harmed and marginalised by the status quo. But I had no language to express it, no way to make sense of the complexity.
I understand how people who’ve been harmed by blanket statements about “the patriarchy” can feel angered and resentful of another “blanket term”. When you’re being shoved into the background because you don’t fit the simple narrative, it puts your back up. But we’re all simple monkeys and we’ll always need to find a word, a mouth-noise we can say to mean “THIS THING THAT IS BAD”. Patriarchy was a bad and inadequate word, no argument there. Kyriarchy, for me, was a word I could use to talk about the ways in which people step on each other without instantly kicking off the Oppression Olympics (generally because people would look quizzical and say “kyri-what?”), and it usually lead to better discussion.
I know people misuse it. People too caught up in the older, more rigid definitions of oppression, who think of the word as a simple substitute for “patriarchy” once it became a bad word. It pisses me off. We can’t address the complexity of the real world by burning away the nuance in the words we use. But for me, the word was a godsend. It opened my brain to the way it all intersects. I don’t pretend I’m perfect with it – it took a while to see the ableism inherent in a lot of my attitudes, and I’m just starting to realise how much my education negatively colours my view of those who never went to university: for example, I am trying to stop casting judgment on people for their spelling and grammar. I mean, spelling. Really? I was judging people negatively for misspelling “definitely” and using “your” instead of “you’re”? In retrospect, it’s so stupid. But I didn’t even notice I was doing it.
TL;DR: Understanding the concept of “kyriarchy” helped me stop hurting people I cared about without knowing it, and helped examine intersectionality.
“Feminism permits people to argue that circumcision is morally justifiable because uncircumcised men are more likely to pass on HPV. That’s a fundamentally feminist perspective; circumcision is a moral good. There’s no getting around that.”
Isn’t it funny that the term ‘uncircumcised’ posits that being circumcised is the normal state of being?
Would we similarly say uninfibulated for a FAAB person who’s not been ritually cut?
I’m not sure that not using “cut” and “uncut/intact” terminology is all that useful or progressive, EVEN if we admit that many men have been circumcised at birth without their consent.
As was said elsewhere, it is not the person who did or wanted the circumcision who is bad, it’s the act that was. So it doesn’t make parents evil, or the person tainted.
I have to be honest, while I like the term Kyriarchy, I get awfully worried when I see reference to THE Kyriarchy. It tends to read as though The Patriarchy’s just been rebranded for a new generation, and we’re still planning to try to Smash The Kyriarchy.
“Feminism permits people to argue that circumcision is morally justifiable because uncircumcised men are more likely to pass on HPV. That’s a fundamentally feminist perspective; circumcision is a moral good.”
A fundamentally feminist perspective? Whaaa? Feminists are pretty hot on these concepts called “bodily autonomy” and “consent”, and circumcision is not so compatible with either of them.
“A fundamentally feminist perspective? Whaaa? Feminists are pretty hot on these concepts called “bodily autonomy” and “consent””
As far as those things concern women, that is. I haven’t seen too many feminists that would give a damn about mens bodily autonomy being harmed.
As far as those things concern women, that is. I haven’t seen too many feminists that would give a damn about mens bodily autonomy being harmed.
Horseshit. You are in the middle of a community made up of feminists exactly like that, a community that is approvingly linked to and well spoken of by many other feminists. If you haven’t seen those feminists, you have been putting a lot of effort into not looking. Not looking, for example, at the people you’re talking to.
For fuck’s sake, if people have to turn every conversation about social justice into whining about mean ol’ feminists, can you at least be less bad at it?
To me, “kyriarchy” sounds like “patriarchy, but now with intersectionality!” That’s an improvement, but there is still a lot of baggage. Outside this blog, I’ve never seen anyone kyriarchy to acknowledge the oppression of men on the dimension of gender.
All kyriarchy lets us say that is sometimes racial disadvantages (or other categories of intersectionality) can cancel male advantages, but maleness is still seen as an advantage over femaleness all else being equal. For instance, even though they might be considered disadvantaged relative to white women, black men would still be considered unilaterally advantaged over black women.
That’s because “kyriarchy” evokes the words “hierarchy” and “patriarchy” (which is used by feminists to mean a hierarchy of men over women, contrary to the anthropological definition). If there is a hierarchy, then someone must be at the top, and someone must be at the bottom.
In the case of “patriarchy,” men are placed at the top, and women placed at the bottom. With “kyriarchy,” intersectionality makes it a lot harder to assess who is one the bottom, so squabbling ensues.
Yet “kyriarchy” still makes clear who is at the top: heterosexual white upper-class able-bodied men. I dispute that notion, because it is demonstrably false due to contexts where men are disadvantaged relative to women on the dimension of gender: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C (also a case where higher class meant disadvantage: class isn’t always unidirectional either).
“For fuck’s sake, if people have to turn every conversation about social justice into whining about mean ol’ feminists, can you at least be less bad at it?”
Exactly. Ahabing is annoying even when it’s a legitimate grievance that’s continually being brought up, but that was just utter nonsense.
“You are in the middle of a community made up of feminists exactly like that, a community that is approvingly linked to and well spoken of by many other feminists.”
