Mapping the Margins | Age/Race/Class&Sex: Women Redefining Difference

Today I am looking at two works. Mapping the Margins by Kimberle Crenshaw and Age,Race, Class & Sex by Audre Lorde. Both of these works focus on the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality is the recognition of the many strands that make up identity like how sexism and racism are interwined in the identities of women of color.

In Mapping the Margins it starts out by giving a little insight on how things have changed throughout the years. It starts by saying that politicization has transformed the way we understand certain things. For example battering of women used to be a quiet thing, and now we see it as a widespread problem that affects women as a class. It then proceeds to begin its discussion on identity politics. It starts off by saying that a problem with identity politics is that it ignores intragroup differences. I think this is very true. We learned earlier in this semester that intragroup differences exceed the differences between groups. This is hard for some of us to understand because it seems like the only things we see in mainstream media is the differences between groups; Americans vs. the world, Muslims vs. Christians, black vs. whites, women vs. men. Very rarely do we hear about black women vs. white women at least in mainstream media. This ignoring of differences within groups contributes to the tension among groups as stated by Crenshaw. This brings us back to the idea of intersectionality. Women are all fighting for women's rights, however there are black women fighting, and white women fighting and this struggle to get intragroup differences out of the way prevents the solidarity between women as a whole. Our country is so obsessed with becoming one at times that we need to actually figure out what "one" is. It seems that if we want to become one, then we need to become the norm which society makes out to be white, middle class, rich, skinny, etc. Why is this the norm. What ever happened to accepting our differences and living as one that way instead. Many people believe that we need to have separation and if we didn't what would be fighting for in the end.

The two selections then goes on to discuss the violence that covers women of color and immigrant women. This is a tricky topic to overcome because immigrant women are alot of times dependent on their male husbands for economic situation and legal status. This can make things difficult since the women could at times not be able to come for help because of fear. There are many other barriers including the language barrier that makes it difficult for women of immigrant color to get help or to advance.

The next selection states alot of the same points of intersectionality. She starts off by saying she is a black, lesbian, mother, socialist, in a interracial relationship. Her primary goal is to state why their are unacknowledged class differences and how they rob women of energy and creative insight. I will discuss this selection in more detail in the next writing, but for now it is important for us to grasp the intersectionality in the realm of multiculturalism and how to overcome it.

The Other History of Intercultural Performance

This blog entry focuses primarily with the movie/writing entitled "the Other History of Intercultural Performance. The primary plot for this work was for two people to present themselves as two Amerindians that went undiscovered by the Europeans for five centuries. These two such "actors" were to be entrapped in a cage and be put on display as performance art around the United States and other parts of the world. On page 86 of the text it states "Our performance was based on the once popular European and North American practice of exhibiting indigenous people from Africa, Asia, and the Americas in zoos, parks, taverns, museums, freak shows, and circuses." This "throwback" performance was actually a study not of the two undiscovered Indians, but a study of people in the audiences reactions and feelings. The variety of emotions and expressions that were displayed in the movie by people in the crowd show the presence of mental separation that many of us still have today. Many people took the performance at the art shows to be extremely serious. I don't really think that is what the creators of the project were going for. I think in a sense they were trying to portray the image of "the noble savage - someone who is indigenous, but yet still has a European personality" This is evident with the two experimenters watching TV, reading, doing normal 21st century activities, but yet had the appearance of people that had been mistreated centuries ago. This brought on a mixture of reactions as stated by the text, "many audience members felt entitled to assume the role of the colonizer, only to find themselves uncomfortable with the implications of the game." It also showed an audience woman, who was so moved that she started shedding tears proclaiming that the treatment of these people were harsh, and that she was sorry. These exhibitions around the globe could be summarized best by the text that says "the human exhibitions dramatize the colonial unconscious of American society." I think this can wrap up most of my thoughts and opinions in the proverbial nutshell. I think most of the opinions about other cultures and prejudices are present because of being "unconscious" to what is around us. Not understanding or taking the time to get to know a different race, culture, being is what separates our thoughts and actions. I think the experiment that we read/watched about explores ourselves, and hopefully by educating the people and opening our eyes, we can eliminate the feelings of otherness.

