In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

I’m Not Your Sister

Lauren

I wouldn’t say I’m better than you, Andrea, but since you did…

While we’re on the subject, one of her commenters says:

I’ve been following the argument with amusement. Any fool can see that you weren’t targeting her son. She hadn’t even made an appearance in the thread at that point. It was pure ego on her part to think that you even knew she was another blogger at the site

That’s funny. When Andrea and I get into a shit-slinging match on another blog, in which I dropped out of the argument to let Andrea play by her lonesome (as usual), and the subject of my biracial son comes into play as a core reason why I pay very close attention to race issues, Andrea decides to bring it up again by calling Ethan “quadriracial” and making fun of my concern for race-based discrimination that I have witnessed and detailed at length.

In detail she says:

Oh dear—you have attacked the delicate, sensitive female feminists at Feministe. Expect a puff-alanche of snippy comments from Proud Singlemom Womyn™ demanding Culturally Diverse communities in which they can safely raise their quadriracial children in a non-violent, non-misogynistic, secular atmosphere where they won’t have to hear about icky male phallic things like War!, Jesus, and rednecks in pickup trucks.

Womyn? Really? Don’t get all dumb on me, Andrea, when I think your bitchiness is halfway rooted in intelligence. I don’t know how anyone can bag on culturally diverse communities that see the critical value in her vile statements as much as they value all the vileness of mine. No, she didn’t know nothin’ ’bout me and mine. No.

Smarmy is as smarmy does. But yeah, you attack kids, you’re fucked up — that’s authentic right-wing hate right there, baby.

She’s only giving me traffic with her half-hearted defense of whatever it is she’s defending, so thanks for the link, hon.

57 thoughts on I’m Not Your Sister

  2. Lauren, this is all I am going to say: I do not know your son from Adam, I don’t care about you or your son (much less would I call him a “quadriracial” — that is a fanciful term I got from an old scifi story whose author and title I can’t remember), and what’s more, I wasn’t even talking about you, but about 1) generally, a certain sort of contemporary “feminist”, and 2) specifically, an entirely different person — and the focus of the blog post on Protein Wisdom — called Jill.

  4. Pingback: Least Loved Bedtime Stories v. 2.0 » Sisterhood

  5. Gosh, Lauren/Jill, they’re making you two look like a couple dumb hoes. You better do sumptin’.

    Is your son really an Oreo?

  7. (much less would I call him a “quadriracial” — that is a fanciful term I got from an old scifi story whose author and title I can’t remember)

    And I’m sure anyone who thinks that there’s racial overtones to the term would just be jumping the gun, right Andrea? Because you could never be “malevolent, evil, and verbicidal”.

  9. Boy those wingnuts are just charming aren’t they? Love the name calling directed at a child as a form of argument. I hadn’t read all of the articles of your’s that you linked to before – lauren you rock.

  12. Man, the sad empty lives of white supremacists. What I enjoy about white supremacists is that since they are worthless wastes of oxygen, they have to find their self-worth by picking on other people for the “crime” of being a different race. Unfortunately for y’all, the rest of the world isn’t really too interested in your theory that lighter is better. Though, as a scary ass white as paper person, I can say I have the nifty trick of walking around naked and lighting my own way. But that’s pretty much the sum total of its worth.

    Sorry, off track. Anyway, I do pity Andrea and her crew, having to stand around bolstering their self-esteem despite all evidence that they suck by saying, “Damn, we’re white. That has got to count for something.”

  13. Hmm…she refers to the “female feminists” at this blog. I don’t know, I seem to recall being male, and I consider myself to be part of this blog community (hopefully that’s not too presumptuous). You’d think she’d pay a bit more attention to people she’s criticizing so readily, no?

  14. And I’m sure anyone who thinks that there’s racial overtones to the term would just be jumping the gun, right Andrea?

    Overtones, hell.

    I’m sure you caught this, Lauren, but it’s just so hilarious I have to make it explicit. Because there are only two possible interpretations of her remark, as far as I can see:

    1) She was picking an underhanded way of mocking you (and E., but mainly you) personally, and in doing so clumsily made a racially offensive statement, or:

    2) She wasn’t thinking about you at all, but rather has a problem with the very existence of multiracial children.

