: Judith Butler lecture
Around the time of the 2016 presidential election, can't remember if it was before or after, I saw a Judith Butler lecture in person and and a young white man in the audience asked a question that went something like: "So, it's great all this advocacy you have done on behalf of women and gender minorities and how you have worked in the intersectional framework. I want to do the same thing on behalf of an intersection I think is underserved on the left, namely young white men."
Prof Butler was visibly irritated by the question, in no small part because it really had nothing to do with the content of the talk: Butler was there to promote a recent book on democracy movements or something, not really related to Gender Trouble. They gave a response that I think was incredibly dismissive. Again, paraphrasing: "You said 'young,' 'white,' and 'men.' I think there's already a lot of advocacy on the left happening on behalf of those in that group who have the biggest needs, namely the ones who are queer, who are trans, who are gay. So yes, support those existing structures. Next question."
Am I conveying this correctly? They completely dodged the heart of the question, which was essentially about the idea that we might need to put social justice logic to work for a group that has traditionally been thought of as the perpetrator, not the victim--and instead just found a way to split hairs in their response that allowed them to hold the party line of always connecting your advocacy to an officially oppressed group.