April 2008 – Page 3

Carnivals: Submit Now, Read Soon

Ms. Crip Chick (excellent blogger, btw) is hosting the 37th Disability Blog Carnival. Submissions are due on May 4th:

Here are some topic ideas!:
• What is disability identity? If you are disabled, do you feel disability is a part of you and your experience?
• What is disability culture to you? How do you put it out there or live it every day?
• Does disability intersect with your other identities (i.e. queer person, person of color, person of faith, etc.)?
• Is pride, community, or the Disability Rights Movement important to you? Why or why not?
• How do you feel about the word disabled? Is it a political term with power to you or do you despise it?
• Do you see disability outside of a rights framework (i.e. is disability something that is more than advocacy to you?)
• If you identify with the autistic acceptance movement, the deaf community, or other groups, how do you feel about disability? Many people do not want to associate with the disability community— how do you feel about this?
• Have you felt alienated from the disability community because of racism, exclusion because of your disability, the media or other factors? How has this affected your identity as a disabled person?

And some topic ideas for allies:
• Why is disability important to your work or politics?
• How do you feel about the Disability Rights Movement and what would you say to activists who downplay this movement or even disability as an important social justice issue?
• How do you see disability intersecting with feminism, reproductive justice, and other forms of oppression?
• What do you see in your role as an ally?

I think I’ve made it clear that I was disappointed with this thread on reproductive justice for disabled women. But I was also very impressed by the many who showed up to debate and defend against the ignorance and ugliness. I thought that some of you might be interested in contributing — and that for everyone who participated in the thread, this will be good and necessary reading when its done.

Speaking of carnivals that are particularly relevant as of late, Angry Black Woman is still accepting submissions to The Carnival of Allies. Submissions to this carnival are also due on May 4th, and I hope to see a lot of bloggers both big and small participating.

I call a Carnival. The Carnival of Allies. Where self-identified allies write to other people like themselves about why this or that oppression and prejudice is wrong. Why they are allies. Why the usual excuses are not good enough. I figure allies probably know full well all the many and various arguments people throw up to make prejudice and oppression okay. Things that someone on the other side of the fence may not hear. Address those things and more besides.

And when I say allies, I’m talking about any and every type. PoC can be (and should be) allies to other PoC, or to LGBTQ people if they are straight, or any number of other combinations. If you feel like you’re an ally and have something to say about that, you should submit to this carnival.

Like with the Disability Carnival, even if you don’t contribute because you don’t blog, don’t get the time or don’t feel educated/qualified enough to participate, I strongly hope that you will take the time to read the finished product. It’s going to be important stuff.

For Chris Matthews, Misogyny Pays Off

Just read it.

BFP’s Final Words

Just in case you haven’t seen this yet, go read.

I don’t have anything else to add, except: BFP will be sorely missed. But she’s is one bad-ass, passionate, brilliant woman, and so I’m confident that wherever she is, she is writing, working, and leaving the space she entered a better place than she found it.

For my own selfish reasons, I hope she comes back to Blogland. But whatever she decides to do, I hope she knows that she has a lot of love behind her. And I have no doubt that she will be making waves and doing all of (wo)mankind better.

Global Fund for Women Raffle

The Global Fund for Women is hosting a gala event with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Honorable President of Liberia, as well as female leaders from Colombia, South Africa, Malaysia, Liberia, Bosnia/Herzogovina and Egypt. They’re also raffling off two tickets to the event — but to enter the raffle, you have to send in a 200-word story about a woman, or women, who you consider to be leaders. It’s a very cool idea, and I’m sure we all know great female leaders who are worth writing about — so head over there and enter. You can read some of the stories that have already been entered here.

