I'm also interested in this bit, Kay, which I'd really like to see you address:
Race, sex, and sexuality carry very little weight with me. I had assumed that this was recognised as a sine qua non here.
Maybe we can find some common ground. Is it fair to say that you, and I, both believe that one's perceived or claimed race, gender, mode of self-presentation, etc., should carry no weight in terms of whether one is recognized as a complex, potentially vulnerable, human being who deserves to be treated with dignity?
But, I sense, where we differ, is that, while many intelligent people, including, it seems, you (?), seem to want to drive us away from categories as inherently limiting to people, I am not sure this is the answer. I think I get this desire to avoid giving social categories any "weight"; I think it is understandable--race categories in particular have a very ugly history. I don't think any of us want to mindlessly replicate that history.
But there is another way of seeing this issue, which I think Judith Halberstam begins to explain pretty well (in this interview about her book Female Masculinities), although she's primarily thinking in relation to human sexuality (and I try to be fairly careful about not conflating these differing aspects of personal/social identity too much):
For me, the term female masculinity also records what can only be called a "taxonomical impulse." My book argues for greater taxonomical complexity in our queer histories. Unlike a theorist like Butler who sees categories as perpetually suspect, I embrace categorization as a way of creating places for acts, identities and modes of being which otherwise remain unnamable. I also think that the proliferation of categories offers an alternative to the mundane humanist claim that categories inhibit the unique self and creates boxes for an otherwise indomitable spirit. People who don't think they inhabit categories usually benefit from not naming their location.
As I see it, we're all in a position where, culturally, we haven't decided what to do with all this messy history of oppression and cruelty and denial of subjectivity based on class, race, gender, and etc. We are in a state of confusion.
Striving for "color blindness," as a response, doesn't seem to work, because it often just translates, first, into an ability not to see the on-going oppression and problems, and, second, for me, to allowing me to believe I'm perfectly race neutral in my approach to others and not to ask any hard questions of myself when I'm reacting negatively, for instance, to one of my black students. It lets me off the hook pretty easily, and, being human, I'm prone to wanting to let myself off the hook.
And, third, it typically leads to an unexamined expectation that there is some kind of "race neutral" behavior--which is usually, in fact, a behavior pattern that is more typical of the dominant so-called "white" culture--to which we can all simply be expected to conform or "cover" non-conforming behavior. ("Covering" is Kenji Yoshino's term for hiding stigmatized behavior--e.g., avoiding wearing ethnic clothing to work, or behaving in ways that are marked as "gay").
There are differences in British vs. American cultures here, and I realize I may be misinterpreting your claim, so I'd like to hear more from you. |
