madame thursdayThe part I have trouble with in this video is that she said that the young ( I am assuming lesbian or queen person) could change her orientation. I understand that that person has white privilege and that her queerness may not be as instantly apparent to some as race. However, if the person of color she is being compared to is cis and straight then they also have privilege. In the end she says that we can’t pretend that our differences don’t exist we have to accept them because they are important. However, just a minute prior she dismissed the assumedly queer person’s difference by simply stating “well she can change her orientation.” I wish she could have taken in a step further and not dismissed queerness as simply something she can change by hiding in the closet. or dressing differently. That is when she lost me. I am not creating a hierarchy of oppressions here either , I am in NO way dismissing the racism that people of color experience daily. I feel as though she is dismissing queerness entirely and that disservices white queers and queers of color who have to deal with intersectionalities of oppression.
Actually, that’s NOT what she said (and I was listening very closely because - get this - I’m a queer person of color). She said Keri (sp?) could change her ornamentation - y’know, the piercing, the hair dye, the clothes, etc.
Now that you have sufficiently showed your ass, will you allow us lowly, brainwashed, homophobic POCs to get back to the discussion at hand, which was racism?
*facepalm*.
1. Eshusplayground is right. Elliott did say “ornamentation”, not orientation.
2. I’m really quite disappointed in this response, because it’s a total derail from the conversation. Elliott wasn’t doing a seminar about queerness or gender or anything else. It was about race. A thing that affects every element of the lives of the students of color and not the white ones.
3. I’m so tired of my fellow white people trying to derail this conversation by picking up issues like gender, queerness, disability, abuse survivorship to say that Elliott should have gone easier on them. Yeah, maybe some of those white students had those identities. But so did some of the students of color. And when you’re queer, you get a better flavor of hate when you’re a WHITE queer person. I know. As a white pansexual woman, I damn well KNOW that what I face is less than what a pansexual person of color would face for the same things.
Also, think about how many PoC have their gender identities and sexualities disrespected even if they’re straight and cis because whiteness tells them that they’re not really men or women, that their sexuality is abhorrent and wrong. Think about the fact that a white person has to step outside norms to have that same experience. PoC get it just for existing, even if they’re straight as arrows and cis as the day is long.
4. Rewind the video to 2:15, to Elliott asking, “Martin Luther King Jr was shot. Are you in any physical danger here? Are you in any physical danger here?” And repeat that moment until you get it. Until you get chills. Until you feel something.
Because THAT is the point. Racism isn’t just hurt feelings. It is putting people in real, horrible physical danger on the daily. This is about trying to have a conversation and an exercise in something that is KILLING people for the benefit of those white students.
And here you are, saying in essence, “But, but, she overlooked this part of a white student’s life, a part that even as it might affect her, doesn’t affect her in the same way that it would a queer PoC. Can we stop this discussion of this deadly force to talk about the effect of this on the white student?”
(Source: vegtablez)
