Social Change: Revisioning the Future and Making a Difference

1. +
Part IX
Social Change: Revisioning the Future and
Making a Difference

2. + Age, Race, Class, and Sex:
Women Redefining Difference
Lorde notes that
 “in a society where the good is defined in terms
of profit rather than in terms of human need,”
there will always be groups of people who,
through “systematized oppression, can be made
to feel surplus, to occupy the place of the
dehumanized inferior.”
This systemized oppression depends on the
simplistic oppositional frameworks presented
throughout Western European history.

3. +
Age, Race, Class, and Sex:
Women Redefining Difference
 Mythical norm
 Lorde notes, “In America, this norm is usually defined as
white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and
finically secure.” Lorde sees these “trappings of power” as
the source that marks difference, placing people either
inside or outside the acceptable categories in society.
 As a survival strategy, Lorde notes, the oppressed— black
and nonblack people of color, women, and lesbians and gay
men—have always had to be watchful and become “familiar
with the language and manners of the oppressor, even
sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection.”

4. + Age, Race, Class, and Sex:
Women Redefining Difference
 Lorde sees racism between women as the biggest
threat:
 “As white women ignore their built-in privilege of
whiteness and define woman in terms of their own
experience alone,
 then women of Color become ‘other,’ the outsider whose
experience and tradition is too ‘alien’ to comprehend.”

5. +
Age, Race, Class, and Sex:
Women Redefining Difference
 Lorde states that “we have, built into all of us, old blueprints
of expectation and response, old structures of oppression,
and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the
living conditions which are a result of those structures.”
 Even as we operate within the old structures of oppression,
we must find new ways of relating to each other, ways that
recognize difference without reproducing the oppositional
frameworks of power.

6. + Feminism: A Transformational
Politic
 For hooks, the mere fact that systematic dehumanization,
worldwide famine, ecological devastation, industrial
contamination, and the possibility of nuclear destruction are
realities is a constant reminder that we are in crisis.
 Hooks deconstruct and challenge the simplistic notion that
“man is the enemy, woman the victim”
 Hooks places significant emphasis on paradigms of
domination that call attention to “woman’s capacity to
dominate.”
 To draw more subtle connections between women and
men, hooks suggests that “such thinking enables us to
examine our role as women in the perpetuation and
maintenance of systems of domination.”

7. + Feminism: A Transformational
Politic
Potential oppression within
“By calling attention to interlocking systems of
domination,” hooks argues, “black women and
many other groups of women acknowledge the
diversity and complexity of female experience,
of our relationship to power and domination.”
 The important step to ending patriarchal
domination is first recognizing that we are all a
part of these interlocking systems of domination.

8. +
Feminism: A Transformational
Politic
Hooks conclude should be the main concern for
future feminist movements and the revitalization of
feminist perspectives
The central concern, hooks says, should not be to
reinforce the paradigm of men as the enemy, but to
“begin as women seriously addressing ourselves,
not solely in relation to men, but in relation to an
entire structure of domination of which patriarchy is
one part.”

9. +
A New Vision of Masculinity
 Thompson attempts to reveal the ways in which the high
school students conform to “rigid, narrow standards of
masculinity to avoid being called a fag.”
 Thompson points out that the hypermasculine wrestler
who claimed that men wearing pink should be called
“fags” was at that moment wearing a shirt with pink
streaks.
 Learned violence of masculinity, or what Thompson calls
the two most critical socializing forces in a boy’s life
 The two major forces are homophobia and misogyny.

10. +
A New Vision of Masculinity
 Thompson notes several examples, but some of the larger
social costs have to do with the impact on women, who must
deal with men’s resistance to the expanding of women’s roles.
 Abuse, rape, and other forms of violence against women,
children, and family members, Thompson says, are reinforced
by tradition views of masculinity.
 Thompson envisions new forms of masculinity
 Thompson puts particular emphasis on education and self-
care.
 “Males must learn to cherish life for the sake of their own wholeness as
human beings, not just for their children, friends, and lovers.”

11. + Interrupting the Cycle of
Oppression: The Role of Allies as
Agents of Change
 Many people become overwhelmed by the systematic oppression
and become “immobilized, uncertain about what actions we can
take to interrupt the cycles of oppression and violence.”
 Ayvazian says that one way to deal with this common feeling is to
assume the role of an ally.
 Ayvanzian defines an ally as “a member of a dominant group in our
society who works to dismantle any form of oppression from which
she or he receives the benefit.”
 Consequences of taking this notion of the ally seriously
 Ayvanzian notes many examples. For example, allied behavior
contributes to an increase in equity and a decrease in violence
and also “provide positive role models that are sorely needed by
today's young people.”

12. +
Demand the Impossible
 “Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible”
 This slogan, borrow from the French student movement of
1968, provides a way to think about how to respond to the
concerns of many in the United States without the
constraints of the “neoliberal acquiescence” of the dominant
political parties.
 Most of Rothschild’s suggestions are not unattainable:
 lower the retirement age instead of raising it;
 raise Social Security benefits instead of cutting them;
 insist on a higher minimum wage rather than maintaining it
at its current level.

13. +
Demand the Impossible
 Rothschild suggests that if we were to make these changes,
the lives of American citizens across the board would improve
 and we would also resist the overwhelming tendency to prioritize
profits over the well-being of the entire citizenry.
 These changes would have material consequences
benefitting low-wage workers, the poor, the elderly, the
unemployed, students, and others.
 They would also be symbolically meaningful.

14. +
Demand the Impossible
 Rothschild insists that we can afford his policy reforms.
 Policy is the mechanism for prioritizing how we spend public
funds
 Rothschild points to regular spending for wars, bank
bailouts, and other policies involving the allocation of trillions
of tax dollars.

15. +
The Motivating Forces Behind
Black Lives Matter
 Activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi
started the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in 2013 as an
emotional response after news of George Zimmerman’s
acquittal in the Trayvon Martin case.
 What does it mean to say that the Black Lives Matter slogan
“operates against the notion of a post-racial society?”
 To say that black lives matter calls attention to the reality
that we live in a world in which that statement is not true.

16. +
The Motivating Forces Behind
Black Lives Matter
 Significance of addressing specific struggles of black queer
women
 “[T]he Black Lives Matters founders argue, echoing their
Combahee predecessors, that they are confronting a system
that subjugates everyone.
 ‘Because we know that black women, cis and trans, are really
like the canaries in the coal mine, right?
 What’s happening to black women is the future of everybody
else,’” says Alicia Garza.

17. +
On Solidarity, “Centering Anti-
Blackness,” and Asian Americans
 Nakagawa says the way for Asian American and white allies
to center anti-blackness in their racial justice work is to
 “Acknowledge the leadership of Black Lives Matter and
use the political space and opportunity the movement has
created…
 To ask ourselves, how does this movement serve me and
those like me, whether they be Asian or Latino, Native or
white?
 And then make those connections and tell your story.”

18. +
On Solidarity, “Centering Anti-
Blackness,” and Asian Americans
 When Nakagawa says that we need to find our way to
harmony, he is making the argument that centering anti-
blackness does not mean silencing one’s voice nor simply
joining along with others:
 “Our job is not to stop singing in order to hear her, nor to try
to copy her and sing along.
 To silence ourselves diminishes the potential power and
reach of our combined voices.
 To simply sing along threatens to drown her voice out.
 Instead, we need to find our way to harmony, weaving our
various voices together while retaining the integrity of each
voice.”