Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

invoking baldwin, smdh

jesus christ

A traffic sign with a concrete base was knocked over in the path of the car. Burger was warned to stop by hand gestures and verbal warnings from multiple officers and protesters standing directly in front of the car. Instead, he accelerated into them and the concrete base, wedging a student between the car and the sign post, pushing both for a couple seconds and generating sparks and loud screeching. Burger showed no signs of stopping the car so people attempted to slow the car down to ensure the safety of the pinned student. Fortunately, someone was able to yank the student up from between the car and the sign post before the student was injured or killed. The sign was righted and Burger continued attempting to build up speed, at times running into protesters at around 5 miles per hour, sending people onto the hood of the car.

http://www.middbeat.org/2017/03/04/middlebury-students-college-administrator-and-staff-assault-students-endanger-lives-after-murray-protest/

https://thebaffler.com/blog/middlebury-lehmann

What is it about the insistence that social domination takes multiple forms that drives soi-disant liberal devotees of sober and reasoned discourse so very crazy?

Baffler piece a bit disingenuous? However badly he expresses it, I think it's clear that Sullivan is objecting not to intersectionality as theory, but rather to what he sees as cultlike thinking & behavior among a group of people who have taken it as a central part of their orthodoxy. Like, "the Cult of Intersectionality" (to the extent that it exists) is obviously distinct from its doctrine.

also intersectionality in theory + practice tends towards a totalizing vision of the world so it's not a surprise the kinds of devotees it often produces

That may be true, i dunno. Maybe more so in practice than theory? I suppose I'd have to read theory to find out...

isn't the central theoretical claim of intersectionality that focusing on one form of oppression can often box out other forms of oppression? in the piece the author links to as emblematic it is specifically making the [now famous] intervention into feminism on behalf of black women; this is really the operative nature of the ideology. in practice what it necessitates is a totalization that when we discuss oppression we are discussing all possible oppressions. i have yet to see what theoretical non-political value it produces that couldn't be acquired by saying "some people are oppressed in more than one way" and/or "different people can be oppressed in different ways," i mean what appears to me to be v easy, natural critiques/understandings that predate the term. but as a political intervention it's easy to see how it operates. imho.

maybe that's a little unfair - i've definitely read pieces that make concrete policy + theoretical interventions and maybe using the term as an introduction one can more easily indicate where the previous lacuna existed. i just think it is something that by nature of meaning in language totalizes and congregates a wide variety of experiences (and arguments and claims) under one umbrella, and generally only operative against potential allies - it's never a critique lodged at right-wingers right? it's always assumes a kind of good faith that needs to be disabused of unconscious exclusions (lack of totality).

Anyway, that Middlebury thing sounds like some fall of Saigon shit. O_O at the stories from both sides & waiting for some definitive account to emerge.

is there any argument about what happened? i thought the only contentions were over like propriety and the limits of free speech, the heckler's veto, and whether murray is really a "racist" or not but the facts of what happened seem not in dispute?

oh nm i missed the link above the intersectionality link

isn't the central theoretical claim of intersectionality that focusing on one form of oppression can often box out other forms of oppression?

others are far better equipped than i to address this, but since we're talking... i gather that analysis of the interlocking nature of systems of power & oppression is a corollary concern.

it's never a critique lodged at right-wingers right? it's always assumes a kind of good faith that needs to be disabused of unconscious exclusions (lack of totality).

i think it's ideally a tool for constructive self-critique, clarifying goals and developing alliances, i.e. a path forward. not a weapon.

oh nm i missed the link above the intersectionality link

yeah, that's the stuff i'm boggling at, students mashed with cars, flung from hoods, bloodthirsty packs roaming the night in search of kill

That student account felt pretty disingenuous--the car was being pushed from side to side by someone. The fascist security staff could somehow not stop clear a path for the car move through the peaceful crowd

http://blackcontemporaryart.tumblr.com/post/158661755087/submission-please-read-share-hannah-blacks

apparently, there's been a small furor over a painting included in this year's whitney biennial. it's an abstract representation of emmett till's corpse created by dana schutz, a successful white artist. the piece linked is an open letter by writer/artist hannah black in which she recommends that "the painting be destroyed and not entered into any market or museum." black's letter also contain's the following argument, relevant to this thread:

The subject matter is not Schutz’s; white free speech and white creative freedom have been founded on the constraint of others, and are not natural rights.

Surely this will mend race relations in America

Not interesting iirc

off to bed then

Having your (pretty terrible?) work displayed in a prominent privately run art gallery is not protected speech

Belongs on race thread imo

apparently, there's been a small furor over a painting included in this year's whitney biennial.

at first read that as- ah, you're ahead of me

Same

Having your (pretty terrible?) work displayed in a prominent privately run art gallery is not protected speech

yeah, but destroying said work as the author wants done hits up against some free speech issues i think

The author is entitled to demand this and everyone else is entitled to not do that i don't see the free speech issue tbh

Oh I don't disagree her argument/statement is all passion and clearly aimed at her own peers rather than the gallerists or the artist

Any valid points worth discussing in the open letter are about race and "lived experience" as the ultimate arbiter. I don't care so much that she felt it was important to include destroying the painting as a stretch goal

I mean, if nothing else, she explicitly challenges the right to free speech in the text of the letter.

