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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Islamic Leftism
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Strategic essentialism
Honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing how it's 'essentialism' when I'm decrying things that white folk never stopped doing-- if anything, they just found sneakier ways to go about the same objectives of Manifest Destiny, the same objectives of Intentionally-Downed-Reconstruction, the same objectives of Jim Crow, the same objectives of the '94 Crime Bill, probably so on, probably so forth.
Just 'cause a smaller fraction of the settler majority don't doesn't suddenly make it all sweet. Talk like that is giving real "#notallmen" in this moment, and... If we don't fuck with that, we shouldn't be fuckin with "#notallwhites" or "#notallisraelis". My 2c on the matter of 'essentialism'.
Well yeah. It's just a term for it, it's not a statement. Criticisms of essentialism can be just as problematic (or not) as essentialism itself is (or isn't) (see Glen Coulthard's Red Skin White Masks). It is has been useful for a long time. Certainly figures like Pontiac and Tecumseh used it in their rhetoric.
It is 'strategic' because the essentialism is usually borrowing white notions of race and flipping them around (I.e. Calling the white man barbaric because he does exactly what he accuses others of doing and calls them barbaric). It's not meant to justify the notion of barbarism or lack of civilization, or to double down on white ontology, rather it's meant to flip the script and name the oppressor. It's how the Seminole clans describe the White War, as barbarism, but this is a flipped version of essentialism that is created by white settlers and weaponized against Native people and enslaved people (especially those that escape). Thus, strategic essentialism. It is meant to have rhetorical utility accross major political divides while also uniting a coalition.
And your point about women and men also works well. Women that use strategic essentialism are generally not intenting to advance sexist paradigms, but are naming the system they are subjected to.
Okay, had to be sure where you were coming from-- why I tried to couch what I was saying to defang it towards 'you' and more seat it in a societal sense. I've dealt with way too many people who operate off a very liberal sense of "I can just call this essentialism and never have to address it from there" on some thought-termination shit; I appreciate you expanding this out.
My original comment was a bit cryptic and could have used clarification. It was just the first thing my nerd brain thought. I'm sure there is nuance to add considering anti Jewish sentiments are quite real (and not always easily compared to whiteness, for example) but yet the whole idea of "strategic essentialism" still seems worth mentioning.