And I never said that such feminists do not exist. I merely said that I don’t see too many of them. I’ll even admit that there are a lot of such feminists around this blog, but you have to realize that it’s just one community in a huge pile of communities not all of which are the same, and unfortunately I don’t have very good experience with a lot of those communities whether you like it or not.
I think you should include some references in your post, OP or else I will think the Kyriarchy is just a made up thing!
It seems to me like the term has gained credence due to the internet. There is one mention of it in one book I think, but it has not been taken up by academics, and there is no research backing it up. This means I don’t trust it.
My RSS reader showed this post almost immediately above a Sinfest cartoon from the weekend:
http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2011-10-09&show=sinfest
which visually compares Patriarchy to The Matrix. It seemed to appropriate not to mention!
Ewen
@ Orphan: “Ozy, you’re about 99% of the way to the place where I’m at.
Which is that “archy” is a null concept; it has no meaning.
There are human rights issues. Full stop, period. That’s all that exists.”
Riiiggght. So…who do you choose to help? Cos you can’t help everyone. You can’t commit yourself to every social injustice. So that’s why we break things down. Cos, as you say, we’re all human.
@Glove
Does focusing one’s individual efforts really require viewing oppression as a particular hierachy, like kyriarchy implies?
HughRistik, you’ve succinctly encapsulated my uneasiness with the ‘kyriarchy’ concept.
Glove –
You stand up for what is right where you can.
And when you start seeing people as human, “social justice” loses meaning. There’s only justice. Putting “social” in front of “justice” requires seeing people as dimensioned numbers.
“Ahabing.”
Okay, I know you were talking to that other guy, but…why is it okay that a feminist or other ‘marginalized’ person is free to treat others in a less than perfectly egalitarian manner, by holding fast to identity politics and thus treating men/whites/etc as moral inferiors by shaming them for “patriarchy” and “privilege?”
If certain people can’t just shut up and like hearing that, think how it is for men who keep getting told that they’re basically the problem in society because of “male privilege, oh no it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, you just have to accept whatever we tell you about it and if you disagree you’re a filthy stinking privilege denier!”
Way I see if, if we can’t get past “We’re going to hold the men of today responsible for the horrifying treatment of our foremothers,” we can’t HAVE egalitarianism because that’s going to be held over our heads forever, and if we have it held over our heads forever then we’re essentially being treated as morally inferior because we are the “privileged.”
So to me, identity politics is, per se, a false consciousness.
As for “Maybe you’re just finding only the bad feminists,” well let’s face it, bland talk of social inequality without placing blame on the common man isn’t controversial enough to get lots of attention, because to me, THAT is true feminism: we’re all in this together, without even the least shaming of men for things they haven’t personally, *actively* committed against women.
Hugh:
All kyriarchy lets us say that is sometimes racial disadvantages (or other categories of intersectionality) can cancel male advantages, but maleness is still seen as an advantage over femaleness all else being equal. For instance, even though they might be considered disadvantaged relative to white women, black men would still be considered unilaterally advantaged over black women.
And those who would consider such a imbalance between black men and white women will try their hardest to make sure that that imbalance is SOLELY because of race. They have no problem pointing out how men of color are harmed….as long as they can keep the focus on color and color only as soon as you mention gender they turn on you.
BrokenSystems:
As far as those things concern women, that is. I haven’t seen too many feminists that would give a damn about mens bodily autonomy being harmed.
They are out there but when you see some that only chime in to remind us that FGM is so much worse (to the point of ignoring those who don’t even make that comparison) or that circumcision bans should have a religious exemption…
“And I never said that such feminists do not exist. I merely said that I don’t see too many of them. I’ll even admit that there are a lot of such feminists around this blog, but you have to realize that it’s just one community in a huge pile of communities not all of which are the same, and unfortunately I don’t have very good experience with a lot of those communities whether you like it or not.”
Some feminists like those at Alas will agree that bodily autonomy of newborn baby boys should be of concern…while still saying the right of Jewish parents to circumcise their kid (when the baby is 8 days old) should have some merit. They’re halfway there still.
If there’s a use for the term “kyriarchy” it seems to me to be a reminder that our issue of choice is not the only issue, and that the privilege an individual chooses to fight is not the only form out there, and almost everyone enjoys some sort of privilege and suffers from lack of other privilege.
In other words, we should all be for general equality first, and then specific focus should be secondary. That way we avoid class warfare within feminism, or racial insensitivity in a movement for economic equality, or sexism in a race-based civil rights movement. That, and people stop jumping down each other’s throats calling each other “privileged” as an insult and attack without really knowing someone’s situation in life… the issue is too complicated for that to be a particularly useful way of going about things.
Does focusing one’s individual efforts really require viewing oppression as a particular hierachy, like kyriarchy implies?(Hugh)
I would say yes because most individual oppressions are done by groups. The point is that the group is not always the same.
