All your arguments against Rachel Dolezal are wrong.

Jun 29, 2015 //
0

There has been an enormous backlash against Rachel Dolezal ever since she came out and identified as a black woman. Both as a condemnation towards her for having the audacity to don a modern day blackface in order to appropriate black culture, as well as a harsh denial that identifying as a different race is the same as identifying as a different gender.

I’m going to be using the adopted “transracial” term throughout this blog post because despite its original meaning of crossing racial boundaries, it’s really the best we’ve got. Plus, it gives me a good opportunity to address the first critique of Rachel Dolezal’s identifying as a black woman: people claim that because there is no word for “transracial”, Rachel Dolezal must be lying. This of course would mean that before the early 1970s when transgender was added to the English lexicon, it was impossible for people to identify as a different gender. Not having an English word for something does not automatically discard it as impossible.

Rachel Dolezal must also be lying because you can’t feel a race, whereas you can feel a gender. Those who are transgendered typically are aware of the ‘wrongness’ of their body in relation to their identity as early as childhood. What does it mean to feel a gender though? It seems just as ludicrous as feeling a race. As a cis-man, I feel I should be adequately qualified to say what it feels like to be a man, and I am 100% certain that a trans-male would not feel their gender the same as I do. I am told, time and again, that there is no way for me to understand what it’s like to be trans, and that is fair, there’s not. I don’t claim to. But that lack of understanding works both ways. Being a man is not just the hormonal urges and biological make-up; chromosomes dictate gender just as much as genetics dictate race, and both have physiological effects on our selves, but any transgendered person will tell you there’s more to gender identity than your chromosomes. Why can’t it be the same with genetics? Yes, there’s also the social conditioning and cultural attitudes that affect gender as well, and this is precisely why gender is considered a social construct, much like, hey you guessed it, race!

Which leads me to my next point: Rachel Dolezal is merely a white woman appropriating black culture because that’s what white people do. White people wear Native American tribal feathers like party hats, and are shocked when they learn that trivializing sacred traditions for the sake of looking exotic at a rave is considered offensive. But by all accounts, Rachel Dolezal was not trivializing black culture, but was embracing it, thriving within it, and helping progress it. If becoming an embodiment of a member of a culture is by definition appropriation, why is it not appropriation when a man becomes a woman or vice versa? There are gender cultures. We each have our separate hairstyles and modes of dress; we have our own belief sets (for example with regards to sexuality); we have our own rituals, etc. Yes, not all men and women fall into those cultural boundaries, just as not all black and white people fit into their own respective cultural stereotypes. I say again, THEY ARE BOTH EQUALLY SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS. If Rachel Dolezal was indeed trivializing black culture, rather than fully immersing herself into it, then it would be appropriation. However, since she clearly is not, then there is no more appropriating than when someone identifies as a separate gender.

But of course, black culture has a long, sordid history of oppression by white people, so that makes it worse. Black people weren’t given the vote in America until 1965, and the Jim Crow One-Drop law forced even those with the most minute of black ancestry to face terrible oppression. The argument is that when black people are treated like white people, then white people can identify as black. But women only got the vote 45 years earlier in 1920, and if I want to get catty about it, women weren’t allowed to wear pants in school until 1972, and now men want to wear skirts? Women still receive a fraction of the pay that men make for the same amount of work, and there are still disturbing amounts of incidents of violence against women. So if we have to wait until black people have equality for a white person to be able to identify as one, why was gender allowed to jump the gun?

My favourite argument that I’ve come across thus far was that Rachel Dolezal was seeking to gain socially by becoming a black woman. Which is hilarious to me because since when has a BLACK WOMAN been the top of the social totem pole? White privilege and male privilege are no longer the accepted norm? Black women have taken the top spot? Please. And even if Rachel Dolezal benefited from identifying as a black woman, this trans-man wrote an entire article about how sweet being recognized as a dude is, and no one is asking him to hand back his penis card:

These 25 Examples of Male Privilege from a Trans Guy’s Perspective Really Prove the Point

Speaking of privilege, Rachel Dolezal is also condemned because she can just remove her shoe polish or whatever and do her hair like a proper white woman whenever she gets tired of playing dress up, and she can reclaim her white privilege; no harm, no foul. Just like a trans-woman could take off her dress and wig any time she wanted to get back that sweet male privilege, right?

