Four Brief Critiques of SlutWalk’s Whiteness, Privilege and Unexamined Power Dynamics
Many websites have devoted pages and pages to SlutWalk, an event that has popped up in several North American cities. More criticism is emerging about the privilege, self-involvement and whiteness of perspectives forwarded in the action.
Clearly much of the media, a lot of men and society itself are deeply misogynist and racist. But is the fixation with “slut-shaming” addressing the fact that white supremacy and misogyny remain strong? Or are we having easier conversations — e.g. don’t assault me or pick on me for my choices — in favor of much more challenging ones about sexism and lack of opportunity for women that cut the legs out from under ideals such libertarianism holds dear — meritocracy, the Protestant work ethic and the illusion that everyone regardless of race, class or gender has unlimited free choice?
My first reactions to SlutWalk distill from there…
1.) Reclaiming What?
According to its website, SlutWalk’s organizers “are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault.”
And that gets to one of the essentially problematic things of privileged white folks attempting to define for everyone else what works for them personally or because they want a satirical device. When events are about everyone individually for themselves defining whatever they think is good for them, regardless of its impact on other communities (especially communities of color, who disproportionately face the brunt), do communities of color really need to define themselves in such terms?
I thought to myself, after hearing of SlutWalk, about how much language and empowerment is racialized. How would the Mexican-American mothers I know feel about their daughters calling themselves whores? Or the Black mothers of friends react to their daughters calling themselves sluts? Probably not well. Many communities of color have had growing movements against anti-woman language for good reason. For communities of color, even those who aren’t expressly political, there’s a visceral reaction to name-calling aimed at women of color, who are seemingly always the targets of names whose historical, cultural, social and political edge white women will never confront. From ‘welfare queens‘ to ‘unwed mothers,’ images are almost always racial. As a Latino male, people who look like me (and Black men as well) are often the ones visualized when people think gender oppression. But white supremacy means Caucasians do not, for the most part, need to think about messaging regarding normalcy and deviance, or that people of color, especially women of color, have been subject to these issues all our lives. Historically, the masses of white women have not fought with women of color, but instead sided with white men in exchange for their own freedoms.
In addition, there’s a painful history in which Black women were the sexual property of white men as legacies of slavery, which white women don’t have as part of their collective memory.
When I consider reclaiming pejoratives, I’m often reminded of what communities of color contend with. The use of racial slurs to empower communities of color has been advocated by some for many years. Yet can anyone really point of a single social, political, cultural or economic advance that is a direct result of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc. referring to ourselves as epithets? Have young people been given important tools to self-actualize and change their objective conditions by calling each other words racists use? Are communities of color more empowered when white people can ironically use racial taunts as reputed endearments? Does anyone seriously entertain the idea that the shock value once derived by using racial slurs in music and media exists in any other fashion now but one in which the power people thought such actions might take away from institutional racism instead got submerged into selling points of “credibility” to consumers?
To a similar point, Kristen Powers sardonically remarks, “Just what the women of the world have been clamoring for: to call themselves sluts. No wonder a 2008 Daily Beast poll found that just 20 percent of women call themselves “feminists,” and only 17 percent would want their daughters to use the label…. SlutWalk defenders say that they’re being ironic, that it’s supposed to be funny that women are turning a word used to dehumanize them into a badge of pride. If you don’t like the slut walks, then you just don’t get the hilarity of women debasing themselves in the name of empowerment.”
2.) Personal Versus Political
One of SlutWalk’s biggest problems is its active effort to decontextualize patriarchy to a super libertarian wet dream of personal preference, without really seeing that the stubborn I’ll-do-whatever-I-want individualism is one of the primary contradictions women face. In reality, women’s disempowerment is institutional, and no amount of visioning the world as one of doing whatever women want takes away the self-doubt women are taught and the limits on what a society that is still anti-woman places on them.
One SlutWalk blog post is typical of so much of this discourse: I like to look attractive to men, I like porn, etc. and this is about others not telling me what to do. Critique whiteness or the idea of the sex industry (porn, prostitution) and its impact on communities of color? You’re a ‘disgruntled misogynist rapist.’ Ask for community accountability for the privilege involved in a terminology that women of color don’t have the same freedoms related to. ‘I could really care less.’
Unquestioned is the desire to be unaccountable to one other, but only ourselves, our moods and personal likes as an organizing aspiration. Corporate media takes no issue with promoting and featuring women perceived to be sexually available to men and seemingly liberated. Such is in part due to the fact that women’s sexuality is a commodity, and that extreme libetarianism (i.e. the idea that the ‘right’ to do, be, and define one’s happiness is the ultimate objective of a social order) is a political ideal under capitalism. We’ve all been sold this idea for “freedom” for years.
But has any successful sociopolitical movement sustained any gain when its primary attraction is the freedom to define yourself by whatever institutionally constructed image you “want”? As I Blame the Patriarchy reminds us, calling oneself a slut in a society that is patriarchal does little more than reinforce men’s ideas of their superiority.
A problem with initiatives where one’s work is all about everyone defining for themselves what’s best is that, as feminist organizer Jo Freeman wrote, the only ones who ever actually benefit are the connected, the privileged and the cunning. History bears out that, in a white supremacist society, those individuals are most assuredly white, and, in a women’s grouping, such are generally white women.
Because we have Western epistemology, some think freedom is being able define our realities. Yet if our realties and dreams are dictated to us by a colonial mentality, then you are asking only to empower yourself in the market. Thus you are only fortifying what you claim to be destroying. Without a thorough understanding of how capital functions in the lives of women and actively rejecting that, one merely supports a set of values already in existence.
Moreover, the SlutWalk drive battles against the social justice basis in which radical feminism has sought kinship by declaring this battle isn’t about institutional violence against women, but one’s right to do a particular thing or two in a society whose anti-woman basis does not change.
3.) White Privilege and What Communities of Color Face
A lack of understanding of practical political realities, especially for cross-sections of communities of color, seems evident related to SlutWalk.
As noted previously, some of this is about language that is racialized. More is about privilege. Rebecca Mott writes about the uncritical adoption by those with the privilege to do so of word ‘slut’ and obscuring the brutality of the sex trade — an underground industry impacting largely women of color in North America. Mott notes embracing prostitution without understanding what such means to women trapped in the business has dangerous implications.
If you want to know what it to be a Slut, a Slut without freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of safety – then place yourself inside the skin of the Ultimate Slut.
