Thinking about sexualized violence as raced violence

In the past few weeks of this course, one thing that has continuously concerned me, and which will likely continue to be of relevance throughout the class, is the ways in which different people experience sexuality and sexual violence differently. Obviously, an issue of critical relevance to this concept is that of race, as was discussed in length by Simpson, Consmo, Lorde and INCITE!. In thinking of sexual assault as a technique of power and control by the perpetrators, it is important that we also consider the structure of this power as an interconnected and underlying force in hegemonic societal power structures. Specifically, viewing sexual assault as a necessarily raced and racist act of violence when enacted against indigenous people and people of colour is integral to the deconstruction of such acts. As the aforementioned authors note, women of colour (amongst others) are posited as inherently sexual, and so are understood to be sexually deviant, and thus an affront to hegemonic power. In this way, indigenous people and people of colour are framed as sexualized subjects, the perpetuation of which enables the production and reproduction of narratives which serve as justification for the sexual violence experienced by certain bodies. Simpson illustrated this powerfully when she spoke about the aboriginal woman's body as being simultaneously unrapeable and very rapeable due to her connection to land and space. She draws parallels between the disappearances of aboriginal women and the dispossession of aboriginal peoples, reflecting the ways in which sexualized and racialized acts of violence are never mutually exclusive, but are rather inextricable from one another. When an aboriginal woman goes missing, an act of displacement simultaneously occurs within it, as her gender and race identities are mutually and inseparably affected. 

These readings will no doubt provide an invaluable basis of knowledge from which to consider future topics in the course, in contextualizing sexual violences as ones which are inherently wrought in other forms of structural violence. I am very interested in considering how this might occur on other marginalized bodies, such as trans people, queer people, or people with disabilities, and I will be thinking about this throughout the rest of the term. Additionally, it will be interesting to consider Lorde's piece on the ways in which anger is a useful and important tool when engaging in conversations regarding oppressions and subjectivities, and apply these to other discourses surrounding marginalized peoples.