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#solidarityisforwhitewomen tertiary thread: WOC commentors only

Moderator Team

Several regular readers/commentors have suggested that, due to some derailings and erasures of WOC on the primary thread,  a third thread specifically for WOC commentors to contribute feedback/analysis regarding the #solidarityisforwhitewomen hashtag and the history behind it is needed.  This is that thread.

[Content note: comments may include mentions of Hugo Schwyzer, suicide & murder attempts, self-harm, manipulative abuses]

 

69 thoughts on #solidarityisforwhitewomen tertiary thread: WOC commentors only

  1. The Moderator Team will be relying on the honor system with respect to commentors identifying as WOC.

  2. This past week of racism has just been hell. Can’t even discuss how we were treated without getting another helping of it from the very people pointing out how we were treated. By those “other” feminists, as if they are separate or different somehow. I’m so sick of it that I honestly don’t want to hear one more word from a ww feminist. Don’t care what she’s saying either. I feel tired. Angry. Disgusted. And a little bit shocked even though it’s not something new. Poc parents have the how to behave around cops talk with their kids. Maybe we should have a what to expect from white feminists talk too.

    1. Agreed. I’ve been trying to stay abreast of the conversation both here and in the blogosphere, but it’s incredibly draining–and I’m not even a player in this. I started reading (or at least paying attention) after Hugo got phased out by feministe. I was part of the complaining commentariat at Jez when he wrote for them, but mostly I just cosigned existing comments so I was never banned. I was never singled out personally by anyone in this and I’m still trying to sort out the exact timeline of events re: brownfemipower, blackamazon, et al.
      But I’ve been around enough to see that Hugo is not the disease. His rise and reign in capital F feminist circles is a symptom, and I’m sick and tired of fighting it.
      I know Feministe is trying to do a better job. I feel much more comfortable commenting here than I did when I first started reading, but at the same time I’m tired of the same ol’ song and dance of: screw up–>someone gets triggered and does a call-out–>”sorry guys, we’ll fix it.” I’m tired of things needing fixing, and us having to explain why it’s broken (sometimes several times) before it is*. I’m tired of having to constantly remind commenters or writers about PoC’s existence. I’m tired of the “I’m white, but my experience is exactly the same…” comments when it comes to PoC complaints about microagressions or not fitting in, and I’m tired of biting my tongue instead of saying “No. It’s not.” It’s not bad that it isn’t, but it’s not the same and pretending it is? That’s erasure.

      *I know the mods work hard, but it’s still exhausting on my end and wears my patience

    2. It’s as if Nice White Ladies have selected spokespersons for the coloreds, and since they believe themselves entitled to speak for their “friends” (scare quotes intended) they shout down any other woc who dares to speak. It’s like the way white people use (mostly misinterpret) MLK/Gandhi/Mandela to put people in their place. We are not individual humans, but rather a mass having a singular perspective, or we’re simply metaphor.

    3. I agree. I’m also really tired of people saying, “I’m reading and listening, but I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do,” when there’s blatant racism in a thread. I’ve also been seeing way too many “allies” pointing the finger every which way instead of saying, “I messed up [and yes, everyone messes up some times]; here’s what I’m going to do to fix it.”

  3. Aaaand there’s already whining going on in the secondary thread for “racial segregation”.

    So, related to that, I’d like to reiterate that the whole “but reverse racism” of asking white folks to stfu and listen on this one topic is hogwash. I don’t very much care what straight folks think of LGBQness, and I know to sit my ass down on trans issues/mental health issues (anxiety is THE most generic disorder out there, I don’t even really think mine is incapacitating enough to qualify as one all the time), so what’s the big deal? FFS. So there’s one thread in the history of a blog where y’all need to not participate. Boo fuckin’ hoo.