Women and girls inside most aspects of the sex trade are raped, battered and murdered whatever they wear, whatever environment they are placed in.
What does any Slutwalk do that makes any practical difference to that?
Instead too many who join Slutwalk say that women – avoids the messiness of girls – choose to be inside the sex trade. That for those women being a Slut is just their work.
So they march in proud solidarity to keep the sex trade running business as normal.
If I am feeling nice I would say that is turning a blind eye to any violence that is the norm inside the sex trade. But today I don’t feel like being kind – I would say it a deeply privileged and selfish attitude, that sees women inside the sex trade as sub-human who are good only to use as propaganda.
How many women who go on and on about being inside the sex trade is just “work”, have done it full-time for several years, with no power or choice over what punters will use them?
How many women who go on and on that it just work, have been in conditions where rape is so normal is cannot be known, where it is normal that women disappear, where no has no meaning?
Mott adds on a comment at We Won’t Submit about a discussion with a leader of the Devati anti-prostitution movement in India. In that country, the writer says, Indian feminists, who have negated the Devati experience as Third World women who in turn have long simply chattel for mens’ sexual desires, support the Toronto-created protest. Yet it is lower caste women who don’t have those luxuries. And rather than fight back and organize to defend the Devati and change the abuses such women face, the idea devolves into simply normalizing their abuse as “sluts,” without understanding such actions could be deeply offensive to these communities, which have long been objectified by the globalized gaze.
In a just as important vein. To The Curb calls to account the idea of cultural imperialism, and to whose benefit.
According to SlutWalk’s website, the event is slated to be reproduced in Argentina sometime this year. It’s the country I was born and raised in, among Spanish, Guaraní and Portuguese speakers – and I can assure you that the word “slut” is not used by anyone there. This is not what we need. I do not want white English-speaking Global North women telling Spanish-speaking Global South women to “reclaim” a word that is foreign to our own vocabulary. To do so would be hegemonic, and would illustrate the ways in which Global North “feminists” have become a tool of cultural imperialism. I will be going back home in about a month, and want to do so without feeling the power of white women bearing down on me from 6,000 miles away. We’ve got our own issues to deal with in South America; we do not need to become poster children to try to make you feel better about yours.
As Struggling to be Heard says, white women have the privilege to think of women of color as an afterthought, a people who implicitly are receptacles for their ideas. “It is white supremacy and its very ideals and systems that make these disputes possible. That make it so that it takes hordes of women of color to say something before white women begin thinking about how they can be more pro-active.”
Criticism of women of color who have spoken out, including in an important piece on South Asian women, has been typically nasty. On its Facebook page, SlutWalk organizers claimed critics called them white supremacists (without ever presenting where such happened), and implored — almost on cue, if you’ve been through the political trenches before –that they’re not white supremacists and that people of color need to speak out about the criticism.
What most white people don’t understand is that critiques aren’t about them getting their feelings hurt about a criticism or the ability to find a person of color to legitimize their ideas to the politically immature. Such is an old tactic many movements have used to divide people of color and pit us against each other (and for some people of color to curry favor for their own gain). More importantly, communities of color have long memories and have seen played out many times this sort of advantaging the people of color who will defend the white people or who the white folks like. Almost never do any of these erstwhile defenders of white privilege have any legitimacy, role or relationship in communities of color (even though they’re happy to pull a POC card when defending whites) or any actual institutional power in white organizations. And at the end of the day the only people who are impressed by such compradors are the other white people.
Seriously. Asking your brown friends to defend you, rather than sincerely and substantively addressing concerns from communities of color, really doesn’t win you any points with communities of color. At all. In fact, you end up looking like the manipulative white people you think you’re not, and ones we’ve seen before.
4.) SlutWalk as Anti-Feminist Battering Ram
Lastly, I have found some of the SlutWalk approach most problematic related to an ahistorical understanding of women’s organizing. Ironically, or maybe not so much, SlutWalk advocacy has come at the expense of the feminist movement, demonizing a struggle that has many hard-won victories to its credit.
To turn social justice and women’s self-determination into what one story refers to as an approach of “look, but don’t rape” seems fine to many. But why draw a line against feminists who don’t favor exclusionary language; believe women’s media representations (e.g. porn, advertising, sexualizing girls, etc.) shape people’s perceptions of women; and who fought for the rights you now enjoy? Does dismissing their criticism, especially when it’s shut down with uber-libertarian fuck-the-world-it’s-about-my-needs rhetoric, genuinely serve the people who need to have these conversations, or a cause you believe in (unless the cause is oneself)?
Moments like these prompt me to measure justice movements by other struggles’ starkest disagreements. To give an extremely brief synopsis of one instance I regularly consider, the mainstream and radical ends of the civil rights movement clashed mightily about integration, and more broadly the right to be in places at which one was unwelcome. What would the radical movement (whose threat of rise indubitably forced institutional concessions to the mainstream movement) have become had Malcolm X said, ‘I not only disagree with Rev. King, but I oppose his approach enough that I will stand with those who oppose him’? In spite of disagreements, Malcolm X defended King’s right to fight, confronting people like George Lincoln Rockwell in support of King.
And while, among SlutWalk folks, none have even a hint of a shadow of civil rights pioneers to claim, how they’ve responded to the feminist movement’s questions says a lot about who they are, their aspirations, and their regard for those who are peers.
In talking about her exposure to SlutWalk, Meghan Murphy at The F Word zeroes in on some of SlutWalk’s anti-feminist underpinnings. “Instead what I found, over and over again was, not only a refusal to align with feminism, but often, an outright aversion to it. I saw numerous attacks on radical feminism and radical feminists and I witnessed the reinforcement of negative and untrue stereotypes about feminism (you know the ones: man-hating, misandrist, no-fun, sex-negative, etc). While I do believe the organizers had good intentions, desiring that Slutwalk be inclusive to all, it began to look a lot like the ‘funfeminist’ – NO NO WE’RE THE CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE FEMINISTS. THE FUN ONES. WE’RE OK. WE LIKE PENISES AND PORN AND LOOKING SEXY kind of feminism that, in the end doesn’t successfully challenge much of anything, and simply repackages sexist imagery in ‘empowering’ wrapping paper.”
In short, it’s an old game: me versus a movement.
Special thanks to Gunjan Chopra for suggesting this topic, as well as editorial review of the article. Thanks to Ikonoklast for the reminder on epistemology.