I agree that feminists tend to overlook men. That is why this blog. I’m not running it for my health. 🙂
Orphan: Yes, sure, treat everyone equally. But trans people and people with disabilities still have special problems because of their gender identity and ability, and calling it transphobia or ableism is way easier than saying “that thing where people hate trans people” and “that thing where assholes won’t allow reasonable accomodations for disability.” And then when people point out that their oppression is Real Oppression (TM), you have to figure out a way to point out that there are lots of other kinds of oppression and, again, “kyriarchy” is shorter.
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Ozy –
Setting aside a disagreement on disabilities, there is an infinite variety of oppression, and nobody is exempt.
I’ve never seen any purpose or use in the categorization of hatred except to argue (frequently implicitly) that somebody’s oppression is more Real or deserving attention than somebody else’s, generally to the somebody else’s detriment.
The kyriarchy concept is important over the single issue oppression for a number of reasons
1. Oppression is situational (ie you feel it differently at different times)
2. Oppression is intersectional (ie there is an oppression associated with being a lesbian (ie gay & female) that isnt incapsuled by the oppression of straight females and/or gay males
3. You can have localised power within the oppressed (eg women’s control over the domestic sphere; assumptions of black musicality etc) – this can lead to situations such as the patriarchial bargain (where women gain local power compared to other women at the expense of greater power for all women)
In my opinion tho, kyriarchy is only useful when discussing identity based politics. Class is a quite different oppression based on access to the means of production (although some people occasionally confuse class with culture, which is of course part of the kyriarchy).
“3. You can have localised power within the oppressed (eg women’s control over the domestic sphere; assumptions of black musicality etc) ”
Such as men’s assumed competency in the technical sphere, regardless of actual competence. This is localized power. The other side of the coin is they’re assumed to be useless to clean, to cook, to teach kids and to do any kind of caring or empathic duty.
@Ewen: Did you catch the last “matrixy” line in that? Apparently this blog is part of the Patriarchy! 🙂
“Riiiggght. So…who do you choose to help? Cos you can’t help everyone. You can’t commit yourself to every social injustice. So that’s why we break things down. Cos, as you say, we’re all human.”
You can break things down into issues, baring gender discrimination, preventing violence, stopping rape, or aiding victims of domestic violence. I suppose you could argue for things like gender discrimination that it is all one sided (except not really), but its very out of place in things like violent crime or the like.
So basically it all comes down to rich white American Hetero-cis-sexual able-bodied MEN!!! (Always with 3 exclamation points, mind you) thinking they are ALL THERE IS.
Well they’re wrong. And they suck. And they should be made to feel the pain of others. And then beaten with a Stick.
@ Hugh Ristik
I would also say that you’ve really knocked one out of the park in your description of kyriarchal theory done badly. Sometimes skin color trumps the fact that you’re male, is irrelevant to the fact that you’re male, piles on to the fact that you’re male, and sometimes skin color even excuses the fact that you’re male. Some kyriarchal theory advocates are only willing to validate that first statement, or the first two, and that’s not cool.
That its been forward as a concept in the first place is still a big improvement over the unidirectional oppression, male=equals advantage, turd that is Patriarchal theory. (That old canard has actually become rather hilarious to me with its “Rule of the Father” etymology ) Many Patriarchy Theorists have been saying “We really/especially mean rich, able, WASP cis-males,” for while now, so in truth the bad form of Kyriarchy would just be Patriarchy in a new hat.
“This is what happens when you (i) have more windows open at the same time :-/”
Do like me and keep 50+ (sometimes nearly 200) Firefox tabs open.
And yes, it sucks RAM like hell (700 MB when it opens, often up to 1.2 GB by itself).
Jay:
Many Patriarchy Theorists have been saying “We really/especially mean rich, able, WASP cis-males,” for while now, so in truth the bad form of Kyriarchy would just be Patriarchy in a new hat.
I formally challenge that due to men of color being torn in two (by race and gender) when it comes to patriarchy and being told what usually amounts to “yes you aren’t white but you still benefit from patriarchy”. If they mean that narrow scope of men (WASP cis-males) they have been doing a pretty horrible job of specifying it. If anything I think that’s a fallback argument for when they get called on their use of patriarchy as a not-so-secret-secret code for men (and it does a nice job of keeping men divided).
Mind you Jay I’m not challenging you but those “many patriarchy theorists”.
“Intersectionality” is now right up there with “transubjective” as my word of the year.
And @Simon above seems to have it all summed up. Whenever anyone talks about any sort of *archy what they really mean seems to be “rich white American Hetero-cis-sexual able-bodied MEN!!!” are evil and anyone who shares any of those characteristics and isn’t ashamed by it must be complicit.
Silly me thinking that social justice mean that people are people no matter what and they shouldn’t be ashamed of being who they are.
One reason I’d prefer “kyriarchy” over “human rights violation” is that it makes it clear that the system is the problem. It’s not like you can just grab a single thing and say: that, that’s the problem, we can stop that and solve gender inequality, or even a specific subproblem of gender inequality.
Women earn 0.75 for every dollar men earn. “But that’s not even a humans rights violation at all because men work more dangerous jobs and don’t take time out for kids and…” says somebody. Right, well, women end up taking off more time with kids because they’re unfairly pushed into domestic tasks. And men end up working dangerous jobs and spending less time with kids than they’d like because they’re unfairly expected to be success objects. Oh, and all the averages are skewed by the hyper-high compensation earned at the very top of the ladder, where women (among others) are comparatively rare. And each of THOSE things has several causes, etc.
