I believe that the quote from the Combahee River Collective, “We might use our position at the bottom to make a clear leap into revolutionary action.  If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” refers to the various systems of oppression that face black women, and the greater effect of dismantling them. As the most oppressed group, the intersections of their oppressions represent the confluence of all systems of oppression. Thus, destroying the systems that oppress them would mean liberation for all.

I have long enjoyed “Paris is Burning”, and have watched it at least a dozen times. I will say I always fail when in my attempts for deeper analysis, and I’m not sure I will succeed in this attempt either. There are concepts of identity that I’ve never been able to reconcile, concepts that perhaps elude me due to my race, privilege, or other perspectives that I am lacking. Regardless, throughout there is a huge play on the performative aspects of identity. The performative aspects of gender, wealth, heterosexuality. Sometimes these portrayals come across as aspirational, sometimes as critiques, as if to say that these various statuses are nothing more than their outward appearances. Gender, sexuality, and to some extent even wealth (or at least its outward appearance) are all just constructs. And repeatedly these children of the ball are saying that they are deserving of the status they portray, as capable as any white person or anyone else who is readily accepted within these categories of society, all the while confronting the fact that they are barred entry due to being black, gay, trans, or some intersection of those. When Combahee River Collective refer to identity politics, they refer to the politicization or pursuit of an agenda rooted in one’s own identity. I believe in “Paris is Burning” identity politics can be seen in this conflict their reality and why they are trying to portray.

Capitalism has always been reliant upon an oppressed class in its pursuit of profit. If equality truly existed, capitalism’s main profiteers (white men) would be incapable of reaping the rewards they do now. Thus it vital to capitalism’s survival to maintain and reinforce the systems of oppression to sustain an underpaid and overworked working class. Thus capitalism has actively sought to oppress people. Of course this is most notably evident in American slavery, and as America ended slavery it sought to find its next means of cheap labor in its most oppressed classes.