POSTSCRIPT: If you want to catch a fantastic discussion about the issues that are being summoned in the SlutWalk debates, but done a million times better, I cannot recommend The F Word’s recent sex show highly enough. The program forwards so many important points about the male gaze, patriarchy and female self-determination on issues that everyone really needs to hear it.
This post has generated several replies. A few common ones were replied to here. In brief:
- Some claim ‘reclamation’ of the word ‘slut’ here is not in the traditional sense of reclamation, but rather reclamation by exposing the lack of basis, consistency, the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t that characterizes the use of the word slut. Beyond what I find inaccurate (my understanding of the material I’ve read in fact makes the right to call onself a slut core to this conversation), I think clearly if the idea is to focus on a consistency of language, usage and perception, unexamined (and inherently problematic, since you’re setting yourself up to get used by a news media that goes for the most salacious thing possible as a ratings ploy) one has chosen to trade the basic notion of human dignity for attention. Slurs, by their very existence as slurs (racial, gender-based, etc.), have no actual practical basis or consistency that is in any form empowering. Using the word slut does not create a watershed moment that changes this dynamic.
- Some found the language critical of libertarianism and capitalism to be divisive and contrary to what feminists of color have emphasized. I must strongly encourage anyone presenting a reading of writings by feminists of color that seeks to obscure anti-capitalist and very openly critical approaches (toward white feminists and occasionally one another) to take another long (looooooong) look at the literature. Many didn’t see the plurality of the feminist struggle, the individualist approach or the capitalist one; in fact, they understood the particularlies of issues facing various communities, impacts of imperialism, et al. that didn’t affect white women in the same way, or at all. Anne Valk’s Radical Sisters is among many books that discusses these divisions and the struggles feminists of color raised. I’m all for unity, but not at the cost of sweeping aside the very real, open and honest contentions feminists of color courageously raised at a time many others wouldn’t… and helped us all grow in the process. I can only ask others to study this history, or at least not misrepresent it.
- I don’t have a lot of interest in dignifying retorts to things I never wrote (e.g. you’re saying I’m a tool of whites, that I can’t make my own decisions, you’re trying to make decisions for me as a woman, etc.), but I suspect most of us are busy enough that playing such a game is understood as pointless. If you don’t like my opinion or don’t think I have a right to one, I don’t mind hearing that, but would appreciate honesty in that regard. Happy to dialog on what I actually wrote as well.
In addition, I appended a two related thoughts in a comment below, but thought them important enough to note here. Many critiques of the feedback from women of color contain two key assumptions I believe must be questioned at every opportunity:
The implication that SlutWalk is creating/facilitating a conversation that critiques (e.g. racial justice, etc.) are distracting from. I believe it is at best grandiose and at worst outright arrogant to suggest SlutWalk is creating or facilitating a conversation around gender violence, rape, or anything else. All of these conversations were already happening, and it’s wrong and disrespectful to those who are in the community doing this work on a daily basis to suggest otherwise. A particular group of folks (mostly young, white, educated people to whom such daily work might not otherwise interest or appeal) just weren’t participating in them or were aware of such until recently. Moreover, implications critiques are distractions simply tap into such mythology.
Though I didn’t get into it in the original piece, I don’t believe SlutWalk is substantively contributing to a conversation against rape. Then again, I don’t think a particularly persuasive case has been made for how combating sexual assault is practically happening in the context of championing (‘reclaiming,’ etc.) the word “slut” — at least any more than if people of color adopted demeaning self-references in responses to the institutional crimes we face or how Westboro Baptist Church contributes to a conversation about gender by using anti-gay slurs.
Am I likening one to the others? No, though I do think some posturing becomes somewhat of a sideshow that doesn’t actually address the matters well- (or ill-) intentioned people may wish.
That merely getting posts, people, etc. talking about sexual assault even if people may not like the terminology is a good thing. Political organizers may recognize this approach from the at-least-I’m-doing-something school of praxis. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First, it’s not true — there is a good chance people talking about an issue using the worst frame won’t gain anything, and, even more problematic, may get a negatively skewed perspective on the matter due to the way language and bias via same stilts our collective understanding of an issue, any issue; or simply validate backward thinking in an anti-woman society. Second, such approaches are borne of low expectations of people, and of our potential to articulate complex matters into ways that result in action-oriented community organizing. SlutWalk hints at the necessity to grab attention and thus get people talking… about one’s project, and the words you use to get media attention. And though marketing is a wonderful thing, its service to outcomes is often elusive.
Thanks!
Similar Posts:
- Different Histories, Different Strategies: More on SlutWalk
- Roundup: Birthdays, AFRICOM, Venezuela, SlutWalk, West
- A Gleeful Eulogy for #Slutwalk
- Women of Color Respond to SlutWalk: “The Women’s Movement Is Not Monochromatic”
- Saturday Radical Culture: The Power of Language
Thank you for this critique, and for referencing other WOC critiques currently in circulation. You saved me having to write about this — sharing widely.
i hope those ladies wore sunscreen. :(
I read POC organize even though I regularly disagree with this blog more often than most blogs I read.
You just managed to say that *you* legitimately speak for people of color while I a woman of color and am just a pawn of the white man/woman. Isn’t this something that writers of marginalized communities say is a no-no? To say that some people speak for all of people of color and that *those* people are not Black enough or Latino enough for their opinions to matter? I’m not saying that people of color always take a position that is in the interests of people of color but you just excluded me in my eyes by the way you phrased that.
There are some concrete things in here that I think are useful. I don’t believe in individualism and think it’s empty. I also find issues with some strains of feminism that ignore institutional issues. I think you’re setting up a straw-man here though. Most of the feminist blogs I read online run either by women of color AND white women deal with institutional violence and are all in some way influenced by radical feminist arguments. They DO NOT ignore economic violence.
You know as a woman of color who has been raped I think its a really false dichotomy to pit sexual violence and economic violence. I’m not down with playing the game of hierarchy of oppressions. I think they are all important, inter-connected and that we really ought to end them all.
I just read Aura Blogando’s piece that accused it of being just a Global North’s movement and wow its very us vs. them. She critiques Canadian women for not engaging women of color in New Orleans. Seriously? Critique them if they’re not engaging with women of color in Toronto. (It seems like they are consciously trying to address how Indigenous women in Canada are disproportionately raped).
I guess what really gets me is this portrayal of a monolithic people of color. It is not Aura and the people of color against the white women. I understand what they’re trying to get at it but they’re going about it in a typical leftist sectarian sort of way instead of a productive sort of way.
