I like playing with multiple definitions of common words. I'm really grooving on the two wikipedia definitions of legitimacy
(lil poem to get me started)
Legitimacy means recognition
having access to the resources one needs
legitimacy grants autonomy
"the future belongs to me"
Legitimacy also confers responsibility and accountability.
Being in proper relation brings legitimacy; belonging is recognized through a "doing", it is not a static state of being but contingent, situational, entangled, and is realized in the telling of the doing. It is realized in the presence and witnessing of others, recognition.
Writing about legitimacy and whiteness, ways of excluding ways of knowing.
And adoption--getting white people to think about adoption as separation, fiction, propping up a system. involves amplifying the experiences of indigenous peoples' scoop era, the horror of it, the literal genocide of it.
Then also, take that same level of empathy, the shared agony of imaging what it would be like for my baby to be taken from my arms, told I had to relinquish "rights", to become unrelated to my child.
That same level of agony--sustain it until moved to take action.
Same agony: begin to imagine how the ancestry.com kin-finding projects are layers and layers of agony to people from Black communities. Denied whiteness from their rich white kin, their literal great-grand-fathers slave-exploiters. Confront the agony of separation, dehumanization, genocide.
That's what the CRT-haters are worried about. Actually feeling these agonies. Then realizing they must respond, balance their account, in order to be relegitimized, recognized as in relation to these kin. Some white parents cannot tolerate their children experiencing negative feelings. The future belongs to them, they think. They don't want their own children to experience solidarity with other children.
Legitimate entities reside in reciprocal relations to other legitimate entities, rather than ransack, take more than is their portion.
Lack of access leads to delegitimation
Lack of access leads to no autonomy
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Thinking about legal structures, legitimating processes. Also thinking about things which don't exist.
Something that does exist is geo-tracking of peoples' proximity to each other through our phones. Many of us have possibly opted in to some sort of contact tracing app for example, which means that some database or overlapping datasets can in theory let us know if we have been in proximity with someone who has tested positive for covid, for example.
Some of us also use apps which track our health, fitbits, and for menstruating people, apps which help track periods and thus cycles of fertility.
Elsewhere I have imagined what it would be like if the US military used its structures to store a copy of recruits' DNA to compare against any future claims of paternity or assault.
Imagine a world in which the surveillance state used both technologies described above to track potential paternity for each conception event. Let's say two people hook up one evening. Their phones are in close proximity for a duration of time which triggers the same mechanism that notes proximity in the contact tracing apps. If the fertility/wellness app notes changes in hormones or temperatures, or that the person has not menstruated that month, it could cross-check that info against the proximity data, narrowing down a list of potential conception partners.
There are currently US state legislatures proposing laws to track pregnancies, with the goal of tracking abortion seekers.
Also in the news, Woman imprisoned for her boyfriend killing her child. "In Oklahoma, parents who fail to protect their children from child abuse can be charged with the same crimes as the actual abuser."
So if a parent can be held responsible for allowing their child to suffer, by choosing the wrong babysitter, could it at least be plausible that a conception partner who abandons a potentially pregnant person is at fault? Should that person be held responsible?
I ask this not because I seek punishment. There is already too much punishment without justice, in regards to reproduction, and especially single parenthood.
I ask because to hear how ridiculous it is that we continually condemn one gender for behaviors of both genders shows how either gender's impunity is an injustice.
Raising children requires resources. The nuclear family is one way to be a family, but it is not the only way. There is good evidence that prioritizing a [white] male breadwinner's economic security at the expense of other peoples' economic securities, as the policies of the New Deal did earlier in the 20th century, creates structural problems than would be absent if we reoriented our thinking about raising children to focusing on their needs and the needs of primary caregivers. Caregiving work the world over is done almost exclusively by women and non-white people. It is often un- or undercompensated.
US Women are being jailed for having miscarriages. One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Back to my dystopian imaginings, the parallel universe where a hook up a month ago could lead to a text message: "potential spawn detected, prepare for confirmation and subsequent pre-natal and child support auto-deductions from your bank account."
Oh you hate that scenario as much as I do? good. Let's not build it.
Let's build a world where pregnancy care, starting with pre-natal vitamins, good nutrition, food security, housing security, affordable accessible health care exists, affordable accessible childcare exists, good schools, good infrastructure... all those "socialist" boogeypersons exist. I would rather have a world where a potentially pregnant person has already been eating good foods, drinking clean water, and living in a stable affirming environment. She finds out about her pregnancy and can make choices based on things other than fear about how she will be able to afford all of the things.
It is shameful to abandon a potentially pregnant person and child. This is the fundamental agony of abortion, of surrendering a baby for adoption. Ironically, the religion whose origin story is about an unmarried pregnant lady being claimed during a census doesn't seem to reinforce this type of manliness among its own.
Bro-code is the part of toxic gender identity which says that if you believe you aren't accountable to others, you can take more than your share.
Recently I witnessed people I love enact this behavior. One said "no one in our [college friend group/fraternity] could have been a rapist." And I thought, wow, I would not utter that sentence because of how I do not know that level of detail about peoples' lives. And why would I presume to defend a guy just because of that association? And I felt so sad for how these men were quick to defend a guy.
I imagined the proverbial locker room, with a group of guys testing out their ideas of masculinity on each other, looking for validation. One guy says, "hey guys, my girlfriend just took a pregnancy test, whadya think?" I imagine hearing "that girl? she's a slut--you don't know if it's even yours dude!"
There are so so so many ways men have created the secret club, the bro-code, to protect each other for having to answer for their actions. Cast doubt. Create a line of thought that is plausible. Advocate on the devil's behalf. Create second chances. Give the benefit of the doubt. Think of how this will affect his future (the future belongs to me) by casting the possibility that someone else's past determines the outcome.
But my imagination also produces the alternative, a world in which there are men who claim responsibility, even for things and people they personally didn't create.
"Yeah, maybe the kid's skin color doesn't match mine, but he's my kid alright." "I love this little person because she's a human being who needs a parent, who needs a bunch of adults who look out for them." "I cannot bear people suffering when there is something I can do about it."
My sense of self can take it if one of the guys suggests I've been cuckolded. Humor based on mockery deserves childlike attention to be paid to it. I feel an obligation to these people because I am a member of a community with them. I am accountable to them. We create legitimacy through doings, through showing up for the people who matter in our lives. All these kids are legitimate because I say so.
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