New Technologies of Race, Human Genome Diversity Project

New Technologies of Race:

In this reading by Evelynn Hammonds, the topic of morphing is brought to our attention. The article starts out with a quote from the New York Times magazine from 1950 stating "No Scientific basis for Race Bias Found by World Panel of Experts." This showed that science was now involved with defining race in the world. This article suggests that due to science, there are no differences between the races. This is a very bold argument. I am a science oriented person at heart. I believe that science is the basis for the reason that most things are the way that they are. I think with race however, this cannot be judged based on a scientific level. This is apparent when they bring forth the morphing of SimEve. SimEve was an image of a woman that was morphed together from the "appearance" of different races for Time Magazine. This image of the woman was as written by Evelynn Hammonds as "not a true composite, but a preferred or filtered composite of mixed figures, with no discussion the assumptions or implications underlying the choices." This is in my opinion a very true statement. My view is that all people are of a "mixed race" originally. The SimEve was created using a definite proportion of different races. This combination of races doesn't make sense to me, and another point to make is that the article in Time Magazine called her the "New Face of America." How does this even make sense? How is this a "new" face of America? It has to do with the term miscegenation. The mixture of races from reproduction. This article is possibly suggesting that more people today of mixed races so to speak are having a new child with this new face of America. This has been occurring for decades and generations, so I don't understand why they are bringing this up just now in Time Magazine.

This reading to me was the main topic of discussion for our class this past week. We also read a few more readings. This included a story entitled "Recitatif", which is about 2 young girls in an orphanage. We never really learn which one is black or white, but it shows that many of us make assumptions based on context within the story as was apparent from certain peoples comments in class. This story shows a long timeline for 2 girls as they progress through ages of racial separation. This article leaves much speculation and mystery as it ends in my opinion abruptly "what the hell happened to Maggie?" I for one, do not know

Also read was an article by Ian Lopez entitled "The social construction of Race" This article brought on the theory that there is greater variation exiting within populations than between populations. I had a hard time grasping this, because what we mainly see around us is hostility between races, and not so much within these races. This begs the question of why that is, and why we don't hear intra-race variation everyday and on the news.

Each of these articles proposed different ideas and beliefs regarding individual's viewpoints toward the "appearance" of race. One thing i did learn this past week thanks to a scientific study (pbs) regarding american's race; we cannot judge based on appearance.

Racism & Feminism

The first reading that our class was assigned was an excerpt from the book "Ain't I a Woman" written by Bell Hooks. The section Racism and Feminism: The Issue of Accountability poses a question that has been asked for years and years. Why is there social injustice in the world? Bell Hook is an African-American woman who explains where our injustices stem from. I believe the main purpose of the writing was to decrease ignorance of social inequality. In our society the ignorant are the ones who are more likely to not be equal in their thoughts and actions. It is this learning and teaching that helps our society on a whole become more equal. Once the mis-education becomes apparent and people just accept things for what they are, everything becomes normalized; we live based on what we've always known. At times throughout history, there are crusaders that desire to make social change for the betterment of everyone, at least in the crusaders eyes.

Bell Hooks was fighting on more than one front so to speak. White women throughout recent history were fighting for their own equality. This was apparent through fighting to get the vote they so desired. This however was a double edged knife. White women were fighting for their own rights, and not for all women's rights. Bell hooks makes it known that the white women did not want the black women to get an upper hand when it comes to privileges. This is why the black women were fighting on a much larger front. They were fighting for the group of women, but they were also fighting for the rights of blacks as well. When slavery ended in the 1800's, many believed that this would end many of the social inequality's of the nation. This was not the case however. The end of slavery did not equal social equality. This still left the black women fighting more than one battle.

Bell Hooks does a great job of proving her theory and trying to explain her points of view. She covers many of her points with historic and factual information that cannot be disputed. She makes sure to cover all fronts by trying to paint a picture of what others were seeing. She also claims that racial imperialism supersedes gender imperialism. This makes sense even looking at today's world. There are many more races than their are genders, so it makes sense that complete racial equality would happen after gender equality in many views.

The main point behind this entire article was to give the reader a lesson or education and try to decrease the ignorance of social inequality that our society as a whole has. I had a hard time reading this excerpt. Not because it was bad, or i disagreed, but because I am not used to this type of reading. From my limited experience and knowledge of these types of issues, I thought that it was well written and really showed certain issues that we will discuss in class in the future. I look forward to expanding my knowledge on these issues so I'll have a greater understanding and not be ignorant.