All the while Aura and this blog completely ignore the voices of women of color which they claim they are so trying to represent in order to try to call out white women on their privilege. We’ll never get anywhere if we fight against one another this way and if we don’t meet people where they are and try to find common ground instead of when someone says “I shouldn’t be raped because I wore some thing revealing” responding with “well you shouldn’t have worn that anyway because you were being complicit with patriarchy and women’s economic oppression and you’re an enabler of cultural norms that lead to forced prostitution and sexual trafficking”.
Ignore women of color who have more nuanced discourses rather than us vs. them who still understand the structural underpinnings of sexual violence at your own peril. It’s a lot easier to just scapegoat white women activists than to actually address the problems in society.
@Spectra: thank you so much!
@Roc: thanks for the comments. I did my best to convey much of the writing of women of color I found on this issue, but if there are more nuanced discourses you might share, I would love to learn. The only nuance I found in a lot of it, unfortunately, is noted, but there may be lots out there I didn’t find.
Aura addressed many of these criticisms of her piece at her site, including in comments. You may wish to check it out.
Per the question, “You just managed to say that *you* legitimately speak for people of color while I a woman of color and am just a pawn of the white man/woman. Isn’t this something that writers of marginalized communities say is a no-no?” Whether I speak for anyone or if particular people are pawns are not really the issues I tried to focus on. Related to both, however, tactics of whites using people of color to legitimize their belief systems are, as is the insistence of whites to turn the criticism to extremes (e.g. they’ve called us white supremacists) for sympathy. I certainly think there’s an interesting conversation to be had about people of color, divided loyalties, etc., but the wherefores and whys aren’t unique to the whole SlutWalk thing, especially when the deeper issue is white privilege.
“Historically, the masses of white women have not fought with women of color, but instead sided with white men in exchange for their own freedoms.”
True enough – white women have historically seen themselves as better and more “respectable” than women of colour also. They have bought into this whole prostitute-madonna / eve-lilith divide and conquer paradigm. But sexual assault is about power and humiliation – about defiling, defouling and devaluing. The white women who are the most opposed to slutwalk are also those who most want to hang onto the “privilege” of fake “respectability” and superiority (and the delusion that it will never happen to them).
Yes, I know the history behind the term “motherf—ker” – that it was used by slaves to describe certain slave owners. Yes, I also know that historically rape was a crime against the father or husband and was deemed a defacing of HIS property – which is why what husbands did or what slave owners did was not historically considered to be rape. Oh, and there are also people out there, many of them on “bad trick” lists who think that one can’t rape a prostitute.
The thing is that no matter how proper or virtuous we see ourselves as being, we are all deemed “loose” after the fact. One place even blamed an 11 year old girl for being gang raped! And don’t think that this just happens in white neighbourhoods – women of colour are also blamed and shamed, probably even moreso. The author says that the word “slut” is used to “dehumanized” – in other words, justify sexual assault! Thus, instead of fearing being seen as that sort of girl, isn’t the thing we should be questioning is whether one should be “dehumanized” – or whether being a “slut” (whatever that means) justifies someone mistreating you? Even if one doesn’t embrace the word “slut” for oneself, can’t one at least see that it is wrong to dehumanize “sluts”! Why do mass murderers pick on prostitutes any way – isn’t part of it because police don’t treat the disappearance of prostitutes seriously!
“As a Latino male, people who look like me (and Black men as well) are often the ones visualized when people think gender oppression.”
There are both feminists and misogynists who are racist enough to think that. I remember Phillip Rhuston and heard how David Suzuki was so angry with what he said that he was incoherent – the idea that there was a negative correlation between intellect and sexual appetite.
Latino males can be victims of sexual assault but also husbands, brothers, fathers and friends of women who were violated – so they can either be sluts or allies at a slutwalk. The Vancouver Slutwalk was half males according to one article – probably not half but a large portion of it – some of them pushing strollers. Latino males can either be gay or straight or transsexual or transgendered. Yes, they can. I wonder why there is always a big gay contingent at slutwalks.
“Mott notes embracing prostitution without understanding what such means to women trapped in the business has dangerous implications.”
This is a conversation best had at the Vancouver Slutwalk – if one wants to know about this topic. I have only heard very short videos of the Vancouver Slutwalk since it happened yesterday, but I hear a lot of First Nation cheering in the background. Yes, many of the Missing and Murdered were First Nation women – part II of the residential school legacy.
i went down to the one in toronto because i wanted to mark the comments made by the officer, but had to leave as soon as the march began because i felt so uneasy with the tactics being used.
thank you for this article.
I think this article is brilliant although I strongly disagree with most of it (which, coincidentally, is the way I feel about most of the things written on People Of Color Organize). I agree, I’m also not a fan of the fiercely individualistic strain of feminism that seems to be all the rage these days; feminism shouldn’t be about doing whatever the hell you want no matter what, and it doesn’t work unless women support each other. However, I don’t feel like Slutwalk is a part of that individualistic movement; it really does seem like an attempt at creating a collective voice against sexual violence. I’m not saying that white feminists don’t ignore problems that are specific to WOC; I’m just saying that I don’t think that’s what’s happening in this instance. The organizers of Slutwalk (and the Slutwalk participants) aren’t somehow belittling the plight of, to use the example from the article, women who are forced into prostitution, by choosing to reclaim the word slut for themselves. That’s one hell of a stretch (if you want to argue about the merits of Western sex worker pride, this isn’t the time or the place, it has no bearing on this particular issue). I’m also deeply offended by the assertion that POC who don’t agree with this argument are only doing so to “curry favor” with the white feminist movement. Some of us just don’t agree!
I was at SlutWalk Vancouver. There were a series of speakers at the outset of the event. Every time one hit on a feminist hot-button issue, the crowd cheered. The ONE PoC was getting cheers too… until she mentioned the fact that blacks and Aboriginals were disproportionately represented in the victim services building and underrepresented in the crowd. Then, suddenly everyone lost the ability to speak.
Well done. Don’t let this issue get swept under the rug.
Crommunist – I think that everyone was probably looking around the crowd and then down at their feet. We are talking about groups that were marginalized and excluded long before there ever was a Slutwalk and who were taught to see society as something external to themselves rather than something they are part of. They may have been underrepresented, but they came out just the same.
Hopefully, next year, not only will more people from these two communities show up, as well as Sikh Canadians, Muslim Canadians, Japanese Canadians etc – but more will be involved in the leadership and making organizing related decisions.
