worries/anxieties…theoretical musings of a “fronting” postmodernizing de-colonializing kind..still

More and more and more these days i really worry. I worry that i’m on the right path, i worry that i am one of those who don’t know what the fuck resistance looks like but will gleefully participate in armchair activism and theory without walking that talk. I worry that my live is fully invested in systems of domination and oppression. I worry that i have completely bought into systems of domination and oppression.

I worry so much that i am completely invested, shamelessly and apologetically in privilege status acquiring knowledge production and ways of making sense and meaning of the WORLD that I KNOW can feel in my gut in ways that send me to the fucking bathroom with the run…speaking of nervous condition of all sorts maybe daramgemba was on to something..besides the ableist pathologizing, i mean.

I want this degree so bad, i want my masters and phd not neccessarily cos i think i’m so good that i will change the world but i enjoy 1, its the only think i think i can do well and i want the social status and prestige but what about the adoption of ways by which whiteness has maintained its “expertise”, dominion and maintain its supremacy eh..how do i reconcile the two?

theories Mbembe and Irele (in praise of alienation) on alienation even hooks (postmodern blackness) on the creative forces of liminality help not much here, because i think it is the only forward because want the privilege and access that they have gotten used to …cop out alert bottom.

As an aside i feel like bitch slapping all the so called black diasporic feminist who COMPLETELY ignore the fine fine work that RECENT african feminist female scholars are doing on the the black body as subject as african as nation….SERIOUSLY, go pick up a fucking book and realize….

I think the key is to continue to examine Mbembe’s (african modes of self writting)notion of what it means to continue to engage in negotiation simply for power to be utilized for domination (which i fit very well ) with the master..not a study of whiteness and constructions of the authentic black person BUT really the feeling, and intracacies and nuanced instances of servitutude.

Because in spite of my my ambition for the accrument of what can only be borrowed power , the degrees, i feel like a SERVANT, i feel like one in servitude…talk about nervous conditions, talk about living in bondage someone needs to do a postcolonial/post modernization theoretical analysis of classical nigerian nollywood movies and the ways that they address the irrational logic of the postcolonial state and was of conceptualizing the african subject..now that would be a fun paper not this shit i’m churning out like i CARE…bS…neways but i will forever understand living in bondage differently…word

i’m a hardworker. I aint lazy and that don’t make me a capitalist whore either!

 

I am a VERY responsible person, and a VERY persistent person. I work HARD. I had work HArd for everything for things that most people take for granted. That is part of the way that my own oppression and domination take place…so excuse me when i chaff at the bit. All this month and from about half of last month I’ve been deconstructing the messages that I’ve been bombarded with all my life which is that I am LAZY.

See the story is BECAUSE of the fact that I have a disability I should be already and willingly and should have long since made peace with the fact that in order for me to achieve, succeed or get to be “normal” or have the things/access and privileges that “regular” “everybody” then I should already know that I HAVE to work harder, I HAVE to be stronger, I have to BE soo much more and hence the super crip, overachieving and most importantly passing disabled me was formed, reinforced and reaffirmed.

remember when I started to actively read and think the “feminist anthologies”: Susan Raffo, Eli Claire and other writers living with a disability that critique the super crip phenomenon but most of it is a simple stop resist and reject the super crip stance. This stance in reality is VERY VERY DEADLY for a person who is not white and middle classed and generally has a safety net of privilege to land on should they choose to reject the super crip phenomenon.

I have worked hard and I have always worked hard all my life. I say this with grave bitterness, most of the people who know me are familiar with this bitterness but it is a good bitterness, it is a good rage. If I didn’t have it, I would be worried because it would mean that somewhere deep inside of me I no longer can gage, I no longer can tell within myself the way that things are and the way that things should be. I would have nothing to look forward. Disabled people and trauma survivors of which I am both have suffered and continue to suffer a lot of hostile and violent STIGMA simply because they are who they are and they have this bitterness and this rage. I am not a friendly person, I am not nice, feel free to call me a wicked person, feel free to even call me a monster.

