We’re hyped to share (and to add to our distro) a new text sent to us from ‘Here and Now Zines’ (https://www.instagram.com/hereandnowzines/?hl=en) entitled ‘Identity and Power’. The text offers general critique of the structures and oppression’s which shape the creation of identity and demands a route through identity towards its abolition. It also takes time to dismantle and critique liberal elements which valorize, champion or attempt to find positive perspective within identity and attacks narratives and practices which stem from these positions
Quotes From the Text:
“We are against identity because we think it holds this oppressive reality together. Our identities as marginalized people are our inheritances that separate us as inferior. For centuries, distinctions of inferiority have been used as the building blocks for exploitation and control. Identity is the infrastructure of our suffering and would need to be shattered if we wish to see oppression demolished. Presently, identity pits us against each other instead of against the system’s infrastructures. Scrambling to tally distinctions of how oppressed we are in comparison to others and what we deserve to be compensated doesn’t end our exploitation and only keeps us distracted from making the necessary calculations to sabotage the infrastructure holding domination in place.”
“Dying of oppression is our tragic reality. The suicides, work accidents, deaths on the block, murderous boyfriends, medical neglect, deaths in prison, ODs, bombings, and police murders are manmade plagues among us. This society has no problem letting us die and no problem killing us. For some of us, survival is Impossible, for others death looms so closely, we are constantly facing the overwhelming task of survival. Enveloped within this looming death, it is understandable to lose sight of anything outside of not dying. Survival and healing are crucial to our existence, literally. Nonetheless, survival on its own is not getting free, it’s just getting by.”
Read PDF Here:identity power
Imposed PDF Here: identity power booklet