The latest advancement in victimhood links “queer theory” with illegal immigration.
The average illegal alien might be puzzled to see his situation
analyzed under the rubric of “queer theory.” That confusion would only
mean that he has not spent enough time in university circles, where such
pairings spring naturally from the all-consuming campaign to magnify
victimhood and denounce the American status quo. A recent talk
at UCLA’s political science department, “Undocumented and Acting Up:
Queering Sovereignty in the Immigrant Rights Movement,” drew on “the
insights of queer theory” to propose that both illegal aliens and
HIV-positive homosexuals are victims of “simplistic accounts of
individual action.” Their “death and suffering,” according to visiting
lecturer Cristina Beltrán, are unjustly attributed to their own
actions—presumably, crossing the border illegally, in the one case, and
engaging in high-risk promiscuous sex, in the other. Queer theory,
however, understands these problems to be the result not of voluntary
behavior but of “global capitalism, human desire, and government
failure.”
Two years ago, after mockery
in the right-wing press, UCLA scuttled plans for a center to teach
illegal aliens how to become labor- and immigration-rights organizers.
But the desire to induct the illegal population into the growing roster
of preferred academic victim groups remains strong at UCLA and
elsewhere. Being brought under the aegis of “queer theory” is as royal a
reception as one could hope for. Beltrán approvingly notes an irony in
illegals’ “queer” campaign against the state: illegal-alien activists
simultaneously denounce the state while seeking to gain its resources.
As for that latter effort, do they ever! According to the New York Times,
communities across the country are “still struggling to accommodate”
last summer’s surge of illegal aliens, which has taxed local health-care
and educational systems to the breaking point.
-go to links-
analyzed under the rubric of “queer theory.” That confusion would only
mean that he has not spent enough time in university circles, where such
pairings spring naturally from the all-consuming campaign to magnify
victimhood and denounce the American status quo. A recent talk
at UCLA’s political science department, “Undocumented and Acting Up:
Queering Sovereignty in the Immigrant Rights Movement,” drew on “the
insights of queer theory” to propose that both illegal aliens and
HIV-positive homosexuals are victims of “simplistic accounts of
individual action.” Their “death and suffering,” according to visiting
lecturer Cristina Beltrán, are unjustly attributed to their own
actions—presumably, crossing the border illegally, in the one case, and
engaging in high-risk promiscuous sex, in the other. Queer theory,
however, understands these problems to be the result not of voluntary
behavior but of “global capitalism, human desire, and government
failure.”
Two years ago, after mockery
in the right-wing press, UCLA scuttled plans for a center to teach
illegal aliens how to become labor- and immigration-rights organizers.
But the desire to induct the illegal population into the growing roster
of preferred academic victim groups remains strong at UCLA and
elsewhere. Being brought under the aegis of “queer theory” is as royal a
reception as one could hope for. Beltrán approvingly notes an irony in
illegals’ “queer” campaign against the state: illegal-alien activists
simultaneously denounce the state while seeking to gain its resources.
As for that latter effort, do they ever! According to the New York Times,
communities across the country are “still struggling to accommodate”
last summer’s surge of illegal aliens, which has taxed local health-care
and educational systems to the breaking point.
-go to links-
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