hysteriarama:

TRIGGER WARNING WHATEVER I FEEL GROSS PLZ DON’T TELL MY MOM I’M NOT READY TO HAVE THAT CONVERSATION UGH UGH THIS FEELS LIKE COMING OUT

to contextualize oversharing as a tactic:

- caution, the ways we speak in hushed tones

- being a “shitty person”, carefully measuring our words out to not transgress upon anyone’s hard-won autonomy and safety

- except that that can be silencing, quiet isn’t necessarily safer

- and sometimes we can deal with difficulty, sometimes you just need to say everything that’s bothering you in a space for you won’t be abandoned for it

- not always

- but sometimes

- if we politicize support and care but only in certain contexts then we miss something

- if we support survivors but we don’t support people who just feel bad then we don’t give them space to assert their feeling-bad as something that may be pre-politicized

- for example sometimes it takes us a long time to name rape as rape and violation as violation. the first hint is the feeling bad but when we say the feeling bad we’re being crazy, we’re being hysterical

- in many communities, feeling-bad and oversharing it is only valued and received gently when it’s understood as political

- I’m thinking of all the people I know who would call a rape joke out as fucked but wouldn’t listen to someone vent/participate in a climate of non-venting as normal and healthy and how they are contributing to silence

- because we aren’t finished figuring out how to live together, how to practice intimacy, how to relate, how to resist etc, together

- and feeling awful is relevant

- feeling awful is relevant

- feeling awful is relevant

- I don’t know what it means but it is relevant

How am I to integrate these experiences:

When I was eighteen and had just been assaulted by a friend who I knew and trusted I didn’t call it assault. I was without an adequate language for the mess of grief and betrayal I felt. I did not have the words to call it rape. That came later. At the time I only felt wrecked. (You know this story, why am I telling it to you, you know it)

about me

I don’t have much that’s actually “about me” in the strictest sense on the “about me” section here.  it’s mainly a list of my interests.  no a/s/l, no lists of privileges or oppressions.  of course, all that tells you is that I obsessively and vainly curate my online presence so as to look, among other things, like the kind of person who doesn’t obsessively and vainly curate her online presence.  and that I would secretly quite like universal subject status. 

however, it’s also true that I feel like if I mention anything I have to mention everything.  I really resent having to justify myself by dredging up my personal experiences.  I avoid it when possible; I only talk about them for context, when it’s truly necessary to give what I’m trying to say any meaning.  but this is often, because I need context, because I am not, actually, the universal human subject, the legal Reasonable Person, though I would probably be close enough if not for a quirk of fate, as my male-but-otherwise-very-similar-to-me brother likes to remind me when I get on his case for being The Man.  like.  I do often want to know very badly the position, the context someone is writing from, I understand that others might too, I get that.  it’s just. 

I don’t feel like I have an identity politic.  just a life.  I’m pretty much against a politics based around individual identities rather than structures of oppression and material conditions.  but at least half the people who say that are loser social theory bros who just wanna live in their head and not deal with other people’s problems.  I wish I could do that.  I could, I guess.  I’m not good.  I’m lazy, and I mostly like comfort, and people telling me I’m clever and pretty.  so when I am good it’s on purpose, it takes work, it doesn’t flow naturally from who I am, the position I was born into.  half the time I just wanna be a literary critic, an analytic philosopher, something like that, and nothing else.  on the occasion that I do shoulder any kind of social responsibility I want some credit.  I’m not pure.  I know that. 

I can’t take all this endless reflexivity, this self-scanning.  I’m not “confessional”, I swear.  I don’t even like memoirs!  they’re boring!   why can’t I mention my life without it being called an overshare?  I don’t get anything out of telling you all the things I tell you, I don’t really want to, I wouldn’t even mention it if you didn’t need the context, but it’s just another chore, it’s not a big deal.  It’s narcissistic but it’s situational.  I need to get through it before I get to my main point.  it’s boring.  why is everything seen as so heavy, so intense?  it’s not really that heavy, I promise.  If it was it would break my back.  I’m not brave.  I don’t ever say anything on the internet I would be truly embarrassed by if it turned up on the front page of the tabloids.  the things you’ll only coax out of me after five years of friendship and half a bottle of vodka are the strangest, stupidest things, but I’m certainly capable of squeamishness and shame.  I’m not really so blunt, nor so blasé.  I, I, I. 