BTW, what does this group think about Insite? The approach to Insite in BC is very similar to the recommendations the same groups make concerning Prostitution.
“The problem lies not with the community itself — though it is often portrayed that way — (it knows what it needs); it is more a problem with the attitude of government — that can’t acknowledge the failure of its public policy regarding the provision of social housing, income distribution and health. Neoliberal polices of fiscal restraint, privatization and de-regulation have taken a huge toll in this community.”
“But more important is that the Downtown Eastside led the way in challenging current conventions on drug policy and the war on drugs by advocating for substantive changes — like INSITE, and the need for drug law reform. A debate that began in the “nation’s slum” is gaining resonance across Canada.
The Downtown Eastside is a very strong community that has survived many attempts by others to reduce it out of existence.
What the Downtown Eastside needs most of all is what local activists like the Carnegie Community Action Project have been working for all along: recognition that this is a community, that low income residents have a right to be there and live a decent life; and not face the continual insecurity of poverty and lack of safe, affordable housing. This means all levels of government must do their part to ensure liveable incomes; prevent the loss of low income housing; upgrade — where feasible — and replace and develop new social housing units.”
—
Community and resistance in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
By Libby Davies
If one were only to read your work, you’d think that women are the only people who’re wronged in this world. If you’ve been paying attention economic issues, you’re likely aware that women now play a larger role than men in the economy. Jobs are more plentiful for women except in the upper class, which shouldn’t really be an issue since the elite are mostly scum anyway regardless of gender. Yes, women have had it bad, but there are women who’re sexist towards men too, which it sounds like you probably haven’t experienced or are being disingenous.
This author sure put a lot of effort into shocking readers into believing that women who stray beyond his boundaries are bad people. “How would the Mexican-American mothers I know feel about their daughters calling themselves whores? Or the Black mothers of friends react to their daughters calling themselves sluts? Probably not well.” The women who are the targets of his attack are violating his parental and racial stereotypes. He is saying they are bad children and bad members of their race.
Sorry, but all women, even “women of color,” are not honor bound to follow his cultural, gender, and racial stereotypes. Who knows – terms he finds offensive might even be terms of affection in her family. Men, regardless of race, call each other all manner of “derogatory” names like bastard or asshole all of the time and don’t get raped or marginalized for it. On the contrary – men are shown respect.
What right has this author to define the boundaries for an entire class of human beings? That is precisely the point of the SlutWalk. Every woman has the right to choose her OWN boundaries and to not be attacked, demonized, or even raped because she did not follow his rules. He implies that women who demand respect are anti-feminist and separatist. If they wear clothing violating his “feminist” stereotype they are privileged racists.
The original organizers were students who were outraged when a Toronto police officer told them not dress like “sluts” if they didn’t want to get raped. The author of this article might as well have said the same thing to women of color: Don’t violate my rules or you will be punished. You will be a traitor to your gender, your race, or your culture. “What would your mother say” or, in effect, “You deserve to be raped because you violated my stereotype.”
These young women touched a real nerve by demanding their right to their own self determination. They galvanized an international movement over night. SlutWalks have been held from Vancouver, B.C. to London, England and even here, in conservative Utah. Women of all races are saying “Fuck You!” to being demonized and marginalized by people like that Toronto police officer and the author of this article.
I think this article speaks to some of the points here too.
@yvette: Thanks for your comment. I concur some people of color may support SlutWalk. I do think that some (possibly most) of people of color who are out attacking people of color specifically critical about white privilege are currying favor to some degree. No offense intended. That is just my opinion, based on what I’ve seen — POC claiming white privilege criticism is about “blaming the white man” as opposed to acknowledging what is obviously a vastly white grouping with limitations; POC who I personally know have NO relationship with the communities/cultures they’re now recalling for credibility in this argument when they otherwise have no intersection with same communities/cultures; years of political experience watching this same scenario play out with different people and circumstances, etc. The white folks asking people of color to say something aren’t helping their cases either.
@Khomeini: Disagree. Unpacking the whole women-are-sexist-against-men is another conversation entirely though.
@Dexter: read the comment guide for this site. I’m willing to entertain some of this as an editor, but false claims about posts generally don’t fly here. We run into lots of folks who read “white privilege” and troll. A lot of people. We’re all for good debate. But please focus on the substance of articles.
“The women who are the targets of his attack are violating his parental and racial stereotypes. He is saying they are bad children and bad members of their race.”
No. I wrote about how these issues are racialized and, moreover, how these ideas translate to communities of color that have been targets on a much more systemic level than white women. I don’t know many Black women who want to be called sluts, and I think there’s a particular history to marginalization of Black women particularly that gets forgotten (as does anything with Black people, but that’s being a lot more honest than most want to hear). Certainly, such is a more complex bit than who’s a bad kid or not, not that I or anyone probably cares about such.
“What right has this author to define the boundaries for an entire class of human beings?”
Being in, from and engaged in communities of color, I have a perspective. If you don’t want to hear my perspective, that is fine, but it’s more honest to say “I don’t want to hear your perspective.”
Thank you everyone!
@ Dexter. I agree with you.
@ernesto: I don’t think Dexter is “Trolling” simply having a debate about your piece they took the time to read, if you are putting up a piece of writing you are open to that debate even if you do not agree with it.
Having said that, I believe you are trying to create a debate which diverges attention from the issue that this protest is trying to address: Violence against women and blaming the victim form crimes a man commits.
Race has nothing to do with that. Women from all over the world have been the victim of sexual violence.
I do agree that the title of this event is confusing and somewhat ineffective even if it is ironic. I do not, under any circumstance, like the use of the word “Slut” and do not like the use swear words in general as I believe they spread hate and humiliation. I agree that the use of sexism in consumer culture emphasises to a male audience that women are a commodity and a consumer product and devalues women as human beings. This is not something that we should be celebrating, and does not, or ever will bring equality. Advertising is extremely inappropriate and does its very best to exploit people, especially women, in the public eye. Advertising is a very powerful thing, and the over use of sex in advertising, sends the wrong message to men, children, and women which can often be confusing. And who creates these advertisements? Who, over the last 50 years is mostly behind this over-sexed world? Men. That is who. Yes women should be able to wear what they want, and it is entirely the mans fault if he rapes or abuses a woman even if she is provocatively dressed. But it is the man hidden behind the advertising billboard that puts a woman in these provocative clothes, and at the same time society condemns it. Billboards saying this will make you look pretty, more make up, more clothes, less clothes, higher heals, and then society which says “you look provocative and asking to get raped”.
