Ritchie’s focus in the article Queer Activism and the Politics of Visibility in Israel-Palestine is
on the way Israel and Palestine react to MOGII communities. There are two big
dynamics discussed in the article.
One is relevant to how Israel is built on two contradicting sets of
ideals; the first is overarching liberalism and the second is ingrained racism
due to the nature of Israel as a state that continues to deny Palestinians
access to their native land.
Ritchie concludes that the lauding of Israel as a safe haven from
Palestinian homophobia is a way to “evade the fundamental contradiction between
racism and liberalism that defines Israeli nationalism.” Ritchie says that in the context of the
western world, many liberal Zionists use the argument of homosexual acceptance
to claim that Israel is better than surrounding religious homophobic
cultures. Contrarily, Palestinians
are never asked if they want to be visible in Israel’s queer community, and
instead used to further Isreal sympathy while supporters quietly ignore that
Palestinian queers can never really incorporate into Isreal’s queer community
while they are still viewed as “outside” of Isreal’s society for their
ethnicity.
When
Ritchie moves on to analyzing Shaul Ganon’s ideas on Palestinian culture as it
intersects with queerness, he relays that Ganon feels that Palestine’s culture
is overshadowed with high value of the family’s reputation. Many queer Palestinians don’t “come
out” for fear of ruining the family name.
Ritchie then critiques that many people can’t resist bringing
Palestinian queerness into Isreali or Western context, and need to force
Palestinians to live an existence of visible and active queerness all the
time. Ritchie continues to say
that Palestinians who live this way are actually western or Isreali due to this
conversion to “queerness” as a lifestyle and active way of living. “Enlisting” Arab or Palestinian queers
into this western/Isreali frame is only a tool for the gain of western means. Leaders in queer Palestinian
organizations admit that they feel humiliated and uncomfortable with the way
they have ideas prescribed to them without permission.
Discussion Questions:
1.What
are some similar cases of “using” marginalized groups for the sake of seeming
politically inclusive, while backhandedly continuing to oppress?
2.How
do many other “western” societies enforce their own standards upon the rest of
the world?
3.How
do you feel about non-western and non-modern ideas of queer identity? Do you think being queer would be
viewed “differently” if the communities and lifestyles surrounding it were
downplayed or nonexistent? What
affects would that have on the queer population?
To answer question number three: I think people from Western cultures view the world as a progressive, forward thinking and moving entity. In the West our culture, governments, and populations are, indeed, moving forward when it relates to race, LGBTQ rights, etc. I think it is important to respect non-western cultures and non-modern ideas on queer identity even if they are contradictory to my own. It is impossible to understand why people think or act a certain way without living in their shoes. As Ritchie points out on page 564 gay Palestinians are in an impossible dilemma: 1. Secularism does not exist in Arab culture. The rights we have/enjoy in the West (LGBTQ) are based on secular and not religious views. 2. The focus on the honor of the family and not on the individual prevents gay Palestinians from "self-realization" who cannot come out for fear of shaming their families. We can only hope other cultures (non-western) will be influenced and encouraged to progress for all their citizens.
ReplyDeleteOne similar example of Israeli pinkwashing, where Israel drapes their settler colonial expansion and erasure of indigenous Palestine history in a rainbow Pride flag, is behemoth capitalistic corporations advertising LGB(T?) acceptance ("We hire gay people!" or "We gave out stuff at a Pride parade!"), while conversely actively contributing to exploitation and oppression of the Global South. One example of this is CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, getting a lot of attention for coming out, but little attention being given to suicides in sweatshop factories that produce components of Apple screens a few years ago. Last week a trans South Asian spoken word group, Darkmatter, came to campus for a show entitled #itgetsbitter, where they challenge the "it gets better campaign" and contemporary queer (white) politics. They do recurring statuses on Facebook where they post inspirational activists. This is what they had to say about Tim Cook:
ReplyDelete"Today's other #ActivistInspiration is Apple CEO Tim Cook for being committed to a politics of redistribution, paying all his workers a living wage, and narrowing the racial wealth divide.
