Reply all is one of the best podcasts.
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The idea of intersectionality has real value. Like so much it started out as a good way to illustrate power imbalance by pointing out that some people face significant prejudice because they are members of two or more oppressed groups. It has been coopted by some as a pathological badge of honour demonstrating their membership in a tribe.
It’s a truism that members of two or more marginalised groups will face a unique combination of oppressions but like, so what? Your post says it’s a good way to “illustrate” and “point out”, which is one step away from one of my most hated tropes, “raising awareness”. Where does describing oppression at an ever more granular level actually get us? Seems like it’s just an atomizing and complicating force which takes us gradually further away from solidarity and a common goal. Not only do I not see what the answer is to the question “How will an intersectional approach help with getting people healthcare?”, I don’t even see what the answer is to the question “How will an intersectional approach assist with alleviating intersectional oppressions?”.
Side note: What happened to Virgil Texas? He hasn’t tweeted in over a month and hasn’t been on any episodes. They briefly mentioned it the other day in a “stop asking us, none of your business” way. Is he in some fit of depression post the implosion of the Bernie campaign?
Good God, this Nation piece I just encountered has my jaw on the floor. Check out the subhead.
I did not expect my question “what’s the point of studying oppressions if it doesn’t help with improving people’s lives?” to get inverted into “what is the point of improving people’s lives if it doesn’t help with oppression?”. So apparently the plan is to tackle the simple process of curing the human race of all forms of bigotry and bias before we can move on to tackling minor issues like people dying because they can’t afford medical treatment, or staggering levels of inequality.
Edit: I read the piece, which unsurprisingly turns out to be barking mad.
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That’s the best guess I can make. Matt mentioned on one of his streams that Virgil submitted something to the show that they didn’t use “because he’s basically not talking to us” or something like that. He was crowing pretty hard about his predictions before South Carolina as I recall. Hopefully he’s just waiting until he no longer sees Nate Silver peering over his shoulder when he looks in the mirror.
Remember Clinton’s line about how breaking up the banks wouldn’t end racism. I don’t think it’s madness or stupidity, I think it’s squid-ink intended to stymie actual progress. Think a couple of moves ahead in the dialogue: “So what if it won’t end racism/sexism?” et voila you have your talking points about Sanders’ racist fixation with the white-working class or Corbyn’s sexism (which was the go-to line until they found anti-semitism stuck better).
I can see the diagnostic value of intersectionality. The concept predates the term and got a lot of play among eg black feminists describing themselves as served neither by white feminism nor black liberation. I’ve yet to see it yield any useful prescriptions, where ‘useful’ can be taken as ‘advocating real-world systemic change’. And that diminutive prescriptive ambition has, I think, leaked back over into its diagnostic application. If we’re all just checking our privilege and being mindful of who we’re centering, then of course it degenerates as an analysis into D&D shit, +1.2 privilege, +1.4 vulnerability to microagression etc.
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I can see why Virgil would be depressed. What’s the point of the show if they can’t affect real change through it? If nothing can be changed, then it exists solely for profit.
Since covid19, the show has gone downhill a bit imo. They were always good at taking the piss out of politicians or their reading series but when they’re droning on about movies it normally sucks. I stopped being a Patreon member a few months ago.
I generally agree with you. It’s a useful word to describe something that previously didn’t have a way to describe it. As a movement, it is pretty hollow. Too many people think simply proclaiming membership in an intersectional tribe is enough. As if that alone somehow generates progress.
I mean yeah, I was being a bit hyperbolic, but I definitely consider AOC buying into that sort of thing to be a downside.
No. I’m merely saying that I likely wouldn’t get along with them personally not that they’re bad people or that intersectionality is an inherently bad thing.
So yeah I wouldn’t date AOC.
I was actually defending the concept. I just don’t think it’s a movement, or at least, a fruitful one.
Did you see that hilarious poll where the whiter and more educated the Democratic primary voter was, the more they felt bad that they nominated an old white dude for president? Something like 25% of black voters cared that Biden was old and white and male whereas 60% of college educated white voters cared. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m skeptical that intersectionality cracks the top ten of issues voters care about.
