Liberation ideologies

1
Liberation ideologies

• Black liberation
• Womens liberation
• Gay liberation
• Liberation theology
• Native peoples liberation
• Animal liberation

2
Common features

• Particular audience, common identity as members
  of oppressed group
• Emancipation from external and internal
  constraints imposed by oppressors
• Raise consciousness
• Alter outlook
• Empower to take fate into own hands
• Liberate oppressors from illusion of superiority
• Recognize former victims as fellow human beings

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Black liberation

• Blacks long discriminated against by whites
• Address external forms of oppression
• Expose ways blacks have internalized white
  norms and values
• Articulates, defends alternative black
  standards of beauty, appropriate behavior
• Instills self-respect and black pride
• Civil rights (integrationist, assimilationist)
• external barriers obstacles to equal opportunity
• Black power (separatist, nationalist)
• spiritual and cultural barriers identity, pride,
  self-sufficiency

4
Womens liberation

• Women long oppressed by men
• Women have participated in their oppression
• Objectifying themselves as sex objects,
  child-bearers, to detriment of full and free
  development as whole human beings
• Main variants
• Liberal feminists emphasize external barriers
  (discriminatory laws, hiring practices)
• Radical feminists also look at internalized
  beliefs, attitudes, stereotypes that disempower
  women

5
Gay liberation

• Attempts to help gays and lesbians come to terms
  with, feel comfortable about, homosexuality
• Instill sense of shared identity, gay pride to
  overcome homophobia, stereotypes, and attitudes
  held by many heterosexuals and homosexuals (i.e.,
  internalized oppression)
• Empower homosexuals by helping them overcome
  fears and crippling attitudes
• Repeal discriminatory laws, gain access to
  opportunities denied

6
Native peoples liberation

• Well-being of Native or indigenous peoples
• Native Americans (U.S., Central and South
  America), Aborigines (Australia), First Nations
  (Canada), Maori (New Zealand), Hawaiians (Hawaii)
• Lands conquered, cultures demeaned by white
  European settlers
• European domination undermined pride and identity
• Aim to recover identity and restore pride and
  dignity
• Seek political power, restoration of lands,
  enforcement of fishing, other rights guaranteed
  by treaties

7
Liberation theology

• Religious or theological orientation
• Emancipatory interpretation of gospels
• Jesus helped people liberate themselves from sin,
  evils of exploitative money economy
• Criticized Pharisees, others who think themselves
  morally and socially superior
• Showed how to exercise the option for the poor
  by choosing to live among them, taking ordinary
  workers as his disciples
• Scriptures convey emancipatory message dignity
  of labor, human equality, and empowerment of poor
  and powerless

8
Liberation theology, II

• Several audiences (most influential in Latin
  America)
• Main audience is poor, powerless peasant or
  worker
• Also addresses wealthy and affluent, appealing to
  follow Jesus and exercise the option for the
  poor, take their side in struggle for social
  justice
• Poor are oppressed externally (by landlords,
  powerful corporations) and internally, by
  defeatist (self-fulfilling) beliefs, attitudes
  about inferiority, powerlessness
• Attempts to expose, break through self-imposed
  shackles, give poor dignity, power, purpose, and
  potential

9
Animal liberation

• Addressed to humans who hold unexamined
  assumptions about innate superiority of species
• Attitudes toward animals we can, for profit or
  pleasure (without worrying about pain), eat
  flesh, use fur or skin for clothing, and perform
  painful experiments
• Speciesism is harmful to animals, human beings
• Gives us false picture of species real and
  proper relation to other species and environment
  that makes mutual existence possible
• Only when we overcome deep-seated prejudice will
  our full humanity be realized
• Hopes to liberate animals from human oppression
  by appealing to human beings to examine
  previously unexamined beliefs about and attitudes
  toward animals

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Discussion questions

1. All of the liberation ideologies try to promote
   freedom for a particular group of people -- or,
   in one case, of non-human animals. Choose three
   of these liberation ideologies, and use the
   triadic model of freedom to explain how it
   proposes to free its particular group.
2. Describe how liberation ideologies can be seen to
   be promoting, or at least to be consistent with,
   democracy. Use examples from at least three of
   the liberation ideologies to illustrate your
   answer.
3. Why are liberation ideologies sometimes
   associated with the politics of identity or
   the politics of difference? Is the emergence of
   this kind of politics something to be welcomed or
   feared? Explain your answer in detail by
   referencing three liberation ideologies.
4. In what ways is the politics of
   identity/difference consistent with and/or
   contradictory to liberal democracy? Can the two
   coincide or are they mutually exclusive?
5. Describe the ideological functions of liberation
   ideologies (explanation, evaluation, orientation,
   and program).