I had to learn a lot about I-first statements when I learnt about active listening and assertive communication.  As I recollect, they said it would be clunky at first but after a while it would become second nature.  I don’t even believe in a distinction between first and second nature, I’m Butlerian like that.  I use I-statements all the time now.  They’re really helpful.  To me, at least.  I find that they defuse conflict before it even begins.  I feel that they keep me out of trouble.  I’m not sure that’s always a good thing, though, at least when it flows over into all kinds of discourse.  I have, as many do, concerns about the way people feel they are owed an in-depth look at others’ lives and traumas before they decide if they’ll give them credence.  I also feel like overemphasising identity is individualising and therefore defensive and therefore also a deadening force on some potentially productive and necessary intellectual conflicts. 

Well, that’s my opinion, at least, grounded in my own life, my own privileges and oppressions, my experience and identity, unique to me, personal, heavy business, and unchallengeable.  

i know ive said this all before but…

guerrillamamamedicine:

so i feel like i have a lot of contradictory things to say about blackness and trans nationalism and immigration and cultural influence etc etc. 

—i was really fortunate to grow up in a household where the general myths about africa asserted by eurocentric ideology were deconstructed.  i remember lil rants about how egypt was in africa, and how people want to say that africa is one country when it is really a continent, and how there are so many different ethnicities in africa, and how africa wasnt a place of savages, but of ancient and modern empires and advanced civilizations, and how we needed to reconnect with our history as african descended people, and how every country in africa has its own cultures and traditions and foods etc.  and how important it was that we be proud of coming from africa, and how we built the usa as slaves, and thus were an important part of the us american story, etc etc. 

—i also grew up with friends of my family, families in my neighborhood who were black african immigrants. and it was obvious that while we shared some of the experiences of being black in the states, we came from different cultures.  and that difference was cool and interesting.  not so much through words, but through actions and context, my family seemed to express that we should learn from black africans, because by understanding those cultures we would understand better who *we* are. 

—i also learned certain resentments from my folks as well.  mainly an expression of nativism, that we were *real* americans in a way that black african immigrants were not. 

—the first time i came to the continent, ethiopia, congo, uganda, etc.  what i realized was not only how ‘african’ black americans were.  but also the influence that black america has had on africans.  hip hop was one of the dominant music in the streets.  in drc, the image of tupac was painted on walls and buildings everywhere.  (as well as marley and guevara…the holy trinity, if you will)  but even smaller things, like id go into a hairdressers and the pictures of all of the options you could choose were the same as the ones in the states.  also clothes.  also language.  also political organizing strategies.  there has been a constant conversation between us american blacks, and african blacks for centuries.  we have inspired each other.  look at fela kuti and the black panthers. look at black panthers and west african style from the same period. 

—i have definitely had conversations with black africans who see themselves as ‘better’ than black americans.  but that isnt my general experience.  it mainly came across as a, she doesnt know her own people, what a shame.  as if i was unrooted somehow, and this connected to my status as a black american. 

—it does annoy me when i talk to friends or extended family back home and they say really ignorant things about places and people in africa.  like i know they are just talking out of the ‘common knowledge’ book that they have been force fed from day one.  and i feel like we as black americans, who are so critical about how the dominant culture portrays us, in some ways, should be able to extend that questioning to the way that the dominant culture portrays anyone. 

—and i have definitely seen black africans begin to imitate black american style, and im thinking particularly in terms of movement, and their imitation looks hyper-animalistic and surreal compared to what i know. there is a certain fetishization of black american style that puts me at unease. 

—and obviously watching black americans ‘imitate’ black african movement, it too, becomes animalistic and surreal.  jungle-esque.  savage.  because what we are imitating is eurocentric folk’s mockery of black africans. 

—but then i think about liberia.  the existence of liberia, for me, is one of those morality tales writ large.  how bad can we do?  well, we can look at the history of afr-am’s in liberia and sierra leone.  and remember that rebert johnson, head of bet, a few yrs back called for blac am’s to support liberia like the jews support israel. 

—and ive been debating it with myself for a while, but i dont think black am’s global cultural influence is solely a product of us imperial global hegemony.  i think it also has to do with, to belong to the african diaspora in the new world, means to be culturally mixed in a way, that means that so many other cultures can relate to some part of your cultural creation.  like with hip hop (although the same could be said, with slightly different content, if not context, towards jazz, rock n roll, funk, etc.) there are polyrhythmic vocalizations, but also a 4/4 beat, and with those two elements you are allowed to add whatever you want, whether its an old salsa tune, or swahili hymns, or um kulthum. 

so african diasporic cultural production, and i want to continue to invoke the african diaspora, because ‘black music’ is not solely or even predominantly us black american, is often a quite flexible and accessible tool for the disenfranchised.  because it is ‘something from nothing’. 

