Re: I'm reading Quinn Valentine's surreal response to Amber Hazard.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Re: I’m reading Quinn Valentine’s surreal response to Amber Hazard.

You’re absolutely right! This applies across the board. Like, white people being all, “Well, I’m half Italian and half French, so I have a really complicated relationship with that, and I totally understand what you’re going through as a person of color who has a complicated relationship with your racial identity.”

All cultures and races are complex! All sexualities are complex! PEOPLE ARE COMPLICATED. To position queer sexualities and queer genders as more complex than straight or cis ones, to position POC’s racial identities as more complex than white ones, is to participate in the project of kyriarchy by uncritically accepting what is normative as what is actually normal! Because what is normal is being weird!

(Apparently replying to Amy makes me laden with exclamation points.)

Dismantling kyriarchy makes me want to be “laden” with “exclamation points”. If you catch my drift. Ok, my mind apparently dipped in the gutter, but the truth above, it is real.

These oversimplifications are also trying to say complicated identities are what cause oppression. That’s not where the oppression comes from. It’s not like, “Gee if only my gender was simpler would I be free to do as I please in this cruel world.” It’s more like, “Yes I know your gender is complicated too, you can do better than only recognizing this fact when it’s convenient for you and then returning to your hiding spot behind the Curtain of Normalcy right after.”