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I studied Shakespeare at postgrad. There was one black guy in a class of 6. Everyone kept expecting him to be interested in racial analysis of Shakespeare. He just liked Shakespeare. https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1290962894969098240">https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuf...
I have been reading two popular books on race & racism from a Critical Social Justice perspective a week for the last few weeks. I disagree with most of it but two repeated points seem to be clearly true & not well recognised to me.
Firstly, there really can be an assumption that a black writer of fiction whose characters are black is someone who writes about race while a white writer of fiction whose characters are white is not considered to be doing so.
I think it was Toni Morrison who said this most. I see it too on Twitter at times. The assumption that anything featuring black people is politically or racially motivated rather than being a story of general interest & relatability that happens to feature black people this time.
This is very much the same mentality as the one that insists that any TV show or movie that features a gay or lesbian couple or person is & #39;forcing homosexuality down our throats& #39; while straight people are not seen as political advocates for heterosexuality.
Secondly, the belief that racism against racial minorities is a problem belonging to racial minorities that it is natural for them to take charge of addressing while helped by non-racist white people when actually it& #39;s a problem belonging to the white people being racist.
I don& #39;t mean that all white people are complicit in oppressive systems of whiteness. I believe white people can be non-racist or actively anti-racist because I believe individuals have the ability to evaluate & reject or accept the ideas that are present in a society.
But I do see Reni Eddo-Lodge& #39;s point that there is a somewhat skewed perception of whose problem racism is that is not uncommon. I don& #39;t think I agree with her about anything else though.
This is similar to the first conceptual shift in disability activism from an individual to a social perspective that we write about in Cynical Theories. This seemed like a very positive development until it went postmodern & counterproductive.
This shift was one from:
"The difficulties a disabled person faces in having full access to society is caused by their impairment"
to
"The difficulties a disabled person faces in having full access to society is caused by society failing to accommodate their disability."
"The difficulties a disabled person faces in having full access to society is caused by their impairment"
to
"The difficulties a disabled person faces in having full access to society is caused by society failing to accommodate their disability."
So, the reality hasn& #39;t changed, a conceptual shift has been made in relation to who the problem belongs to. It means that rather than sympathising with how hard it must be for a wheelchair user who cannot access an upstairs library, we focus on getting a ramp or an elevator.
Unfortunately, disability studies & activism went a bit mad after this by incorporating Foucault & arguing that we only think it is better for humans to be able to walk because of the social construction of able-bodiedness & prejudice against disabled people.