    I think it would be good if Feministe made regular attempts to be actively inclusive. I know my own background is from places like Livejournal and Dreamwidth, which aren’t the same in terms of function, but it occurred to me that having a few posts (I’m thinking 4-6 a year) asking specifically for WOC contributors/guest bloggers/ etc would be good. I know there’s a general “submit a guest post” thing, but it’s pretty intimidating; I know that’s the only reason i haven’t submitted anything. A clear outline of the extent of privacy allowed for WOC would be good, too. (I also imagine that similar “hey, sign up!” posts for trans contributors and LGBQ contributors of all races would be good!)

    I also reckon a WOC moderator would be good. Not that one WOC mod could catch all the racism (how many times have I failed at detecting anti-black sentiment again?) but it’d be better than some others. I dunno if they would be happy to mod all the time, but perhaps an extra hand ready for when race-related posts are scheduled to go up would be good? I imagine many people would find “mod this post that will go up Friday” easier to handle.

    Thanks, mods, for putting up this post! It’s muchly appreciated ♥

    1. But they don’t see skin color so how could theirs deny them???? That’s so unfair! They don’t meaaaaaan to have power due to their skin color so why can’t mean woc pretend it doesn’t exist too?!

    2. Aaaand there’s already whining going on in the secondary thread for “racial segregation”.

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!11

      And I’m on the fence about exclusivity ’cause I wonder about folks on the margins, people who are not quite sure who claims them, not sure where they fit.

      1. I know, and that’s the reason I’m usually really reluctant to participate in exclusive spaces even if I’m included in the exclusion; I don’t read POC-only blogs, or women-only blogs, etc, because frankly until I moved to Canada I lived somewhere I too had (some) racial privilege, and definitely caste privilege, and it feels weird and appropriative to state that I’m always and only oppressed. Hell, participating on THIS thread feels weird to me because even though I’m WOC, it’s not like I spent all my life under colonising jackbootheels, you know? I hate hate hate that I was driven to the point of saying “WOC ONLY PLZ” because it feels like shutting out a lot of white voices on this site who are good and relevant and respectful (not to mention the POC who don’t identify as women who sure know how racism feels too), but it seriously felt like there was too much crap out there.

        And then that gets shit all over too. Gah. I can’tfuckingeven.

        1. Yeah, I hear you. Thank you for sharing your experiences of living in India vs. Canada. I wish there was a way to welcome people on the margins, people who don’t fit into or don’t quite feel comfortable with the WOC label, without offering an open invitation to assholes. I’m thinking about people like a wealthy white man with dyed blonde hair who wanted to talk about the supposed blonde-discrimination he faced in a Holocaust history discussion group where he was the only non-Jewish and/or POC. (Real life example sadly, and yes we were all rendered speechless)

    3. Oh! Another thought that occurred to me:

      A lot of times, when issues that affect WOC are being discussed, WOC are linked to in the comments, and these links are usually pretty stellar. However, because comments (particularly because comments on wanktastic thread) they get buried or ignored. I know I missed some links on the first thread until someone else replied and I happened to be looking while their comment was on the recent comments list.

      It seems to me that (particularly if those links contain roundups, etc), adding a “links from comments” section to the tail end of posts, either when they go up or when a modly one has the time, would be an effective way to highlight WOC work. Also, lots of people read articles but not comments. I realise that this is work for the mods, but…eh. It’s a suggestion.

      Also, Nanette was saying here that having WOC on the blog team who could actively scout for WOC guest bloggers, bloggers, links for threads etc, as well as having those bloggers’ backs when they’re on here, would be a fantastic idea. I quite agree.

    4. I think multiple WOC mods would be needed in that case, not only for that reason, but for supporting each other. (Speaking from my experience of moderating this site!)

  4. [Content note: comments may include mentions of Hugo Schwyzer, suicide attempts, self-harm, manipulative abuses]

    This content note, in mentioning “suicide” but not “attempted murder centers HS, not his victim. This has been an ongoing issue.


    [Moderator response: Good point, post has been updated accordingly. Apologies for missing it in the first place ~ mod team]

  5. Note to white feminists: just because you are defending woc friends does not mean you are not capable of racism, erasing, marginalization, dismissing and using wp. It’s not cool. And it shouldn’t be done on behalf of your woc friends. You insult us, and them.

