Friday, November 18, 2016

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear

In response to Mark Lilla's "The End of Identity Liberalism,"
NYTimes, Nov 18th 2016

& the crop of similar, temperate pieces I see popping up these past few days

& the crop of similar, demonstrably less temperate dudes of my acquaintance who are saying truly smart things about the Democrats' neglect of the working poor, while -- in my opinion -- missing a huge opportunity (and being rather hypocritical) by employing an aggro, sneering tone in the direction of we butthurt "Others." (Alienating those who they claim to fight for)

(look, i am sanctimonious, too. but i'm trying to kick it.)

This is in the name of productivity*:

A true, new, intersectional liberalism
wouldn't diminish or dismiss your life
your "box's" life
your "interest group"
wouldn't, in other words, call your breathing an indulgence, a non-priority,
let alone "identity politics" or -- swallow gagging -- "politically correct"
the true, new intersectional liberalism wouldn't shelve You with words, for the sake of other words like "color-blind"
"sex-blind"
(GENERALLY blind)
because these words the temperate so prefer? are in fact just the same kind of useless in politics as the diminishers they hurl at us Others
they will not help you breathe, either set of words.

Too, we know if we read Zinn or newspapers, or if we look even halfway-hard at the world outside our windows, there's no blind way to be in America unless you've never known what it feels like to be the Only You in a room
(or, are actually blind)
which of course makes it telling, who prefers that shiny "blind" future rhetoric anyhow
(PSST: it's the blind!)
...But. I. Digress.
Inhale.....
Exhale.....
REALLY IN THE NAME OF BEING PRODUCTIVE, NOW!!!
:
The true, new intersectional liberalism of my goony dream heart and present/ future civic energy,
would see the hard fights not diminished, but doubled down on
tripled down on
and the neglected? those who have felt neglected, heretofore?
well, in goony dream heart they come to the table, too
because everybody's invited!
The liberalism gets wider and deeper. Not smaller. Not quieter. Louder.
If you're not here already, you will be asked to care about your fellow man. But don't panic! It won't hurt, and it won't actually make you smaller. We'll all talk slow. We'll listen good. You will not die. We all will grow.
I fear lately that we weren't loud enough before, about that 'fellow man' part?
and also, the invitation
(or I wasn't loud enough before, and am projecting
sigh, allllllll this life we will be shouting)
In any case. This is what I'm willing to cop to this evening: you can come and sit by me.

But what is she saying? She's saying:
to tell the boxes who make up the Party to "pick their battles,"
to make a light shine lesser so it might be more diffuse
that way lies forgetting history
and REALLY stalling progress
and contriving a world, once more, where lots of us feel unseen, I grant you,
but also like physically hunted
(I know we're some of us there already, in that world, but it's really the end if the true, new liberalism  wilts in the discussion of battle-picking, before the war even gets started. This is against that.)
Democracy is compromise, pragmatically speaking, but it is also not and never saying "This whole box of folks is of no concern to Us right now."
That's a different kind of governing, make no mistake.
So.
If you are the white woman, the poor white man, the rural human, the small business-owner, the X factor who is NOT David Duke incarnate:
I want to fight with you, I do. For your livelihoods and business. For your right to be happy and free. But that is only granted you'll fight with me, and us.
This is just how these things go.
In dream heart, not them vs. us. Not us vs. Us. We, here, smiling, together, walking out onto the water, afraid.
But let me perfectly clear: by the grace of your higher power, I will be goddamned if you won't come to meet me on this bridge. I will be goddamned if I walk backwards. Let's just you consider yourself beckoned. And I will greet you. I will call your names and show the way. I will fight with hands and listen with ears in the name of the dark that surrounds us all, but in intersectional country nobody's going an inch backward. People get drawn out or left on the shore.


Finally, to this intersectional point: I want my dream heart liberal president to be this
but if I must compromise, I will take one who makes the most conciliatory mention, names the names, calls human, does not actively hunt
our boxes, groups, we Others; I'll take a President who at least attempts to see
(because another thing the blind don't understand is: words are only words, sure, but they can be quite tonic. The specific, well-chosen best of them can actually make it easier to breathe.)
in my head, this is not too much to ask for. Not even, in fact, so much progress.
But if we're talking about forming a great big rainbow coalition in which it's conveniently forgotten how their parents died of diseases the country wouldn't cure
and their parents died on boats being dragged here
and their parents spent a lifetime trying to get in
and they're suicidal because the country calls their gender "not a priority"
and they're in prison because the country failed them from birth
and they're perpetually diminished by the way they look, talk, walk, breathe
and they died in labor, in labor, everyone in labor, look at all of us in labor all the god-damn time:
this is the way I will shout.

Great.
Now sign in blood, and then let's talk about climate change. What concrete thing have you done this week? :-) :-) :-) Call your senators and volunteer, gang! zozo Gossip Girl

*A pertinent note: to buy any of this, you'd need to make a reductive mental leap and pretend that we're in any kind of shape to be standing side by side in America, calling people 'brethren.' I understand not everyone's in a position to think this way. I know in my bones that this country was never and isn't presently a place where all enjoy equal protection under the law, but this goony manifesto is struggling to speak on and for the present climate -- the past, accordingly, is referred to in blanket statements. This is to say, to some extent the suspension of your belief in the inherent brokenness of things may be required to eat this/keep getting out of bed.

*if you put your truck in the electoral college. Which I have here in the name of productivity, but won't in the future.

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