@Druk: Did you catch the last “matrixy” line in that? Apparently this blog is part of the Patriarchy!
Well, that panel was full of stupid things people say about feminism, and the title of this blog was taken from the well-worn trope of men making asses of themselves in feminist spaces by derailing conversations. “What about the menz” as a phrase is a parody of that painfully predictable behavior.
@AS and others: Very impressive. We’re well on our way to defining all forms of social injustice out of existence entirely. An interesting solution; the only drawback is that it’s the exact opposite of a solution. If I follow your plan correctly, we’ll just declare everyone an individual whose experiences can never form part of a larger pattern, and then we’ll declare the observable nature of kyriarchical oppression to be a giant coincidence. Come to think of it, that’s essentially the GOP platform on racial issues…
@goshawk, me too. Nice post.
@Quiet Riot Girl: “It seems to me like the term has gained credence due to the internet. There is one mention of it in one book I think, but it has not been taken up by academics, and there is no research backing it up. This means I don’t trust it.”
See, I wouldn’t trust it if the academics DID like it. When they get their hands on something, they change ACTIVISM into THEORY, and well… I guess my bias against one (and not the other) is showing.
@noahbrand: “For fuck’s sake, if people have to turn every conversation about social justice into whining about mean ol’ feminists, can you at least be less bad at it?”
(giggles) As Eliza Doolittle famously said, now ya know, doncha? 😉
It does seem to be the way of these discussions, I’ve noticed. (sigh)
Re: ableism, I didn’t notice it when I was younger, except in the context of my own ADHD and depression (I was constantly told to “just focus” or to “cheer up,” as if psychological disabilities are something you can just switch on and off at will). Lately, though, I’ve made online friends with physical disabilities, and ableism has become more obvious and IMO, more ridiculous:
Friend with a spinal defect, who uses a cane and can’t handle stairs well: “The LGBT and Pagan groups around here suck. They tend to meet at places that aren’t wheelchair-accessible.”
Friend with severe visual and hearing impairments, and a speech impediment: “I tried for months to get an IT job, and nobody would hire me because of my disabilities, even though I have tons of experience. I finally decided to start my own business since nobody who interviewed me in person ever hired me.”
Seriously, WTF society? I thought we were past this form of discrimination, at least. -_-;
Goshawk, nce again, has clrified the question better than anyone. he is asking for “granularity’ – some precison in ananlysis, soem attention to detail in looking at specific situations specific human people find themselves in. For me that’s to usefulness of the term “kyriarchy”. Yes, it’s tautalogical but that’s it’s value – it specifies that the people with power have all the power, and it degenders, deracializes, de-whatevers it, and that’s what we need to get any degree of detail.
QRG, I understand your qualms about the term, but don’t let the msues or possibilty of misuse put you too far off it.
“See, I wouldn’t trust it if the academics DID like it. When they get their hands on something, they change ACTIVISM into THEORY, and well… I guess my bias against one (and not the other) is showing.”
Daisy, you’re a Maoist – I know, you know I know so don’t bother denying it; we can recognize each other like it was gaydar. I don’t mind theory as long as it k nows its place…..
Noah –
The Democrats are, and always have been, the party obsessed with race. Considering the history in question I’m not sure I’d claim that as a moral victory.
“An interesting solution; the only drawback is that it’s the exact opposite of a solution.”
Precisely.
“The Democrats are, and always have been, the party obsessed with race. Considering the history in question I’m not sure I’d claim that as a moral victory.”
Is this really true? Consider this: deliberately ignoring the effects of racial inequality is itself an inordinate focus on race, albeit in a circumspect and roundabout way.
Or, to put it another way, someone who goes “la la la la I’m not listening!” when someone is talking is in a way, obsessed with what that person is saying.
davenj –
Your presumptions about the motivations of your opposition say more about yourself than they say about your opposition.
Consider this: The Democratic party’s policies are in no substantive way different from the policies they held sixty years ago.
They were called racist then. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, granted; more white people were enfranchised by civil rights legislation than black people, something which is often missed when people try to use the “southern strategy” (which focused on recently enfranchised lower-class people in the South, not the traditional mainstay of the Democratic party) as an explanation for how the GOP did an about-face on civil rights legislation in spite of no evidence to this conclusion. (The GOP’s policies are also quite similar to the policies they held sixty years ago.)
“Your presumptions about the motivations of your opposition say more about yourself than they say about your opposition.”
Do they? I think ascribing those motivations is rather generous. The alternative is what? Thinking that systemic inequality doesn’t exist? That’s so profoundly ignorant as to, in my mind, render one incapable of adequate leadership. Ignoring it is bad, certainly, but being unable to see it? That’s profoundly different and short-sighted.
I’m not arguing that the Democratic Party has been great. Neither party has done a good job of addressing systemic racial inequality, particularly for African Americans, but at least the Democratic Party recognizes its existence.
davenj –
I’d argue it’s short-sighted to say that we should oppose a colorblind society on the grounds that it won’t be able to correct racial inequalities.
