Ideally it wouldn’t matter. But when people are treated badly because they are not white or not cisgender or not straight, identity becomes a necessary and important tool for unity and resistance. Identity is a political thing.
But it shouldn’t be, and that’s an issue. It doesn’t matter what color someone is, who they fuck, or what God they follow. It doesn’t matter if they’re disabled physically or mentally. Everyone deserves exactly what they need to be on a level playing field with everyone else. Everyone deserves safety, security, and everything they need to survive. Right now, PEOPLE are struggling. Yes, because others choose to degrade them for whatever reason, and we should focus on that, not what they’re being degraded for. Focus on the bullies, not the kind of people they punch. Tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
t doesn’t matter what color someone is, who they fuck, or what God they follow. It doesn’t matter if they’re disabled physically or mentally. Everyone deserves exactly what they need to be on a level playing field with everyone else. Everyone deserves safety, security, and everything they need to survive. Right now, PEOPLE are struggling. Yes, because others choose to degrade them for whatever reason, and we should focus on that, not what they’re being degraded for.
I think if you’re being persecuted daily for being trans, for example, it’s going to be important to you to call out those who attack trans people, and to stick together with other trans people to fight for your rights. Your identity as a trans person is important because it’s their pretext for oppressing you and it’s your solidarity as a community in fighting that oppression you experience together. Sure, in a sense it’s quite right to say “hey, in the end we’re all just people and we should get past all this identity stuff.” But in reality the only people for whom that move is available in a political context are those with the luxury of not being oppressed for who they are.
How do we get there if we don’t learn the ways in which someone might be disadvantaged in current society? Because yeah, it shouldn’t matter, but also, societal inequality is different for me as a trans person than it is for a disabled person, and the well wishing that everyone just magically get what they need without understanding people’s identities is just kicking the can down the line.
Seriously. It doesn’t matter how people identify, they’re all people. And people right now are beaten, broken, and poor.
Ideally it wouldn’t matter. But when people are treated badly because they are not white or not cisgender or not straight, identity becomes a necessary and important tool for unity and resistance. Identity is a political thing.
But it shouldn’t be, and that’s an issue. It doesn’t matter what color someone is, who they fuck, or what God they follow. It doesn’t matter if they’re disabled physically or mentally. Everyone deserves exactly what they need to be on a level playing field with everyone else. Everyone deserves safety, security, and everything they need to survive. Right now, PEOPLE are struggling. Yes, because others choose to degrade them for whatever reason, and we should focus on that, not what they’re being degraded for. Focus on the bullies, not the kind of people they punch. Tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
I think if you’re being persecuted daily for being trans, for example, it’s going to be important to you to call out those who attack trans people, and to stick together with other trans people to fight for your rights. Your identity as a trans person is important because it’s their pretext for oppressing you and it’s your solidarity as a community in fighting that oppression you experience together. Sure, in a sense it’s quite right to say “hey, in the end we’re all just people and we should get past all this identity stuff.” But in reality the only people for whom that move is available in a political context are those with the luxury of not being oppressed for who they are.
How do we get there if we don’t learn the ways in which someone might be disadvantaged in current society? Because yeah, it shouldn’t matter, but also, societal inequality is different for me as a trans person than it is for a disabled person, and the well wishing that everyone just magically get what they need without understanding people’s identities is just kicking the can down the line.