lol jk y'all but at least he's GAY"
They also have a powerful poem where they discuss they're own involvement in the gentrification of Brooklyn, connecting it to Israeli settler expansion in the West Bank. They relate the victimization and othering of Palestine and Brooklyn: ". . .where there's a wall in between Manhattan and Brooklyn, like Ramallah and Jerusalem. For every developed city a backwards ghetto, for every "advanced country" a primitive third world". Here's a link to that video and their Facebook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVqbXAZuBV0
To answer question one, the first thing that comes to mind is "token" characters in many shows and movies (and even in political parties). Shows will often try to excuse racist writing by having a single person of color (who, more often than not, is a side character who is not fully developed). In political movements, we've recently seen a push in the republican platform to use token minority members to gain votes (e.g. Marco Rubio) even though the party clearly has racists beliefs and policies (voter restriction laws, anti-immigration). What I will note is that in both cases a group is using a token minority to make up for continuing to oppress that group, compared to the case int his article where one minority is being "tokenized" (queer) to make up for a different form of oppression (racism). I'm not sure what that means but I just think it's interesting...
ReplyDeleteI noticed that too of tv shows i watch and just have come across and it actually REALLY bothers me. Sure, there's A person of color, but it's true that that person is a side character who is not fully developed. THOSE are the characters i want to know more about and be one of the MAIN characters. As much as i LOVE How I Met Your Mother and we actually DO get to know Barney's brother James (played by Wayne Brady who is also on Whose Line Is It Anyway?) a lot more as the series goes on, he is still a side character we don't see a lot, or at least didn't see a lot after he was first introduced. Another show i thought of is New Girl in which one of Jess' (Zooey Deschanel) roomates is a black man named Winston (Lamorne Morris), BUT there is also Jess' best friend Cece and later another character Coach comes in. And we do learn about and see these characters a lot, so I'm not sure if this is a good example for this argument. It might be more of an opposing example in which there is involvement of more people of other races/ethnicity playing important roles... then again we don't see main or even side characters of OTHER races. I don't know, I just thought it was important to bring up.
DeleteTo answer #2, perhaps maybe the west's idea of beauty (NOT EVERYONE, I'm talking about the fashion world, most magazines, the pressures of women/girls looking "pretty") have made an impression on other countries? And vise versa, considering fashion for a long time has been HUGE in europe, so the west has gotten a lot of ideas on beauty from them. All this made me think of this video i saw by BuzzFeed on their YouTube channel BuzzFeedYellow. give it a look and u will be surprised... i get mixed emotions from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9FmDBrewA
ReplyDeleteThis could be an unpopular opinion, but I agree with Gari about different ideals from non western cultures. In most chinese families, it is frowned upon when a daughter or son marries a racially different person. I come from an International school, I surround myself with western culture despite living 18 years in Asia and under my traditional chinese parents. So yes, within the western context, I can see how this is perceived to be racist and obsolete. However, most chinese families stress on the lineage of ethnically asian children, and I know that there are many parents would prefer the continuation of a chinese family for future generations. It isn't so much as racist than about culture. I respect my parents too much to not actively betray the culture that they believe.
ReplyDeleteThis, I find, is the same concept to the invisibility of gay palestinians, and their reluctance to come out in fear of shaming their families. But at the same time, shouldn't a person have the right to express his or her own sexuality? This is an argument with whether gay rights/human sexuality rights are more important than cultural rights and respect. Maybe the Arab society and their religious belief will slowly evolve into accept homosexuality more openly. And in this much more progressive society, which I hope one day we can come to, religion in Arab culture can co-exist with homosexuality.
In response to question two, Western societies consistently enforce their own human rights standards upon other countries through glorified imperialism. Human rights issues are incredibly complicated, especially LGBTQ* equality since it's still a debated topic in the Western world. While I would ideally like all people to be treated equally regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc., that is simply not achievable. Countries like the US (and Israel) view upholding human rights worldwide as a noble duty, but they continue to implement racist, classist, and other exclusionary policies at home. I'm writing this following the release of the Grand Jury's verdict in the Michael Brown case, and it's so so clear how far the US has to come on basic race issues. Yet the US enforces "American" ideals of diversity abroad, and states that don't comply with those ideals are reprimanded. While it is important to support human rights worldwide, we must also consider the imperialistic implications and the issues we still face here at home.
ReplyDelete