"White free speech" anyway. (Is this something like "bourgeois free speech"?)

Having your (pretty terrible?) work displayed in a prominent privately run art gallery is not protected speech

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Wednesday, March 22, 2017 5:36 AM (four hours ago)

sure, but black explicitly negates free speech (or "white free speech", at least) in the brief passage i quoted. her argument on that point isn't fleshed out, but i gather that it's somewhere in the ballpark of: the oppressor has no "natural right" to exploit the image/identity/experience of the oppressed.

agree that the painting seems kind of awful.

calling for the painting to be destroyed is dumb

idk, i'm not really seeing it as appropriation either. also the painting is pretty abstract and is not particularly grotesque or exploitative

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the parts of the letter that are arguing for censorship are dumb, I think they're performative and poorly argued, so if there's anything worth discussing in that letter it's not that. But I don't feel like reading it again so oh well

Okay well how about the opinions of ppl who don't belong to the at-risk/marginalized group can take a back seat those of ppl who do. That is kinda the point of intersectionality fyi icyww

That was an xp

the opinions of what percentage of the at-risk/marginalized group?

xp I think the letter seems correct and reasonable, cosign everything in it.

i thought the most powerful group wins?

In brief: the painting should not be acceptable to anyone who cares or pretends to care about Black people because it is not acceptable for a white person to transmute Black suffering into profit and fun, though the practice has been normalized for a long time

is it accurate to say that schutz painted this "for fun?" the work also isn't being sold iirc

I was responding directly to marcos' comment that he doesn't find the painting grotesque or exploitative. I don't know how marcos necessarily identifies but just on the fly I don't remember him self-identifying as a Black American with roots in slavery who might be said to be the at-risk group with the most direct inheritance of moral legitimacy to opine on Emmet Till's death AND receive fame and/or profit from using it as source material.

i don't think this incident triggers nearly the same vehemence if not for the suggestion that the piece be destroyed, so I guess if the goal was to bring attention, kudos for adding that bit. as a genuine suggestion though it's idiotic. i can't think of any justifiable rationale for seriously destroying an artwork unless it constituted true hate speech and I don't see how this even comes close to that.

unless it constituted true hate speech

I would probably oppose destroying the artwork (without the creator's or owner's consent) even in this case.

artwork should only be destroyed if it is idolatrous

Whether or not the artist is selling it at this time is splitting hairs. The artist was selected for inclusion at the Whitney, receiving fame and critical recognition. The museum will profit from showing it, along with the rest of their catalog. Everyone involved will be capitalizing on any perceived controversy and/or recognition for being socially conscious, even when they're doing so by eating the pain of a group they don't belong to and spitting it back out in their own context. I have no idea who the artist is or what moved her to make this, and I wouldn't guess that ANY of it was done purposefully, but it's bad...idk...historical conscience? uhhh bad social-emotional housekeeping...bad analysis? I don't know how to describe it. It's not a good idea.

i am currently burning copies of the time they are a-changin' because of the tracks only a pawn in their game and the lonesome death of hattie carroll

eating the pain of a group they don't belong to and spitting it back out in their own context

this is moronic

Oh okay

the opinions of ppl who don't belong to the at-risk/marginalized group can take a back seat those of ppl who do. That is kinda the point of intersectionality

this view makes sense when intersectional principles are applied from within: "i/we should stop talking/defending in order to better understand the situation of this other person/group."

but it's a destructive obstacle to communication & understanding when imposed externally: "you're obviously not qualified to speak, so stfu."

in fact, i think the latter is fundamentally anti-intersectional, in that it's concerned with negating, rather than accommodating, divergent points of view.

but it's a destructive obstacle to communication & understanding when imposed externally: "you're obviously not qualified to speak, so stfu."

This says more about how you feel than what I said.

hey in orbit I think you are right and I was being unnecessarily dismissive. It was also shitty of me to act as if I have any kind of moral legitimacy to claim assertively that the work is not "grotesque or exploitative", it is easy to see after a second of thinking about it that someone could view it as grotesque. I just thought arguments calling for it to be destroyed are excessive. There are certainly arguments to be made about whether the work should be a part of his exhibition or whether the artists motives should be questioned. Fwiw though I don't think that events of black suffering should be uniformly off limits as subject matter for a white artist.

:) :)

This says more about how you feel than what I said.

i didn't mean to accuse you of saying anything so aggressive. i got caught up in typing and lost track of the finer points. i should have said "it can become a destructive obstacle". kind of a worst-case scenario.

in orbit thank you for doing a good job of talking about the parts I thought were worth talking about