advice on "GLBT" paper please!

[daddysambiguity]

God. I have myself in a mess.

I am writing my Rhetoric paper on two competing discourses that have been identified to be present in the "GLBT" community or whatever. I'm looking at a rhetoric of assimilation vs. one of liberation

To help me with this, I will provide you with this quick, rough overview in case you don't know:

Assimilationists

Comments

[super_elsbian]

To be honest, the dichotomy doesnt' just annoy me, it actually offends me. There's an obvious amount of pro-liberationist bias in it, although I've seen some large and powerful activist groups that fit reasonably well into each of those models. To me (and I realize I'm putting this simply), they both suck. If the dichotomy really were as simple as that, I'd have to say that those who would call themselves "liberationists" are extremely condescending towards those they label as "assimilationists

[daddysambiguity]

I'm definitely not an assimilationist, but I'll be damned if I associate myself with any group that's going to shit on my choices.

Yeah, I'd agree many liberationists ridicule the choices/goals/whatever of assimilationists, but I think assimilationists do the same toward liberationists. Everything you said liberationists think about assimilationists works in reverse, as well. :) For every time I have heard a super-radical, genderfucking, poly liberationst mock a monogamous, straight-acting gay couple from the suburbs, I've also heard a gay man say he doesn't need a freaking parade or that he wishes "swishy fairies and trannies" would stop giving men like him a bad name. While oversimplified, the tension there exists and goes both ways.

I'll also mention that I don't actually think that assimilationism is about how visibly queer one is. I know visibly queer folks who'd probably align themselves with an assimilationist model and folks who appear to blend quite well, yet adhere to a more liberationist approach.

[daddysambiguity]

by the way, can i ask why you think you'd be considered am assimilationist?

i ask because it is something that puzzles me. i do know what you're talking about -- that radical folks can often be very critical of folks whose lives/presentations are not so radical, often ignoring the person's actual ideas altogether (kinda the way "outcasts" in high school turn around and mock those who popular and initially mocked them!)

so i'm wondering if you think that you'd be considered an assimilationist because liberationst-types have said shit like that about you before? it interests me because i think i'm often seen by some super-radical folks as being mainstream and a lot of it is based on very trivial crap, like presentation or whatever.

[yankeekudzu]

In my Media and Society class we have a unit that considers how media have both marginalized various groups and how many of those groups used media to overcome such marginalization. We discuss the tension between identity and assimilation, between "I'm different and unique" and "I'm just like everyone else

[onewithbriteyes]

I haven't read the piece, because it's not quite relevant to the research I'm doing right now, but I just came across an article called "Queer Blogging in Indian Digital Diasporas" that might be useful. It's published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 32, No. 4. It's available on Sage Pub, but if you can't access it and are interested, I'd be happy to download it and email it to you.

[memicrab]

That is really helpful. It provided me a number of ideas and I'll be placing them on my web site eventually. I'm bookmarking your blog and I'll be back. Thanks again!

Easy to change: repent N believe...

[ext_3585409]

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