the process of naming

Blackburn brings up a lot of interesting tensions throughout the book, but the one I am struck most by is that of the process of naming (p. 19-20). She intentionally makes explicit the difficulties she has creating categories of and inside of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The argument of Foucault vs Harstock's critique of Foucault about the tensions of naming to control vs naming to disrupt were interesting because I think there is a quick jump to say, "oh, well it's just semantics."  Of course, this is generally the people in the position of power who are able to say with some certainty that no matter what you call "it", it still exists. However, the need to create a label as a means of "interrupting" it makes it more imperative to processes of resistance, reclamation, and healing for "traditionally marginalized" communities. Using this framework, however, we meet Dara (p. 39), whose discussion of the labeling of "gay White men" vs "men who sleep with men" shows a different nuance to the process of naming. By assuming an audience of "straight, heterosexist, homophobic" people, she also uses labels as a protection of the community from those who might work to disrupt it. This makes me think of the idea of insider vs outsider, which we talked extensively about in our smaller group last class, and how the creation of names by insiders to a group implies who should and shouldn't be using the labels.