Expecting More

Sudy writes:

There is feminism yes, but how that transpires in the action of each “feminist” ultimately defines the movement as a whole. For US feminists, the access to feminism opens most easily for privileged womyn whose minds and lives have been formatted to privileges of comfort, entitlement, and therefore ignorance. The “movement,” of feminism is drowning in a pathology of privilege, a forgetfulness of its use and potential, a permanent amnesia of truly liberating the oppressed. By simple biology, feminism will take a different face in womyn because of race and privilege. It’s as if our priorities are completely different. These days, I feel like we don’t even speak the same language and we are hurt by completely different things.

The question of liberation for privileged feminists will always remain unanswered because they are not equipped, they never learned to self-analyze beyond their own profit and gains. Privileged feminists will remain, I believe, fumbling in the dark with nothing but their oversized dry hands, their desire to be a good ally but inability to acutely challenge their darkest shadows of moral responsibility and fragile egos. In the meantime, the backs of womyn of color have been broken.

This division in feminism breathes in my generation, my feminism. It has filled me with an anger I cannot explain, a frustration beyond my reach. Each day my anger is different and I can’t say it in more simple terms than this: I expect more.

Read her whole post.

Feminists like Sudy, and all the other women who have been hurt and ignored and stomped on over the past few weeks (and years and years) deserve more. And I know there’s only so many times that we can trip up and try to recover and then trip again before people finally start to think we’re unforgivably clumsy. So I’m trying to keep in mind what Holly wrote:

The question for all of us is, what do you do when you’re unvaoidably embedded in a system like this? Where disproportions and inequities are become evident — getting called out, even? If you get handed the mike, who are you going to stand in solidarity with, and how?
…
When any of us have a soapbox, an opportunity to get up and talk, we must continue to stand by those who aren’t called on. If you want to consider yourself an anti-racist or a white ally to people of color — if you want anyone else to consider you those things — then it behooves you to swim against the current.

April 26th: Screening of “Still Black” in Chicago

“Still Black” is Nubian from Blac(k)acadmic’s film project. Screening details are:

april 26th @ 8 p.m. @ GENDER FUSIONS 4 (Columbia College Chicago: Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash, 1st Floor) $5 students / $10 general

The headliners of the event:
Marga Gomez, Matthew Hollis, Ryka Aoki de La Cruz, and Teatro Luna

*all proceeds of GENDER FUSIONS will support the post-production of the film. if you can’t make it to the event and still want to donate to the project, please visit our website. we are still seeking to reach our goal of raising $5,000 to complete the project.

It will also be screened on April 25th at 8pm at Northwestern University’s Queertopia.

Check out the trailer, from the film’s website:

And Sylvia reminds us that donations are always much-needed. You can donate to the project by going here and clicking on “support,” or buying goods from their CafePress store here. Donors will even receive a credit in the film. So if any of you are still looking for something to do with that tax return, this is a good option.

Thanks to Coco in the comments for the link.

Feministe Feedback: Where Should I Donate?

An excellent question:

I was pretty disgusted to find out that the economic stimulus checks are going to be sent out instead of increasing benefits for the poor (if I recall correctly, unemployment and other public services were going to take a hit so that people could get $300 to spend on stuff). I’m not really that well off, but am well off enough that I don’t really need the $300 check when it comes, and I’d love to donate it to an organization that is both pro-woman / feminist and helps the poor. If I keep my $300, I’d probably just spend it on something unnecessary, and I don’t want the money to trickle up to people who are already swimming in gold coins. I’d like it to trickle down to people less fortunate than myself.

I’m sure you all have lots of suggestions, so let’s hear ’em. And this is a really great idea — maybe those of us who don’t need an extra $300 could follow suit.

4/25: Pro-Choice Event at Cooper Union

Join NARAL Pro-Choice New York for a Forum
On Reproductive Choice in New York
Friday, April 25th
6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Albert Nerken School of Engineering at Cooper Union
51 Astor Place (between 3rd and 4th Avenue)
Wollmann Auditorium

NARAL Pro-Choice New York is holding a forum next week on the history of reproductive choice in New York, the present threat to Roe v. Wade, and why we need to pass the Reproductive Health Act.

