Liss: I think one of the (many) problems with a bunch of cishet white dudes being the loudest voices on the left is that purity politics is INCREDIBLY easy when you've never had to navigate internalized bigotry against yourself. I mean, I'm a lot less inclined to throw, say, Cory Booker in the garbage because he fucked up once on a women's issue (that's hypothetical; I don't even know if he has) when I've had to pull some ugly internalized misogyny out of my own female body and stare at it.
Eastsidekate: Well, and there's the quote from McKnight-Chavers about maybe wanting to see black people on Wall Street. White guys don't generally face criticism for having the audacity to feed themselves.
Liss: Exactly.
Eastsidekate: We have a system that benefits these guys from cradle-to-grave whether they ask it to or not, but as soon as a marginalized person wants to benefit, they're impure. It's the whole "I'm not privileged because I didn't choose to benefit from my position" argument.
Liss: OMG such a good point, Kate. So well said. They pat themselves on the back for "rejecting" the avenues they believe are impure, and then wonder why we're not impressed. Well, maybe because we don't even have those opportunities. And then they're like, "You shouldn't even want them." WELL, MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO WALK THAT PATH, BUT I'D AT LEAST LIKE THE GATE OPENED SO I HAVE A CHOICE. That's the thing they always miss — that what we're fighting for is often just the choice to make the same decisions they get to.
Eastsidekate:
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