I have read your piece a few times and are still having trouble clarifying your point of view. I think that by making an issue of race you are distracting us from the real issues at bay. If you want to blame somebody, blame men for having black women as sexual slaves, not the white women, who, let me remind you, were powerless to do anything about it! What could have they done? Left their husbands who probably controlled their welfare? And be humiliated by society?
If you want to blame somebody blame advertising, billboards and consumer culture, most of all, blame men for the violence they commit against women!
But you should not, above all blame the woman. Because that is what it seems like is happening.
Hi eli… I can tell the difference between trolling and debate, I promise.
The piece as it’s written is a critique about white privilege and SlutWalk organizing. Within the piece are various notes on the sexist nature of society; feminist movement views on patriarchy, which have at times been marginalized in said organizing; and the character of some of these efforts, which seems to boil down to freedom of choice without ever really talking about commodification and what freedom of choice means in a capitalist, gendered society. On these matters, we are agreed and my piece notes these items. However, the piece is still about SlutWalk organizing, the way it’s been conducted, the racialized nature of its language, et al. As such, it talks about the work that has been done and the methods employed.
Those concerned about social movements will from time to time write about various activism; such is done with the understanding that yes, the issues social movements address are important. I assume we all understand the patriarchal core of this society is clear, and I remarked on such in the piece.
For many people, race isn’t something we can avoid or put in a box — we live it every day, and it informs our perspective (correctly) around many issues. Many of us have long had the institutional critique you raise — and raised it long before many others as well. However, if the response of SlutWalk supporters* to concerns about white privilege and racialized approaches to activism [which you may not like or agree with, but are concerns of people of color who, again, HAVE to live race daily and see things whites may not] is to claim racial justice is a distraction, please understand such a tactic is not new at all. We’ve got a number of pieces on this site on related topics, including:
10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People
http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/opinion/10-conversations-racism-im-sick-having-white-people/
Five Things White Activists Should Never Say
http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/opinion/white-activists/
…and, of course, a fairly significant body of feminist scholarship on racial justice is available online.
My view is that it is purely a matter of privilege to not see race as central to struggles, and those who do it are no friends of communities of color, or at least need to understand racial justice before fighting against it. But that’s my view as a cynical, experienced organizer who knows it’s time to excuse myself from a scene the minute anyone — white (almost always) or otherwise — says racial justice isn’t central to progressive politics… because I’ve experienced it a dozen times before, and am weary of teaching. I’d feel the same way (and have) about those who say gender oppression is merely identity politics or a distraction from (fill in the blank).
You are certainly welcome to kill the messenger so to speak and state I’m blaming women as opposed to refuting my points. This is far easier than defending the organizing methodology I critiqued. But it would be far more honest to simply say what these groups are doing in terms of the racial context I raised concerns about is correct or right. That’s something all the rebuttals of my piece conspicuously avoid.
Thank you.
* – Though I think it’s a foregone conclusion that the overwhelming majority of SlutWalk supporters are white, I recognize not all are and don’t presume as much as I can. I’ve understood this is as much about political orientation (e.g. those fighting for racial justice and those fighting against it) as racial composition and privilege in organizing, which can often strongly correlate to said orientation without more efforts.
Thanks for this really long and insightful post. From the beginning of this, something about SlutWalk didn’t sit right with me and it’s through articles like this one that I’ve figured out the reasons why. Thanks again.
Thanks, Ernesto, for your eloquent and thoughtful article. You’ve helped me tie together my thoughts about the SlutWalk movement.
@Eli:
“I believe you are trying to create a debate which diverges attention from the issue that this protest is trying to address: Violence against women and blaming the victim form crimes a man commits.
Race has nothing to do with that. Women from all over the world have been the victim of sexual violence.”
I think the issues that Ernesto has highlighted have to be central to any discussion of sexual violence.
I have survived being raped and some days are still difficult to get through – I understand that it’s soul destroying, no less so because my skin is white.
But if my way of getting through the day is to go buy myself another pair of Manolo Blahniks that some young woman in a country whose name I can’t even be bothered learning to pronounce properly was paid five cents an hour to make – that’s not surviving strong and proud.
Feminism is normative and proscriptive – policemen shouldn’t tell young women that safety from sexual violence is about dressing modestly, and I should not allow myself to be a comfortable cog in a system of exploitation.
@eli – “Race has nothing to do with that. Women from all over the world have been the victim of sexual violence.”
this comment is naive and indicative of one of the main problems that has plagued the anti-violence against women’s and various waves of feminist movements. this comment is typically uttered by those who have had the privilege of not dealing with how race has functioned as a marginalizing and/or oppressive factor in society. it serves to erase and make ahistoric the experiences and privileges of victims and oppressors respectively. please, please, please, avoid said comments as they suggest a lack of awareness, consciousness, and insensitivity.
Thank you for this excellent and important analysis. The lesson goes far beyond the issue of slutwalks.
A while ago I posted something about “slutwalks.” only Facebook page. I believe I made a favorable comment. Boy, was I wrong! This demonstrates that as I have always believed all white people with the possible exception of John Brown) are infected by racism and the scourge of white skin privilege…including ME.
I have long dedicated myself to the fight against white skin privilege, white supremacy and racism. I have been at it for about 45 years now…even spent some time in prison partially as a result. I have always known that as a white person I am not immune, no matter how hard I try and no matter how much I battle against it everywhere. This is a good demonstration of that. I may have figured out in time the problems with slutwalks if I gave it more thought. However, I didn’t pick it up at once and that is significant.
I think it is very interesting reading the different critiques on this article. One thing that I notice about people who say they do not agree with this (or many other POCO) aticles are not mentioning is that we do need to critique these types of events. I posted this article as a comment to a video I recently watched on Youtube about slutwalk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7csD5iY1img&lc=7UDk6ftGJW2TER5VCBKpae0_Jnf4E3MSAibrgljqwTw&feature=inbox) and the maker of the video said it was over-analytical and confusing. I was almost astounded and sad to hear that.
A commenter above stated he or she believes the intentions of slutwalk are genuine with trying to show a true desire to end this type of victim-blaming and sexual violence, which I totally agree!
And while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think the author made an attempt to show that there is an overarching system in society that does have roots in inequality — with many BESIDES white women who have always been subjected to this type of sexualized discrimination and unbalanced power dynamic — weighted heavily against communites AND especially women of color, and unless we critique those, we continue to perpetuate it (even with good intentions), and this unbalanced power dynamic will continue and the oppression will not cease, but only mutate.