  6. My thoughts are a little ( a lot) confused and disjointed now, but I have limited access to a computer and I don’t see them getting any clearer, so….

    I feel that there seems to be denial on behalf of some of the white feminists here about just how bad this site is. Not just white privilege, but active racism. I mean, ignoring the voices of WOC isn’t being behind a learning curve, it is actively disregarding the voices of WOC and treating our experiences as less than or subject to a greater degree of scrutiny, and I feel that numerous months dedicated to recognizing people of color have gone unrecognized or barely mentioned/commented on. The most recent to my mind being Black History Month. And to be met with an excuse about time restraints for a month that comes up every year reinforces how little recognizing black women or our issues matters here. It is an annual thing, how do you fail to plan for an annual thing (and I realize that these specific months are U.S.-centric, and I probably wouldn’t mention it if there were other times, any other times, set aside on the blog and dedicated to highlighting WOC)? And I have yet to find a post on here dedicated to the Idle No More movement or Theresa Spence and her treatment by the media in particular. And there’s the whole thing that after years of this being called out and years of white women promising change, I am still willing to set the bar so low as to wonder why there aren’t at least “special programs” devoted to WOC, let alone the integration of our voices into the movement as a whole. We shouldn’t need highlighting, but alas we do and it appears to be little interest in changing that.

    And also, there are the things like this: that seem to be all about white apologism and a sorry excuse as to why white women couldn’t be bothered to defend a WOC early on or at least link to and quote WOC who did. Seems like a general trend that rather than own up to privilege and racism and then actually do something about it, white women are more interested in talking about their privilege in a usually superficial way, receiving pats on the back for acknowledging it, and then letting the whole cycle repeat itself.

    I really want to know what the Feministe team is doing to actively recruit and feature WOC bloggers, what is being done to make sure that the voices of and issues specific to (or disproportionately affecting) WOC are featured more regularly, and what is being done to acknowledge past mistakes and plan on how they will not be repeated. Also, there needs to be recognition and identification of some of the disgusting paternalism I read towards WOC in the comments (right until they get called on it, in which case it turns into vitrol pretty fast). There seems to be a lot of investment in tropes and discussions that allow WOC to be upheld as oppressed/mammies/ in need of solidarity/ as “super special Earth mothers”/eternal teachers of white women on how to live-whats important in life. The presence of WOC shouldn’t be reduced to teaching white women things/expanding their minds ( I feel like I sometimes come across blog posts here and elsewhere where when WOC are featured, the comments or post become about how white women feel what white women have learned) or serving as a representative of WOC as a whole or their race/ethnicity in particular. And there needs to be some understanding that sometimes racism can feel like a battering ram into compliance with the patriarchy for black women.

    1. Wow, messed up that link. Also, in my last line I meant something closer to “some understanding that sometimes racism can feel like a battering ram into compliance with patriarchy-approved decisions for some black women.”

    2. I really appreciate your sharing, and I can relate to so much of what you’re saying. Yes! to this bit in particular:

      There seems to be a lot of investment in tropes and discussions that allow WOC to be upheld as oppressed/mammies/ in need of solidarity/ as “super special Earth mothers”/eternal teachers of white women on how to live-whats important in life. The presence of WOC shouldn’t be reduced to teaching white women things/expanding their minds ( I feel like I sometimes come across blog posts here and elsewhere where when WOC are featured, the comments or post become about how white women feel what white women have learned) or serving as a representative of WOC as a whole or their race/ethnicity in particular.

      We’re regular-people people too.

    3. Yes to everything you said. Yes yes yes. Though I should note that black women have received disproportionate amounts of shit, both here and elsewhere (what else is new etc etc) and I’m glad you explicitly attacked the tropes BW have to deal with.

  7. At this point I’m just…over it.

    I had actually deleted my bookmarks to Feministe and Feministing a few weeks ago, but curiosity got the better of me. “Oh, look. Racefail at Feministe. Again.”