Anyways, the point of all of this is working hard is tough and it makes me weak, it makes me vulnerable to affection and care received from other people because I feel like they care and I am so deeply affected by a show/gesture of care and affection that might not mean as much to them as much as it meant to me, nor SHOULD IT, if I wasn’t soo tired or weakened or in so much pain in the first place. (it shouldn’t be that way to state the obvious, in a good equal world people wouldn’t say dumb and hurtful toxic destructive garbage meant to humiliate, embarrass and dominate crap like I wish I was disabled so I could get befits or its unfair that disabled people get special advantages that that they then turn around and take advantage of ..there would ALREADY be policies, structural practices and a general cultural understanding that these things are only the beginning in addressing the unequal ground that we exist in, THEY WOULD ALREADY BE IN PLACE< IT WOULD ALREADY BE UNDERSTOOD people would not have to be constructed as lying and cheating even as their labor worth and existence are being exploited for the power and dominance of more powerful others…. Like DUH!!)

it is in explaining this little fact and the share unfairness of the situation usually brings me to tears. Big time. It hurts, it a dagger through my heart and back BECAUSE why? Because it affects literally my quality of life, it affects the kinds of conversations that I can have, my feeling of security with others, my safety, my security, my confidence and assurance in others perception of myself….it breaks my heart when it come from people whom I love and have loved dearly. It seems to make loving, living, sharing with them of any kind almost impossible. I need help in this respect; I need help when it comes to finding ways to build alliances that are honest, respectful, and not harmful in this regard. I’m working through that.

I’m learning to work for myself and to offer myself care because I am realizing that when able bodied people and non trauma survivors offer care/support that they so within an ableist framework given that this is what they operate within on a daily basis. This therefore means that they are operating from an at best, questioned and slightly critiqued place of pity and save the monster or upliftment of the handicapped place where they unspokenly EXPECT you to be grateful or like they’re actually like really and truly saving you when in reality they are being patronizing, condescending, oppressive people only interested in sucking the little passion, resistance, fight you got in you when they insist that you affirm their dominance and power and my dear people that Is when, as in it is in those moments that I hold on tight and hold on to that precious feeling in your gut and NEVER let go. Those are defining moments…those are moments when you find out where and how and why the lines of power and colonization and the way that the colonization takes place. Those are indeed colonizing moments.

Most of the people in my life have tried to tell me that I was lazy, not fully there, not doing something right and generally and there is nothing like self validation, there is nothing like recognizing something and affirming your own power within yourself which is what I have to do and these days even as I work a 9-5 come home and work again, I remind myself that at least I am creating a life where no one else can exploits the fruit of my work especially when they do not even begin to comprehend what it means for me to live my life the way I do, or how much I have to work or how much I have had to learn in order to have things the way that they are.

So yes, I am in the process of working hard but it is because I think that I have little time, now that my body can handle it I have to do and do as much of it as I can and that’s cold comfort in and off itself. So that when the time comes and I’m chilling then I’m chilling.

I was saying before that a person living with a disability I cannot be fucking around talking about how I’m resisting super crip while the able bodied people achieve I think that one can do this with an awareness that we are existing and living within a capitalist, individualist system that working within it actually causes disability as a physical and social phenomenon and makes disabled people work harder by creating a system where their labor is exploited which is by the way what the save the handicapped people end up doing my undermining and devaluing the value and worth and quality of the work that their disabled friend by calling them lazy and irresponsible stuff that is not critically reminiscent of the disabled serial killer monster stereotype, but don’t you dare mention that cos you’d be pushing their guilt buttons which you MUST do to take advantage of them because that’s the only way your disabled self could have succeeded and gotten so far in your life, see cos you really should be in institutional care somewhere (what a mind fuck). Those are my thoughts for now.

how can i be a feminist when i periodically will not eat? (pt 2)

Rachel Said:

I am a feminist and I still struggled with an eating disorder. An eating disorder isn’t about food or weight or how one looks; it’s a psychiatric illness, a way of coping with other unresolved issues in life.

On another note: I’m conducting an anonymous survey of bloggers who blog about eating disorders or eating disorder recovery in partnership with a clinical psychologist for joint research and publication purposes. I’m hoping our survey generates lots of responses so that our findings are well-rounded, inclusive and convincing. If the scope of the study pertains to your own experiences, I invite you to participate by taking it.

More information and a survey link can be found here.

Thank you!

Rachel Richardson

Hey Rachel,

Thanks for dropping by and commenting by your comment made me squirm, to be frank.

Yes, it is good to know that there are other feminists, besides me, out there that struggle with eating disorders. I can think of quite a few that i know who bike everywhere they go cos its “cool”and secretly they know it keeps them “fit”, who like being vegan/vegetarian for other reasons that saving the planet, less fat apparently, who are obsessed with walking, exercising and other fitness stuff for these reasons as well. But who also will not eat or eat and through up or who will over use diuretics/laxatives. But we never talk about that at dinner parties or while training young women at self esteem/body image lifeskills workshops.