@Orphan: Problem is, experience indicates that every time we see someone saying “Oh, I’m not racist. I don’t even SEE color” it’s always a white person and they always follow that up with something pretty damn racist. “Colorblind” works great if you’re in the group that’s privileged enough to be able to pretend race doesn’t exist or isn’t a factor. Otherwise, it doesn’t work very well at all.
Maybe I’m being unfair, but the social justice thing sounds to me like “Here’s your unlimited obligation. We’re in charge of what you owe. It’s ill-defined. You can be punished for asking if you’re getting things right. What we do doesn’t count as punishment because we say it shouldn’t count as punishment. The standards keep changing. If you don’t like it, it’s more proof of how defective you are, but you can’t help not being good enough. Just spend your life apologizing. We don’t think you’re a bad person, we just want to treat you as though you’re a bad person without admitting it. You’re obligated to do everything you can to control people so that they’ll take on the same infinite obligation.”
Orphan – I don’t worry about the ‘misuse’ of the term kyriarchy as I don’t know what it means! It is very vague.
Noah –
Mental segregation leads to physical. Colorblind is the only thing which has ever worked.
@Jim: I think that’s what I like about the term (when it doesn’t come with a “the” on the front) – it’s just reminding you to be aware that when people are in a position of privilege, that’s they’ll be and they should aim to minimise its effects where they can. I don’t see kyriarchy as something that you can defeat any more than you can win a “war on terror”.
Believing that “kyriarchy” is a made up thing because academics don’t study it sounds barmy.
It’s a word. The word describes a thing. That thing is that we are all complicit in our own oppression. What precisely is it that people don’t “believe in”? The word? The complicity? The oppression? The intersectionality of classes? What?
“If you don’t like it, it’s more proof of how defective you are, but you can’t help not being good enough. Just spend your life apologizing. We don’t think you’re a bad person, we just want to treat you as though you’re a bad person without admitting it. You’re obligated to do everything you can to control people so that they’ll take on the same infinite obligation.”
That describes Hugo Schwyzer, but particularly Julian Real, well. Julian Real thought I was not apologizing enough for my existence as a MAAB trans female-identified person, so that means I oppressed the rights of FAAB female-identified people from excluding me on dominant-definition grounds (you don’t produce eggs and weren’t raised as a girl, whatever that actually means!).
Saying that FAAB female-identified is a legitimate gender identity and that they (who represent roughly 50% of the population) have the right to exclude us trans women. And my complaining about it is only more proof of my male privilege of wanting to tear down women’s space barriers and ignore boundaries. Not at all a sign that I feel I belong there, and not elsewhere.
“Mental segregation leads to physical. Colorblind is the only thing which has ever worked.”
Physical segregation does the same, and colorblind policies perpetuate physical segregation.
How has colorblind “worked”, and what is your definition of “worked”?
Jim: Daisy, you’re a Maoist – I know, you know I know so don’t bother denying it; we can recognize each other like it was gaydar. I don’t mind theory as long as it k nows its place…..
Busted!
Jim, don’t tell the Occupy kids… they think I am just a nice liberal.
well mcduff you have called me much worse than barmy before. But I am getting a lot of stick for daring to challenge the existence of kyriarchy as I do when I challenge patriarchy’s existence.
I am not enslaved to academic texts, but the word is very specific and is presented as a ‘theory’ of power and I have only seen one or two sentences explaining it no more. if there is no ‘theory’ then I am sorry but I don’t buy it.
Things like capitalism and ‘power’ are theorised. This gives them credence.
davenj –
Colorblind is giving no preference or consideration of color. Pretty much what it says on the tin. It was the dominant civil rights philosophy from the forties until sometime in the eighties, promulgated by the civil rights leaders of that era; communities were voluntarily desegregating through this time period.
Since its demise in favor of racial intervention as the dominant civil rights philosophy, at least as expressed through civil rights leaders, communities have begun voluntarily resegregating; particularly troubling is that the difference is particularly pronounced in new communities and suburbs.
It was the dominant civil rights philosophy from the forties until sometime in the eighties, promulgated by the civil rights leaders of that era; communities were voluntarily desegregating through this time period.
Um, no. That didn’t actually happen. In the real world, you had figures like Martin Luther King actively designing affirmative action programs, the “black power” movement of the 70s, and white communities angrily opposing having their schools desegregated. Indeed, the change that came in the 1980s is that affirmative action was deemphasized and school desegregation gradually abandoned, with the result that schools and communities have voluntarily resegregated, because pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t actually make it go away.
So basically, you’re right about the resegregation, and factually wrong about why it’s happening. These things can be pretty easily looked up, you know.
“Resegregation” has as much to do with income and poor schools as anything else.
The two largest complaints that suburbanites often have about big cities are :
A. Crappy schools
B. Crime.
Having lived in both types of places and went to both urban and suburban schools I’d have to say they are right.
