zeegoeshere

I'm trying to stay away from the remains of the warnings wank, but this one thing is just bugging the shit out of me, and I have no idea if this is a coherent post about it but I just need to vent. A few people have been implying or claiming that white women shouldn't be using language that has been primarily used for anti-racist work to talk about sexism, ablism and sexual abuse.

I think that maintaining some skepticism with regards to white people using language that originated with anti-racists is probably a good thing. However, I had really hoped that fandom might have grasped the basic concept of intersectionality by now. Being gay doesn't negate having white privilege, being a woman doesn't negate having straight privilege, being a PoC doesn't negate having abled privilege, etc etc. Fucking duh, right? This is like Anti-Oppression 101.

In this particular context, being able to read any kind of fic without getting triggered is a privilege that I have that many survivors don't have. When we use language that came out of Racefail, that is not meant as a comparison between racism and ablism in fandom--NO ONE is saying that this issue is as bad or worse as racism. The entire point of intersectionality is that this kind of stuff is not "either/or," it's "both/and." Anti-racists don't have some kind of copyright on language--it is oppressive and frankly moronic to say that you only want us to fight this way for your particular issues, because all of these isms intersect and affect each other anyway. Claiming that we can only use particular tools to fight for you and no one else pits groups against each other and hurts everybody.