‘I have earned the right to call myself anything I like.’ September 25, 2010 Chally You must read this simply amazing letter by Adrian Piper. Thank you very much indeed to ana australiana, who indirectly led me to the link.
Awesome. I was just thinking about this kind of thing the other day when watching America’s Next Top Model (yeahhhh…) and Jay Manuel introduced a FEMALE photographer. Maybe when she grows up she’ll get to be a REAL photographer!
I loved that whole thing, although I must say, the end ‘I have earned the right to call myself anything I like’ felt sort of disjointed. She seemed to be saying that she IS a philosopher and artist, not that she simply decides to call herself a philosopher and artist instead of a black, female philospher and artist. Anyway, I loved that so much because I absolutely loathe hearing people say “female [profession/identifier]” instead of just calling her a “[profession/identifier].” One of the few things I find funny about Family Guy anymore is their running joke about “Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa,” drawing attention to and making fun of that obnoxious phenomenon.
Love it. I have one very liberal friend who always identifies the ethnicity of people she’s talking about, unless they’re white. I think she thinks she’s honoring these people, when really, she’s just othering them, and I need to point it out to her.
I was talking to a neighbor of mine who very lovingly pointed out something similar the other day. How she goes out of her way NOT to describe the “other” characteristics of non-whites. Often this is met with slight confusion when the person she’d described as big brown eyed man with full lips and broad shoulders turns out to be hispanic or african american. People are used to plugging in descriptors based on the dominant culture. So much so that its a little odd how quickly most people fill in the defaults and assume all people in the mind’s eye are generically white heterosexual etc until informed/explained otherwise. Its a very peculiar thing to think about.
I’ve taken to, at times, describing white people as white and everyone else by other means, just to get people to rethink that!
g_whiz, I’ve started doing that, too. I realized that my primary descriptor of someone who’s not my ethnicity is their ethnicity, and I don’t think that’s right. I’ve gotten some confused looks so far, but that means people are thinking, right?