Slow Violence
Having watched the film Fatal Assistance I found reading "Flesh Like One's Own": Benign Denials of Legitimate Complaint by Kaiama L. Glover a useful companion piece. While reading the article I found that certain passages caused me to question whether what was being stated was really true. As I read further, however, Glover seemed to acknowledge and answer most of my criticisms. I would still like to pick up on a few claims though together with with my own thoughts for further discussion.
On page 236 Glover states that "I begin here by looking at a cast of thinly veiled "bad guys" - white men with broad media platforms whose rhetorical gestures of concern and empathy are, quite frankly, not fooling anyone." While later on Glover picks up on broad, reductionist claims such as these as being intrinsic to narratives on both sides of the argument I feel that Glover's deployment of such a statement at the start of the piece weakens their overall position. I am going to do the same myself now by making the claim that persons of non-white non-male origin unfortunately are also susceptible to being described as "bad guys". Othering white men simply exacerbates and proliferates the real source of the problem even further in my opinion.
A similar issue, for me, occurs when Glover states on page 243 that "This phenomenon is realised starkly by the physical relegation of brown bodies to dehumanised spaces the world over and the consequent inference that survival in such inhuman spaces proves the non humanity of their inhabitants." Blanket statements like these feel too focused on the primary source issue at use and suffer due to a lack of vision (perhaps originating in part from the academic writers' position of privilege) of general suffering occurring in the world. Emphasising and using repulsive terms such as "brown bodies" ignores the plight of all those without brown coloured skin and, again, proliferates othering. While anger and fighting can help to unveil an unknown issue I think that ideas such as Gilroy's concept of planetary humanism offer a much more productive way forward.
On page 236 Glover states that "I begin here by looking at a cast of thinly veiled "bad guys" - white men with broad media platforms whose rhetorical gestures of concern and empathy are, quite frankly, not fooling anyone." While later on Glover picks up on broad, reductionist claims such as these as being intrinsic to narratives on both sides of the argument I feel that Glover's deployment of such a statement at the start of the piece weakens their overall position. I am going to do the same myself now by making the claim that persons of non-white non-male origin unfortunately are also susceptible to being described as "bad guys". Othering white men simply exacerbates and proliferates the real source of the problem even further in my opinion.
A similar issue, for me, occurs when Glover states on page 243 that "This phenomenon is realised starkly by the physical relegation of brown bodies to dehumanised spaces the world over and the consequent inference that survival in such inhuman spaces proves the non humanity of their inhabitants." Blanket statements like these feel too focused on the primary source issue at use and suffer due to a lack of vision (perhaps originating in part from the academic writers' position of privilege) of general suffering occurring in the world. Emphasising and using repulsive terms such as "brown bodies" ignores the plight of all those without brown coloured skin and, again, proliferates othering. While anger and fighting can help to unveil an unknown issue I think that ideas such as Gilroy's concept of planetary humanism offer a much more productive way forward.
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