I ignore most TFA conversation (becoming insular in my old age) so I'm short on examples of what you're talking about. I hitchhiked to Mardis Gras in '94 with an Afghani immigrant. My father's best friend in Vietnam was a black guy from Philly. I'm a last wave Gen-X'er from late 60's parentage, hailing from Kennedy democrat Catholic WWII vets. I was radical in my youth, but never a social theory zealot. I simply had an aggressive disdain for society's limits and artificial structures that were either ignorant or ambivalent of the harms they did to those in the margins. At this point in my life, I'm equally distrustful of either side seeking to impose values on the whole, and my respect is reserved for those who rise or fall on the merits of their own minds.
What has become apparent to me is that those who dispense with inclusion as a value are much less likely to categorize threats to their status by demographic. They can understand the world according to the values any given individual can offer, and they see group politics for the inept chicken-**** sycophancy that it is.
I wish everyone could get past the need to rely on external perception of their worth. From feminists to pick-up artists, racial supremacists to racial opportunists, fascist statist to communist statist, fundamentalist faithful to apologist faithful, they're all missing the point, simultaneously seeing themselves persecuted by the other and persecuting, concocting the ultimate alibi by which to claim power over their adversary. It's too dumb and ugly to bear, but it's becoming the norm by which radicals and the mainstream are finding common ground.
Let me know the next time you see that crap around here. I can promise one hell of a show.