    When she denies it was targeted at you, she could be lying or telling the truth. But that doesn’t matter, because the hilarious thing is she actually thinks claiming reason 2 is a defense.

    OK, that ought to be the offensive thing rather than the hilarious thing, but 1) she is an insignificant person and 2) now at least she’s outed herself as a racist. I’d rather racists like her be known for what they are.

  16. Well, a quadrilateral has four sides, so a quadriracial would be a person of four races. Tiger Woods, for example. Not sure how you get four races out of The Boy, unless you count something like “East Anglian” as a distinct race.

  17. Why is there anything wrong with being born female (not anything you can help, short of sex change surgery), choosing to be a feminist (one’s private creed is one’s own business), living in a neighborhood that happens to have people of different races, religions or political beliefs (are demographics the new strawman?), being born several different races (can’t help that one either now, can we?), raising a child without violent abuse (no comment), hatred of women (the definition of misogyny the last time I checked), following a pacifist/antiwar path (one’s own private creed) or not driving a pickup truck (a choice that isn’t too big of a deal to me)? And I would hardly lump the New Testament “blessed are the peacemakers turn the other cheek” Jesus in with other “icky male phallic things” like war and pickup trucks. I don’t see why anyone following that lifestyle is hurting anyone by virtue of her existence.

  18. Oops, I meant raising a child without violent abuse or hatred of women. Can’t imagine how an upbringing lacking violence or misogyny is a bad thing.

  19. tas:

    (much less would I call him a “quadriracial” — that is a fanciful term I got from an old scifi story whose author and title I can’t remember)

    And I’m sure anyone who thinks that there’s racial overtones to the term would just be jumping the gun, right Andrea?

    In the sense that biochemistry has nothing to do with chemistry the answer to that is in the affirmative.

  23. As someone who is biracial (referring to little ole me) and who has dealt with people’s bigotry and racist bullshit when it comes to racially mixed individuals–especially children, this just thoroughly pisses me off. But it also reminds me how absolutely pathetic those people are, as they shamelessly use children of racially mixed heritage to get to their parents–no matter how subtle the tactic may be. They’re weak.

    Teach your son to be strong, Lauren. Unfortunately he will encounter a lot of ugly racism and viciousness in his life, especially during his Junior High years. But he needs to know that really, all those people who slander and piss on him for his heritage, are weak and painfully ignorant.

  24. Chris Clark says:

    “1) She was picking an underhanded way of mocking you (and E., but mainly you) personally, and in doing so clumsily made a racially offensive statement, or:

    2) She wasn’t thinking about you at all, but rather has a problem with the very existence of multiracial children.”

    Well, how about:

    3) She wasmocking you, because people who go on and on about their biracial kids tend to do so because it allows them to smugly pat themselves on the back about what enlightened people they are, when truly enlightened people don’t need to do such things.

  27. She wasmocking you, because people who go on and on about their biracial kids…

    Possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Seriously. Ever. You moron.

  28. I can’t believe someone would defend that mockery.

    when truly enlightened people don’t need to do such things.

    Yeah, right, truly enlightened people hang their heads in shame and never mention their biracial kids.

    Fortunately for me, I’m not truly enlightened, so I freely talk about and share photos of the biracial nephews and nieces, same as the monoracial ones.

    There’s no excuse, just none at all, for her going after Ethan.

  29. The “quadriracial” comment, as she mentioned, is some obscure science fiction reference. She latched onto it, like the bigot she is, because it’s funny to her. It’s like a bit of acid to throw in the face of our mixed race comrades, if she ever has to face the reality of the associated prejudice.

    It was thrown out there in the facetious manner that many netizens use when dealing with a bit of flaming. An apology would be in order, but sadly, I have a feeling she uses it in everyday conversation.

    So, I’m sure Andrea is somewhat “outraged over the outrage”.

  30. Andrea Harris seems to have a history of all sorts of problems relating to diversity and race issues. I recall her battling with (may he rest in peace) Aaron from uppity-negro.com and his own disgust with her. Right-wing slime all seem to think alike and they are so far off the beaten path from the rest of us when it comes to diversity and race, it’s incredible to think we are all in the same society.

    And to the person who implies that parents of biracial children go on and on about our kids, kiss our collective asses. It’s not that we go on and on about them, it’s just that folks of your ilk are so uncomfortable with race that you’re offended when our kids come up in conversation (and why shouldn’t we talk about them?) or even exist in the first place. Deal with it.

    Signed:
    Another Mom of a quadriracial kid who is now 20 years of age and mother of my quadriracial grandson.Kiss my ass.

  31. “people who go on and on about their biracial kids…”

    Really? ‘Cuz I’ve been reading Feministe for a long damn time, ever since the discussion on “what it means to be white”. You’d have to really be reading thoroughly and often, looking for details, to know that Lauren has a biracial son; she seldom mentions it.

    Methinks this little detail stood out to this Andrea bitch because it seriously offended her, when what ought to offend her is the notion that a child and the woman whose body the child came from can ever be thought of to be of “different races.” One of the most cogent, concise comments I’ve come across on the net is this: Race is a biological fiction and a social fact. Andrea is clearly invested in notions of white supremacy and male supremacy. Poor her.

    All sing along withe me…”if she only had a brain…”

  33. norbizness, perhaps I should clarify; I don’t notice that she mentions her son’s ethnicity very often. I’m suspicious of someone who would pick up on that particular trait and amplify it. To me, it read a lot like all the other bogus arguments I’ve seen in cyberspace accusing feminists of destroying the white race.Then again, I’m one of those lefties that can’t understand why anyone would be opposed to a culturally diverse, nonviolent, non-misogynistic, non-fundamentalist society, either!

  34. Really? ‘Cuz I’ve been reading Feministe for a long damn time, ever since the discussion on “what it means to be white”. You’d have to really be reading thoroughly and often, looking for details, to know that Lauren has a biracial son; she seldom mentions it.

    I had no idea until recently, and I’ve been reading semiregularly for about a year.

    The whole defense of “I wasn’t picking on you, I was picking on your 7-year-old child” is pretty sickening.

  35. generally, a certain sort of contemporary “feminist”,

    Ah, then since Andrea didn’t mean Lauren, surely she can name to which contemporary feminists she is referring? Because it seems like we have a few possibilities with the backpedaling:

    1) She sure did mean Lauren but is too chickenshit to admit it.

    2) She only meant “Jill,” whoever that is.

    3) In either 1 or 2, she’s not attacking “some kind of contemporary feminist,” but two different people, and is now telling us that there are shadowy hordes of feminists just like them.

    4) She has the Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum problem of not being able to name a single plausible example of the fictitious person about who they’re complaining. That is, Andrea’s “contemporary feminist” is a complete fiction.

    It could be any, but I’ll let Andrea tell us which, as I don’t wish to put words in her mouth.

  36. I was reading the comments attached to that post, filled primarily with words of one syllable or less, usually breasts or some variations thereof, when I hit Jill’s comment. Like a breath of fresh air. Here is someone, I think to myself, that assumes people who are reading the post can actually reason. Not only that but think.

    Some people want attention, and if they can’t get it with the excellence of their writing, and the strength of their arguments, as you and Jill do, they get it by making comments such as ‘quadriracial’, and then when people call out racist, pretend it’s no such thing.

    She’s worse than a racist: she’s a moral coward. A racist would at least stand by what they say.

  38. Lauren, I share your anger; I’m still mystified by what possible rhetorical purpose was served by identifying your son as “biracial.” It is loaded stuff, race and feminism, isn’t it!

    My wife is mulitracial, but identifies most with her Afro-Colombian roots. After mentioning that on my blog a long time ago, I got some charming hate mail from MRAs, some suggesting that because I was marrying a “Latina”, I must be scared of “White American Women”, and thus was actually a sell-out to the feminist cause. They assumed that my fiancee (now my spouse) was going to be conservative and submissive because of her Hispanic heritage. Of course, when I mentioned — on another occasion — that my wife also identifies as black, that elicited another charming round of vitriol.

    Clearly, all of this brings up a lot of fear that revolves around sex and race in the minds of many folks.

  39. Really? ‘Cuz I’ve been reading Feministe for a long damn time, ever since the discussion on “what it means to be white”. You’d have to really be reading thoroughly and often, looking for details, to know that Lauren has a biracial son; she seldom mentions it.

    “Abortion,” “Choice,” “feminist,” and “John Roberts/Karl Rove/Dubya is a mendacious twit/selfish asshole/evil fucktard,” are code for, “My, “Son, Ethan” “is,” and “Quadriracial,” respectively.

    You have to read between the lines.

    Seriously, though, what La Lubu said. I waste time on this blog every day I use a computer, and I didn’t actually realize that Ethan was racially mixed. I suppose Lauren’s mentioned it once or twice in the several months I’ve been acquainted with feministe, but I had forgotten if she has.

    And if she has, so what? If she devoted weekly attention to it, so what? Her child’s circumstances define her child’s life. Race is a defining circumstance in a segregated culture. As his mother, she would naturally be very concerned with anything that might shape Ethan’s experience. She isn’t racism-baiting* or racist herself.

    *I cannot believe that is even a straight-faced concept. But that’s a comment for another day.

  41. Also, what everyone else said about the dumbass defense.

    Yes, you may not have been insulting Lauren specifically. The intarweb is characterized by chance encounters between distant people, so it’s a possibility. You’re totally ignorant of Jill’s life, if you think you can use her as an example of someone with no right to be personally offended by the “quadriracial” reference.

    You were, however, insulting parents of mixed-race children–and those children–in general. So Lauren has every right to jump down your throat for your racism and for your disparagement of parents of mixed-race kids who, you know, care when their kids are hurt by racism.

    Moreover, if you make a racist comment that inadvertantly attacks someone you didn’t know was affected by racism, the correct response is as follows: “Whoops! I’m sorry I made a racially offensive comment. That was ignorant of me. It was also ignorant of me to assume (a) that everyone on feministe was white, (b) that none of the white bloggers on feministe would have a stake in racial issues.”

  42. We do all realize that anything being the “subject of a blog post at Protein Wisdom” pretty much denies it any chance of generating a rational or factual conversation, right?

  43. It could be any, but I’ll let Andrea tell us which, as I don’t wish to put words in her mouth.

    Myth, please reconsider your position. The only things that comes out of Andrea’s mouth are hot air and spittle. Some words and logic would be rather nice.

  45. One of the things I find interesting about all of this is how easily people can use racial terms and expect that there will be no possibility that some people will find the term at least inappropriate and at most completely racist–especially when one interacts with people who write on feminist issues. It’s like going to an anti-choice rally and using the term ‘anti-choice’ instead of pro-life and then being suprised that people get upset.

    Racism is an important, complex issue, and the people who don’t understand that but want to use racial terms to mock others’ views (not to mention mocking others’ children) need to at least, at the *very* least, understand that. Why the heck would she (and her commenters) be so suprised?

  47. And, if I am reading that conversation correctly, she didn’t back off because she got bored and decided to drop it – she backed off because Ilyka told her to to back off. Of course, I could be wrong about that interpretation, and people can decide for themselves by following the link to Ilyka’s Racists post on Least Loved Be- – say, waitaminute, that link doesn’t exist, now, does it.

  48. Andrea Harris is an indisputably lively blogger – I suspect there’s often genuine sweat behind her off-the-cuff, mad-as-hell pose – but with a seriously disabling flaw. Basically, classic Lady Macbeth syndrome. That is, a kind of thwarted misogyny that throws her logic wildly off balance and also makes her sentimentalize aggressive rules of behavior – she’s a real eyelash-batting cheerleader for testosterone in a weird way.(See the real Lady Macbeth for that little quirk too.)
    Andra bopped me on the nose metaphorically when I yelled foul over a specific instance of women-hating bile on her blog (she had described Cindy Sheehan’s protest as dragging “the level of political discussion in this country not into the mud, but into the men[s]trual muck of the slop pail” and then promptly deleted my complaint). You don’t have to look far for other loopy examples from Andrea of the same; “I have had it with my sex. I hereby proclaim myself Female By Accident; it’s just an “F” on my driver’s license and a mistaken chromosome set”. Or: “Unfortunately I get to live in a society where 90% of the women seem to have the sense of entitlement of the seventeenth century French nobility minus the attendant sense of duty.”
    It’s also as if the moment she gets the sniff of a single mother, her sense goes out of the window. (Obviously the “quadriracial” comment was additionally racist- what’s with her crackpot defence?)
    It’s tempting to play analyst with her words (‘I say “menstrual” you say “muck” and “slop pail”‘ – ooookay, shall we talk about that for the next 55 minutes Andrea?). But for the purposes of this thread, perhaps we should just dub her Lady Macbeth – and leave it at that?
    (Sorry to go on – but she’s been licking her chops in victory over Lauren at her blog…)

  49. Myth, please reconsider your position. The only things that comes out of Andrea’s mouth are hot air and spittle. Some words and logic would be rather nice.

    If I had a way to jam logic into the mouths, much less the brains, of random loons, the internet would be a VERY different place.

  50. People here seem to be getting a lot of play out of one possible interpretation of what Ilyka wrote, which she’s provided a feasible alternative explanation for. Maybe she’s just denying that she meant it in a cartoonishly villainous way because she’s afraid of all of the awful consequences of people realizing what she really meant, but … maybe not! She’s probably doing a better job at clarifying than I could, but I’ve got to give it a shot: She used general terms to lampoon people who behave in a certain specific way; You decreed that this was the same as making a specific racially derisive comment against your son.

  52. Dave, that would be a plausible explanation had I not had a similar conversation with Andrea just ten days ago that she is very clearly referencing.

  53. As a white feminist (though far more than quadri-ethnic), I’m totally psyched that fanatics like Andrea get feminists’ devotion to anti-racism, diversity, and equality. We must be doing something right to pose such a threat to their narrow worlds. Rock on!

  55. With respect Deb, I always cringe when the “bitter…lonely, childless spinster” line is used against bloggers like Andrea Harris because it theoretically opens the way for her to retort back about, say, ‘promiscuously fecund welfare Barbies’ – or other enraged name-calling.
    True, she has turned the personal into the political – Andrea seems to regard her own single, childless state as an accomplishment in its own right. And she demonstrates zero empathy – and this is an outrageous irony – for any woman who dares to use their own personal motherhood politically (hence the way she flung Cindy Sheehan’s biology back in her face with such venom, or her row here).

    But the “bitter… spinster” swipe just seems begging for payback!
    (I only “know” Andrea through her writing, btw).

  56. Is this the Andrea who ahem, “moderates” (that’s not really a good term for what she does), Tim B.Liar’s blog?

    She’s famous with us Australian bloggers for deleting any comments she doesn’t like – hence the long lists of adoring dittoheads in Tim’s comments. Various excellent bloggers have been banned completely by Andrea.

    “Andrea bopped me on the nose metaphorically when I yelled foul over a specific instance of women-hating bile on her blog (she had described Cindy Sheehan’s protest as dragging “the level of political discussion in this country not into the mud, but into the men[s]trual muck of the slop pail” and then promptly deleted my complaint)”.

    Yep, that’s the modus operandi.

  57. >>Simply put, Andrea is a lonely childless spinster, which is why she is so bitter toward other women and motherhood.>>

    What Jody said. It also opens the door to charges of anti-feminism on our part. This “lonely spinster” argument is one that feminists themselves have had to deal with. It’s also untrue. Gloria Steinem was childless and probably single when she wrote her famous essay demanding that moms and homemakers be compensated for their work.

    If Andrea is lonely, she’s probably lonely because she’s an asshole, not the other way around.

    And, Dave, other commenters have pointed out that even if Andrea was making a general statement–which seems unlikely–she was being offensive to Lauren. The quadriracial crack was racist. It’s not better to insult someone and everyone like them than to merely insult that person. So Lauren has every right to jump on her, and Andrea’s defense (“I’m making a racist generalization, not handing out a specific racist insult!”) is just sad.

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