Thought of the Day: The Power of Naming

Solidarity with all those who’ve built and engaged in whisper networks and lists on bathroom walls. Solidarity with all those who name names publicly. Also solidarity with all those who choose not to name names for any reason… I endorse no hierarchy of tactics.

But I hold a special antipathy towards those who attempt quash whisper networks and public disclosures. (more…)

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On White Male Violence

The problem with designating white male mass shooters as mentally ill is not the denigration of people with mental illness or that the characterization is itself wrong. 

These men are no doubt quite psychically ill, as are all white people who live in our settler, white supremacist societies. White supremacist societies produce psychic structures that make everyone ill, though differing processes and effects of racialization mean that those who are racialized as white are largely unaware of the illness they inhabit and that inhabits them, and they usually don’t identify or experience their racialization as white as a site of trauma, pain, or trouble, except when the promises of whiteness fail them. And even then they often fail to identify the actual source of their problem: a sick, settler capitalist society that largely doesn’t serve them. (more…)

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