A lot of transgendered people have been interviewed, as well as black people, as well as trans-black people, who all claim that Rachel Dolezal can’t be associated with them for a variety of reasons. So she must be lying, because intersectional identity politics teaches us that those from one group get to dictate how those from another group identify themselves. That was sarcasm. If you don’t get it, look up intersectionality. It’ll be good for you. I’m sure being transracial is quite different from being transgendered, or cisracial, but that doesn’t mean those groups have the right to denounce her identity just because it’s different from their own.

The final argument is, of course, she’s just lying. There’s no such thing as being transracial, so she can’t be one. She’s a big fat liar. Except, there’s kinda precedent. Given the fact that race is a social construct, it shouldn’t be that difficult to identify as a race separate from the one you were born with. We actually have names for those kinds of people, and given the seemingly natural transphobic nature of most people, they’re all slurs: Wiggers, for instance, or an Uncle Tom for the opposite. We have Bananas, and those white guys who are super into Japanese culture. I don’t know if they have a name, but most people just call them creeps. In Asia, there is that whole eye-widening craze. Hell, the one instance that I’m surprised NOBODY has mentioned in this clusterfuck of a media shitstorm is Michael God damn Jackson. You could argue that he had his skin disease and that’s why he bleached his skin, but his skin disease didn’t cause him to get facial reconstruction surgery to thin out his nose and lips, or straighten his hair, effectively erasing any remaining “blackness” he once possessed. Michael Jackson never openly identified as being white, but it is not a far stretch of the imagination to envision it as a distinct possibility.

It is possible Rachel Dolezal is lying. Sure. But people are arguing so vehemently about the strictest impossibility of anything similar ever even taking place that you have to question why transracial is different from transgender. Why is a white person identifying as being black so offensive while a man identifying as a woman is accepted (among progressives, anyway)?

My first guess was that white people are simply greater villains than men, but I don’t think that’s true. Slavery, the biggest divide between whites and blacks, didn’t occur just in America. Africa had its own share of slavery, and when white slavers came to the African continent to buy slaves, it was African tribesmen who sold them. I’m not trying to justify or condone anything, but I would like to point out that I can assume with almost 100% certainty that both individuals in every instance of those slave exchanges, for both races, were men. White people have done terrible things, but so have black people, so has every single race in existence, and again, in almost every instance, it was likely being perpetrated by a man.

Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex points out that it is much more difficult for woman to combat against men because gender pervades all the other divisions. Whites and blacks have a clear distinction, as do the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Most combative groups have distinct dividing lines between them. Men and women, however, permeate all those groups. It is almost impossible for men and women to strictly work against one another because of this, and also because quite frequently men and women love each other deeply. The biological connection that men and women share makes it much more difficult for us to hate one another, whereas there is no such courtesy among any other groups.

It’s also possible that people identify more with their race than they do with their gender, and that is why people are getting more anxious over someone identifying as transracial than transgender.

For the group that claims to be the critical thinkers of the modern world, I really feel like progressives have dropped the ball. If you want to argue with me that transracial isn’t a thing, go for it. I’m not married to the idea. I just need to see a better argument that can’t just be put up against transgendered people with just a few words switched out, like I’m going to do here with this Huffington Post article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/12/rachel-dolezal-caitlyn-jenner_n_7569160.html

Gender divisions may ultimately be a construct, Moore notes, but “sex is determined by your chromosomes.” And it’s secondary sex characteristics that primarily determines gender privilege, and the way others in the world interact with your gender identity.

Transgender identity is a concept that allows men to indulge in femininity as a commodity, without having to actually engage with every facet of what being a woman entails — discrimination, marginalization, oppression, and so on. It plays into gender stereotypes, and perpetuates the false idea that it is possible to “feel” a gender. As a man, Jenner retains his privilege; he can take off the wig and the nylons and navigate the world without the stigma tied to actually being a woman. His connection to gender oppression is something he has complete control over, a costume he can put on — and take off — as he pleases.

…

It’s unclear what Jenner believes his authentic gender identity to be — he has yet to comment publicly, and actively dodged the question when a reporter asked him what genitals he had under his skirt on June 10. “I don’t understand the question,” he answered, ending the interview abruptly.

Jenner’s delusion and commitment to living as a woman is profound. And it’s inherently wrong. The implications of a man, donning femininity and then using that femininity in order to navigate women’s washrooms is offensive. 

