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@kaborso.bsky.social
515 followers 703 following 925 posts
Akil. He/him/they/them. Hottie ineffectual. Frasierology. Bear/dad studies. Gay history. Horror & queer cinema. Softwear tailor. Cat dad of three. Partnered. Atlanta. kaborso.github.io
![This is a photo of a book page: "[Demita Frazier:] ...that's how we got the name. Of course, this is all pre-Google. Everything's so much easier now. So much easier. But Barbara had come across in her reading information about Harriet Tubman leading the slave revolt that took place at the Combahee River.
So we evolved out of the National Black Feminist Organiza-tion, and, once we began meeting and talking, realized we were more radical, and we were wanting a different kind of structure.
And we wanted to have an economic analysis as well. We weren't willing to just have a discussion about, you know, sort of fitting into mainstream capitalist thinking.
One of things that really stood out was that we had an analysis that NBFO did not. We had an economic analysis. Because we were all either nascent or just fully blown out-and-about socialists.
And whether we were democratic socialists—whatever flavor you choose to apply to it—we were very clear that taking collective action was important, having an economic analysis was import-ant. Understanding-and by the way, some of us were second- or third-generation union babies. So we had mom and dads, or moms, who were in unions. And that was certainly true for me, and that left a lasting impression on me. Because my mother was a person who didn't even believe in voting, but she believed in the union.
Because that was on the ground. She could see what happened when she showed up, as opposed to dropping your vote in the void.
Where did the statement come from, and why?
[Demita Frazier:] How did we decide to even write the statement?
[Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor:] Yeah.
[Demita Frazier:] Well, if you remember, in the '60s and '70s, statement writing was..."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xseeq3paufoseltjnvcp66xf/bafkreibbiodjtrtemqegri43kfnmn2lqrwjq5pcghego6mta5kbzzz6mhy)
![This is a photo of a book page: "[Keeanga-Yamatha Taylor:] So this is one of the questions I had as a follow-up, so it actually flows from what you were just discussing. And that is about identity politics. I think that you have really clarified sort of what Combahee meant by identity politics in response to the way that the right sort of abuses the term. That if you're not of a certain race, ethnicity, or gender, then that becomes an invitation to chastise or castigate you and sort of dismiss anyone who doesn't have any of those characteristics.
[Barbara Smith:] But however the right wing got ahold of identity politics and began using it as their whipping boy and their whipping girl, what we meant by identity politics when we originated the terminology was wholly different. What we were saying is that we have a right as people who are not just female, who are not solely Black, who are not just lesbians, who are not just working class, or workersthat we are people who embody all of these identities, and we have a right to build and define political theory and practice based upon that reality. That was all we were trying to say. That's what we meant by identity politics. We didn't mean that if you're not the same as us, you're nothing. We were not saying that we didn't care about anybody who wasn't exactly like us. One of the things I used to say, and of course I've had so many speaking engagements I have taglines at this point (laugh] of things that I've said more than once, is that it would be really boring only to do political work with people who are exactly like me."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xseeq3paufoseltjnvcp66xf/bafkreihquyurjepgs7sd3udtcmukrmgts6ihe3ua6ly5iuytwkyt2jzygy)
![This is a photo of a book page: "[Barbara Smith:] That's what the right pretends that we mean by identity pol-itics, a very narrow version. And unfortunately because identity politics often have been first introduced to younger people by academics who have a partial understanding of what the depths of it would be, they are also confused about it too. Trigger warnings and safe spaces and microaggressions-those are all real, but the thing is, that's not what we were focused upon."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xseeq3paufoseltjnvcp66xf/bafkreifeqd64yn3hrwf36g6phgjvmbfk2vl7fa2sp4dpxit3g6tghnaag4)
![Everything about generative Al, but especially the idea that we need to "teach students how to use it." (I am a college teacher.) We fucking don't.
1. They know how to use it.
2. It's not hard to use, goddamn it, you type in your homework problem and it spits out an answer that might be right or might be wrong. It's easier to use than a TI-84 and less reliable.
[I also hate] the fact that I used to be genuinely excited about technological possibilities and now I'm 100% pessimistic. I used a computer to do symbolic calculations as part of my PhD thesis, I used to give talks about the math behind Google PageRank, I have dreamed of self-driving cars since | got my drivers license! I think it's human nature to want technology to solve our problems, but right now all technology has been coopted by the oligarchs with the new goal of making them rich, damn the human costs.
--Emily](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xseeq3paufoseltjnvcp66xf/bafkreigsomugojwafdn4qfduphliyyegiobjvk6drkhemg3awxxz62v2ai)