My point is i thought of the following questions?

1. Given that the medical and psychiatric/psychological/medical industry has a history and managed to succesfully construct a field of expertise based on the pathology and othering of human characteristics without dealing with the socio-political factors involved while maintaining an objective and superior stance, how is your surve/research going to be “inclusive” and address this reality while refraining from further contributing to the “objective” marginalization, othering and pathologizing of women/people?
2. Since when did feminism start to embrace the psychiatric medical industry, what went wrong? Self help books and other random psycho lingo and counselling/therapy that is not neccessarily from the women are thier own experts anto establishment, mad pride stance have become a staple of some the people that are activists that i knew, myself included (it all started with the courage to heal). As we continue to pathologize and call our selves and willingly label ourselves as ill..blaming ourselves and letting the social, economic,political system of domination and oppression of the hook so that it becomes “a psychiatric illness?”
3. My intention was the highlight the places where in choosing not to eat because i wanted to look cute, look powerful, i was failing to address and resist oppressive images and lookism against fat women like myself, when i should be concentrating on feeling sexy and attractive regardless of my size. That is my understanding of my choices not to eat sometimes or to overeat at other times. PLUS i really resent the term disorder especially when all these anorexic bitches who are accessing skiny priviledge get to claim “disorder” and then if you are fat then it just helps and maintains the fatphobic thinking that you have a disorder.
4. I prefer to find a way to centre my own experiences with language that comes from my own experiences and not download constructed psychiatric mumbo jumbo and the authority that comes with that as i attempt to comprehend my “issues”

Anarchy + Anti-oppression….the new hype? theoretically speaking of course

Allright so i am not sure where i want to go with this but i was reading trioullot and cesaire and others for my class on globalization and equality..I’m usually bored of the fragmentation and discipline limited discourse (be it disability, postcolonial, diaspora, women studies, african studies) in general that do not directly address power relation and domination, the way that they play out in our personal lives and how that feeds into the good old matrix of domination.

I mean if you’re going to talk about the evils of essentialization (while participating the maintenance and discursive creation of another category/singular unit) because of the segregation and fragmentation (we all know that attempts to include are futile? because they create an inherent hierarchy as one unit/identity/group are already established as excluded and outside: by definition ) and therefore come with very expensive blindspots that it produces that further results in simply a replacement and reproduction of hierarchy. Then doesn’t that render all “fragment/disciplines” limited as in very very limited in terms of being applicable and also in terms of affecting real change…they can only go far to offfer an understanding of our present state(s). Not only that but theoretically are in collusion with the discursive western status quo of white supremacy, as in they are therefore, by their very definition, theoretically speaking of course not that much of threat.

And then steps in the idea of intentional multiplicity in terms of discursive anarchy and then in a political, social, moral, economic and everything else way. Why because it would represent things the way that they actually are including the contradictions as a result oif the process that created them and would neccessitate unpacking these processes/contradictions instead of naming and all that other “identity politics”..no diss. i often rely on indentity politics and it has offered me a certain space to claim a certain victim to oppressor/victim to the empowered place and in useful for negotiating in the real dominated matrix world but it can only take me so far..it has only taken me so far.

Maybe an anarchist approach to anti-oppression and empowerment and self agency as resistance-because the personal is political would result in a situation where we are freed and can meaningfully move from the victimized status without having to erase and give up on the injustice and the spaces to demand change. People always say you need to move out of the victim stance but from experience i know that the victim stance does serve a purpose for the victim: it points out that there is something SEVERELY wrong and is a forcefull sdemand for change. I have always thought of it as just another of them tricks of domination to get you to try and claim agency: read work harder and harder, to try and convince us to change our minds and offer you more power which is what it usually is. The other thing is notice how it is usually that label you as doing victim, usually those that you may be accusing of “victimizing ” that are usually the first to tell you to pucker up and claim your fucking power and mutherfucking agency.

But for real is this the missing piece for me..is this what i haven’t gotten on how really change, may be possible as in is actually imaginable because the more i think about it..i’m like yes talk off anti-oppression is all well and good but theoretically speaking i have not done anything that attempts to deconstruct hierarchy..guess i cant expect to be taught that at my little ivory tower but for real is that the missing piece? Cos think about it…how you really be anti-oppression without being anti-authoritarian or hierarchy and so on and so forth.

Anyways i’m glad i got something from hitting the books today….i’ma go away and chew on that..theoretically of course

Just ask fela: “Animal wan dash us human rights..”