One of the first steps in fighting oppression is to acknowledge its presence within the institutions we are a part of, yet far too often injustice is outsourced and framed as something that other people do. Racism in our society is distilled down to groups like the BNP, whose ideologies and practices are so indisputably racist- and whose membership is so easy to “other”- that it is not a painful process to identify and publicly disown them as racist. Similarly, the media and mainstream politics finds it easy to locate sexism in “othered” communities such as those which promote practices which clearly hurt women- so-called honour killings, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. While it is important to locate and fight against such examples of oppression, I believe that it is unhelpful and counterproductive to be content with simply declaiming the uncontroversially sexist. Continue reading
There’s an issue which often bothers me slightly. Why do some things that are compelling to me, and to many of my friends, simply fail to engage the interest of many people?
“In-fighting” is a tired and negative word for what, in my opinion, is a perfectly natural occurrence within any political movement.