Jody Women of Color Methodology

 Andrea Smith offers a way of conceptualizing oppression that is meant to facilitate better collaborative organizing among women of color. Instead of envisioning a system of racial oppression that affects all women of color in the same way, she suggests 3 pillars of of white supremacy that allow for a complex analysis of the heterogeneity of racial oppressions as well as acknowledging the ways in which communities of color can be complicit in each others oppression. Slavery/capitalism, genocide/colonialism, and Orientalism/war are interdependent logics that together prop up white supremacy. In addition to these pillars, heteropatriarchy functions as the “building block” of US empire, and organizing against empire and white supremacy requires addressing heteropatriarchy and nationalism in our organizations.

The paradigm of oppression that we bring with us into our research is part of our methodology, regardless of how directly or indirectly we are studying systems of oppression. Understanding that racism is institutionalized and systemic, that it is interconnected with gender, sexuality, and empire affects the questions we ask, the data we get, and how we make sense of it. Smith's framework helps us avoid homogenizing the experiences of people of color in our work and requires us to think about and look for connections between systems of racial oppression and gender and sexuality. In my own work, racial stereotypes and racial discrimination function very differently for different groups of gay men.

For example, non-Asian interviewees tended to underestimate the number of Asians on Grindr in Chicago, or to overlook them altogether. Even when I explicitly included Asians in my question, asking guys what percent of people they contact, and who contact them, are either white, black, latino, asian, or mixed (the racial categories available on the profiles), I frequently got an answer that included white, black, and latino—even if one of those categories was minimal or 0%--but had to follow up to find out if they contacted, or were contacted by, Asian men. Scholars such as Chong-Suk Han (2007) have found similar dynamics in gay spaces where Asian men are rendered invisible because their race, and the perceived lack of masculinity of Asian men, makes them undesirable and even unfathomable as sexual partners.

On the other hand, some of my white interviewees in particular seemed to overestimate the number of black men on Grindr and other apps. This is similar to findings in several other areas, such as the neighborhood racial preferences literature, which generally finds that whites overestimate the number of blacks in a neighborhood (for example: Quillian and Pager 2001). The stereotypes of black men as sexually aggressive and hyper-masculine are alive and well on Grindr, and as one of my black interviewees explained, lots of guys (of all races) are willing to hook up with a black guy, but when they're looking for someone to date they want a white man.

All of my interviews and online experience points to a different experience for Latino men on Grindr. Latinos in Chicago are more visible in mainstream gay spaces and more likely than either black or Asians to hold positions of authority in local organizations. However they are still racialized and Othered at times. Stereotypes of Latino men as “passionate” or “romantic”, as well as assumptions about whether they speak Spanish (and if they do, whether Spanish is their preferred language on Grindr) affect interactions on Grindr. Smith's framework would caution against generalizing to other groups of men of color. For example, assuming that the Orientalism/war pillar functions the same for Arab men or Southeast Asian as it does for Asian or Latino men.

For Smith, racial oppressions and heteropatriarchy are both part of the larger system of oppression and do not function independent of one another. My own work points to the patriarchal privilege of gay men and the influences of heternormative values on gay culture. Smith's article is a good reminder at this point in my analysis that the role of these systems of gender and sexuality can not be understood as if it works separately from the racial oppressions also at play in my research. One way I am attempting to pursue these connections is by relating my work to a body of queer scholarship that focuses on the various connections between heteronormativity, homonormativity, racial oppressions, colonialisms, and the neo-liberal state (citations in the works, but among them Gloria Anzaldua, Roderick Ferguson, Jasbir Puar, Juana Maria Rodriguez...).

Andrea Smith's framework challenges me to move my analysis beyond talking about discriminatory racial practices on Grindr or talking about the construction of symbolic boundaries for maintaining sexual respectability. The essentializing of sexual “preferences” is one aspect I'm exploring as a way of making connections between heteropatriarchy and the pillars of white supremacy. The discourse of racial sexual “preferences” in the gay community, which is frequently talked about in relation to dynamics on Grindr, and the themes of personal responsibility that are emerging in my data, are occuring in the context of neo-liberal discourse about individualism, choice, and responsible subjects--a discourse that is used to justify racial hierarchies, empire, and vast economic disparities both within nation-states and globally.

Han, Chong-suk. 2007. “They Don't Want to Cruise Your Type: Gay Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Exclusion.” Social Identities 13:1

Quillian, Lincoln, and Devah Pager. 2001. “Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime.” American Journal of Sociology 107(3): 717-767.