Society Needs to Do Their Work

SOCIETY NEEDS TO DO THE WORK

THEOLIN TEMBO

A RECENT panel discussion was held focusing just how important it is to recognise the intersectionality that exists within people, and how these intersecting identities ties into ongoing fights against systemic oppression. An Impulse Talks panel discussion addressed the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement, and how black queer lives also factor into that.

Over recent months the conversation of black bodies dying at the hands of police brutality has gripped the world. The recent murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Collins Khoza and Nathaniel Julies has had a ripple effect and forced people to look at the injustices facing the queer community.

The discussion was facilitated by Impulse Cape Town‘s Wentzel April and Ashraf Booley, and featured activists Bayanda Ndumiso, Rowan Roman, and trans rights activist Zoey Black as panellists.

Impulse Group Cape Town is part of a global volunteer group of active gay men who promote healthier sexual lifestyles using modern social approaches.

Booley started the discussion by asking the panel where they stood on the BLM movement, and Roman answered that he personally believes that “we can’t not be for the #BlackLivesMatter movement if we understand our history as a country”.

“As a people of South Africa, it doesn’t make sense to not support it because it is in our everyday lived experience. For me to then say I don’t believe that this is a movement that deserves my support is to say I don’t believe that my country is a country that deserves my support.”

Booley added that it cannot be only people of colour supporting this movement but that it’s necessary for white people to get involved.

Roman said: “I agree, and the reason I think the solidarity and support of white people are essential, is because the only reason, we are in the predicament that we’re in as a country, and as a people is because of our history. And if we don’t address that, and we don’t stand together in opposing that history, it is going to repeat itself… It’s constantly (already) repeating itself in very minute ways. There are instances of microaggressions, and a microaggression is the start. It escalates and it becomes bigger.”

Black said that even when talking about the subject on a global scale, it’s important to remember there are particular groups of people who have been disadvantaged in particular ways.

“Movements like BLM are attempts to dismantle or reconfigure the system to give visibility, to give balance to those groups because they’ve been so disadvantaged for a long time. I think deep down people have to ask themselves conceptually why this movement exists, what is the need for it, and why am I supporting it or not supporting it?”

Booley added that if social movements want to be representative, they must use

intersectionality to advocate for the most marginalised member.

“How do we then ensure that all black lives matter? We’re talking about queer people, transgender people, disabled people, refugees and all other black lives along the gender spectrum. How do we ensure that all those lives are valued and represented?”

Roman explained that often when there is a singular incident of a black man who is killed, people connect and feel galvanised because “he is one of us, he is a man of colour and he was killed in complete senselessness”.

“But then, when we scroll down our feed, and then there is footage of a young trans woman being brutalised, and you look at the numbers if you look at the comments and the shares of what is essentially the same thing...we sympathise differently because we have been conditioned to sympathise differently.”

Roman elaborated that there are some viewpoints and thought patterns that we are taught in society.

“As a society, young boys are taught that if you see someone that does not look masculine or talks ‘like a girl’ or cries, that is a moffie (faggot). Even though they are developing in other aspects, that part of your identity is still conditioned to believe what you were taught as a child.

Booley added: “From the moment we are born, gender stereotypes are still enforced on us with something as simple as colours.”

Roman continued adding that that is something children are conditioned to believe, and it ties back into how trans people are viewed in society because “now a trans life is taken away unjustly and cruelly” but people then don’t get affected by it at all.

He explained that people are left unaffected by when a gay life gets taken, but with a straight life, they feel it so viscerally.

“Again, it comes to the identities, because there are some identities we are so fixed in and obsessed with… but we need to break those walls down, but we can only do that inside, and start with ourselves.”

Ndumiso said that when talking about intersectionality, it’s important to remember that people are complex beings and that their identities exist simultaneously.

“One person has different identities, they have their own beliefs and their own principles. When we talk about intersectionality, it is to recognise that you are not just one thing. Everything that affects you, you are that thing.”

“And in movements, even if they are focusing on gay rights, I still believe that movements need to start practising intersectionality because it’s not just about one thing. That one thing can lead to other things,” Ndumiso said.

“We need to start linking other struggles to the struggle that we see so that we can feel and know. The minute you are focused on one struggle, you stop noticing other people. You start practising devaluing...”

Black said that as a trans woman “when people see me for the first time, the only thing they can see is that I am trans”.

“The perspective of (their) view is so critical because how they place me in terms of their hierarchical structure about what is important to them, now suddenly becomes a factor. And speaking to that notion of empathy, I think when we talk about BLM, and GBV, people set those priorities for themselves in relation to themselves.”

Black explained that for straight cisgender white men, a lot of these issues don’t necessarily directly impact on them.

“For a lot of people, I think this is how we operate. We see a group of people or see an identity or a struggle, and then we place it in relation to ourselves, and we go ‘oh, that is not my struggle’ because that doesn’t affect me.

“If everybody said that, nobody would have anybody in their corner ever, and that is a difficult world to live in… Just because you aren’t black doesn’t mean you can’t advocate for black lives, just because you are cisgender, doesn’t mean you can’t advocate for the protection of trans people.”

Booley surmised the point, to say that especially within the LGBTQIA+ community, gay cisgender men need to ask themselves if they are standing in solidarity with transgender people.

“I’ve had to call myself out on that in the past, question myself on that. We really need to do better.”

When the panel was asked how to address how society can change and better itself to fix the systemic oppression, Rowan answered that people need to do the work.

“If you are the oppressor, you need to do the work. We (queer people) are tired of doing the work. It cannot be a constant battle.”

“I’m tired of being the one to have to educate,” he said.

“I’m done. Listen, if you have access to the internet to troll in my comments section, you have access to the internet to google (for) yourself and where you are at in your way of thinking – and address it. It’s not my job. It’s not the job of people of colour to educate white people. It’s not the job of queer people to educate straight people.”