    I’ve been reading through some of the archives and the second (and third and fourth, etc) verse is the same as the first. And I’m at the point where I just don’t give a fuck.

    I will, say, however, that even though Jill is part of the problem, I don’t think she’s *the* problem. Not that anyone has been saying that, but I really do think that too much of the conversation has been centered around what individual people have or have not done and not about what needs to be done in order to make Feminism® more inclusive.

    One thing that I believe needs to happen more is something that was mentioned in that last thread on how to be a good ally. I think it was pheeno who said that allies need to step up more often and let their people know, “Hey, that isn’t cool.” And I’m not talking about that self-congratulatory mess that was going on in the other thread. Allies need to understand the difference between standing up *with* us and standing up *for* us.

    1. Completely agree. And speaks volumes as to why I have still not heard back from her, post #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen/reckonings on how she was not a good ally to me and threw me under the bus in the service of protecting yet another White male abuser who intentionally targets WOC and is not Hugo (so yes, it is the larger issue of White women supporting White supremacy and White men’s racist misogyny against WOC–and especially Black women). Hard for me to see how much Jill really from all this given her non-response. Public responses to save face/have good PR are too easy. Acknowledging the fucked-up shit you did in private only happens when you *really care* about being an antiracist ally–to the way to the bitter end.

      1. @Hugo Was Not the First to Dupe Jill on this Site

        Is there anyway to learn more about the issues around “yet another White male abuser who intentionally targets WOC and is not Hugo” while maintaining your anonymity?

        1. I was just thinking that. Anon, if you give me your email on any of the open posts on my website (linked in my username), I’d like to talk to you about it. All anon comments on my Dreamwidth are auto-screened, because I see no reason to have my fandom friends’ eyeballs assaulted with the kind of trolls that turn up when one writes about racism, so I’d be the only one to have your email ID.

        2. I posted information in an old thread on misogynists warning Feministe readers about a White male predatory misogynist and documented racist bully who masquerades as a feminist and antiracist activist. The man is a sociopath so vicious that he was willing to falsely accuse me of a crime the police themselves have confirmed I have never committed and he is lying about. Because the Feministe post was coming up in a Google search of his name and he was/is on the academic job market trying to get a tenure track job–so as to be able to use his position to take sexual advantage of female students–he hired a convicted-felon lawyer to smear me as a violent ghetto criminal who assaulted him so as to ask for an unconstitutional gag order against me, so that I could not write statements of fact of about his well-documented history of sociopathic racist-sexist bullying against me. The man is a straight up misogynist and racial terrorist (from Texas and happy to use Jim Crow ‘put n*ggers in their place’) tactics to make sure his White male privilege goes unchallenged.

          Because he engaged in cyberbullying against me that occurred via a UC Berkeley listserve, which was a clear Title IX hostile climate violation, faculty from his graduate program and the university administration supported him in smearing me and racially terrorizing me. He was doing a *racial justice* post-doc at Dartmouth at the time he used the convicted-felon lawyer to lie about me. Two of his biggest supporters in smearing me are white women professors who claim to be ‘feminist’ professors, but didn’t want the truth about their negligence in stopping his bullying to get out, or the larger issue of hostile racial climate (especially anti-Black racism) in their department to be publicized. Both Berkeley and Dartmouth supported covering up the man’s DOCUMENTED AND CONFIRMED BY WITNESSES racism, misogyny, bullying, and cocaine use because they didn’t want to deal with the (legal) hostile climate violations presented by his behavior.

          Did Jill think it was necessary for her and Feministe to stand in solidarity with me and challenge this abuse? Nope. Because who can be bothered to care about some not-famous/wealthy Black woman, right? I’m not a pretty White woman crying White Woman Tears so I’m not a Sympathetic White Victim (to people like Jill) worth actually caring about: just another ‘disposable Black woman’, of the kind Rebecca Wanzo writes about in The Suffering Will Not Be Televised.

