Posts filed under eye of the storm

Re: huffpost on the naacp’s report on the tea party

Crispy: “the very fact that a group would have ‘diffuse, locally based structures’ is extremely troubling to the naacp. i suppose now they will be attacking … the civil rights movement of the 1960s, for being too local and diffuse.”

Well, hell, why not? That basically was their criticism of the civil rights movement of the 1960s back during the 1960s — when the NAACP was constantly ragging on sit-in groups and then SNCC for not having “structure” (meaning unitary centralized chain of command) and for being too locally-driven, which supposedly led to adventurism and getting local movements into all kinds of messes that NAACP chapters and the Legal Defense Fund would then have to clean up after. (Hence, e.g., the recriminations over the fizzle-out in Albany, efforts to shut SNCC reps out of civil rights “unified leadership” summits and fundraising events, etc.) To abandon this proud tradition of pissing and moaning about diffuse, locally based movements, and those factions of the civil rights movement of the 1960s that actually got some shit done here and there, would mean abandoning all kinds of time-honored NAACP traditions. (Of course I refer here to the NAACP central command. NAACP local chapters did all kinds of courageous work alongside the direct-action movement, and generally didn’t waste time wagging fingers at SNCC’s lack of “structure.”)

Re: here is my prediction for the future of our amazing species

Crispy: “the ‘fair sex’ never had to deal with white man’s burden”

Come on, really man? White women have never had to deal with criticism of their role, real or imagined, in hierarchies of race, class or nation? So, for example, “white feminism” has never been denounced as the “handmaiden of colonialism”?

Crispy: “never had to listen to the careful critique of their hormonal essence”

I’m not sure what “careful” is supposed to be packing into the content of this claim. I think it is obviously ridiculous to claim that women have never had to listen to a critique of their “hormonal” (!) essence, as, for example, supposedly prone to mysterious overwhelming passions and baseless rages.

Not to mention extensive and detailed criticism of being either true or untrue to their “essence” (misogynist men are usually not too discriminating on the point of whether it is part of or contrary to the Eternal-Feminine) by being too micromanaging, too controlling, or too aggressive towards other people, especially towards men. That these critiques are not “careful” critiques (in the sense that they are often obviously stupid, self-interested and largely fantastical, and often summed up simply in the single word, “bitch”) does not mean that they are not pervasive or powerful or consequential critiques, does it?