6/1/19
interrupt the narrative that we have a fixed destiny & trajectory on the basis of our bodies. the body never exists in isolation from culture. this idea of a “pure innate body” outside the matrix of social relations that give the body its meaning has long been used to justify racism & misogyny: ie the eugenicist notion that racialized & gendered people are innately primed for violence/degeneracy/predation/hysteria. this isolation facilitates the normalization of gross inequality which produces our disparate life chances & outcomes. social, cultural, and political factors physically shape & manipulate our bodies & lives. disrupt the hierarchy of “innateness” as more valid/real/truthful than “modification.” these polarities & dualities are false, misleading, and constructions themselves. everything is modified. everything is influenced. everything is connected. why is it when individuals take modification into our own hands it becomes a problem, but when governments disproportionately allocate resources it’s not? this is about power, not purity. or rather: purity is always about power. innate bodies are not as pure as they posture themselves. we are all influenced, contaminated, co-constituted, melded, shaped, co-produced. this continual intermingling of bodies, technologies, histories, sciences, artifacts is one of the only constants of life itself.
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