For help identifying your State Senator please contact cfraker@prochoiceny.org

TODAY: Amanda Marcotte at KGB Bar in Manhattan

My endorsement of this book has been suspended. For further explanation, please see this post.

UPDATE: Since posting this (and updating it once), issues have arisen with the images used in the book. Those images are inexcusable, and I stand behind everything Holly said in her post. Those images have also made me reconsider my support of the book. I will be putting up another post tonight (April 25th) explaining this further.

Amanda is out pitching her book, and she’ll be at KGB Bar in the East Village tomorrow. I will be there as well, with a few other residents of Lefty Blogistan.

KGB Bar is at 85 E. 4th (near 2nd Ave), and the reading starts at 7. If you can’t make it tomorrow, stop by Bluestockings on Thursday for another Amanda reading, also at 7.

And if you can’t make it at all (or even if you can), consider buying Amanda’s book. It’s a great, funny read, and well worth the purchase. It’s also worth supporting progressive authors so that we create and maintain a market for books like this.

Hope to see some of you there!

UPDATE: Many people in the comments section have taken issue with my promotion of Amanda’s book. That’s understandable. I’m leaving the post up because I do continue to support Amanda and the feminist work she’s doing, including her book — but that does not mean that I don’t hear the many people, including many women of color, who have raised very legitimate concerns about white feminists’ appropriation of work created by women of color. I remain unconvinced that Amanda’s appropriated work that wasn’t hers; but again, we’re probably going to end up disagreeing on that. There is some background on this issue here. I understand that many bloggers and commenters no longer link to Amanda and will not be buying her book; I hear that. I was not intending to erase those voices when I put up this post; nor was I attempting to pretend that the events of earlier this month never happened. I was simply trying to promote the work of a feminist writer who I continue to like and respect. In hindsight, promoting her work without recognizing the ongoing controversy was foolish.

I don’t expect everyone (or anyone at all) to agree with me on this. I don’t expect everyone (or anyone at all) to join me in backing her book. I am still going to take the position that her book is a positive contribution to the feminist movement, and I am still going to promote it here. That said, I will not promote it at the expense of other voices, and so I don’t expect this comment section to be perfectly calm. As Crys T said in the comments to this post:

And I don’t think most of us expect you to blacklist Amanda from Feministe. But you have to expect negative commentary if you’re going to bring her or her work up. This event has caused a huge amount of pain, anger and damage to the feminist blogosphere in general. Well, the English-speaking bits of it anyway. And people aren’t going to forget about it any time soon.

That’s fair. And I should have recognized that promoting Amanda’s work right now, under these circumstances, is not a neutral act. But I also hope that I’m clear when I say that my promotion of her book does mean that I think everything that happened this month was totally fine, or that I’m taking Amanda’s “side.” I don’t think Amanda appropriated or plagiarized; but that doesn’t mean that I’m not hearing or respecting the people who think otherwise. A lot of people who I respect greatly have raised issues with the way white feminists have handled things. This is not an attempt to silence them, or to even express disagreement. Perhaps I’m too optimistic in thinking that I can support the voices that challenge the workings of white feminism and also support the work of a white feminist who has been challenged. I’m trying to wade through this one carefully, and apparently so far I’ve been about as graceful as a bull in a china shop. But this is where I’m at right now and what my thought process is. As always, I welcome comments and responses. I just ask that we not do a repeat of comment threads that have been solely about the Amanda issue; this isn’t the place to re-hash and argue over what did or didn’t happen. The controversy about Amanda’s article was about something much bigger than Amanda; I ask that we keep the conversation on that level, in an attempt to make it productive.

Why?

Jeralyn Merritt and Kevin Drum are asking why Obama isn’t giving the press full-time access to his life. I suspect it’s because he realizes that they’re gearing up to take him down.

And why would he think that the press would turn on their golden boy? Oh, I don’t know… maybe because the guy can’t so much as eat breakfast without it becoming “waffle-gate“?