“Extending this analogy to the police forces, Ortner argues that mostly male, mostly White police forces constitute a patriarchal organization that employs violence against women, Black and other People of Color, LGBTQ people and folks with disabilities to uphold this binary between purity and impurity.”

I’m glad that disability and ableism made the grade as sources of concern in this important discussion. I just turned in my Disability and Embodiment grades and surfing the blogs is my reward. I try to think how I would feel if confronted with the r-word as a reminder of not yet past grievances. However, I don’t have to imagine how an inappropriate euphemism would, yet again, make it hard for me to defend anthropology to my critical disability studies colleagues. A conference “organized around the theme of “Resemblances,” around the questions: “In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alt’ political movements, what counts as meaning making?” and “How can we understand epistemology in an era of madness?”” Really, clueless conference organizers? The disability and the mad studies movements are sisters. We take each other seriously. How about “How can we understand epistemology in an era so in need of Mad Studies?” That won’t work either. Maybe, “an era lacking rationality?”
There are serious differences in how disabled people want to be identified. Language use varies by geography, impairment, context, education, positionality, and theoretical concerns. While “people with disabilities” is never my personal or professional choice for many reasons, and I do use the word “folks” often, I wonder how the people who are militant about “people” or “person” first language, which they often capitalize and abbreviate as “PWD,” feel about “folks with disabilities”? Somehow, I’ll guess the informality is an in-group privilege to people who I am careful not to offend when they reference the “People First Movement” and I, with full in-group privileges, code switch to people who experience disability as an acceptable to all alternative. Yes, my beloved anthropology is racist. (See “Race is Still a Problem in Anthropology” https://anthrodendum.org/2018/04/09/race-is-still-a-problem-in-anthropology/.) It is also profoundly ableist. (See https://anthrodendum.org/?s=disability.)

Hi John. I think your interest in knowing more about the substance of Anar’s critique and the historical context of black scholarship on race and policing is surely well-intentioned. But, as another person of color in a space that continues to be white in important aspects, I also hope that you also see your request for more explanation, ostensibly to interest you more or get you to care more, is an exacerbation of the emotional labor that black and women of color have always engaged in.

Indeed, it doesn’t behoove Anar’s essay to address why a white male person studying east Asia should care more about this issue – when, in fact, an essay expressing outrage and concern is epistemically valid and legitimate in and of itself. I feel questions such as yours tend to miss this crucial point when black and women of color intervene in public debates, especially on issues that have important political and material consequences for them. As someone afforded privileges of being a man, and being somewhat distant to these questions of policing (since I am in a different geographic space), I also understand that if I am to care more about this issue, it is my responsibility to take an interest and put in the work, rather than expect people to educate me. It isn’t their responsibility to make anything “effective” for a (white, male) audience – I feel if that is a litmus test of assessing an argument’s validity, it is still deeply problematic since it necessitates that knowledge be made to adhere to standards of white sensibilities (we are talking about race and racism here).

In fact, Anar has done a fabulous task of listing the relevant references meticulously! – should anyone be more interested in reading and citing black scholars, which I feel shouldn’t even be up for debate.

While fair enough, this response is unlikely to be effective. As an East Asianist and devotee of the history and philosophy of science, I am not at all likely to push this task to the top of an already overloaded stack of things I should read someday. Perhaps I should just shut up, and if this were a merely academic argument that is what I would do. But more is at stake here. Addressing Ortner’s argument instead of expressing outrage would keep me engaged. Wouldn’t that be better for both of us?