@Lactation Journey –
Excuse me — unless we take a vested interest and learn to recognize and critique those (like slutwalk), then we perpetuate it (even with good intentions) and the cycle of oppression mutates, and white supremacist thinking and ideas continue.
That picture is hilarious in breaking your point – not everyone on it is white, by far.
For the rest, I see a very patriarchal critique wrapping itself in conservative ethnic nationalism masquerading as anti-racism.
@LDM – what a way to attack without ever addressing the article.
Thank you for this critique. I noticed also that many responses say things that LBM wrote rather than defend what Slutwalk is doing.
I think there’s a different way to see this. The madonna/whore dichotomy only exists because women who are not considered whores (because they are white, wealthy, educated, whatever)are willing to accept the privilege. What the Slut Walk girls are doing is saying ‘I will take a stand with the sluts’ because they understand that if any woman can be considered a slut everyone’s freedom to have sex and dress the way they see fit is at risk. Saying ‘we are all sluts’ takes away the ability to rank women over each other because of their choices. That’s what makes some of the critiques I have read, like the above, so sad to me. They still accept the premise that a women can *be* a slut, and that if they are sluts, that is bad.
[...] ein Begriff, der auf die spezifischen Erfahrungen weißer Frauen zurückgeführt werden kann. Auch People of Color Organize! betont, dass SlutWalks in einer Tradition eines feministischen Aktivismus stehen, der die [...]
I want to be sympathetic to your critique, but I kept finding (really, over and over) that you critique “slutwalk” for saying things without sourcing it or letting me know even whether such a thing was said by a local slutwalk organizer, an organizer of the original slutwalk, one of those original organizers that went on to encourage and organize slutwalks outside of Toronto, or just random internet commenters. One of the only things that I noticed was specifically sourced to the original was the internet slutwalk blog post.
Now there are lots of links here – I’m not saying there are no links. But what you do is link to other people who make a criticism and then you make the same criticism, without linking to the evidence that they may or may not have used. Ironically, one of your criticisms was another one of the few that cited an original source, but in this case, your criticism was that slutwalk failed to cite an original source using “white supremacy” in the critique.
Well, I can’t follow facebook links, but I did follow the blog link. And what did I find? A statement about how one of the core organizers got into organizing SlutWalk Toronto in the first place. It was a piece about her personal motivations and her emotional history. Near the end is the part I think you’re trying to reference:
“So with no ‘feminist’ stance, zero protesting background {I grew up in a house that avoided conflict, so marching for a cause just wasn’t in me} yet with the same attitude I’ve been using to try and make my son’s world a better place for dialogue and respect of others, I took a stand. ”
It doesn’t show in just this portion, but in context (and the literal meaning of this sentence if you don’t try to force it to mean something it doesn’t) these words merely describe where she was when this all started. It does not say she’s unwilling to be associated with feminism. In fact, the post as a whole comes across as criticizing herself for failing to pick up the feminist label earlier.
It most certainly does not mean what you imply above that she is refusing to associate with feminism. It means that she hadn’t IDd as a feminist for years b4 this. She’s trying to say that she didn’t get pissed because she had an ideology, that she gained her ideology because she got pissed.
I haven’t read a ton on this issue, but I read the original articles before SlutWalk Toronto actually took place (and certainly before it spread beyond Toronto). Back then, what I read over & over was that modern day rhetoric has made it seem like rape is a horrible crime when done to prim, proper, acceptable women (…and I believe, though they sometimes don’t include an overt racial analysis and sometimes do, that they probably intended even just that “prim, proper, acceptable” to include an implied racial analysis based on what is seen as acceptable in our write supremacist world…) but that it’s not a crime at all when inflicted on “sluts”.
The slutwalk, then, was to assert that “it’s not okay to rape **anyone**, not even those women that you consider sluts.”
It’s possible that I’m wrong. The original message that I read might not have become the ultimate message of the international movement. But I’d like to see your argument better sourced and for it also to address why, if they are opposing raping sluts, do you feel that people who are most likely to be considered sluts to be those least likely to benefit. This seems to be assumed in your argument rather than proved.
I perfectly wiling to criticize or to defend slutwalk. As of yet, I don’t feel I have enough information to say which is needed.
I dont think you understand the reason for a slut walk, and it really has nothing to do with being caucasian, african american, and a minority. It has to do with the millions of sexual assaults that are performed world wide, debated on the fact that the woman was wearing something ‘provocative’. The point of a slut walk, from my understanding, is to disprove the accusations men have to dump freedom of clothing on their reason for performing the act. Think about it. Its probably already been written, and everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but no one is calling eachother whores in this situation, just understnad that.
[...] dyke and whore but I’m not so sure that these are names that we should be claiming per se. This article raises some interesting points about it: I thought to myself, after hearing of SlutWalk, about how [...]
Wow, you should put in a call to James Randi and pick up that one million dollars he’s promised to give anyone who can demonstrate proof of the paranormal, what with your remarkable ability to know what “most white people think”.
Now, regarding the very dubious, manipulative term “people of color”, I’ve never seen what this blogger looks like, but I do know one thing: being a ‘Latino’ in no way ensures that the person so identified is a “person of color”. Read a history book; 95% of the black slaves brought to the Americas arrived on Spanish ships. Spaniards are white Europeans, and the fact that those ‘Latin Americans’ who actually are ‘people of color’ identify so frequently as ‘Spanish’ or ‘Latino’ is a grotesque footprint of Latin white supremacy and it’s though extinction of and African people’s on their ‘New World’ empire.
Get off your high horse.
[Typo correction: That's "thorough extinction", not "though extinction" ;)]
M.L.,
I think this comment may have been intended for another post (and it’s off-topic, if not), but needed to clarify the obvious, related to my piece above and not, before shifting it as moderator to another thread.
“People of color” is used, in my writing, to refer to non-white people — often colonial/neocolonial subjects, oppressed nationalities within nations, etc. No disagreement it can be a problematic term. Many terms can be.
Those of Latin American descent, former colonies of Spain and victims of colonialism, are not Europeans (at least in the Spanish sense… e.g. didn’t come to the countries of origin from across the sea to settle and take). The implication those from lands in South America, Central America, etc. went to Africa to lead the slave trade is historically inaccurate as well. Many of these populations were in fact slaves through the years prior to the launch of the African slave trade to the Americas (by the Portuguese, Brits and French, in that order — Spaniards were historically smaller players in the Atlantic slave trade, actually). There are many fascinating books on this subject.
