The Trouble with Unity

Visited UCLA in late February for a work-in-progress workshop and presented a paper exploring "the resonances between AIDS activism and undocumented activism," which went extremely well: UCLA faculty and graduate students have always been extraordinarily helpful and supportive—sparking fruitful conversations, sending my thinking in fresh directions, clarifying my arguments, and helping me over rough patches and weak transitions.

Several days later, I discovered that a handful of right-wing opinion sites (no links necessary) had discovered the workshop and trumpeted it as an example of "perpetual grievance." A couple of sites that cultivate a Beavis and Butt-head sensibility sniggered at the use of the word queer, confident that their readers would sneer at the very mention of the existence of a professor from New York City.

One blog labeled me an SJW, which I had to look up; apparently it means, pejoratively, social justice warrior rather than, as it used to, single Jewish woman. My paper—again, a rough draft—was very much an academic, theoretical work rather than an activist call to arms or a talking-points political screed, but if it's at all possible to reclaim SJW to mean, positively, social-justice warrior, at that point I'll take it!