blog post #1

Jabari Watson 

Comm 160 

June 7, 2018 

“Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” This, to me, was the most important line in the reading. It most effectively delivers the author’s message of using what makes women, and people in general, different to our advantage, not letting it keep us from advancing. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, written by a black, lesbian feminist, offers an outsider’s perspective on a conference at New York University’s Institute for the Humanities. Even though she was invited to speak on a panel, it happened to be ‘the only panel… where the input of Black feminists and lesbians is represented’. In addition, she points out that the only two black women at the conference had literally been found within the hour. The author goes on to call on white feminists to learn on becoming what is known as intersectional feminists, while they’ve learned so much in the past few years they should be learning how to incorporate black women, gay women, transsexual women, all women into all of the change they hope for, because change can’t be made for women without all women behind the movement. The ‘evasion of responsibility’ that’s present while confronting issues of inequality is what is responsible for the lack of representation of minority women in academia, art, and more. The differences, that make groups minorities, need to be considered as the strengths that are looked at now as weaknesses.

Along with the title, the author says, “They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enamel us to bring about genuine change.” This is what I overall

 “They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” This is what I learned from the article, was that those in power will  not promote change that they can’t stand behind or don’t understand. Differences must be seen, respected, and encouraged, to bring about the change that women, minorities, and people in general need to see.