Some Latinos, through miseducation, refer to themselves as Spanish. We seem to disagree on this point, but I think this is more a reflection of people’s mythologizing the powerful (in many Latin American cultures, the conquistadors are portrayed as strong, pious, virtuous, etc. — the white Jesus, if you will). I’d guess most people, because they oftentimes don’t have popular education in their communities or a collective consciousness of history, are not saying, ‘yay, I wanna be a Spaniard and cut off Incan hands for not mining enough gold’ or whatnot. Where most of their potential heroes are killed, dead, locked up, etc., it benefits the powerful for people to identify with oppressive actions.
Oh, and lastly, I’m more than happy to share a photo of my (dark) skin tone, if it resolves anything… :)
Hi ernesto,
Thank you for responding and clarifying your perspective. I agree with some of what you say here but not everything.
You wrote: “Those of Latin American descent, former colonies of Spain and victims of colonialism, are not Europeans (at least in the Spanish sense… e.g. didn’t come to the countries of origin from across the sea to settle and take).”
Perhaps we agree here, if I understand you correctly. If by “people of Latin-American descent” you mean people descended from the indigenous inhabitants of Latin-America (i.e. the various ‘Amerindian’ peoples), as opposed to those descended from their white, Spanish, European conquerors, I agree with you. Neither the Spaniards nor the black slaves they brought over from Africa are indigenous to Latin-America of course.
The potential semantic difficulty here is that the phrase “people of Latin-American descent” would be interpreted by many if not most as referring to any person, of any race or mix of races whose recent ancestors lived in Latin-America. Many whites from Latin-America are described as being of “Latin-American descent” (in fact, just today I read a piece on the very white filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, originally from Mexico, described as “of Latin-American descent”. Do, yes, words can be problematic and interpreted in different ways by different people.
You continued: “The implication those from lands in South America, Central America, etc. went to Africa to lead the slave trade is historically inaccurate”
No, this is not at all implied by what I wrote. The indigenous people of Latin-America (the ‘Amerindians’) didn’t lead the slave trade; they were themselves enslaved, and worse. The Spanish colonialists (Europeans) lead the slave trade.
As for your comment: “Spaniards were historically smaller players in the Atlantic slave trade, actually”, this is simply incorrect. The Spanish were by far the biggest players in the slave trade, along with the Portuguese. The French and British got involved later and quit the trade sooner; in fact, the Spanish were pressed by the British to stop the slave trade, and slavery continued in man Latin-American colonies long after it had been abolished in the U.S. (the enslavement of blacks continued in Spanish controlled Puerto Rico until 1873, and in Brazil until the 1880s). And as I said, 95% of the blacks brought as slaves to the New World arrived on Spanish and Portuguese ships. This is a readily verifiable fact.
Finally, merely having ‘dark skin’ doesn’t mean one is a ‘person of color’. Many white Europeans have ‘dark skin’; anyone with a tan complexion such as is commonly found across the southern half of Europe could be described as ‘dark skinned’, that doesn’t make them ‘people of color’. In fact, in many parts of Latin-America, even people who have noticeable Amerindian or African admixture are considered white, as you undoubtedly are aware of.
Of course, again, not having seen you, you may well be someone who could reasonably be called a “person of color” (i.e. someone clearly of non-European or mostly non-European descent).
My concern here is the phenomenon, which I have observed many times, of white people from Spanish speaking countries piously claiming to be “people of color”. This, I think, is obscene as it would be for white descendants of slave masters from Jamaica or Haiti calling themselves “people of color”.
The term “people of color” problematic also because it falsely suggests that all non-whites have had comparable experiences with racism in the U.S.. Africans and the indigenous people’s had it far worse than Asians or ‘Latinos’. Heck, one of the most notoriously racist segregationists of the old, “Jim Crow” south was Judge Leander Perez, yet his grandchildren would be counted by many fools today as “people of color” simply because their last name is Spanish. That’s dumb, isn’t it?
Any way, that’s my point here.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
Oops! Another typo: in the last sentence of the 4th paragraph, I meant to write “SO yes, words can be problematic and interpreted in different ways by different people”, not ” Do, yes, words can be problematic and interpreted in different ways by different people”. Autocorrect is a killer, isn’t it? Layer ;)
Please read: “An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk.” It is profound and authenitcally speaks to the issue of sexual violence and rape as it relates to women of color.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/blackwomens-blueprint/an-open-letter-from-black-women-to-the-slutwalk/232501930131880?notif_t=like
For futher clarity on where we, as Black/Brown mothers in NYC who identify as “Nu Age Community Feminists” stand in solidarity with our sisters in this struggle, see our blog at http://themanyrules.blogspot.com
We ARE The MANY.
[...] Four brief critiques of SlutWalk’s Whiteness, Privilege, and Unexamined Power Dynamics. [...]
“Yet can anyone really point of a single social, political, cultural or economic advance that is a direct result of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc. referring to ourselves as epithets?”
I can’t think of the examples you write “Black, Latinos, Asians, etc” – but the LGBT Community certainly took the word queer and politicized it to our benefit. Now there are whole segments of academe devoted to “queer studies” and political gays often refer to themselves as queers.
Otherwise, I agree with your article and with the problems with SlutWalk.
Your crits are valid. But as a straight man of color who strut his stuff with fellow brothers and sisters of all colors, identities and orientations, I have the odd sense of my presence not being read. Not because the issues at hand are privileged white issues, as they may have very well originated from (see Foucault’s History of Sexuality). But because our society, influenced by media and academia have set the issues in these narrow parameters. Not enough people of color are getting involved. Sex-positive activism is against DISCRIMINATION and PREJUDICE. If you are someone who as been discriminated against I don’t understand how could not help stop it from happening to anyone else.
That being said there are plenty of non-whites in and around the movement.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/verticalfilms/6208145910/in/set-72157627685460939
Peace
This is a terrific, deeply engaged critique. I invite anyone to look at my own critique of Slutwalk, called Branding feminism: Slutwalk, at kmiriam.wordpress.com
Ernesto, thanks again for this critique. see my critique of slut-walk at kmiriam.wordpress.com called Branding Feminism. Blog is called Dialectical Spin:Radical Feminism in Otherland
Kathy – thank you! BTW I love your site and am a subscriber. :)