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idk if it's a food desert issue and more about the prominence of mom-and-pop stores in NYC vs. in other parts of the country where there tend to be fewer of these, partly due to culture and partly due to population density
― sarahell, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 17:51 (three years ago) link
Right. Like the nearest place to get affordable food for many of the people living in the largest homeless encampment in Oakland is Target, not the small cooperative grocery only a few blocks further.
What I object to is the idea that these are moral or ethical failings on the part of a beleaguered mass of mostly poor people rather than the hegemonic prowess of capital and its logistical frameworks.
One of the reasons that I am reacting the way that I am, is that there is a long history of judging authors who are considered ot be women by how *likeable* they, or their work are - whether they are agreeable, whether their work makes people feel good after they have read it. (And writers who are considered to be male are not expected to meet this 'likeable' criteria, not in anything like the same kind of way.)
And one of the reasons I like Schulman, and the reason I keep persisting with her, even though such a mixed bag as this book, is because she makes absolutely no pretense as to being likeable, or agreeable - which is an unbelievably freeing thing to read in a female writer, someone who doesn't GAF if they come across as likeable or not. There is no wink, no sugar-coating, there is no handholding or making you feel OK about challenging stuff. She *IS* disagreeable. I often come out of reading her theory books feeling like I have been challenged, maybe even called out - perhaps sometimes attacked.
And working through that feeling of 'why do I feel so attacked by this disagreement' is part of what *I* get out of it, puzzling through difficult and complicated phenomena, in which I feel I may be complicit. She's a really good author, for me, for learning to sit with discomfort, and winkling out discomfort from mere difficulty. And she works for me, because of those things.
Her arguments do not scale. They are not universal, and she falls down where she tries to make them universal. But that doesn't mean that she "sucks". And Table, your post really did seem to boil down to your finding her - or, it turns out, her audience - disagreeable. Which to me, is the point.
― Specific and Limited Interests (Branwell with an N), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:06 (three years ago) link
Like the nearest place to get affordable food for many of the people living in the largest homeless encampment in Oakland is Target, not the small cooperative grocery only a few blocks further.
<pedantic> actually one of the food banks has a massive site a few blocks past the co-op grocery as well and there tend to be long lines there. </pedantic>
― sarahell, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:14 (three years ago) link
Yeah, there's also the bank on San Pab at 34th or so, if that's still around...
Anyway, enough derail. After being accused of being a sexist because I don't like a famous author's theoretical frameworks, I'm going to leave this thread.
Yeah -- San Pablo & 34th! ... awww don't leave, let's just try to have better arguments.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:23 (three years ago) link
five months pass...