I won’t do the whole article because a lot of it is too specific to Dolezal’s case, and frankly it’s annoying to bold all those words, but you get the idea. If you want to call me transphobic for making the comparison between transgender and transracial, then I will call you transphobic for automatically assuming that someone who identifies as something they weren’t born as is a liar and a pretender, or worse, mentally ill.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality, Politics

Are we naught but savages?

Jun 17, 2015 //
1

Since pop culture seems to generate page views, I’m going to make a reference to a graphic novel that is almost 30 years old, but don’t worry because it has a film adaptation from only six years ago. I am nothing if not topical and relevant here at Blog for Chumps. I refer of course to Watchmen. If you haven’t read/watched it in the time that it has been around, then I sincerely doubt you care that I’m about to spoil it for you.

Anyway, the premise is that humanity is about to kill itself. It’s set during the Cold War era, and it is assumed that America and Russia are going to nuke the shit out of one another. This story is actually super philosophical in its telling, and each character represents a different outlook on human nature. However, the unifying principle is that mankind is a savage beast, and the characters can only act with that principle to guide them. The Comedian embraces the savagery, and revels in the chaos and violence that naturally occurs in society. Rorschach uses the savagery against itself, hoping to use fire to quell the flames. Ozymandias realizes that nothing can actually stop the barbarity of humanity, and so he devises a plot to use it to secure peace: he utilizes the Us vs. Them conflict mentality and creates an outside hostile force (how he personifies that force depends on your medium) that unites humanity against it. Hilariously, the character representing God is only ever a puppet of the government or the ego-maniacal power monger.

Must we accept this basic premise, though? Are we naught but savages? There is a theory that says that life is not based upon conflict but on symbiosis. Natural ecosystems function because each individual species plays a specific and significant role in its upkeep. Predators and prey can never overwhelmingly succeed over the other because of a mutual need to survive, and so when life is in balance, they don’t. Even human beings are covered in tiny microorganisms which call us their home, without whom we would perish pretty much instantly. If life is based on symbiosis, then interdependence would be our natural modus operandi instead of conflict. Human beings today, and throughout history, attempt to reject this natural way of life, and this is why we live in conflict both with the world and ourselves. The basic premise of Taoism teaches similar ideology of not straying into discord by maintaining our natural selves. There are also many examples of pre-civilization humans and aboriginal tribes who lived in harmony with nature and were able to function on egalitarian basis, and it was only with the advent of agriculture, and therefore the accumulation of wealth, that humanity began its downward spiral into jackassery.

I mean, this might make it seem obvious that a communist revolution would ultimately lead to peace and goodwill among men. Get rid of accumulated wealth, and the discord will disappear. However, I don’t think it’s as easy as that. As early as Plato’s Republic have people been aware that material wealth leads to corruption and oppression. Possibly even earlier, I don’t know. That’s just the earliest book I’ve read that mentions it. If we knew of the problem over 2500 years ago and it still seems to be around, perhaps it hints at our natural disposition towards it.

I was once told that capitalism was a relatively recent construction, and therefore its hold over society was not as tenable as our one percenters would try to assure us that it is. It’s true enough; Wealth of Nations only came out in 1776, and deregulated Capitalism 2.0 was only as recent as Reaganomics. But if you recognize capitalism as the relationship between politicians, wealthy business owners, and everyone else, you would realize there have been rulers, aristocrats, and plebeians since the dawn of civilization, and the only differences throughout history have been how those three groups interact.

Capitalism is power over others gained by the acquisition of monetary wealth. In Soviet Russia, power was gained by political clout. In medieval Catholicism it was measured in spirituality. Throughout most of history it has been measured in the quantity of land. Hell, even in high school power over others is based on popularity; the accumulation of social status. We seem to create hierarchies in all aspects of our social culture, at every period in time, which lends credence to the argument that there will always be some form of oppression in our midst. Even if we somehow manage to create an egalitarian, harmonious society, all it would take would be one individual to disrupt and fracture it and the cycle would begin anew. As much social progress as Shah Akbar created as the ruler of India or Caesar Augustus in Rome, it was only a few generations before it all went to shit.

Niccolò Machiavelli points out that the goals of the aristocracy are always to increase their lot in life, and the goals of the people are simply not to be oppressed, to live out their lives unencumbered by the machinations of the elite. It is up to the rulers to decide how that dichotomy will play out, and rulers are not always good ones.

Is human existence as simple as a dualism between two factions to be refereed by an overseeing body? The proletariat and the bourgeoisie is but one example, but there are many. Criminals versus law enforcement. Men versus women. Young versus old. Black versus white.

