Month: April 2018

In Lisa Duggan’s book, Equality, Inc., Duggan says, “‘Equality’ becomes narrow, formal access to a few conservativizing institutions, ‘freedom’ becomes immunity for bigotry and vast inequalities in commercial life and civil society, the ‘right to privacy’ becomes domestic confinement, and democratic politics itself becomes something to be escaped” (65-66). Duggan example of equality becoming narrow is what she refers to as “gay tunnel vision” which focuses on issues such as marriage equality rather than issues faced by disadvantaged populations within the queer community. Her reference to conservativizing institutions relates to the Human Rights Campaign sponsoring things like pride marches. She mentions how institutions like the Human Rights Campaign do not focus on the true issues queer communities face but rather superficial issues that primarily affect upper middle class cis white gay men. They also make a profit on these fights for equality. Further, Duggan’s mention of freedom reinforces her idea of gay tunnel vision in that many within the queer face inequalities that are not addressed. Finally, Duggan mentions the “right to privacy” becoming “domestic confinement” because many queer issues have been limited to issues such as gay marriage which is an attempt to assimilate to straight heteronormative ideas.

Lisa Duggan, “Equality, Inc.,” in The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), 43-66.

 

How did Boystown neighborhood residents reproduce racism through digital practices? 

In Chicago, the Boystown community is considered a thriving gay entertainment district and residential neighborhood, but the residents remain largely white and middle class due to the use of social media, which reinforces segregation. However, people of color still experience segregation and hostility because they are blamed for almost all crimes (Blair, 2016, p. 290). This community formed and practiced “race-based” systems of social control. While there appeared to be good intentions of eliminating violence from Boystown, the blame put on gay black youth serves to group and stereotype the gay black youth community into one category, which creates a racialized environment. Digital practices, such as “Take Back Boystown” and “Lakeview 9-1-1,” were created for discussion of violent crimes in the neighborhood. Through these Facebook pages, they allowed the community to negatively portray black lives. Therefore, through these avenues, racism was legitimized and black gay youth became the “unwanted population” (Blair, 2016, p. 298). This issue expands outside of the Boystown community into a variety of things including a poor education system, corrupt politics, and a collapsed economy.

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Blair, Z. (2016). Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)production of Racism: Boystown. No Tea, No Shade. (pp. 287-303). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

In “Equality, Inc,” Lisa Duggan outlines how equality has come become devoid of its originally radical intentions of overthrowing an unjust system and instead has aligned with providing access to existing broken institutions. An example of this is the gay and lesbian elite’s “gay tunnel vision,” which focuses only on so-called gay issues, such as marriage equality, leaving issues of other queers, including those of poverty and homelessness, in the dark. Duggan names the Human Rights Campaign as an organization that has been compliant with the politics of neoliberalism in its “top-down corporate planning process” (Duggan 46) and notes how the HRC has taken on the same functions as wealthy lobbying groups as its method of establishing political change.

The conception of “conventional gays” who cast out the ideologies of “extreme leftist queers” as too radical also relies on the assumption that equality can trickle down from the most privileged class (usually white gay men) to a less privileged class. By even producing the term “conventional gays,” any other group of queers is pitted against those who represent the norm or rather those who are white and economically privileged. The definition of equality that Duggan’s chapter concludes with is limited in the nature of the areas it covers and in the people who can be considered as equals.

Reference:

Duggan, Lisa. “Equality, Inc.” The Twilight of Equality?, edited by Lisa Duggan, Beacon Press: 2004, pp. 43-66.

Regarding equality becoming narrow, a specific example that Duggan references is “gay tunnel vision”, what she describes as “national gay civil rights politics in the new millennium [that actually developed] as the ‘gay equality’ branch of multi-issue neoliberalism.” (Duggan 47). The “conservatizing institutions” part of the statement refers to the corporations that sponsor pride marches (i.e. the activities of the Human Rights Campaign), and through this queerness is contextualized within consumerism and as a result its autonomy is removed. This also ties in with the “right to privacy”, as all of these examples center around issues about queer assimilation with gay marriage in the forefront (one of the HRC’s main issues), emphasizing freedom in privacy.

Racism in Boystown was perpetuated by the supposedly anticrime movement’s interest in having “community walks” (Blair 292). During these community walks people would walk with police and, as they confronted people engaging in reportedly questionable activities, would take photos and then distribute them through social media platforms, specifically in Facebook groups. Because these photos would position people of color as perpetrators of crime, the racism of this selective storytelling perpetuated more paranoias and stereotypes that isolated people of color in Boystown.

Because of the effect colonialism has on queerness, specifically fetishes (also mentioned in the article), LGBTQ tourism no doubt is also influenced by sexual preference, outside cultures, and elements of colonial fetishization.

REFERENCES

Alexander, M. Jacqui. “Imperial Desire/Sexual Utopias: White Gay Capital and Transnational Tourism.” Pedagogies of Crossing, 2005, pp. 66–88., doi:10.1215/9780822386988-004.

Blair, Zachary. “Boystown: Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)Production of Racism.” No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies, edited by Patrick E. Johnston, S.n., 2016, pp. 287-303.

Duggan, Lisa “Equality, Inc.” The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy, Beacon Press, 2014, pp. 43–66.