Go back to previous topic
Forum nameOkay Activist Archives
Topic subjectThat is presumptious...
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=30834&mesg_id=30951
30951, That is presumptious...
Posted by ConcreteCharlie, Sat May-14-05 07:44 PM
I am not saying it is not true in many if not most cases but I know a lot of white people commenting on racial issues or men commenting on gender issues who take a sort of backseat and only offer observations or very mild opinions. I am very much that way with reproductive rights and also to a large extent with matters of race even though I have read extensively on the subject and hold a degree in black studies. I nevertheless recognize that I am removed in the most fundamental sense and, as a holder of many very marginal positions, do not consider my positions the authoritatively normative ones nor to carry more (if anything they carry less) weight than anyone else's apart from those both extraneous to the culture and entirely uneducated perhaps. Also, as a Jew, I dont see black people keep their noses anywhere near out of the way of issues of anti-semitism or deferring in any way to those who are "part of the culture." Nor should they if they have opinions. The desire to study and express oneself on a subject does not inherently mean that they are interested in aligning against the group at hand. Angela Davis, James Baldwin and many other black scholars who are among my personal favorite authors involve themselves with latin, gay, asian, semitic and other peoples' histories and struggles. If you are truly concerned with social JUSTICE rather than further a particular group or agenda, I feel like one has to be concerned with identity and the interstices thereof. To limit discussions to only those "directly involved" is not to further them, but limit them, in my view.