          For years I have told those who would listen (the few) that this man is bad news and has been able to advance his career because I was retaliated against for speaking up about his actions and filing an official hostile racial and sexual climate complaint about his bullying and why it was allowed to happen. Most people–and of course most White people–just write me off as a Black Troublemaker and violence-prone/crazy Angry Black Woman. How many times did I hear, “But I can’t imagine this would happen…

        3. My comment is being moderated and will probably not be posted because the truth reflects badly on Jill. So I’ll just say this: if people hadn’t not been in solidarity with me because I’m a Black woman, many White woman at Berkeley and Dartmouth would not have been taped by serial rapists these colleges knew about but whose cases were covered up in the same pattern of these schools covering up sexual assaults, for which Gloria Allred is now suing both Dartmouth and Berkeley (along with Swarthmore and USC). Jill didn’t care about me as a Black woman, and in the end this de facto racist indifference resulted in her de facto not protecting White women either. Not good karma.

        4. Don’t want to get into the weeds of this one, but I definitely did not throw anyone under the bus. I received a series of relatively incomprehensible emails accusing someone of racist bullying, without any evidence or even clear indication of what went on. The person sending the emails demanded my legal assistance and posts about the issue on Feministe. That person also left a potentially libelous comment on Feministe about the alleged bully, who, as I understand it, at some point had a restraining order taken out against the person posting the comments.

          I do not know either of the parties involved in this (the commenter or the person she says is a racist bully) and have no affiliation with any of the institutions or other individuals involved. I am not sure why I received those emails in the first place, although I suspect I am not the only blogger who did (and as far as I can tell, no one wrote about this issue).

          I could not for the life of me discern what was going on in the emails I received (and reading through them again, I still can’t). I explained to the commenter over email why I removed the potentially libelous comment, and did not respond to the rest of the emails. For the record, I receive hundreds of emails every week related to Feministe, and don’t respond or post about the vast majority of them. I also receive emails that are bizarre or confusing with some regularity, and I tend to ignore those. These emails I do recall because they were very, very strange. I stand by my decision to not publish potentially libelous, totally unsubstantiated accusations emailed to me seemingly at random by a person who I know nothing about, about another person who I know nothing about.

          I don’t want to violate anyone’s privacy by disclosing or publishing the emails. I’m not sure how else, other than this explanation, to defend what was ultimately a judgment call to not involve myself in the dispute laid out by this commenter. If the commenter would like me to publish the emails with identifying information and names removed or changed, I am happy to do so, and you can evaluate for yourselves whether this was a case of me throwing a woman under the bus because I wanted to stand up for a white man who I know nothing about, or if it was a simple judgment call based on the information I had at the time.

          This is also a WOC-only thread, and so I don’t want to comment further or derail the conversation. Just wanted to offer a quick response.

        6. I don’t know what sounds ‘fishy and weird’ about this situation, especially now that Gloria Allred’s suit confirms that Berkeley and Dartmouth have been covering up sexual assaults and hostile climate complaints for years. Additionally, after the bully engaged in his public cyberbullying–to which dozens if not hundreds were witness–the moderation policy of this listserve was changed, showing that the bully’s actions had in fact been unacceptable cyberbullying.

          Jill’s response shows that she really did not learn much from the Hugo deception or #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and that she sorely needs to read Rebecca Wanzo’s The Suffering Will Not Be Televised. Just because she and other White feminists bloggers did not see fit to write about this abuse does not mean the situation is fishy or did not happen as I say it did. It simply means that yet another Black woman’s suffering was not deemed important enough to care about by White gatekeepers.

