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Policing with or without consent
A right, therefore, is a narrative device through which we seek to protect ourselves, our community, and our broader society from oppression, hopefully ensuring that fear of oppression can be set aside, and honour the sites of past oppressive trauma to ensure that oppression never happens again. Narrative power is at every point in this framing. Who has the power to frame past trauma, what they say about current oppression, and how they frame fear of future oppression matters, especially when those framings are mediated. Black lays out that their own former white supremacy sprang from their father, and that it was only as they were exposed to education and liberal ideas that they left their old racist views behind[1]. Like Stuart Mill, Gill-Peterson warns against generalising semantic terms such as transgender and setting rights based on a particular framing of a term, as those who seek to add texture and nuance to that term may well be hegemonically excluded[2]. This narrative power to frame and reframe requires hospitality, otherwise those excluded will never have a voice.
Does this mean that my theory of rights needs a right holder and a person on the other side with a corresponding obligation or duty? In bilateral obligations each side potentially has both rights and duties to the other, with a question as to whether there is some element of choice about or control over each side’s…