“Colorblind is giving no preference or consideration of color. Pretty much what it says on the tin. It was the dominant civil rights philosophy from the forties until sometime in the eighties, promulgated by the civil rights leaders of that era; communities were voluntarily desegregating through this time period.
Since its demise in favor of racial intervention as the dominant civil rights philosophy, at least as expressed through civil rights leaders, communities have begun voluntarily resegregating; particularly troubling is that the difference is particularly pronounced in new communities and suburbs.”
What do you define as “working”, though? You said it worked, but the political gains of the ’60’s never materialized into significant economic or social gains during your so-called “color blind” period.
Also, the assertions you make are factually inaccurate. School re-segregation is largely an economic phenomenon, and thus attributing it to a shift in civil rights philosophy is a logical leap of gigantic proportions.
Beyond that, as Noah pointed out, “colorblind” was not the ideology of the civil rights movement by the early ’60’s, so the core of your argument is based on a fallacy.
Resegregation isn’t about race in and of itself, at least not much. But it is about money and class, and race plays into poverty and class. Which is not to say that undoing resegregation directly is necessarily a good solution.
To clarify:
Colorblind works if the whole system is colorblind, but it’s not. There are big gains to be had with colorblind policies when the racism is the direct, or at least the proximate, cause of the injustice. When black people were denied entry to the best schools because they’re black, it was a very good thing to change that.
But the problem is that now, black people (disproportionately) don’t have access to the best schools because they don’t live near the best schools, because they’re poor, because (among other things) the justice system disproportionately targets black people, especially regarding the war on drugs.
Of course, we should still work on that justice system issue, but while we do that, there’s at least an argument for noncolorblind policies in other areas.
“Colorblind works if the whole system is colorblind, but it’s not.”
That’s the crucial distinction. It has to be systemic. When an individual claims to be colorblind, it’s willful ignorance and it’s a dodge. Race is a construct, yes – and constructs do not simply vanish because we decide to stop seeing them. It is not a matter of belief.
US society has dropped some of these disticnctions and become colorblind WRT to specific groups – Irish first, who were considered non-white so long ago almost no one remembers it, then Pakistanis and Armenian settlers in the Central Valley, and Sicilians back east, for the most part. In California the Japanese are the equivalent of white as far as SJ stats go and so on. But as Ta-Nehisi caotes points out, all this assimialttion and accession to white stuts has required one out-group to remian to define whiteness by, African-Americans. Hell even Mexican-Americans call themselves white after enough generations.
“Jim, don’t tell the Occupy kids… they think I am just a nice liberal.”
So far they don’t haven’t shown much interest in theory either! They keep giving the fish eye to every demand that they state some demands. Good for them. Very smart.
These people are real patriots. We love to make sacred cows out of veterans, at least lip service – after this they deserve the same respect as any veteran.
“What do you define as “working”, though? You said it worked, but the political gains of the ’60′s never materialized into significant economic or social gains during your so-called “color blind” period.”
– The 40’s through the 80’s; the 60’s were when colorblind began fading and affirmative action took its place. (The 60’s are roughly in the middle for a reason.) And yes, there were -substantial- social and economic improvements in this era.
“Also, the assertions you make are factually inaccurate. School re-segregation is largely an economic phenomenon, and thus attributing it to a shift in civil rights philosophy is a logical leap of gigantic proportions.”
– If resegregation were a purely economic phenomenon, we wouldn’t see new suburban housing developments with strong segregation tendencies.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2001-07-09-minorities.htm
The economy is not capable of strong resegregation, as past income is predictive of future income (income tracks over time).
And the focus in responses on school segregation is missing the picture of what’s happening with residential segregation, which school segregation is derived from.
@orphan, interested in your opinion:
How White Flight brought down the economy
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2010/10/part-two-how-white-flight-brought-down.html
“- The 40′s through the 80′s; the 60′s were when colorblind began fading and affirmative action took its place. (The 60′s are roughly in the middle for a reason.) And yes, there were -substantial- social and economic improvements in this era.”
a. The ’40’s-’60’s weren’t colorblind. See: G.I. Bill, house-loan inequality, etc.
b. Those “improvements” saw black men earning 50 cents on the dollar and a huge wealth disparity.
c. Why would affirmative action hurt, given the lack of colorblindness? Also, seeing as how the earnings gap is now 64 cents to the dollar, how did it hurt?
“- If resegregation were a purely economic phenomenon, we wouldn’t see new suburban housing developments with strong segregation tendencies.”
When did I say “purely”? I didn’t. I said “largely”. Obviously internal prejudice hurts in this regard, too, but even then, suburbs generally didn’t drop de jure or de facto housing segregationlaws until the ’70’s or ’80’s, so your timeline again fails to pass muster.
Residential and school segregation go hand in hand, given the funding mechanisms of schools in the US (taxing local residents).
“Why would affirmative action hurt, given the lack of colorblindness?”
That’s not really the point; I could list a few ways affirmative action can and does hurt. Does anyone deny that a universally colorblind system would be the best solution? But the best can be the enemy of the good at times.
“Does anyone deny that a universally colorblind system would be the best solution?”