          Additionally, and given all the links to posts on abuse and gaslighting at the bottom of Jill’s ‘reckoning’/#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen post, it is ironic that Jill does not bother to think that the messages she got were ‘incoherent’ precisely because of th level of abuse I was being (and continue to be) subjected to. Given all the cases of Black people being falsely accused of crimes they never committed, and being wrongfully arrested/convicted (if not executed) for crimes they never committed, it is a sad comment on Jill’s ability to understand the intersection of racism/sexism/colorism in not realizing how easy it is for a white male sociopath to get an unconstitutional gag order against an innocent Black woman by claiming she is a violent Black woman from the ghetto who has assaulted him, especially when the sociopath is willing to hire a shady lawyer being tried by the DOJ (at the very moment he hires her) for money laundering and lying for clients (a crime for which she was convicted). And given extensive discussions of late on how universities have been covering up hostile sexual climate and sexual assaults on their campuses, why does anyone doubt that they would choose to help a sociopath cover up his bullying by smearing me as a violent ghetto criminal (though I’m an Ivy League grad from small-town New England). Jill’s willingness not to believe shows exactly why it was so easy to use racism and sexism to discredit: including by obscuring how such abuse would adversely affect and traumatize me such that she found my emails to her ‘incoherent’ but didn’t bother to wonder why they were and just wrote me off as ‘one more crazy person sending crazy emails’. Race fail.

          Additionally, I was the proverbial canary in the coalmine for legal intimidation tactics used against Occupy protesters (at Berkeley) last year, in which stay-away orders were issued against peaceful protesters to punish and intimidate them. The ACLU spoke out about these intimidation tactics, and one can go to the Daily Kos for info.

        7. The unconstitutional intimidation tactics to which I referred (in yet another comment awaiting moderation), as discussed on The Daily Kos: http://m.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/09/1081899/-Tell-The-Power-Crazed-DA-to-Stay-Away-From-Stay-Aways-Drop-the-Charges-and-Read-the-Constitution.

          It is rather sad, and scary, after the discussion of why Hugo targeted WOC that the response to the abuse I’ve been subjected to is not to believe me, including from other WOC.

          The biggest stereotype Black people, especially dark-skinned Black people, have to deal with is that we are irrational, violence-prone, criminally-inclined animals. Especially after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and with confirmation from Gloria Allred’s suit, I would think I could be seen on this thread as something other than a Just Another Crazy and Violent Black Woman.

          What great feminist solidarity.

          Of course it was easy for a white male sociopath to silence and discredit me by hiring a lawyer to say my speaking out about his bullying was harassment for a crazy and violent Black woman from the ghetto. Have you heard about the case of John Thompson? One of dozens of falsely-convicted Black defendants, who went to death row, while prosecutors knew for a fact he was innocent and covered up the truth.

          When feminists who should know better are discussing how I’m probably crazy and ‘incoherent’ with a ‘fishy’ story, you think an elderly white judge is going to believe I am something else than a violent “very dark-skinned” menace? Yes, you know those Scary Violent Black People. Just as with Trayvon Martin, best to assume I am a criminal up to no good–regardless of facts.

          And as for Jill’s post #Solidarity ‘reckoning’, even after she was given confirmation of the bully’s lawyer being a convicted felon, did she bother to think, Hmm, maybe this woman is telling the truth and this really is part of a larger pattern of university’s covering up gender-based violence, abuse, and hostile sexual climate? Clearly not. Instead she has presented me in the most underhandedly negative and racist ways possible, so as to make sure that WOC who otherwise were wanting to believe me find me ‘fishy’.

          And for the record: Betsy Andreu spoke up about Lance Armstrong’s doping/lying/bullying FOR YEARS, and no one believed her. He was able to sue her in court for defamation, though she was telling the truth. And everybody–especially most journalists–thought she was crazy. Because yes, when you are a well-connected elite White male, you can easily get people who should disbelieve you to believe and support your lies.

          Jill could get in contact with me to speak to a White male witness who will confirm I have told the truth. And there is an organization which post-Allred suit is now trying to help me. Oh, but yes, I’m a ‘fishy’ and crazy Angry Black Woman.

          And how long did Lance Armstrong get away with lying, Jill? Bravo on that feminist solidarity.

          As with Hugo, once again Jill isn’t digging deep enough.

        8. Just want to point out that I replied at my journal. Not calling YOU fishy, just pointing out that it all sounds really weird and inconclusive (who is this guy? can we get a name?)

