I just wrote an essay about the political perils of the idealization of oppressed groups. It is an inter-movement critique that explores the problems with casting oppressed groups as beyond reproach and worthy of support no matter what they do. I have pasted an excerpt below, but please visit my brand new blog to read the whole thing - you might not totally understand where I am coming from unless you read the entire essay. I would love know what folks think about this. Thanks.
We live in a society where constant criticism, insult, and dismissal are everyday instruments and manifestations of oppression. People in positions of privilege learn and adopt these oppressive behaviors, not necessarily because they want to, but because their social positions shape who they are. In order to help disrupt this dynamic and contribute to collective liberation, people in positions of privilege must radically transform themselves; they must examine and change their own oppressive thoughts and behaviors and fight against the oppressive social structures - whether cultural or institutional - that they are caught up in.
The principle that ‘people in positions of privilege should withhold all judgment of oppressed people in resistance’ is an attempt to solve this problem. It suggests that, in order to reverse oppressive social dynamics, privileged people should avoid criticizing and judging oppressed people; indeed, privileged people telling oppressed people what to do and who to be is the very problem, according to this line of thought. Instead, privileged people should take leadership from oppressed people in combating social problems, whether those problems are expressed in interpersonal dynamics or social structures. Only then can we turn social hierarchies on their heads within social movements, and thus ensure that the change we create is truly liberating.
I think that this approach begins to break down when you look at how it constructs the subjectivity of the oppressed versus the privileged person. When I use the word subjectivity, I refer to the internal reality of the person: her interpretation of experience, process of thought, repository of memories, and unique consciousness. I use this word because of its strength; I wish to demonstrate the totalizing effects of claims about human subjectivity.
First of all, to claim that oppressed people are beyond reproach implies certain boundaries. It suggests that privileged people exist within a field where outside and internal criticism is welcome and constructive, but that they should make sure that this criticism stays within their field and does not extend into the realm of oppressed people. This framework is cast as important for the political transformation of privileged people; by absorbing and internalizing criticism from the outside, as well as generating criticism of those who share her social advantage, the privileged person can begin to identify and change her own oppressive ways and those of the larger group to which she belongs. Thus, individual and collective transformation are closely related; the privileged person must continuously work on herself in order to challenge structural oppression and affect positive change in her personal life. Within this framework, the subjectivity of the privileged person becomes hugely important for political struggle. The privileged person must navigate a complex mental terrain, fraught with dangerous thoughts, learned behaviors, and possible mistakes. By employing agency and force of will, the privileged person can transform herself into an agent of positive social change.
The subjectivities of oppressed people are decidedly more static, according to this line of thought. Oppressed people exist within a field that is closed off to criticism – this tool for understanding and growth, by which the privileged person is established as a political subject, is denied them. The oppressed person is seen from the outside – as a part of an oppressed whole – but it is impossible to peer in to learn about her inner workings, if they exist at all. She is a political subject because of the group to which she belongs, not because of her unique desires, goals, motivations, or personal choices. Within this framework, the oppressed person is no longer insulted, harassed, and disproportionately criticized. But she is still “other.†The self that she occupies is unknowable; questioning and criticism cannot be used to decipher the cause of her actions. She is still contained within the category that oppression has created for her – a category of difference as defined by the privileged outsider.
In other words, openness to criticism establishes the privileged person as a complex subject and political actor. It is through analysis and criticism that the privileged person can get to the root of her behaviors and thus change herself and the social group to which she belongs. She is no longer a slave to her destiny; she has choice. There is nothing to figure out, on the other hand, about the oppressed person. Her motives and behaviors are not open to inquiry. Her subjectivity is not only less complex and mutable, but it is also less important. She is a political subject because she is a part of a larger group; any internal process of hers is irrelevant.
It is easy to see how this line of thought leads to the essentialization of oppressed people as inherently good. The reasoning is that those who suffer under oppressive institutions, governments, and cultures know far more about the workings of oppression than those in positions of privilege ever could. Thus, oppressed people are driven towards positive radical change as a direct consequence of their conditions. Unlike the privileged person, who must fight against the oppressive behaviors she has inadvertently learned, the oppressed person must merely be who she is and follow the knowledge that her social position affords her.
It is true that direct exposure to oppression is a powerful source of knowledge. However, as Joan Scott has argued, personal knowledge through experience is not unmediated. Systems of oppression also serve to beat people down, delude them, and shape their responses. No one can avoid being situated in a historical moment that has power to affect her perceptions of reality. To claim that oppressed people do not have to struggle, self-criticize, introspect, and search in order to do the right thing denies them agency, creativity, and force of will, and in fact, reserves these qualities for privileged people alone, who are constantly tempted to do the wrong thing.
There is no doubt that privileged people in resistance movements need to do a great deal of work to overcome learned oppressive behaviors. However, this effort will only be hindered by embracing clichés about the essential goodness of oppressed people. I think that it is absolutely vital to re-think an approach that renders oppressed people infallible and unreproachable and devise new methods for combating oppression that take human variation and complexity into account.