“Oppression of men of color needs patriarchal oppression of white women, and the fear of male violence that comes with it. This fear is manipulated and racialized, creating the “justification” for the prison industrial complex, segregation, and police violence. Likewise, the oppression of white women relies on the racist conception of dangerous men of color, whose enforced “otherness” serves the purpose of obscuring white patriarchal violence and protecting perpetrators. Oppression of those in colonized communities needs class and race-based oppression in America, to force poor people into the military. Likewise, oppression of American people of color and poor people needs imperialism, to prevent transnational solidarity among people of color and among workers. Oppression of gay men needs patriarchy: without it, straight men’s fear of being “feminized” would not exist. Patriarchy needs white supremacist oppression: without it, racially coded white fear of “welfare mothers” wouldn’t stall efforts to provide affordable, state-sponsored childcare and other benefits for women. White supremacist oppression needs imperialism: without it, the white minority would not have the money or power to build tremendous global networks of prisons and sweatshops. Imperialism needs Americans to be divided over gay marriage, so war hawks can continue to control our foreign policy. Round and round it goes. If you don’t have an analysis of the oppression of others, you don’t have much of an analysis of your own oppression… If we imagine kyriarchy as a complex of structural and psychological supports that depend on each other, we can point to the cards at the base of this structure that rely on each other for support–the points of greatest weakness. Then, we can ask what type of activism would be most effective in addressing those weak points. Those are the right questions.”
—
Asking The Right Questions (via thetart)
Seriously. Although in here I would add class, class, class. Because the cards at the base of the structure include capitalism.
(via champagnecandy)
And transphobia, fatphobia, culturocentrism, etc etc. This stuff just all interlocks like a 3D fractal puzzle of fuckery.
(via genderbitch)
