It was time to write something here, I'm a bit lazy lately. We were talking about how the categories of language and thought help to reproduce social relations of power and domination. We started looking for a general reflection of what was true and authentic in the ideology of "l anguage politically correct" to meet the real effect of the categories on the life of the people. After we saw how the categories of "others" are for setting up collective interests into or out of a particular group, because these interests are highly variable, the categories are also very elastic and flexible (despite our tendency to take them content as immutable Platonic ideas). The fact that they are flexible does not mean that they are firmly seated in our speech and thinking, constantly playing through language and action and more and more real and material differences between people because of their (our) membership groups "imaginary." But flexibility makes the emotional charge attached to each category is variable, from the utter disregard to the more subtle forms of distinction.
I took the eccentric habit of reading in parks instead of locked up at home. I think it is a healthy habit for different reasons and one of them is the possibility of unprecedented access to anthropological material, given that some people scream as it is impossible not to hear their conversations, we did not consider "privacy" due to the volume of voice used. A few weeks ago, a young girl came with her favorite niece, age 6, the bank where some friends were sitting. At one point, she had to take a cigarette or something and her aunt scolded "Eh. Do not touch that! That's crap! As the Moors. What are the Moors? Shit. For as the snuff. Moros fuck. Snuff shit. As the Moors. " The phrase was raised with total and absolute spontaneity without consciousness of guilt that accompanies the demonstrations "politically incorrect" in other social contexts. It is just one example. Every day we hear many things as is sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously, sometimes half-jokingly, half seriously and mouth ordinary people, not necessarily brutish skinhead. This is how they reproduce, and daily quiet, smooth and between jokes, the categories of contempt. We believe that the contempt is limited to the most extreme manifestations of racism and we can escape its actual performance.
This 6 year old girl has been socialized in an equivalence Moors = shit = snuff. This may influence it in a direct and palpable. But maybe not. May end up smoking two packs of black snuff a day and marrying a "Moor." But even so, the space of meanings will be settled by this method, I do not know what I mean. The system of categories that make up the consciousness kept thinking more decried. It's like a kind of gene is expressed or not expressed in terms of a given context and, if expressed, can also be done in different ways depending on the circumstances and in any case, is still playing.
most important expressions of the categories of contempt are the manifestations of racism radical, openly rejected by the whole society, but these events especially violent and socially dysfunctional can not be analyzed separately from the system ethnic domination which includes pathological results (in the same way that violence against women is a pathological manifestation of a much more everyday domination of women). The participants in racist incidents "El Ejido" were not inhuman monsters, but perfectly normal people, in particular structural context, possibly, the integration of Moroccans to the standard "national" access to the land- reacted in a pathological way. But the categories of contempt operate much more everyday, what happens is that to understand we have to remove the Platonic view and discrete categories.
You can scream at the height of any family feast that the Moors are crap and get along very well with the X Moor, which supplies the hash, it is also a good time and Güena people. In human practice is perfectly compatible. But the "gene" is still there and is active at a given time (say the difficulty of finding a place in the school for their children or undergoing emergency line), to tell the brain what is (and what should be) the subordinate group . "Categories of contempt", loaded with negative emotions, are activated at specific times to produce exclusive solidarity or simply to exclude, wholly or partially, of solidarity.
Now, how to react to this dynamic? In my opinion, not very useful for us to become censors of language and trackers racist joke or comment. And it is not useful because these categories are, as I tried to explain, the product of real relations of domination, while these relationships are maintained, these expressions will continue to surface, one way or another. As long ago had the "racist demonization of" racism only causes strain us in the main hall by the back door. Of what it is to avoid reproducing the effect of inequality that create the categories of contempt. To this end, First, we need to do very attentive to the process. Secondly, it is necessary to consider alternative discourses and alternative categories that player may counter this effect, calling into question the categories of contempt and open a wider space for the perception of others that allows us to produce solidarity mechanisms inclusive. That is, is not shocked at all manifestations of contempt (although sometimes the scandal is very appropriate), but rather than embarking on this battle in the world of symbols, both in jest and in earnest.
In any case, beyond the emotional effect of the categories contempt (although using it) the distinction Us / Other works also when using an apparently more neutral to artificially exclude many people from solidarity. Especially in contexts such as the economic crisis. This effect is perhaps more subtle. Try to explain in the next entries.
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