lately there’s been (too) much in Democratic party circles of throwing around the word “establishment.” something came to me this morning that i’ve written about elsewhere (especially in my 2012 dissertation!) that might relate. in my dissertation, one of the experiences i shared was that i live with the reality of white privilege every single moment, even though i attempt (through various means, some more effective than others) to resist, dismantle, critique, undermine, play with, etc., white supremacy. in the remarkable book Whiteness & Morality, Jennifer Harvey relies on the idea of a mediating ethic as put forward by Marcia Riggs (pp. 47-8):
“…we would do well to consider here Marcia Riggs’ mediating ethic. Instead of proclaiming an abstract goal and moving toward it…a mediating ethic fixes attention on the tension-filled process. …In terms of the moral crisis of being white, a mediating ethic allows the paradoxical complexity of the need to be white while we refuse to be white. … A mediating ethic allows an ethical mode in which to recognize that we must, in fact, reconstitute ourselves psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally, precisely through reconstituting the social-political order. These reconstitutions go hand in hand.’
inspired by the “paradoxical complexity of the need to be white while we refuse to be white” i called a section in my dissertation ‘(Not) Being White’ to illustrate the both/and that Riggs and Harvey point to. I’ve got drafts of other writing including “(Not) being male” that will delve into the non-binary gender fluidity that i swim in these days.
So, as far as politics in this country goes: i am (not) the establishment!