and i think this is why us black americans greatest contributions have been in fields like music and dance.  in fields in which all that you really need, is not a paintbrush and canvas, not even in a pen (although black americans achievement in literature and poetry does go to show that a pen and some paper, does not cost that much money, more so than using the voice or the body, and/or both, to convey one’s stories, but not much more.), all you need is the muscle, skin and bone, this life got you.  (and in this i am not trying to convey some, closer to nature, more visceral, stereotype bullshit, i am saying black americans were given nothing.  nothing.  nothing.  and with nothing we were able to do the impossible.  re create the world. ( nor is this an invocation of the magical negro trope.  we did this, because we wanted to survive, not because we walked the green mile.))  

—please dont get me wrong in this.  i am not conflating two experiences.  it is way different, for example, to be us black american and black egyptian. or black liberian.  very different histories and present day realities.  but we all share a similar stigma with which we must live.  what brings us in conversation, often, is that stigma, and yet it is a wretched reason to commune.  

  so often i feel like what me and my friends (who happen to be black of various nationalities) say to each other, subliminally, is, yeah, it sucks that white people, put us all in the same box, we are all individuals, just trying to live in this world.  well we will continue to be individuals, fuck whitey’s hegemony.

but frankly i am grateful when i get to participate in those spaces, in which i am not required to *be black*, as if blackness were a closed space, but to be black, in which blackness is an open field, infinite in possibility and meaning. and whatever i experience is a part of the black experience, but is not limited to some circumscribed idea of blackness. 

cultural journalism in Australia is pretty bad

theprescriptionbenefits:

As I read this interview from Electronic Beats with Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern, (one of the best places in the world I can’t wait to visit again in June) I kept thinking, not “who is Australia would say this” because i have a lot of faith in our cultural institutions and arts practitioners but “where would this ever be published in australia’?”:

You’re known for using interviews as platforms to make people aware of such societal developments. To quote you: “There are millions and millions of people […] who don’t know what social class they belong to and who can’t identify with any particular political agenda. And they’re becoming more and more. Those in power are hoping they don’t realize how many they’ve become; they’re hoping that they just continue to exploit themselves …” Do you think the art of modern governance lies in the skill to make the millions of members of the freelance “precariat” believe they’re only struggling for themselves individually?

I am completely aware that broaching sensitive topics like that is probably not something that’s expected from the director of a major art institution. A director’s job in the twenty-first century is not only to assume responsibility of a space for art, but also, and maybe even more so, to supposedly create a “time-slot” for art. That’s not my interest and never has been. I want to institute an institution, and this means to really create a space, to establish the conditions that fulfill particular needs and allow for certain experiences, and to make possible events in the future. This shouldn’t be equated with simply celebrating art’s “time-slot” within the larger scheme of socio-political events. I think most politicians see art as entertainment, as an expression of consensus of thought and taste, not as a form of critique. To make the impossible probable, and to celebrate the demos—that’s what I see as my task at Tate Modern, and that’s why this job is so intriguing. The Tate Modern is both sexy and democratic. You see celebrities and famous thinkers, but also groups of school kids and tourists who just arrived in London with the Eurostar … not to mention the twenty million visitors who use our online tools every year. And they all want something different. An exhibition like Gerhard Richter: Panorama is just one thing people want to experience amongst a host of other offerings. Curating exhibitions, selecting artists and art works; that’s one thing. Getting a message across is another. That’s why I like talking about small-scale organizations and what they can achieve.

OK, let’s talk about it. How do small-scale organizations fit into the picture?

Enthusiasm about being creative is a key aspect of self-exploitation nowadays, and that’s one of the biggest issues in an era where millions of people are freelancing. Today’s inequality is indeed unbearable. The art world is an ecosystem made up of art schools, art fairs, auction houses, galleries, museums, art publications, et cetera. And within this ecological mix, small-scale organizations become more and more important because they’re forced on the one hand to deal with so many other parts of the ecosystem and to adapt, while on the other hand still being absolutely unwavering about their mission. Most of them operate under almost impossible—I would even say unbearable—conditions. And yet they continue to operate.

You mean they are forced to operate in the face of failure?

That’s exactly why I’m interested in them.

via: http://www.electronicbeats.net/music/interviews/interview-chris-dercon

Latour: feels so good

exmachina-tmr:

“Do you see now why it feels so good to be a critical mind? Why critique, this most ambiguous pharmakon, has become such a potent euphoric drug? You are always right! When naive believers are clinging forcefully to their objects, claiming that they are made to do things because of their gods, their poetry, their cherished objects, you can turn all of those attachments into so many fetishes and humiliate all the believers by showing that it is nothing but their own projection, that you, yes you alone, can see. But as soon as naive believers are thus inflated by some belief in their own importance, in their own projective capacity, you strike them again by a second uppercut and humiliate them again, this time by showing that, whatever they think, their behavior is entirely determined by the action of powerful causalities coming from objective reality they don’t see, but that you, yes you, the never sleeping critic, alone can see. Isn’t this fabulous? Isn’t it really worth going to graduate school to study critique? ‘Enter here, you poor folks. After arduous years of reading turgid prose, you will always be right, you will never be taken in any more; no one, no matter how powerful, will be able to accuse you of naivete, that supreme sin, any longer. Better equipped than Zeus himself you rule alone, striking from above with the salvo of antifetishism in one hand and the solid causality of objectivity in the other.’ The only loser is the naive believer, the great unwashed, always caught off balance.

Is it so surprising, after all, that with such positions given to the object, the humanities have lost the hearts of their fellow citizens, that they had to retreat year after year, entrenching themselves always further in the narrow barracks left to them by more and more stingy deans? The Zeus of Critique rules absolutely, to be sure, but over a desert.”

Bruno Latour. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (Winter 2004), p. 239.

(via becoming-wave)

I’m really afraid of the Nerdfighters thing and haven’t been able to parse why

well, I’ve never heard of them before but I checked out their site just then and there are a couple of things I personally find offputting:

a) they make a virtue of a certain flippancy and shallowness of analysis that I think is pretty inappropriate.  e.g. “Nerdfighters are about stupid beautiful projects and making each other laugh and think with t-shirts and pocket protectors and rants about the situation in Pakistan which sucks right now”.  

b) where they do take things seriously, their political analysis sucks.  their discourse tends to consist of “this is irrational, let’s be reasonable and moderate”.  while I’m for paying attention to good plans, hard facts, and empirical reality, this is not a political program in itself.  if the facts were all that mattered, we would not have the problems we’re having.  you need to acknowledge the power play and rational motives behind seemingly “irrational” behaviour.  not getting this is characteristic arrogant white brogressive behaviour.  which leads me to:

c) the header image is of two white dudes with glasses, which in the context of nerdiness typically being understood and presented as a kind of hyper-whiteness and failed masculinity is pretty annoying and indicative of a failure to consider issues of race and gender. 

d) their whole site is based on in-jokes.  they seem to have a problem with elitism and exclusionary behaviour but don’t understand why, which indicates a lack of self-awareness around what being a geek or nerd actually is (a defensive subcultural affiliation based at least partly on identifying your social exclusion as a natural extension of your peers’ failure to get your intelligence), and lack of that kind of self-knowledge usually means your project is kind of doomed from the start. 

e) they’re really annoying and their sense of humour is terrible.  this maaaaaaaaaaaay be a subjective thing. 

guerrillamamamedicine:

baddominicana:

and white women are dumb as fuck to NOT let women of color, especially trans* women lead their shit. everyone is.

anything you experience at the hands of patriarchy as white women, we experience times 100, in addition to all the intersections of marginalization that exist. 

any amount of marginalization whites and men face we face tenfold.

if anybodys gonna tell you whats wrong with the world and what change is needed the very most, its the most needy, vulnerable and agreded.

thats also why men are dumb as fuck to think they can stage real, sustainable revolutions without always consulting with the most victimized and oppressed, and no, it isnt you. it isnt the smartest, most educated, most handsome, or most powerful. its the powerless who know what the world needs. the least able!

poverty is feminized. as in, its for women, mostly. pretty much everywhere you look. women and children…OF COLOR for the most part.

so trust and believe, if WE as women of color manage to get shit to be equal for us, that is exactly how much better everything will be for everyone. this is the world, as you force us into a kneeling position.

the world if we too could stand up…..

would be that much more grand.

you cant pretend to actually care,

if your ideals are still dependent on exploiting and infringing upon the rights of over half the world.

this. this. this is what i have been saying for years.  we have to center in our organizing those who are the most marginalized, oppressed, the most vulnerable to violence. follow their leadership and reshape the world in such a way that we stop violence against them, and thus make the world more just, more equitable, more beautiful for all of us. 

instead everybody’s just out for self

so im done.  i will no longer support any organizing, activism etc.  unless it is centering and being authorized by the most marginalized.  because its not going to succeed and its going to be a waste of my precious energy on this planet. 

(Source: bad-dominicana)