How many even know what intersectionality is?
I’m disputing that it can do very much more than diagnose certain issues. In terms of generating actual policy, it seems to have proven useless at best.
I’d imagine 60% of voters have no idea 30% are like me and have a vague idea what it means but if someone asked me I’d say I dunno really, go ask the triggered meme lady or AOC, and ten percent or less actually know what it is and care about it.
I mean I think if you were to generate, say, a reparations policy for black Americans, you’d want to be sure to address issues unique to black women, or black LGBTQ folks, or black disabled folks, or black homeless folks. Those people face challenges that are unique among the black community.
It’s no different than if you were crafting a broad economic policy and you recognize that, as part of that, special attention should be paid to places like west Baltimore or rural Appalachia. Everybody is hurting, but people in certain circumstances are uniquely hurting because of their combination of having no money and ALSO x, y, or z.
My main problem with all of this discussion is that nobody with any legislative power has any intention of helping anyone, ever. Like if we had President Sanders and Warren somehow sprouting arms and ruling the senate with an iron fist, then I’m all in on getting input and making the basic necessity stuff (free healthcare and college, affordable housing, massive redistributive policies) more specifically tailored to help communities that are sometimes left as a blindspot even to well meaning people. My main problem is that there is a large segment of Democrats and the left that sees more value in talking about identity or intersectional issues than in fighting for any kind of progressive legislation.
I think I’d broaden Flynn’s complaint about intersectionality and apply it to pretty much all progressive thought in 2020. We have gotten very good at diagnosing problems. Even centrist Dems give lip service to those same problems. Everyone agrees income inequality is bad, racism exists and is bad, gay people have unique challenges, women are just treated like garbage, etc.
The problem is that all of these people have figured out voters will 100% give you a pass if you say “yeah sorry Bob, I recognize your wife can’t afford her cancer meds and that is a SERIOUS FAILING of our healthcare system, but just these fucking republicans man, I can’t do anything to help.”
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Right, the problem with the left broadly is that they are good at thinking but not very good at actually doing stuff. The right, who typically have people in their ranks like businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, tradesmen, military types etc etc, are good at doing stuff, less good at thinking.
The battle with the left is always actually getting things accomplished, which is why I think questions like “how will this help people get healthcare” are a good litmus test as to whether things matter. There’s nothing wrong with intersectionality as like a sociological idea, the problem with it is that it’s the latest attempt to drag the left in the direction of more academic conceptualizing and away from focusing on achieving things. It was the same with the Rogan endorsement, Rogan supports universal healthcare and immigration reform and is thus broadly an ally of the left, but never mind all that when we can have Neera Tanden lecture us about the proper opinions on trans participation in sport. Fine to end up with a candidate who is a lifelong drug warrior, has questionable behaviour around women and has no intention at all of achieving any progressive policy as long as he has one of his staffers dash off a cynical tweet about trans rights.
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Holt shit this is going to be awesome!
Incredibly well said. I could not agree more.
To segue back into podcasts a little bit, I listened to a number of episodes of this podcast “Behind the Bastards”, I’m sick of it now but I started following the host, Robert Evans, on Twitter. He’s into anti-fascist organising and it’s kind of fascinating because it’s the same thing in terms of someone having convinced themselves that some tiny corner of things is important. The battle between fascist organising and anti-fascist organising involves probably on the order of hundreds of people nationwide, but it’s posted about like it’s a top threat to the nation. Not that the right’s drift into fascism isn’t a huge problem, but the revival of actual fascism is more a symptom than a cause. It’s sort of fascinating to see another example of someone convinced they are Doing Politics and Making A Difference when in fact they’re mired in one near-irrelevant issue to the detriment of broader political action.
Edit: Think back to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, for example. No doubt it was horrible having people marching in the streets with swastikas and that one woman being killed etc, but if you look back on it and contextualise it in everything else that’s going on, you’ll see it’s a total irrelevancy in national politics broadly. If you smash those groups and scatter them to the four winds, so what? Trump and McConnell are still running the country. Joe Biden is still the nominee. Eyes on the prize, big picture thinking.
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