Performance Art vs Performative Justice
In the year of our Lord 2018, if you are not rallying for at least one marginalized group of people, you are passé and not “woke.” Hashtags, T-shirts, protests, Twitter threads, and impassioned brunches are now catered to speaking about the various social injustices that plague our society.
While it certainly is amazing that historically (and still currently!) subjugated groups are finally given a platform to speak on issues that have been largely ignored, we still have to worry about the authenticity of not only those who are speaking, but those who are sharing the messages and agreeing. Performance art social justice is at an all time high, however performative social justice is lagging behind.
The term “performative” has roots to a J.L. Austin book titled “How to Do Things With Words.” In this body of work, he delineates between constantive and performative utterances. Constantive utterances are “true” or “false” statements that describe the state of the world. An example of that statement is “I’ll be at your event” or “the wealth gap between Black and white people are not changing because of institutionalized racism.”
Performative utterances are used to carry out an action; an example of a performative utterance would be “I promise to be at your event,” or “I plan to close the wealth gap between Black and white people by redistributing income.” In essence, performative utterances are a promise to practice what you preach. They are supposed to change the world.
Because society is going through a massive civil rights shift, people are playing their roles to not get cut from the cast. It is no longer socially acceptable to make jokes about rape, seeing that #MeToo has experienced a great revival. People have been fired from jobs for comments that would have been acceptable 5 years ago. The world has changed for the better, however I fear that we are at a plateau. While there certainly are people who are performing social justice on a macro and micro-level, a lot of the opining and outrage is largely for social capital.
Earlier this year, I dated a man who identified as a feminist; he uttered constantives on how social structures protect abusers, how people need to stand up for sexual assault survivors, and how people need to challenge oppressors. However he gaslighted me, manipulated me, took pictures and maintained a cordial relationship with a man who sexually assaulted, and remains friends with people who spread falsehoods about me. Instead of admitting his wrongdoings, he found fault in me and used my insecurities about my assault and trauma to validate his emotional abuse of me and disconnection.
He did not change the world; he maintained the status quo of an environment that continues to punish women like me. He did not do performative social justice in his interpersonal relationship with me, nor on a macro level. He did performance art to maintain is social capital and standing with others.
Social justice should not be a performance, social justice should be praxis. It is disingenuous to say you care about poverty, yet make fun of individuals who have to eat SPAM and vienna sausages. It is disingenuous to cry about the plights of ableism, yet the word “retarded” is at the forefront of your lexicon.
It is disingenuous to identify as a male feminist, yet make fun of pickmes and pit them against feminists by calling female feminists superior. It is disingenuous to call yourself a white ally, yet at every single chance you get, you speak about the Black experience and over other Black people, or you don’t use your platform to elevate Black people who are more learned **cough**SAMWHITEOUT**cough**.
Despite Moses Sumney using “performative” incorrectly, his message still stands. Social justice needs to be practiced in all avenues of our waking life, otherwise you are a background character, waiting for society’s next cue on what to say next.
