friend: can i call him a slur?
me: only if you want to be disbarred
because, i mean, you certainly aren't getting any Good Person awards
i think we are past the point when we can turn in applications for sainthood
that goes for both of us
friend: no way
i could be canonized
you just wait
me: hahahahaNO
and do you really want to be in the catholic church right now? not so much
friend: the poor Pope
me: i hope you're kidding
Readers? HE WAS NOT KIDDING. His response to the Catholic Church scandal that resulted in the abuse of all those children, just so the Church could save face? The poor Pope.I wanted to throw my laptop across the room at him.
And only yesterday I had this chat conversation:
friend: what do u worry about?
me: um, having enough money for food and rent?
basic stuff
friend: i don't like being on loans
it makes me feel enslaved
me: i've always been on loans - my parents couldn't pay anything for college - only way i could go
it doesn't bother me anymore
friend: i am privileged so that this is new to me
me: ah
it's no big deal
it's funny how many people here freak out because they haven't had to deal with it before . . .
it's only scary in theory
and i think you might want to unpack the privilege in using the "enslaved" comment, dude
friend: my response: ha, that is funny. i mean "enslave" as a metaphor for trapped.So I emailed: and i meant my response: we need to stop fucking whinging. we are privileged as shit, and using words like "enslaved" highlights that.
But THEN, another white boy (these are all white boys) argued with me for 5 minutes about how he was allowed to say that he was a slave to the student loans that allowed him to go to law school. And ANOTHER white boy, when I expressed my frustration as to the first two white boys, argued that he thought that using the word "enslavement" might be too much, but "indentured" was not. Here are some pictures of what indentured servants look like in modern day. They are very small children doing hard labor in Pakistan. As if we could divorce words from their historical meanings and usages and pretend that as long as one definition was applicable, we could use a word. As if there wasn't something really wrong about a bunch of white adults having the opportunity to further educate themselves and get well-paying jobs after school bemoaning their "indentured servitude" or "slavery" to the very loans that have made them among the most privileged people on earth by allowing them to go to law school in the U.S. As if we could just shrug off the baggage and history those words carry, and erase the very real experiences and existences of millions of human beings by co-opting those words to the point where they mean almost nothing at all. We might as well walk around and say that everything that is unfair is "raping" us. Or it's ok for a white person to call a black person "uppity" if they really just fit the definition. Or, oh my god, you guys, people got so mad at me, they could have "lynched" me!
For fuck's sake.*
Readers, I am so strung out. Fuuuuuck this week, is my thought on this. Because, so, there was my rape brain. Then there was the just total fucking inhumanity of the people around me, as illustrated above. Then there was the WikiLeaks video. The exposure of NATO lying about the execution of three women. The Catholic Church bullshit. The fact that I am watching very closely what is revealed about Abu Zubaydah and the ongoing leaks on the CIA torture program, and reading about torture, the details of which keep getting worse, a couple of times a day, for my academic note. And poking through again the hundreds of pages of torture memos I read last semester to write that damn note about the doctors at Gitmo, so I can cross-reference with what is being leaked. Obama authorizing the assassination of Americans. Being in the middle of law school finals. Worrying about money. Missing therapy, which I had to cancel, because I don't have the money for both therapy and feeding myself.
So, remember in that post when I talked about it's ok to despair? I am clearly still in the despairing stage, here. I am over everyone and everything. And I will be better in a couple of days.
But some kid from one of my classes yesterday brought up on the metro that I hardly ever smile and that is bad for me. Which, ok, fuck him, yes, because women are not there to smile and please him, but also I just want to put this out there: so often, when I am sad or unhappy, people try to make me feel better. Friends try to tell me to stop being so negative, or to stop dwelling on bad news, or to try to think positively and maybe take a bath and listen to good music and just stop being so sad. They try to fix me, and this annoys me, because in this world we live in, I don't think you can always be happy. Not if you are paying attention. Or, like, leave your house or ever interact with another human being ever. Basically, if you are sentient, you are just going to be unhappy sometimes.
And that is all kinds of ok, Readers. Anything deviating from happy is not an aberration, it is not a problem, it is not something that immediately needs to be mediated. It is life, and it is being human, and these things are messy and hard, and sometimes? It is just not in the cards for me to be happy. Or for you. Or for anyone. Not all the time.
So if you are unhappy - I hear you. I totally get it. We'll all be fine, and breathe through it, and work it out, but for right now? I raise my glass (there's water in it, I have to work tomorrow, so use your imagination here, Readers) to all the folks who right now are so busy they can barely breathe, are stressed out, sad, lonely, having a crappy week, overwhelmed, feeling anxious or fearful, or just generally cranky. Here's a toast to us getting through this, and managing each and every day, and at some point in the future, when we are in a place to be happy, we can toast to that too.
Cheers!
