Hooks-Argument

                In “Coming to Class Consciousness” bell hooks describes various aspects of class consciousness as well as classism. She opens with a description of her childhood desires and the ways in which her parents, particularly her mother, would dismiss those desires (especially when these desires would cause a monetary strain on the family). Opening with this allowed the reader to
immediately be clued in on particular family values of hooks’, and it helps the reader to better understand future events (such as her parents disinterest in hooks’ desire to attend Stanford).

                This chapter is not simply memoir style anecdotes upon anecdotes. Although this text is far less theoretical than much of the essays put forth by hooks, we are able to pick up on a lot of characteristics relating to Class (big C class as in the concept). When describing her first White friend at the women’s college she originally attended hooks notes that her fellow working-class friend had not just anger and bitterness towards the more privileged girls but also envy. Hooks notes that “envy was always something I pushed away from my psyche. Kept too close for comfort envy could lead to infatuation and on to desire. I desired nothing that they had” (26).  This passage, as well as a later one which describes her self-hating working-class roommate at Stanford, highlights internalized classism.
The envy that her White friend had was only possible because of an internalized belief that middle/upper class positionality was the superior position. This kind of internalized belief can manifest in a variety of ways. For this particular girl it manifested as envy. For the Stanford roommate it manifested as a passionate desire to “climb-the-ladder” even if that meant putting self-care and safety on the back burner.

                Another moment in which hooks’ addresses internalized classism is when she discusses “class shame”, using the example of her own mother’s refusal to discuss monetary difficulties (28). Much like the manifestation of envy, class shame can only occur when one views their class position as inferior in comparison to other class positions.

                An important aspect of the text is hooks’ discussion of the neo-colonial elite. She rightly points out that there are plenty of Black folk, particularly the “Black elite” who harness the same type of classism and feelings of class superiority that the White hegemonic group possesses. It’s unfortunate that this isn’t brought up until much later in the chapter, I have no doubt it’s meditated on more closely in later chapters but those later chapters are not the topic of discussion. There is so much complexity involved when discussing the neocolonial Black and brown elite, it’s something that deserves a great deal of attention. I appreciate the fact that hooks’ closes with a note on her own need to be self-reflective lest she become a colonized elite herself. 

War on Sex Work

Reading about the ways in which women in the sex work industry are unfairly targeted and harassed by law enforcement agencies came as no surprise to me. Those involved with sex work are often demonized and criminalized, particularly the women involved. I recall reading, about 4-5 years ago, the drastic difference in arrest rates between female sex workers compared to pimps and their johns. Now, in a culture that claims to be anti-sex trafficking you would think that when pimps are involved they would be the number one target. I suppose that the misogynist ideologies of our society tends to trump a supposed desire to be “anti-sex trafficking”.

While sex work can be a choice there are many instances in which it is not, or at least the “choice” isn’t all that clear cut. When addiction* and abject poverty are involved it seems a bit disingenuous to call it a “choice”, as it would appear that particular circumstances limits the amount of options one has. This is a large reason why a “war on sex-trafficking” will never be effectual if there is no genuine “war on poverty”. But, effectiveness is more than likely not actually the goal. It seems that the goal is most likely the continued harassment and marginalization of women. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been great strides when it comes to under-age sex trafficking, but the way in which adult women are treated w(and even under-age women for that matter) when they’re seen as “prostitutes” is deplorable.

The article “The War on Sex Workers” that Deirdre requested we read touches upon something that I find very rarely spoken about, and that is the liberal fetishization of the law. It was hard to hold back from snapping my fingers when I reading the following:

“It’s fascinating that women who claim to be feminists” are so willing to use the law in this way, says Ann Jordan. Supporting anti-prostitution enforcement requires them to call in the muscle of “all these institutions that have oppressed women forever,” she notes. “But they are willing to use the law to coerce a particular kind of behavior from women.”

  It is rare to see an acknowledgment of the inherent problems when activists turn to the law to right certain wrongs. If the structure exists as it is now, we should not expect any legislation to be effectual when it comes to particularly communities. If the structure is  built on certain foundational beliefs (such as patriarchy, misogyny, anti-blackness & white supremacy), then we can never hope to see the “law” act justly when it comes to those communities. This is something that many liberals fail to understand because they have spent so long believing that the law can bring justice when in reality it cannot, for exactly the reasons Ann Jordan stated in the quote above and then some. The only thing we should expect from a broken system that is built upon the marginalization of certain folk is for that system to continue to marginalize and oppress. 

*Please take a look at the "Faces of Addiction" photostream I posted earlier in the semester, as well as the related photostreams. 

Annette Lareau's "Watching, Waiting, and Deciding"--Reflection

                At first the discussion of Mrs. Marshall in the Annette Lareau piece “Watching, Waiting, and Deciding when to Intervene: Race, Class, and the Transmission of Advantage” was a bit irritating. The first couple of examples of her intervening just seems a bit much, and appeared to showcase a sense of entitlement that she had and that she was potentially instilling in to her daughters. However, as the article went on I began to question whether that was truly a sense of entitlement at all. A middle-class Black mother may feel as if she can speak up when she feels her children are possibly being discriminated against, her feeling as if she has a voice that can be listened to may be something that’s been socialized thanks to her class standing. But, the act of speaking up in this case does not highlight a sense of entitlement at all. If anything, it speaks to a situation of dispossession. Her children are potentially being discriminated against simply for existing in Black bodies  and the middle-class Black mother probably only sees a few choices. Either allow this potential discrimination to continue and potentially case trauma to the child (or expose the child to a racist world that the mother does not want to child to see quite yet), or speak up and run the risk of being deemed the “Angry Black Woman” or overbearing mother. The mother in this case is more than likely just trying to protect her child for as long as possible from the cruelty that exists in society.

                I only wish that the article was able to explore gender a bit more deeply. There was a brief discussion of the fact that for the families studied the mothers always had their hands in their children’s education far more than the father. It was interesting that this existed across race lines. I could have missed when this was discussed, but is it also the same over class lines? When we find something so prevalent that crosses several lines of “classes” (in the ‘group’ sense) does that make it easier for us to pinpoint the root of the issue? In this case the argument could easily be made that it’s clearly an issue with roots in gender difference/gender roles, because of the way in which the phenomena exists across race lines and potentially across class lines. 

I read chapter four, conclusion and 7
(writing here so I remember!!!!)