Kristina Boerger Oral History Part 3
Dublin Core
Title
Kristina Boerger Oral History Part 3
Subject
Civil rights (LGBTQ)
Communities (LGBTQ)
Anti-gay discrimination
Description
Kristina Boerger discusses issues that involve around queer culture fitting into society. She instead argues that those before didn't fight for survival just to have the LGBTQ blend in.
Creator
Kristina Boerger
Date
2021-04-16
Contributor
Liv Borawski
Rights
In copyright
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Type
Sound
Coverage
Champaign, Illinois
Urbana, Illinois
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Duration
00:01:50
Transcription
Liv Borawski: I'm 20 years old and I'm just now learning about history that would have helped me feel a whole lot better growing up.
Kristina Boeger: Our students really need it, I mean my school is my classroom right now is imploding because of these frickin scripts about what people can and can't say that's antiracist or not and these are all completely white, liberal scripts anyway no matter who says them. Absolutely shuts down the hard work and the real change and the real progress so this is, you know, this is problematic. I was going somewhere with that now. Oh, about what people aren't taught. Like, people aren't taught how effective social change actually happens. So you can have somebody saying something stupid like, well, “it's up to white people to do all the anti-racist work, you can't, you know you can't ask people of color to contribute”. You know, that little line, that little slogan comes out of a kernel of truth, which is the recognition that white people typically have been way too freaking lazy to do what can and need to do and we rely on people of color to do all the labor. But when it starts getting used to say, “nope, you can't. You know, people of color don't have to do any work on this question in class. People of Color don't have to talk, you can't ask them”. Show me one successful liberation movement where the people who were the most need of liberation were not involved in the analysis, the strategy, and the sweat labor, and the risk. It simply doesn't happen. We know as women, we're not going to leave it up to men to figure out misogyny and sexism. We know as queer people, we're not going to leave it up to the heteronormative to figure out how to get over themselves. We've had to drag them kicking and screaming to the, to the classroom every day all the time. And we love it when you know that work produces effective and aware allies in those populations and then they can help pull with us but if it's going to happen without one group or the other, it will first happen without them it's not going to go anywhere without us. But that's on purpose, why would a system whose job it is to perpetuate itself, teach students how you actually change the system doesn't happen.
Kristina Boeger: Our students really need it, I mean my school is my classroom right now is imploding because of these frickin scripts about what people can and can't say that's antiracist or not and these are all completely white, liberal scripts anyway no matter who says them. Absolutely shuts down the hard work and the real change and the real progress so this is, you know, this is problematic. I was going somewhere with that now. Oh, about what people aren't taught. Like, people aren't taught how effective social change actually happens. So you can have somebody saying something stupid like, well, “it's up to white people to do all the anti-racist work, you can't, you know you can't ask people of color to contribute”. You know, that little line, that little slogan comes out of a kernel of truth, which is the recognition that white people typically have been way too freaking lazy to do what can and need to do and we rely on people of color to do all the labor. But when it starts getting used to say, “nope, you can't. You know, people of color don't have to do any work on this question in class. People of Color don't have to talk, you can't ask them”. Show me one successful liberation movement where the people who were the most need of liberation were not involved in the analysis, the strategy, and the sweat labor, and the risk. It simply doesn't happen. We know as women, we're not going to leave it up to men to figure out misogyny and sexism. We know as queer people, we're not going to leave it up to the heteronormative to figure out how to get over themselves. We've had to drag them kicking and screaming to the, to the classroom every day all the time. And we love it when you know that work produces effective and aware allies in those populations and then they can help pull with us but if it's going to happen without one group or the other, it will first happen without them it's not going to go anywhere without us. But that's on purpose, why would a system whose job it is to perpetuate itself, teach students how you actually change the system doesn't happen.
Interviewer
Liv Borawski
Interviewee
Kristina Boeger
Location
Virtual
Citation
Kristina Boerger, “Kristina Boerger Oral History Part 3,” Omeka, accessed May 18, 2024, https://historyharvest.web.illinois.edu/omeka/items/show/253.