Hi, lea said:`>
> Unfortunately, I have an assumption that when
> white males speak, no matter how good intentioned, their unconscious
> agenda is to preserve the status quo. This is a gender analysis.
> If I make a racial analysis I find, as a caucasian women, I have more
> invested in the status quo than women of color. I think I experience
> both the place of privilege and oppression. I'm not sure white >
males do. > lea ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
I don't want to take issue per se with what you have said. Being a white
male, I KNOW I am treated differently (usually 'better'). But I alos know
that there are more than 40,000,000 at the poverty level in this country
alone, That California has the third largest prison population in the
world. Though minorities, women and children(including male children) are
disaportionately represented in poverty, high
infant mortality rates etc, white males are not entirely excluded from
this oppression either. My point is, I would like to see more discussions
on the 'class' nature of oppression as well.That is what has attracted me
to the ecofem philosophy....a critique of the european-bourgeois
dominance of the last 500 years or so. Having grown-up in a
working-class family (and communities), I learned that oppression did not
exclude me either. Indeed, IMHO, many of the problems we have in this
country can be explained via a class analysis. I guess as a biologist I'm
not ready to correlate all of the complexities of society based on a y
chromosome and the amount of melanin in ones epidermis. This leads down
the same sort of road that would have us relate poverty to genes, or
intelligence to melanin etc. Too eugenic for me.
Nonetheless, are white males in power? Absolutely. Will this power group
do whatever it takes to keep itself in power? Absolutely. Are the
capitalist in power? Absolutely. Will they do anything to keep their
power? Absolutely.Including sending working-class boys off to war to kill
for them. Including distracting us by saying that
'those people' (women, minorities, middle easterns, etc) are after the
'original american culture'.It helps them to confuse the real issues. But I
am a white male with no vested interest in helping to keep that euro-bourgeois
in power. Thus, where do I fit? >
Maybe the issue is, do we tend to want to see power held by the group that
we identify with? I've always identified working-class first, not with
the Newts of the world (even though we share a couple of things:-)).
Maybe that is because I was brought-up in a single parent (MOM)
household. I strongly identified with her frustrations both as a women
(being paid less for the same job other men were being paid more for),
but alos the overall low pay, no job security, no benefits, little
vacation etc. I saw this 'class' oppression hit her and her family the
hardest...or at least thats what she discussed the most. As a
working-class youth and young man, college didn't seem to be a
possibility and I worked for low wages, hard labor type jobs. I saw 'the
man' oppress me...low wages, no job security, etc. We had the same color of
skin and the same reproductive structures, but thats all we had in common.
My opinion is that this is a deeply racist, sexist, and violent society.
And to fight that, we have to find common ground. Working for a living
and who gets the profits of our labor points toward the most common
thread for me...at least I know which side of the barracade I belong.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm humbly interested in feedback.
e ya
-michael --
Michael Golden
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Biology
Grossmont College
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, CA 92020
619-465-1700 x332
