Smith Week 11

Hall talks about how Black feminists "crap on the coffee table" of the feminist movement by trying to add race to the conversation. By that, he meant that Black feminists counter and critique some of their actions to help them understand the experiences of other women who were not middle class or white. hook calls this a rupture (pg. 12). I never heard it explained as a rupture, but I think this is the perfect word for the event that happens once folks step outside of themselves to understand and see issues with dominant ideology and institutions and how that not only limits our understands and harms marginalized groups, but your own images of what you can do generally. It affects creativity and imagination as well (Tony Morrison talks about this a bit in Playing in the Dark).

I feel this rupture has yet to happen in the hobby board gaming space (in the sense that it’s not a mainstream thought in the space). Many white hobbyists believe that we should not "further divide the hobby board gaming community" as we are already perceived as outsiders to society at large. I disagree as this makes it harder to see and understand how the gaming communities are affected by homophobia, racism, sexism, and ableism. This subculture does not exist independently of dominant ideology, institutions, and structures even though they may perceive themselves as outsiders.

Stewart and hook discuss how outsiders can come at different situations from different angles (pg. 25). Because of that, they could tell us a lot about the institutions that we participate in, but I think there's even something to be said by looking at the outsiders of the outsiders. How can the gaming community leverage its shared sense of being outsiders in society to actively combat racism, sexism, and homophobia within its own subculture? I think answering this can help showcase the experiences of nerds from various racial, socioeconomic, and gender backgrounds.