On the subject of rights I am reminded of a magical piece of writing by
Patricia Williams called "The Pain of Word Bondage" in her book "The
Alchemy of Race and Rights". In this piece she enters into a dialogue with
Critical Legal Studies. The gist of the dialogue is that CLS has argued
that rights discourse has been invented by mainly white, male elites in
order to appear to give certain fredosm to formally oppressed groups. The
oppressed groups thus have to use rights discourse in order to make their
claims (what other tools are available to them but hose of the oppressor?).
People this get sucked into a particular form of discourse whcih may not
serve their interests. Williams' argument is that these white male law
professors (on the whole) in CLS are kind of right but are igniring the
importance of rights discourse to people like her (a black woman). "rights"
she says "feels new in the mouths of most black people. It is still
delicisously empowering to say. It is the magic wand of visibility and
invisibility, of inclusion and exclusion, of power and no pwer" (page 164)
"In discarding rights altogether, one discards a dymbol too deeply enmeshed
int eh psyche of the oppressed to lose without trauma and much resistance.
Instaed society must give them away. Unlock them from reification by
giving them to slaves. Give them to trees. Give them to cows. Give them
to history. Give them to rivers and rocks. Give to all society's objects
and untouchables the rights of privacy, integrity, and self assertion; give
them distance and respect. Flood them with the animating spirit that
rights mythology fires in the this country's most oppressed psyches, and
wash away the shrouds of inanimate object status, so that we may say not
that we own gold that a luminous gold spirit owns us" (page 165)
Hope that helps.
Tim
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