In Ancient Greece, we coined the word ‘barbarian’ which meant someone who wasn’t Greek. ‘Barbarian’ comes from the strange ‘bar-bar’ language that outsiders would speak. This xenophobic blanket term carries on even today, when we have words like the pejorative Yid to denote someone of Yiddish descent, or Chink to ridicule the speech of the Chinese with their strange ‘bar-bar’ language. Nigger simply means black, making something as trivial as the tint of one’s skin to be one of the most significant aspects of their lives. Even my titular ‘savage’ comes from a slur for the “uncivilized” natives that European explorers found in the new world.

This Us versus Them dualistic conflict is of course overly simplistic. There are always players on the fringes that choose not to be involved, or barter for cooperation, or switch teams, or whatever, but it seems that majority of people in one group with their own culture, mores and beliefs will inherently reject or oppress those in another. These groups could be class, race, religion, gender, sports team, gaming console, favourite Quentin Tarantino movie…

Gay marriage was just legalized in the United States, and yet, the acceptance of Muslims is decreasing at an alarming rate. From my own experience, I saw this:

The views expressed in this image are not necessarily shared by the author of this post.

 

 

 

 

 

about a month ago walking down the street. We can all think that love will conquer all until we realize that that puts us into conflict with those who disagree, and there will always be those who disagree. Even relativism assumes absolutely that relativism is the proper method of thought.

This… this is why I’m cynical. Do we really need a Them to unify us as an Us? Machiavelli tells us that the quickest way to unite warring factions within a city is to attack it. Well, warns us, really; this is told in the context of whether or not it would be a good time to invade. Does that make Ozymandias correct? Is world peace only achievable by some outside, imminently hostile and powerful force? Bertrand Russell in his book The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism points out that a discrepancy in wealth is tolerable so long as everyone has enough. Is that really the best we can hope for if no egalitarian society is possible? Must we be satisfied with “good enough” if the perfect utopia is truly unattainable outside of more conflict?

Charles Eisenstein is a contemporary thinker that is a proponent of the “life as symbiosis” argument that I explained earlier. He argues that we don’t rape and pillage our neighbour not because of the laws in place that tell us we shouldn’t, but because we naturally are against that type of practice. Which again is true, for most people, but there will always be exceptions and it is those exceptions that have to be regulated in order for society to function as best as it can; be it a rapist, a capitalist, or an inquisitor. Life may be symbiotic and interdependent in nature, as the example of a functioning ecosystem clearly shows, but that does not mean that the species within that ecosystem will necessarily exude that characteristic. Typical prey animals without a predator will without fail over-consume to the point of self-caused extinction (you could argue that humans getting rid of the predators would make it our fault, but we didn’t force the deer into overpopulation once all the wolves were gone), and that could just be the perfect metaphor for our human achievement. Maybe the reason early tribes were equitable societies was because they had predators to keep them in line, and now we’re just unhunted squirrels hoarding our nuts because we’re biologically-inclined to think that the winter frost is on its way.

I am not one to endorse biotruths of any kind, so please keep in mind that my last few examples are conjecture at best.

Nietzsche describes human nature as the Will to Power; Freud describes it as the Will to Eros/Thanatos; Sartre, the Will to Freedom; Frankl’s Will to Meaning; and Schopenhauer’s Will. Each thinker in their observations of humanity makes valid points towards the disposition of our being, and in all likelihood a single Will to Anything is probably untrue. Human beings are complex, if nothing else, and an amalgamation of many of their ideas is probably closest to the truth. Even if one drive is stronger in one individual than another, those drives will always exist. Is it possible to overcome them, however? Could we potentially evolve, if not biologically, then socially to the point where regulatory bodies keep our less desirable natures at bay? Is it even a worthwhile goal to stymie ourselves in such a way?

I’m not really sure this post has much of a point outside of venting my cynicism to hopefully subjugate it to my Sisyphean idealism. It’s not really working. We are naught but savages, and I think the best we can do is recognize that aspect of ourselves, and work it into whatever world peace plans we come up with. Anarchy is clearly out.

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Categories Philosophy, Politics

Violence Against Women

Jun 13, 2015 //
0

I am genuinely afraid to write this, and not because I fear reprisals; I will not be harassed, or bullied, or suffer in any way shape or form because of my actions in writing this. In all honesty, I will likely be lauded as a forward-thinking, sterling representation of what a man “should” be. I am a “good” person for writing this. So why the trepidation? Why not stride out boldly into the limelight to accept the accolades for being a man speaking out against the horrific nature of violence towards women?

