Week 11 – Duggan Equality, Inc.

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.

 

Question 2, Boystown

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.

Week 11

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.

JB Week 10

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.

 

JM Week 11

It is primarily through the critique of writers of the Independent Gay Forum (IGF), mainly Andrew Sullivan and David Boaz, that Lisa Duggan comes to assert that “freedom”, “equality”, and democratic politics through this neoliberal mindset are deeply perverted.  Sullivan’s exclusive targeting of the masculine gay limits the “equality” pushed for in his writings and also reinforces typical misogyny which exists throughout the heteronormative order.  Sullivan also suggests that gay people must simply ask to exist in a privatized space, where the only political victories are marriage equality and the right to serve in the military.  As Duggan notes, “…we have been administered a kind of political sedative — we get marriage and the military, then we go home and cook dinner, forever” (Duggan 62).  David Boaz, another neoliberal writer for the IGF, sees the family only as a gendered institution that is used for privatizing social costs, and again insists only that gays be included in this system.

In “Boystown”, Blair demonstrates the power of social media in reproducing racism.  Under the guise of protecting the neighborhood from crime, Facebook pages were used as a channel of hate speech and racism, distanced from the “real world” and through uncensored white privilege were able to control a racist narrative about the city in which they lived.  These social media pages “allowed residents to public produce and engage with bigoted attitudes, ideologies, and discourses through photographs, videos, and concurrent threaded comments” (Blair 298) and therefore legitimized degrading and criminalizing people of color.

Through the colonialist ideology of the “native”, Third World gay men are essentially positioned as a commodity, or an object to be consumed.  This of course is reinforced by capitalism and the notion of “gay” capital in which travel is one of the primary sources of revenue.  In this space in which Third World gay men are fetishized by white gay men on vacation, “gay capital becomes an active participant in the same processes of nativization and recolonization that heterosexual tourism helped to inaugurate” (Alexander 79).

 

 

Citations:

Alexander, M. Jacqui. “Imperial Desire / Sexual Utopias: White Gay Capital and Transnational Tourism”. Pedagogies of Crossing, edited by M. Jacqui Alexander, Duke University Press: 2005, pp. 67-88.

Blair, Zachary.  “Boystown”. No Tea, No Shade, edited by E. Patrick Johnson, Duke University Press: 2016, pp. 287-303

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

Blog Week 11

Zachary Blair’s Boystown describes the way that digital media reinforces racism and racial segregation in Boystown, a prominent gay neighborhood in Chicago. In 2009, following a series of violent assaults in the Boystown neighborhood over a short period of time, residents formed multiple watch groups as well as a sort of “digital neighborhood watch” on Facebook (Blair, 292). While the intention of these digital efforts was to stop or reduce violent crime, they reinforced racial segregation by taking and sharing pictures of people of color in the streets (Blair, 293). These pictures were posted to the Facebook group and depicted people of color as disproportionately responsible for crime (Blair, 294). As a result, “digital interactions…legitimized racism by providing Boystown residents and business owners with social experiences that supported degrading and criminalizing people of color” and shifted race relations in the community (Blair, 298). This led to white residents redefining crime to criminalize people of color by enacting fictitious noise and loitering ordinances (Blair, 298). The Facebook groups also gave a platform for the sharing and legitimization of racist views (Blair, 298). “Boystown’s neighborhood-based digital practices…create and exclusionary heteronormative environment where racism can flourish” (Blair, 300).

Reference

Blair, “Boystown. Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)production of Racism”

JB Week 9

In the essay What’s Wrong With Rights?, Dean Spade articulates systematic failures that prevent trans-identifying individuals from receiving equal treatment under the law and equal rights. In law reform, this takes the lack of representation and care with regards to trans bodies within the legal system making any potential reforms ineffective. This is because that, while the intent of LGBTQ-inclusive laws is to bring awareness to discriminatory crimes that regularly occur, there are too many societal and racial intersections that involve society’s awareness of trans bodies for it to be considered effective. Law reform must come hand-in-hand with an understanding society with an accompanying inclusiveness outside of legal matters.

With regards to hate crime laws, Spade argues that one of the issues with dealing with hate crimes is the oversimplification of how to process said crimes through our current legal system. He says that this results in thinking that “the criminal punishment system is the proper way to solve [hate crimes]” (44). Because there are many systematic flaws that disadvantage marginalized groups through the justice system (an example being the War on Drugs, which intersects with racial discrimination), strengthening hate crime laws to fit around the legal system reinforces the systematic shortcomings.

REFERENCE

“What’s Wrong with Rights?”, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Dean Spade

 

YD Week 10

Law reform projects, while often well intentioned, are unable to protect the ‘more vulnerable’ people in the trans community, or even the majority of trans folks. While it can be true that the more privileged (read middle-upper class white trans folks) many see some level of benefit from the inclusion of nondiscrimination laws, these laws fail to account for systemic oppression and multiple factors of oppression such as race, sex, class, etc. Furthermore, these laws only add to the arsenal of those systems which perpetuate systemic oppression and that are the largest perpetrators themselves of discriminatory violence. As Dean Spade wrote in Chapter 2 of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, “Since the criminal punishment system itself is a significant source of racialized-gendered violence, increasing its resources and punishment capacity will not reduce violence against trans people.” [1] If real change were to happen, expanding the power of the police and of the criminal justice system is not the place to start.

[1] Spade, D. (2015). Normal life administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Week 10, Dean Spade

In Dean Spade’s essay, he identifies several shortcomings of current anti-discrimination and hate crime law reforms. There is hope that these laws will benefit people within marginalized groups, but there are many limitations to current law reforms. Errors of anti-discrimination laws include the false notions of equality or fairness with the new law reforms because oppression and discrimination of numerous identities (Spade, 2015, p.43). Spade claims that “the perpetrator perspective” obscures the historical framework of systemic prejudice against people of color. For example, these anti-discrimination law reforms theoretically end racism, but in reality enhance color-blindness. Additionally, Spade (2015) claims that hate crime law reforms oversimplify hate crimes and discount transphobia in prison systems. For example, Spade asserts that the prison system targets people these hate crime law reforms are supposed to protect and reinforces transphobia even though it claims to be more inclusive (Spade, 2015, p. 47).

Spade, D. (2015). Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. London, England: Duke University Press.

EO Week 10

When reflecting on the flaws of the legal protection of transgender people, Spade uses Alan Freeman’s term, “perpetrator perspective,” which seeks to address the lack of consideration for systems of oppression when the perpetrator is identified as an individual. While discrimination law bans inequality on the basis of identity, it prevents the factor of acknowledging if that identity has been subject to historical exclusion. Spade gives the example of the dismantling of affirmative action and desegregation programs, which were gutted because of the threat of “inequality” they posed to white people despite their goal of providing equal access to those who are marginalized.

As a result of its singular focus on the perpetrator as an individual, hate crime law possesses similar weaknesses. Spade notes that hate crime laws neither deter perpetrators from committing crimes of hate nor ensure the safety of the people they are intended to protect. Hate crime law has no actual effect on whether or not someone will commit a crime of this nature because it does not attempt to confront the perpetrator’s bias. Spade also asks the question “what does it mean to use criminal punishment—enhancing laws to purportedly address violence against these groups?” (Spade 45-46). The nature of hate crime law is solely punitive and targets groups of people who these laws are supposed to protect.

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.