I understand your position about using the words enslaved and similar. But marxists also use the word 'exploatation' when referring to the capitalist-worker relationship - but what is implied is a critique on a systematic level, not the individual. What is examined is a type of relationship, rather than the conditions that exist in all the realizations of this relationship. The conditions are many and varied, because the capitalist societies differ from one another, but on a systematic level they function the same way.
ReplyDeleteTo examine a political or economic system in this way is not to diminish either the hardship or the privilege that exist in that system for different people.
When seen from that perspective, I think debt enslavement is a word that can be used to describe a particular relationship that denies the person (or a country) a freedom of economic choice. For example, you might argue that a country that borrows from IMF under stringent conditions is enslaved by its debt, because it's policies now must be driven by the demands of IMF instead by the concern for what is best for its people - which is usually the opposite of what the IMF demands. Isn't that country enslaved by its debt if it is literally not free to make economic and social decisions? You may argue that it is not enslavement if it's self-imposed, after all, that country had the choice not to accept IMF's conditions and its money, but the other option is bankrupcy, poverty, chaos and probably violence - and what kind of a freedom it is when you're only free to choose your own demise?
Similarly, a US pilot who leaves college with the debt that will grow to half a million dollars by the time she manages to pay it off out of her $20,000 a year salary, is not free to buy a house or to have a baby or do anything in her life that will deter the paying off of this debt. Yes, she, as a worker weighted down with huge amounts of debt, is at least legally free. But how free is she when she is literally denied the freedom to develop her life until she pays off her debt?
I understand your opposition to using words like enslavement to describe relationships that still allow for a significant amount of privilege to be had by a person. However, that does not mean that those who exploit and/or impose these relationships are not, in significant ways, curbing people's freedom. That also doesn't mean that you were wrong to point out to your friends how privileged they are, because I don't think you were. But I think that by insisting that enslavement and words like that can only be applied to relationships that are most oppresive and produce the worst conditions, we allow others to expoit us in subtle ways because we are reluctant to see it as exploatation because we are more privileged than others. I don't think that pointing out an exploitative relationship will necessarily diminish the meaning of the hardship of those less privileged. As long as we are, as you obviously are, aware of our privilege and the differences between our position and the position of those more exploited.
Right. No, but you just made my argument for me, actually. I mean, I agree with what you are saying. But I didn't extend this argument. I said white law students should not be referring to themselves as "slaves" or "indentured servants."
ReplyDeleteLook, Marx used the word "exploitation" accurately. It is an exploitative relationship. But do you have any historical mental images that spring to mind there when you use that word? Like, do you think he negated the experience of millions of people by using that word lightly? No. Actually, just gave millions of people BACK their experience.
But if I say slave, ESPECIALLY in America, do you picture the a white law student? NOT SO MUCH.
Law students CHOSE to come to law school - they weren't sold into it. And MANY, MANY of them came to law school (and this is why I hate law students) to then make a great deal of money after they graduate and be rich and powerful. The loans allow them to do that - they are an investment in greater earnings in the future. We are not toiling in the heat outside. No one is beating us or forcing us to do anything. We sit in air-conditioned classrooms and learn all day. We learn how to be powerful and manage the system. This is not anywhere close to what has historically been slaves or indentured servants.
And then, to act as if debt here is slavery? Fuck no. NONE OF US, even me who will take public interest jobs that pay less after school, will be paid poorly. NONE OF US will struggle after school. NONE OF US will worry about feeding ourselves or paying our rent (unlike the majority of Americans, who do). Because there are laws that prohibit how much you can be required to pay back on your loans based on a percentage of your salary. And THEN, even if you've taken public interest jobs, after ten years, your loan will be repaid FOR YOU because you used your law degree in furtherance of social justice.
We have choices. And agency. Our lives have not been sold to anyone else. We chose this, not under any duress. And a law degree makes us among the elite. We will still be among the highest paid in the country, even if we take lesser paid legal jobs. So to call a law student a "slave" or "indentured" is to deny the VERY EXISTENCE of all the people to whom that term has been applied historically. It means anyone can be a slave. I am a slave to my cats! Or my internet! Haha! Look at my white privilege the way I can toss that term around, without evoking any very real fucked up family history that involved bringing my ancestors here in chains!
Does debt in this country suck? Sure. But make you a slave? Hell no.
But, can there be debt enslavement of countries? I agree yes. I mean, fuck: Haiti, much? But, you know, using that word does NOT negate all the historical baggage that comes with that word. I mean: Haiti. The way white countries have treated Haiti. Clearly. Enough said. Or the African countries! You get the idea.
What I am saying is: for a white person on his way to being one of the most privileged folks in America to call himself a slave means that that white person thinks that he can claim words, language, meaning from the structures in which they have existed for hundreds of years and apply them to himself (himself, because it was boys arguing in this case). He is king of words, and he can wield them as he will. He can define what they mean, in his use of them. He can use them unmoored form any real human, historical, actual, terrible existence.
