Relieved at being a 'victim'

[TC]

Jennifer Baumgardner writes in her intro to All the Power:


I was eighteen years old and happily enscounced in a small, progressive, mid-western college by the time I could be proudly radical. That is, through my feminist group and my guerrilla theater troupe, i fainally had a band of like-minded friends who supported my values and enabled me to feel like I "belonged" rather than being a weird crazy, bitter, outsider.

I also belonged in ways other than being radical. I remember learning sophomore year about intersecting oppressions of class, race, education, gender, sexuality, appearance, religion, etc., and feeling very greatful to be a woman. I hadn't ever had any overt sense of being ripped off by Mother Nature or the world at large, but suddenly, at college in 1988, i realized that by dint of being a woman, I was oppressed.

That was actually a relief because, as I said, I was learning about hierarchy and the cruel and unjust use of authority and feelin ga bit awkward to be at the top of the food chain, as it were: you know, white, middle class, Protestant, straight (at the time), educated, thin-ish...

Still, why be relieved? Why identify as oppressed? Well, at the time, I was learning about power in a new way and the overarching message i had abosrbed was that power ("the ability to do, act, or affect strongly") was negative...

...Being oppressed made me feel, paradoxically, powerful as a radical. I wasn't one of those nasty oppressors. I was automatically, as of birth part of the innocent club. My oppression gave me permission to speak in left-wing settings. Those white guys, I thought at the time, they've had their time to talk-they don't have permission here. No oppression, no dice. Of course, this kindof philosophy inevitably hoisted me by my own petard, since in a diverse group of women I might be the equivolent of the white middle-class guy, too privileged to have any credence in a radical setting. (But wait, I'd think, I'm also bisexual! Does that count for anything?)...

...Power is a ticky thing; one that is integral to the life of a social-justice activist. This is something I know but at times have forgotten or misunderstood in my journey. My feelins of relief to being called powerless (by virtue of being female) in college reflected a fear of being seen as inferior in radical terms because of my other privileges. Was i really interested in transforming the world? Or did i simply want to feel superior?..

..For my part I no longer secretly say to myself, "I'm so relieved i'm oppressed as a woman." I have realized that the missing sentiment embroidered in my relief was, "I'm not responsible."
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I wanted to share this passage because i thought it was relevant to some of the debates that come up here.

[Severian]

"More oppressed than thou" certainly has its pitfalls.

One of them is trying to invalidate an opponent's point of view because - you're a man, you're white, etc. As Baumgartner indicates. 'Course, you do that yourself, don't you, Clown?

We get another variant on this board sometimes - more proletarian than thou. Anybody can use it against anybody, of course, since on the internet there's no way of knowing who's really proletarian. (Or otherwise more oppressed, of course.)

[Pawn Power]

Questions that first come to mind are in realationship to the the legitimacy and usefulness of heeding to and looking for direction from more oppressed peoples. As a radical movement or on a more local organizational basis should we actively seek support and "guidance" from the more marginilzed people? It is seems like a practical and even necessary thing to do but is there a threshold in activism for those who are "more privileged" in realtion to gender, race, and sexuality and where are the boundaries of particpaction?

[TC]

I've decided to revive this thread as its relevant and was under discussed.

[Reuben]

This is indeed relevant. Political organisation on the leftcan be seriously undermined by credibility games as to who has the right to speak on what. If you take the view that the the various sturggles against oppression are necessarily interconnected, then it is not only reasonable for, say, a male revolutionary to have a view on womens oppression, and on the possible solutions, but necessary.