Because I am a man. I have been conditioned since birth to treat women as a conquest. I maintain a tally of the women I’ve slept with, and I consider it low despite it probably being around average for my age group. I feel shame if I hear of someone who has a higher count than I do. My masculinity, and by extension my very personhood, is defined by the number of women I have had sex with. Is it wrong of me to keep this tally? To think like this? A solid percentage of those women meant a great deal to me at the time, and here I am trivializing them into a statistic; into a notch on my belt. A few of these women I felt more than comfortable telling them I loved them, and this is the respect I have for them now.

I am not impervious to the culture that I live in. I am bombarded, constantly, unceasingly, by media images that tell me to treat women as sexualized objects. I am surrounded by like-minded individuals who are a part of that same culture, and they too espouse similar ideals of male sexual dominance over women. In fact, it was actually a woman who told me that I should lie about the age I lost my virginity in order to appear more masculine. To think that any of us, man or woman, can wholly remove ourselves from a culture that sexualizes women and asserts male dominance is incredibly naïve.

That is why I am afraid. What I have been told a man “should” be is not someone who speaks out against violence; it is probably closer to the opposite. Men are tough as nails, and can handle any shit the world wants to hurl down on us. Beyond that, men are reserved, independent, and hard-working. This is what I’ve been taught, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t unconsciously affected by this definition, if not consciously.  To say that men need to change is to go against an entire culture, an entire worldly paradigm. To say that men need to change is to go against all that I have been told, all of the experiences that have evolved me into an adult, all of the conditioning that has made me into who I am today.

I still keep a tally of the women I’ve had sex with, and here I am, saying that I am wrong. I have to admit that I am flawed in front of the whole world. I have to overcome my beliefs about who I am in order to write this. It’s kind of freaking me out a little bit. But I do it because men *need* to change. When we think of violence against women, we barely acknowledge men. We’re not even in the name: Violence Against Women. I am sure there exists some amount of women committing violence against women, but the statistics of men being the perpetrators are so high that a generality is forgivable.

It is men who commit violence. Not just against women, but against other men as well. We are the aggressors in nearly every instance of violence in the history of the world. As a man, I am offended by this. It’s disgusting and it reflects poorly on me as a person. Is it selfish to want to go on a first date, and not have the girl sitting on the other side of the table worrying about if I’m going to assault her or not? Absolutely. Imagine the position she’s in! She is afraid because she knows that there is a higher chance of me committing some form of violence against her than her committing some form of violence against me, simply because I am a man.

I honestly can’t think of any argument beyond this. I’m sure if I put some research into this I could come up with statistics to back up what I’ve been saying, but I think most people deep down recognize the truth to it. In movies where violence is the focus, it is almost inevitably being committed by a man. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Kurt Russell, Bruce Lee, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Downey Junior, and many, many others compared to… Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Milla Jovovich in the Resident Evil movies and maybe a few token others? Even if turning women into aggressors was somehow the solution to the problem of a culture dominated by male violence, female action stars are still typically sexualized to the point where the message of “women are sex objects” is still being projected as the norm.

As it stands today, men commit violence. Violence is bad. We need to stop violence. Men need to change. I feel like a kindergarten teacher, but maybe putting it in childish terms is the proper means to get the point across.

Of course, everything is always easier said than done. How do we upheave an entire culture that teaches us that women are a sexual conquest? How can we create a revolution that will lead to a society that doesn’t teach boys that violence is a necessary form of control?

That’s another reason that writing this frightens me. I don’t have the answers. I work in a butcher shop. I don’t have a degree saying that I know what I’m talking about. Those who began to read this were probably hoping for some harebrained scheme by the end of it that would offer an easy solution to a multi-layered, global problem. I feel like a liar and a cheat for exposing myself like this without giving away any payoff. It seems almost narcissistic that all I’m writing about is myself and a little bit of a social critique without offering anything more tangible.

But maybe that’s all it takes. Maybe if more men admitted they have a problem with the way they view women; maybe if more men took a step back and critically examined the influences that shaped them; maybe if more men no longer wanted to suffer the embarrassment of being the gender that has committed the worst atrocities against our fellow human beings, then maybe change would come.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality, Social Criticism
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