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unhinged
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'it's no wonder, as wendy brown points out, that suffering has always been the barometer of authenticity, and authenticity has in turn become proof of identity. your bleeding wound is the evidence that allows you to name yourself part of a group; shared wounds have historically been the impetus for political solidarity. movements are brotherhoods of suffering that gather numbers and grow, forming bonds that are the basis of our politics, our shared homes. but for brown, this increased focus on the shared wound also yields the compulsive policing of membership in any given identity group. it can become an unnecessary distraction. it can prevent us from focusing our energies against the *process* of the wounding. it stops us from detecting and addressing the structural and historical elements that harmed us in the first place.
i think brown is right when she points out how suffering, as the basis of identity, can curtail the possibilities for intersectional politics. it means we may end up forming movements that are exclusionary to those who cannot sufficiently prove themselves part of our identity groups. often, this comes at the expense of building a true coalition with significant numbers. svetlana boym may warn us against letting emotional bonding outweigh our critical thinking, but what if this moment of emotional bonding is exactly what we need for collective activism, a platform from which critical thinking will become relevant across difference? after all, when push comes to shove, one of my leftists friends of color reminds me, we might have more in common with the white kid standing next to us, masked up and holding an M18 smoke bomb, than the asian cop in riot gear, or the mexican border patrol agent.' - trisha low
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