{"id":728,"date":"2013-01-26T11:33:07","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T16:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=728"},"modified":"2013-01-26T11:33:07","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T16:33:07","slug":"my-interview-with-leftist-leon-marlensky-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/my-interview-with-leftist-leon-marlensky-part-iii.html","title":{"rendered":"My Interview With Leftist Leon Marlensky: Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

This, the third installment of my interview with leftist par excellence, Dr. Leon Marlensky, was supposed to be my last.\u00a0 It took an unexpected turn, though.\u00a0 The fourth installment will be the conclusion of the interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n

JK: So,Leon, you think that racial minorities and women in America are just as culpable as white men for promoting what you call \u201cwhite supremacy?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

LM: I declare them just as guilty as those white men of today who benefit from White Supremacy as well as those of yesteryear who enslaved people of African descent and slaughtered the indigenous peoples of what we today call America.\u00a0 I declare them just as guilty as those white men who forced segregation upon women and people of African descent—<\/p>\n

JK: Whoa. Excuse me. I know what you mean when you refer to the segregation of blacks—<\/p>\n

LM: Correction: people of African descent.\u00a0 In earlier times, whites relied upon their whips, guns, and knives to corral so-called \u201cblacks\u201d into slave ships and then plantations.\u00a0 Today, whites continue to corral folks of African descent, except now they have traded in the physical weaponry for the ideological weaponry of abstract, homogenizing categories like \u201cblack.\u201d And whites have turned from the slave ships and plantations to the \u2018hoods, all <\/em>offices of government, Hollywood, academia, professional sports and every and any other area of our society where they can ease their own racist fears by keeping a close eye on the objects of those fears.<\/p>\n

JK: Well– -uh, wait. You have said a couple of things that I would like for you to elaborate upon.\u00a0 The race thing we can talk about in just a minute. As for women—<\/p>\n

LM: Jack, there are no \u201craces.\u201d\u00a0 The concept of race is an exclusive term devised by whites to justify their oppressive designs over the rest of the world. It is an instrument of Eurocentric power.<\/p>\n

JK: Ok, ok. Moving right along.\u00a0 What did you mean by \u201cthe segregation\u201d of women?<\/p>\n

LM: Uh, Earth to Jack: have you not noticed that nearly fifty years after the \u201cwhites\u201d and \u201ccolored\u201d signs came down we still have \u201cmen\u201d and \u201cwomen\u201d signs hanging over restrooms all across this country?\u00a0 Haven\u2019t you noticed that there remains gender segregation in virtually every department store in America?\u00a0 There is a clothing section for men and a clothing section for women; shoes for men, and shoes for women, sports leagues for men, and those for women, etc.\u00a0 Hell, even parenting<\/em> is segregated along gender lines!\u00a0 <\/em>Only a woman can be a mother, and only a man can be a father.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you ever considered any of this?<\/p>\n

JK: No, I can\u2019t say that I have.\u00a0 But let\u2019s leave this behind.\u00a0 I want to return to something you said a moment ago. If today\u2019s black\u2014uh, if those people of African descent who are today politicians, academics, businessmen—<\/p>\n

LM: Ah hem.<\/p>\n

JK: Uh, businesspersons<\/em>?<\/p>\n

LM: Well, that\u2019s not as<\/em> inappropriate as businessmen, <\/em>for it isn\u2019t only men who are in business.\u00a0 But if you think about it, even \u201cbusinesspersons\u201d is less than acceptable, for—<\/p>\n

JK: Leeeeon, please, I just want to spit out this one question for you!<\/p>\n

LM: I\u2019m sorry, Jack. We can get right to it after I make this point.\u00a0 Just as our everyday language is contaminated with racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and Christocentric bigotry, so too is it ridden with specieism<\/em>.\u00a0 Your last remark confirms this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JK: Once more, Leon, I\u2019m not following you.<\/p>\n

LM: \u201cBusinesspersons<\/em>\u201d may be gender-neutral, but it is not species-neutral.\u00a0 However, there have been and remain both non-human animals as well as plants that have been involved in business ventures of various sorts.\u00a0 And yet \u201cbusinesspersons\u201d glosses over this fact.\u00a0 Non-human animals and plants appear in television shows, commercials, films, and so forth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only do we marginalize non-human animals and plants via the word \u201cbusinessperson.\u201d But the unrelenting anthropomorphism of our Disney culture insists upon imposing human traits upon them in popular art.<\/p>\n

I would prefer that we drop \u201cbusinesspersons\u201d as well as \u201cbusinessmen\u201d and, instead, opt for the word \u201cbusinessbeings.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

The fourth and FINAL part of my interview with Leon Marlensky will be published soon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This, the third installment of my interview with leftist par excellence, Dr. Leon Marlensky, was supposed to be my last.\u00a0 It took an unexpected turn, though.\u00a0 The fourth installment will be the conclusion of the interview. 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