11:08am June 20, 2012

➸ Untitled: reclaiming universal personhood

when I wrote this post, I did not intend my reblog to be a mere expansion of the OP’s argument. based on their tags, some people reblogging my commentary missed that. I don’t think I made my point emphatically enough.

I think it is heinous that “we’re all human” and…

Also. It’s funny how people say that if you say “we’re all human” you must not face oppression. Because I personally have to wonder at the type of oppression a person faces, who says that “we are all human” is a sign of privilege.

Because I. Personally. Not just historically. Not sorta-kinda-metaphorically-ish. Not just family, relatives, people I know, people I care about. Not “seeing me as a stereotype is seeing me as less than human”, although that’s true too, I’m just talking about something way less indirect. Have directly dealt with oppression that directly says that I am not human. That I am not a person. That therefore fundamental human rights should not apply to me or anyone like me. This is going on, right here, right now, and quite often people do not mince words about the matter and most people, oppressed or not, see this as acceptable, even scientists studying people like me. This happens, in very public ways as well as private ones, all the time.

So I very damn well will say we are all human and people are people. Even though I’ve gotten shit for it before from people who ought to be on my side here. But it’s much easier to play the game where you pick out the right and wrong words and phrases and use them to tally up who is right and who is wrong, than it is to actually try to think and figure out the right thing to do.

I’ve also seen people who use “we are all human” to mean “inside, you’re all white, middle class, cis, straight, male, nondisabled, American, Western, etc.” But that’s how language always works: When it comes to words that attempt to get at fundamental truths about the world, there are always at least two meanings, one deeper, and one so shallow and meaningless that it might as well mean the opposite. If you try to insist that everyone who uses such words is doing something wrong, you’re actually limiting people’s ability to verbally point at those deeper truths.

Which might actually explain a lot about why certain heavily word-focused Internet communities don’t work too well.

When there are people who want to call me nonhuman. And when there are people who want to define personhood, legally, to exclude me. Then I will say we are all human and I will say people are people and I’ll say we are all equal. And I will see anyone who responds badly to that as fundamentally clueless about my life. You’re right. We can’t let people take away the only easy ways to say something very important.

Also see this quote. (For reference, she wasn’t just randomly reciting that to be nationalistic, she was trying to find stuff to recite to protect herself from mind-rape and that popped into her head.)

Notes: