Arash wrote:
>>Your solution certainly doesn't stand for just "getting along," it actually
>>asks us to accommodate the world of view of bigots by blurring out the
>>distinctiveness of the groups they want to persecute so they're unable to
>>act on their prejudice. What kind of non-politics is this, getting society
>>to accept diversity by making diversity imperceptible?
>>
Because that "distinctiveness" is not given by nature, but largely by
the labels we apply to ourselves and to others. I'm the sort of person
that people tell their secrets to. Have no clue why. And I'm always
interested in sex, so people tell me about that. I have not met ONE
single person in my whole life that I would call "homosexual" or
"heterosexual" based on what they have told me about their sexual
history. The reason to insist that diversity consists of infinite shades
of gray is not to disarm the bigots; it may be true, as you say, that
they'll use anything to act out on. Rather, it's to shift discussion
away from what I've got under my skirt, who I sleep with, etc., and to
go back to the things that really do rule our lives: who decides what
work needs to be done; who decides how to resolve conflicts; who decides
how the U.S. budget should be spent, etc.
The reason why everybody is playing the label/identity game is first because this has become the (degraded) language of politics since the seventies and two, because we are so drained of any kind of identity that we hysterically hang on to whatever is thrown our way in order to feel that we have some kind of meaningful existence. But, if we could just take a deep breath and go back to the idea of civil rights, I think we will have taken a huge step forward.
Joanna
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