From feminism to race studies

Every so often, in my life or elsewhere on the internet, I get this strange idea that I’ll try to explain some of my experiences. I get this oh-so-strange idea that if I can just explain some of my experiences as a black person, then perhaps someone else will understand a little more about what it is or is not about.

I’m proven wrong repeatedly, of course. It makes me wonder why this strange idea keeps popping in my head, when every time I try, I know my ideas will be denounced, labeled as insane, etc., People will say I “take things too seriously” or am not even “in touch with reality.” Everyone should just be color blind and then nothing would matter.

I guess sometimes I feel insane, but then I find at least a couple of people who seem to get what I’m saying. I find articles that seem to have looked into these issues, etc.,

I guess I feel bad because I don’t know so much about feminism, and I fear I’ll make the same gross misunderstandings that people make of my ideas if I speak further, but I sense some parallels in some of the struggles. It was interested to read on The Exponent about idealistic, pragmatic, and cynical feminism and its role in the Mormon church.

Caroline, the author, suggests something that I would not have expected at first: she says that of the three brands of feminists, it is the pragmatic ones and the cynical ones that are most likely to be able to make life in the church work.

I didn’t understand this at first, because I thought that it would be the idealists who would have this strength to endure, and the cynics who would walk away, but as I read, I began to feel that I understood a little of what she was talking about.

I thought this was an intriguing framework: the idealistic ones who can’t endure the dissonance between what they know in their heart is right/just and what the Church teaches about gender eventually leave, whereas the pragmatic or cynical ones who see patriarchy as inescapably infusing almost all institutions (universities, corporations, etc.) or who decide to weigh the pros and cons and stay for various reasons including community, family, heritage, and root belief in the restoration tend to be able to make Mormonism work for them.

And this made me think about my life…I can’t say that I apply race so similarly to feminism in the church, but in my life in general, I can see the same kinds of ideas. I have talked on the site about truth and Truth, and I feel that this distinction is somewhat illuminating on a matrix. Pragmatists recognize truth with the small t…it is something that is useful, but which must be flexible. As Caroline continues:

Another coping mechanism for the pragmatic feminist, may also be a certain degree of detachment. One can only exist in a world of pain and despair for so long before building up armor for protection. That armor, often in the form of decreased investment or belief, protects. But it also separates and creates some critical distance. I think that transition from painfully believing that God is behind current teachings on patriarchy and gender roles, to believing that some/all such teachings are cultural holdovers from an earlier era is a hugely liberating turning point that many pragmatic feminists eventually experience.

I strongly identify with this. For me, it seems like a big liberating part for me (especially with coming to atheism) was in realizing that God wasn’t behind the injustices I saw in the world. These injustices are not Truth. They are just a convention or construction that have lingered through the actions of many people.

And even from the cynical perspective, one can believe that these conventions or constructions (whether they be of patriarchy or gender roles or racial expectations) are unlikely to change for the better, but then, one can resign himself to a hopelessness that is comforting.

But it is in the idealistic people…who continue to have a bad faith or a bad hope in a Truth that simply is not that will have the roughest time of all.

I realize that I slip into this idealistic spirit so often. I want to believe that the world is a better place than it is. I want to believe that people can be more understanding. I consciously recognize I should be more pragmatic, or perhaps even cynical. But subconsciously, I don’t want to believe that. So that is why I wonder if Bruce isn’t right when he says “we all…treat morality as if it’s an absolute.”

I remember I really didn’t care about black anything a long time ago. But oh, how I didn’t realize that I was just as much a player in this game — it was only when I read up about black nihilism and existentialism, double consciousness and even tresconsciousness, that I realized that I’m not the only one.