vul-va:

I just unfollow people who pull the annoyingly jejune prioritizing of the oppressed positionality as a marker for the only authentic opinion. Interestingly enough, leftist scholars like bell hooks and Angela Davis as well as Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood (people from subjugated groups) have warned against this liberal obsession to posit oppression as the only legitimate way to participate in a conversation. Giving a reader the either/or ultimatum in approaching a discourse/studying theory is reactionary bullshit. The average communist farmer in Okara, Pakistan doesn’t care if Marx was white or cis or both because the average communist, through simplification of the scholar’s theory, is more concerned with the antithesis of capitalism provided in Marx’s work. This is one of the reasons why identity politics, the key features of liberalism, becomes blind to ontological oppression. You’re more concerned with the biometrics of said scholar than the contribution provided to the discourse. I’m not saying it’s possible to unequivocally love a writer/scholar because it is not possible at all and I’m not saying all of these voices are beyond the realm of being “problematic” but if your idea of learning about something has more to do with pontificating about the white/cis/het/this/that status of the writer then you’re not here to learn, much less contribute. You’re doing what liberals do best: Engage in an endless circle of authentic and inauthentic positions.