What is it?
Patriarchy. Trying to find solutions to patriarchy by patriarchal means.
That's my opinion.
> ----------
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Reply To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 1:18 PM
> To: STUDIES IN WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT
> Subject: What is it?
>
> All:
>
> What is it that allows people to decide that their crystal healing
> "rights"
> should override the need of indigenous americans (indians) to protect
> their
> ancestral lands, holy sites?
>
> What is it that prevents such people from seeing the amazing disrespect
> that
> these people of been slaughtered and unseated from control of their own
> lands,
> but people who look just like the ones who did the slaughter now imitate
> the
> culture and assert rights?
>
> What is it that allows Voguish designers to see African traditional
> clothing,
> copy it but then call these designs their own?
>
> What is it that makes western feminist groups decide that a woman covering
> her
> head is oppression of women, but "freedom" of women is to dress as
> sexualized
> as possible and be used both for advertisement of cars to beer and to be
> valued for only looks and sexual pleasure of men?
>
> What is it that makes missionaries feel that only they know how to worship
> God?
>
> What is it that makes on generation of a culture eradicate a peoples sense
> of
> their own culture and their later generations return to study and
> "reinterpret" that same culture?
>
> What is it that makes people think that they have "created" something new
> when
> the simply record the traditional songs of a people, or bring in some
> traditional musicians to add something to their music - and then think
> they
> they are innovative not just cultural leeches?
>
> What is it that makes women date men of another race, and at the same time
> dismiss the women of that race - yet feel that they are not racist because
> of
> who they date?
>
> What is it that makes you forget that you do not become the race or
> ethnicity
> of your husband?
>
> What makes people forget the Salsa, Samba, Jazz, Reggae, Gospel, Blues,
> Merengue are all overwhelming based upon African musical traditions
> brought
> into the Americas by enslaved Africans?
>
> What is it that makes a person with the left point of their tongue express
> out
> rage at men not respecting their right to self-determination and identity,
> yet
> with the right point of their tongue express outrage that people of color
> want
> their own right to self-determination and identity respected?
>
> What is it that is so upseting when African descendants in the Western
> Diaspora and Africans born in Africa want to bond in familyhood without
> the
> control of Europeans?
>
> What is it that blocks the mind to understand that perhaps we DON'T think
> it
> is so wonderful when you imitate our hair styles, wrap your heads like we
> do,
> braid your hair the same way, imitate manner of dress (sari to kimono to
> sarong to etc.), our jewerly, our body markings (henna to bindi), our way
> of
> cooking and then claim you "know" us and decide to lecture us on how and
> what
> we should be - in your effort to look "ethnic".
>
> What is it that makes feminists feel they cannot be racists?
>
> What is it that makes "donor" nations support corrupt leaders of a "third
> world" nations, yet use the existence of those leaders as proof that the
> people of that nation can't govern themselves?
>
> What is it that makes some people mourn the threat to gorillas of a
> region,
> but ignore the deaths of millions of people in that same region?
>
> What is it that makes some people think that Columbus discovered America?
>
> What is it that some people imitate (weakly) the musical style of another
> people, marginalizing the creators as tokens of entertainment while they
> pat
> themselves on the back for "saving" them, build the house of blues, and
> then
> be suprised why the creators of that music aren't attending in droves?
>
> What is it that prevents some from seeing that indentured servitude is not
> the
> same as slavery?
>
> What is it that makes some want to redesign Malcolm X and Martin Luther
> King
> Jr. in the image most suitable for them to define the movement of a
> people?
>
> What is it that confounds some in understanding that we can be both
> emotionally and personally attached to our issues while at the same time
> being
> highly intellectually knowledgeable on such topics?
>
> What is it that some people think that academic study always overrides
> someone's first hand experience?
>
> What is it that passing a series of tests in a class, turning in a series
> of
> assignments, makes some decide that they "know" how it feels to experience
> life as a native american, a black person, an asian person, etc and
> experience
> racism as such.?
>
> What is it that is so strange that we want to lead our on our own issues?
>
> What is it that so many people don't see the frightening similarity
> between
> the "borg" of star trek and a group of people who seek to assimilate the
> cultural traditions of others, destroy the place of the people, and claim
> those traditions as their own "innovations" and "cultural trends" and
> can't
> understand why that would be at the least,irksome?
>
> What is it that some do not see the implicit disrespect in wishing that
> they
> had pretended to be something they aren't, to assert their greater
> knowledge
> about those issues over people who are?
>
> What is it that some find so unacceptable that people speak on their own
> experiences in their own voices?
>
> What is it that keeps some from being so offended that someone dare tell
> them
> "NO!, I do not accept your dominance over my cultural, racial issues?"
>
>
> Nicole
>
>
