I have to question whether we're really at a stage in our society where we do have the luxury of just forgetting about the specifics. And I'm not sure we are. It seems to me that right now we are seeing something of a backlash to 'identity politics' in some quarters. You hear about people taking offence to the black lives matter movement and tweeting 'all lives matter', and if you listen to any interviews of that Jordan Peterson guy who has shot to fame (and fortune) recently it's apparent he (ostensibly) believes deep rooted societal sexism and racism in the west is nothing but a modern myth created by radical left wing identity obsessed lazy types. And of course there are the people who take umbrage to the term feminism and would rather they called themselves humanists or something. This all sounds rather nice, until you realise all it's doing is enabling the status quo to be perpetuated. A general 'humanist' or 'all lives matter' campaign isn't going to work in addressing these existing racial or sexual or gender power imbalances. And until these are truly, finally, fully uprooted, can we really forget about them? Maybe right now we do just need to accept that everything really does need to be taken into account.
I don't know, it's tricky.
It is. But I think the major problem with is that it's so easily hijacked by anyone who can claim to be part of that "identity" - Black Lives Matter, a group I believe had good intentions to draw much needed attention to black people who really are unfairly persecuted (and in some cases shot dead) by police can find itself hijacked by people defending those who also happen to be black and targeted by the authorities, but actually are/were violent criminals who were targeted by the police for good reasons. It's how people go from trying to root out genuine sexual abuse by powerful men to immediately believing any and all accusations against such people on social media without a shred of proof. Because these people are black, or women, they're part of their "group" and they have to defend them. And that only serves to hand ammunition to their critics. I think there's a reluctance within identity politics to admit that there are some people in
every section of society who are awful human beings who
do deserve to be criticised. There are some awful men, there are some awful women, there are some awful white people, there are some awful black people, there are some awful straight people, there are some awful gay people. People need to stand with those they know are worth standing with, not just because they belong to these identities.
And the sad thing is I totally believe in these causes - Powerful men should
not be able to get away with sexual assault, authorities should
not be unfairly victimising black people. But I think the modern world with its social media has an unfortunate tendency to believe any and every allegation without investigating it first or without trying to go through the proper legal channels to get justice for people. Just look at how any dissenting voices, even perfectly reasonable ones, are shut down by the twitter mob. You think some of these actors and actresses might not be being fully honest about things and that in some cases it might have been a case of quid-pro-quo, Terry Gilliam? Well, guess that means you must be a sex abuser too. It's pretty horrible.
I also feel like the ubiquity of US media really isn't helping things here in the UK with our race and gender relations. Black British people have a totally different history to African Americans, their ancestors emigrated here from parts of the Empire, they weren't brought here against their will as slaves. And while we might have had (and still have) casual racism, we never had enforced segregation. I personally don't feel like there are the same kinds of barriers or bad history between races here in the UK today at all*. American feminists also seem ten times louder and more unreasonable than those in the UK and Europe (though is that really any different to any other ideology that makes its way to the US? No offence intended, American AUKNers - It's your sensationalist media I blame for that, not you as individuals). I think listening to all of this VERY SHOUTY stuff coming out of the US makes people here, whatever side of the debate they're on, feel more victimised and oppressed than they actually are and turns their opinions more extreme.
These imbalances in society will only be addressed when people learn to treat each other as equals - That has gotten better as you say, I think we are moving in the right direction. But will it ever truly go away? I don't know. I don't know if it's possible to fully root it out without some kind of Brave New World style system where the state raises and educates all children from birth, because some people are always going to pick up prejudices from their parents or peers and the cycle will continue. It also feel like in some instances, particularly those of gender roles, people can't do right for doing wrong these days. People who don't conform to traditional gender roles are criticised by those who do for being weird, and those who do conform to those traditional roles are criticised by those who don't for buying into the patriarcial society, or whatever. Can we just let people be whoever they want, please?
*And that's the major reason why, as you're probably aware, I think economic inequality is the biggest divider here. From what I observe in my day-to-day life in a down-at-heel Northern city, black people, white people, Indians and Pakistanis all get along pretty damn well, those who are racist are very few and regarded by everyone else as thugs. Maybe that's just because we're Northern and we talk to each other, and people have bonded over the fact that whatever their background they all work shi**y jobs or are on the dole, I don't know.