Which already means he is nobody's slave.
Oh, ASP, by the way, I recognize your point is that not all words should only be used for the "worst of the worst." And I agree. My anger is at people who are in the "this is inconveniencing me" camp who use words like slavery that make me really, really, mad.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course you can use words to describe larger systems.
I think what I am most wary of, specifically, is the power to use words and give them meaning - that, the power of language and narrative, power can rule the world alone. This is a big thing in cultural theory, what the power to define means. So, slavery is based on a system of language which defines some people as "not human." You can enslave someone if they are not human, and in fact, you are enlightening them of humanity just by being around them with your white self!
And being as powerful as language is, there is something very perverse about a bunch if white kids in law school now deciding, when they feel inconvenienced, that they are now "slaves." Especially because they can't be - I mean, they don't consider themselves subhuman. And that is actually what they are erasing - the entire structure on which slavery is built, not the fact that one person is indebted in some way. They are making "slavery" divorced from the historical wholesale categorization of human beings as not human beings.
Does that make sense? If they can be slaves, well, then, anyone can be a slave for anything, and that whitewashes the history behind the word, and the very real damage it has done. It is not about the meaning of the word. It is about the structures behind the word that have given it meaning and use.
What I am saying is: for a white person on his way to being one of the most privileged folks in America to call himself a slave means that that white person thinks that he can claim words, language, meaning from the structures in which they have existed for hundreds of years and apply them to himself (himself, because it was boys arguing in this case). He is king of words, and he can wield them as he will. He can define what they mean, in his use of them. He can use them unmoored form any real human, historical, actual, terrible existence.
ReplyDeleteYes, I understand this point, completely. And I agree with everything you've said.
My comment wass provoked by the fact that I often have to defend my criticism of the capitalist system against people who claim an economic system cannot be oppressive unless there are absolutely radical signs of oppression (and these are never radical enough - whenever I point out specific radical examples of people's hardship, those are just 'exceptions'), because a society in which many people have TVs, Internet access, fancy clothes etc, cannot be considered as opressive. This effectively eliminates the experiences of all people who do actually struggle every day and, what's worse, denies me the right to criticism - because I live in a society that is not opressive as many others, I have no right to complain. That argument is essentially analogous to saying that we shouldn't complain about the state of women's rights in Western societies, because women in other societies are much worse off. You know what I mean? Like, my family's struggle as a working class family should not be examined in the context of capitalist exploitation of workers, because workers in Indonesia who live on $2 a day are much more exploited.
But anyway, I do agree with everything you said. You are absolutely right in saying that such appropriation of the word slavery by white law school students who will not be enslaved by their debts or struggle to survive is completely wrong and effectively erases the real hardship and experiences of people who were enslaved.
Oh my god, yes, I know EXACTLY what you mean. I think I didn't understand what you were saying initially? And also that I am kinda an asshole lately? Sorry. I apologize. I was very reactionary.
ReplyDeleteBut oh my goodness, the "capitalism is not oppressive" thing because you can buy a TV? ARGH. NO. And yeah, I hate that Western women have it so good, stop complaining thing. Like, good does not mean equal. And until we get equal, I am not satisfied with "better than terrible."
I completely hear you and sympathize with you. I have encountered this. It drives me up a wall.
I support and join you in your war against capitalism! It IS oppressive! It can be so hard to argue when people take away your words, or de-legitimize your argument on the ground of, essentially, stop whining, it isn't so bad. Because it also de-legitimizes your experience while denying all the larger existing power structures that create such hierarchies. Which - hey! We've come full circle with those boys de-legitimizing other people's experiences and pretending words aren't part of a power structure!
So, in conclusion: the white boys at law school and those people who tell you at least your working class family are not sweatshop workers in Indonesia? They can shut up now.
ASP, thank you for having this comment discussion with me!
Thank you, too, for your well thought out and insightful replies. You don't need to apologize. :) I think initially I didn't really explain well what I meant to say, but we are obviously in agreement. :))
ReplyDeleteAnd yay for joining the fight against capitalism!
And another thing, which I meant to comment on earlier but I forgot - the having people tell me to smile/cheer up thing -- I get that too! And it annoys me.
Sometimes people tell me I shouldn't be so 'negative'. I tell them there are many things happening in the world that depress me or make me angry (I rarely talk about personal issues), and they reply by saying that "I shouldn't read so much bad news". As if those things will stop happening if I just ignore them.
You cannot be happy all the time if you are even remotely interested in the world around you or have any personal issues, whether big or small, that worry you on a particular day. But what is frequently implied when people tell you to stop being negative is that, if you're going to be unhappy, you should do so in a way that won't be obvious to the people around you, so that you don't incommode them. And they sometimes manage to, in fact, subtly accuse you of being selfish for not respecting their right not to be upset by your lack of happiness. And that is fucking annoying.
So I fully support you and your right not to pretend to be happy just because other people think it's "bad for you."