It occurs to me that I should re:up on this thread since I've gotten a lot of followers since I posted it.I just want to make a comment here about it: a lot of people have said that this is me being "guilty" about my success or that I'm "brainwashed" by "identity politics" or w/e https://twitter.com/NathanTankus/status/1278777095670370304

As I tried to make clear in the thread, I'm not at all guilty about my success. I have these set of "social credentials" and I worked hard. This is not in contradiction. Wanting a just world doesn't mean not celebrating your own success.

The presumption that I must "feel guilty" is based on a projection of individualist politics onto me. I didn't build these macrosocial structures, I simply exist within them like everyone else. Racism and Sexism are structures, they aren't matters of individual implicit bias.

As for the "brainwashed" thing, this one I find pretty funny. People think I'm this "brilliant" original thinker but I just unthinkingly followed some other orthodoxy? I came to these views well before "intersectionality" entered common parlance. In fact, ....

it was my experiences themselves that confused me. I didn't understand why people were treating me the way I was being treated (i.e. generously, presumption I was educationally credentialed no matter my age etc.).

I came to intersectionality (among other currents which analyze racial and other forms of oppression) in order to theoretically explain what was going on in my life. I've found these ideas to be empirically grounded and that's why I'm convinced by them! Follow the evidence.

going to do this right this time, donate to @survivepunishNY https://survivedandpunished.org/donate/