Yes, I do deny that. A plan or system whereby colorblindness was the OUTCOME would be the best solution to the problem of racial inequality. However, as a solution in and of itself, colorblindness is woefully inadequate at addressing systemic inequality. It attempts to undo a direct problem in an indirect manner.
But the point of my quote was this: we already don’t live in a colorblind society. If we acknowledge that that’s the case, why would affirmative action be wrong? What does it hurt? There are already fingers on the scale, so to speak, so why would an attempt to balance said scales hurt?
“However, as a solution in and of itself, colorblindness is woefully inadequate at addressing systemic inequality.”
If we could do it, it would be fine (if we also dealt with classism while we’re wishing and implemented robust poverty remediation, but all THAT could be colorblind). We can’t, for a variety of reasons.
“What does it hurt? There are already fingers on the scale, so to speak, so why would an attempt to balance said scales hurt?”
Unlike a conveniently chosen metaphor, it’s impossible to push society in a single direction.
Affirmative action empowers a certain class of racist and on the margin turns off a certain class of people to social justice. “Of course blacks are less intelligent. Even my opponents agree with me, though of course they won’t admit it. Affirmative action is a tacit admission that blacks can’t compete with whites on a level playing field.” Ever heard something like that?
As I said, the best can be the enemy of the good, and the fact that there are costs can’t deter you from implementing a program when those costs are outweighed by the benefits. But there are costs.
“Affirmative action empowers a certain class of racist and on the margin turns off a certain class of people to social justice. “Of course blacks are less intelligent. Even my opponents agree with me, though of course they won’t admit it. Affirmative action is a tacit admission that blacks can’t compete with whites on a level playing field.” Ever heard something like that?”
This is certainly true. Affirmative action can be confusing to those who don’t understand its purpose, goals, or initial rationale. That said, the basic core of the viewpoint is that a certain group is less intelligent, capable, etc. One doesn’t look for tacit admissions unless one wants to find one. The problem is people looking to validate their opinions of racial superiority, which would be an issue regardless of affirmative action’s existence.
So, to boil it down to the same analogy, if people are going to keep their fingers on the scale one way or the other, what is the harm in attempting to balance the scale? The person seeking validation for his or her claims of racial inferiority is not driven by affirmative action, but rather by racism.
It’s also worth noting that a much more common trope in prejudiced discourse is the simple “Group X is inferior, because their economic/social/political/etc. outcomes are inferior, and since we all know society is fair it must be caused by their DNA/gender/culture/etc.”. The “bootstraps” mentality is extremely common in all sorts of prejudices because it denies social, economic, historical, or other types of inequality. Remedying those inequalities in the present, at least to some degree, can deflate those arguments. It’s considered more ignorant today to say “all African Americans are stupid” than it was when there were extremely few African American intellectual role models, and AA helps to create those role models.
I admit there are “costs” in the sense that those who wish to continue to be racist will rationalize in a different way, but that’s a net gain, not a net cost.
@doubletrack [i]A fundamentally feminist perspective? Whaaa? Feminists are pretty hot on these concepts called “bodily autonomy” and “consent”, and circumcision is not so compatible with either of them.[/i]
Ah, so that’s why prominent feminist Janice Raymond called for “morally mandating,” transition, including access to transition medicine, “out of existence”
Don’t get me wrong… I’ve [url=http://valeriekeefe.livejournal.com/33946.html]pointed out the irony[/url] but there are plenty of people in the feminist movement, myself and most of the people here excepted, who will throw principle aside to harm people they have gendered as male.
@davenj:
“I admit there are “costs” in the sense that those who wish to continue to be racist will rationalize in a different way, but that’s a net gain, not a net cost.”
You say that like you can divide people into racist and not-racist camps that are static and without overlap. People don’t work that way. People can become more or less racist based on their environment and their experiences.
Providing ammunition to racists isn’t harmless. They guy talking might not be convinced, regardless of the existence of affirmative action, but what about the people listening? You don’t think anyone has been turned from benign ignorance to low-grade racism based on that sort of reasoning, especially if they’ve been passed over for a position where affirmative action was available. You don’t think that kind of implicit reasoning can contribute to stereotype threat on the margin? You don’t think someone who’s generally well-meaning can use it justify racist practices (“sure, I’m less likely to take their contributions seriously, they’re affirmative action promotions anyone, not actually qualified”), when without the excuse they’d catch themselves because racism isn’t socially acceptable?
Additionally, affirmative action, in practice, often masks classism which, at least as a proximate cause, is often as serious as racism or even more so. Which leaves poor whites (and sometimes asians) high and dry. Which is a bad thing in and of itself, and also leaves them feeling legitimately aggrieved and feeds back into the generating racism issue.
You’re arguing that affirmative action has benefits, and I agree. But the fact that it has benefits doesn’t mean it doesn’t have costs.
“You’re arguing that affirmative action has benefits, and I agree. But the fact that it has benefits doesn’t mean it doesn’t have costs.”
Again, I agree, but I said “what does it hurt?” with the net in mind.
Even as it provides a bit of fodder for certain individuals, AA has a net benefit effect by raising minorities to positions of influence and accomplishment, providing positive examples for the entirety of society and eliminating spurious racist arguments. Obviously racism is a hydra, but this isn’t six of one, half a dozen of the other. AA can feed certain racist ideologies, but it does a great job at defusing the core of racial inferiority theories, and as such provides a NET gain.
Daisy –
I’d say there’s some truth in there, but not necessarily the truth you represent. Rental properties do change the character of a neighborhood – I can tell you which house is the rental property and which is the owned property by looking at it. Rental properties quite simply don’t look as nice; renters aren’t as inclined to maintain the state of the house or the neighborhood. Doesn’t matter if they’re black, white, or Mexican; it doesn’t even particularly matter if they’re upper, middle, or lower class renters. They aren’t putting roots down – that makes a difference in how they treat their yard, how they treat their home, how they treat their neighbors – and therefore how their neighbors regard the neighborhood.
The lifecycle of neighborhoods has also been going on for a long time now; I don’t think your local experiences in a particular neighborhood are as representative of the nation as a whole as you think.
Everyone else who argued with me, I’ll refer you back to the posts you responded to, and suggest you read them again. Either way I’m dropping that argument, which I grew bored with a while ago.
“Everyone else who argued with me, I’ll refer you back to the posts you responded to, and suggest you read them again. Either way I’m dropping that argument, which I grew bored with a while ago.”
I read them. They are rife with factual errors, logical fallacies, and a general unwillingness to even address counter-arguments, which appears to have continued into this post. From general misapprehensions about “colorblind” eras to inaccurate characterizations of civil rights leaders to timelines that do not match your argument, I think it becomes plainly evident why you are dropping the argument.
I would invite anyone to read those posts, and the responses to them, again. Draw conclusions as you see fit.
It’s nice that you can just choose to be bored with one of the core civil rights arguments of our time, though.
“Again, I agree, but I said “what does it hurt?” with the net in mind.”
This brings us back to the question of how much we are willing to sacrifice the individual for the sake of society. The general agreemnt in simalr questions these days is the individual should have some say in the sacrfice zie is expected to make.
The only problems I see in AA are in the execution. it has ben hard ot designate the benefiting categories corrctly. So for instance we get cases of African immigrants’ kids (kids of imigrnast who were privileged in their home conutries and who have generally done well at replicating that privilege here) being advantaged in university admissions when African-American kids from urban schools don’t benefit at all, and when it makes no pretence of simialry helping white kids from Appalchia who have beensytemically and institutionally exploited and discriminated agianst in this society far more than African immigrnats are. But that is not a criticis of AA, just of the implementations and it just requires some adjustment.
The second problem is that AA measures can be mistaken for being adequate. University admissions again – favoring african-American applicants does nothing to increase their chances of getting adegree if they haven’t received the preparation all along, the fomration, that the other students have. It doesn’t level the palying field on its own. AA may need to start in pre-school to areally give people an equal chance. It’s a huge complicated project but it can be done, but it won’t be done if the general public beyond the targeted sees the university admissions program and falsely concludes, well, that’s in place, why can’t they succeed noooow? This again is not a failing of AA or even of the misguided public but of the implementation.
Those are all problems with implementation, or other social failures. It’s a different kind of social failure when poverty in historically White areas creates long-term problems, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth addressing. Whether or not it falls under the purview of Affirmative Action is a separate argument, but it’s certainly a social wrong worthy of remediation.
As for African immigrants, they certainly don’t face the SAME challenges as descendants of African slaves, but they do face challenges worth accounting for. Our president, for example, faces substantial social racism, even though he is not the descendant of African slaves. It’s an implementation problem, but it would be wrong to suggest that traditional racism, honed on the lives and livelihoods of African slaves and their descendants, did not bleed over into American society’s treatment of African immigrants after Emancipation or the Civil Rights Movement.
And I agree that starting Affirmative Action in college is a silly idea. It precludes all other types of social injustice or inequality, and presumes that a college education is the simple panacea for centuries of systemic prejudice. It ignores how children are prepared for success (or the lack thereof) by their environment and society for the first 18 years of their existence, our most crucial developmental years.
it’s a cold comfort to an African American boy who can’t eat regular meals to know that, if they manage to graduate high school (a statistical unlikelihood for a variety of nasty reasons), they have a slight edge in collegiate admissions. That’s the fallacy of Affirmative Action: it doesn’t go far enough.
davenj –
I grew bored with the people I was arguing with, if you wish to get specific. For an example of why, your own reply “a. The ’40′s-’60′s weren’t colorblind. See: G.I. Bill, house-loan inequality, etc.” is utterly misaddressed; “colorblind” was a reference to the goals of the civil rights movement of the era, not society as a whole, which is why the enactment of affirmative action in the 60’s mattered to begin with. You’re disagreeing with something I never wrote. Why would I argue it?
There’s nothing to respond to because there were no substantive objections raised; they were all strawmen arguments, arguments posed to conversational fragments isolated from the context of the debate as a whole, or arguments I had already responded to. In short, I can sum up the entirety of the opposition as “Looking for something to disagree with.” People will never fail at that, and I see little purpose in feeding into such behavior.