        9. No, you can’t get a name. That’s the whole reason of why he hired a convicted-felon lawyer to lie and claim I am a violent ghetto criminal so as to get an unconstitutional gag order against me!!! The whole point was to smear me and discredit me as a violent and crazy Angry Black Woman while asking for an unconstitutional gag order that says I can’t write “disparaging statements” about the man: so the truth of the bullying never comes up in a Google search of his name. Very clever racist/misogynist abuse: both gag me by threatening to throw me in jail by exercising my free speech rights (jail me for saying ____ ____ is a racist abuser for falsely accusing me of a crime; do you think this is acceptable racial terrorism I should be subjected to), and make it so that I can’t go on the record without my own name being smeared as a crazy harasser (as done–de facto by Jill’s description and casual mention of a *fraudulently-obtained* RO). And we think Hugo’s tactics were abusive and worth being called out, but not this???

          The whole point is to smear me with the most heinous racist/anti-Black stereotypes possible so I can’t speak a DOCUMENTED abusers name without being further abused.

          And where is/was the solidarity to help me, much less believe me.

          So yes, solidarity is for white women–and certainly not dark-skinned Black women like me.

        10. So…you want me to stand up for you I don’t know how, against a person I have literally no idea who he is, who did I don’t even know what, because…what? Otherwise I’m prejudiced against dark-skinnned black women (because I can totally see your shade over the internet)? Like seriously, what do you expect anyone to do? I believe you were targeted by this guy, but what do you expect in terms of action considering I’m in Canada and not exactly familiar with the ins and outs of UC Berkeley staff?

        11. The journalist Austin Murphy acknowledges that for years he ignored messages from Betsy Andreu calling out Lance Armstrong. He starts his public mea cupla thusly: “Betsy Andreu was an inconvenient woman.”
          http://m.si.com/1134155/betsy-andreu-always-knew-that-lance-armstrong-doped/

          I think it is worth noting that Jill justified not standing in solidarity with me and believing me by surmising that others didn’t (i.e. other White Feminists), and no one reported on what I had to say, so this must be proof I’m a crazy fibber.

          I guess I was ‘too inconvenient’. Or more likely, one has to be White woman to be a proper, finally-acknowledged ‘inconvenient woman’.

          And this is exactly why White male abusers will continue to attack, and target for abuse, WOC in general, and ‘unambiguously Black’ women in particular: they know they can always get away with it, because no ‘Feminist solidarity’ will come, be ally, have your back.

          1. I’d again like to request that we take this to the #spillover thread.

            I am not suggesting that anyone is a crazy fibber. I am only saying that I am not going to publish unsubstantiated accusations on Feministe, based on a series of emails I received from someone I don’t know, about someone I don’t know, with no evidence to back them up. Links to other instances of racism from the Jena 6 to Trayvon Martin, which are the pieces of evidence your emails provide, are evidence that racism exists; they are not evidence of your particular claims against the particular person you say is a racist bully. That doesn’t mean that this person is not a racist bully. He very well could be! But I have no way to knowing that.

            Again, I’m not saying you’re lying. I am saying that I’m not sure what you expect me to do here. I cannot publish the kinds of accusations you’re anonymously leveling just because you want me to. That does not mean I think you’re lying or that you’re crazy.

            Let’s please take to this to the #spillover so that comments here can continue to discuss the #solidarity hashtag among WOC only. I won’t be commenting further on this thread or approving subsequent comments on this issue here.

        12. Macavity, you misunderstand my point. I never said *you* should defend me site unseen. And as for my comments on racism/colorism, I am simply referring to the larger issue of implicit bias such that people simply knowing I am a dark-skinned Black woman means I am in an uphill battle to be believed and seen/treated sympathetically. Just saying this is why I was targeted/abused activates implicit bias, cause that’s how implicit bias works. I am not talking about you specifically. To be more clear: there have been psych studies (e.g. from Yale) which show simply knowing a letter writer is Black, though never seeing the person, triggers discrimination and less likelihood of Whites to respond to the letter writer, regardless of the White person being a Democrat or a Republican. So discrimination can occur site unseen–especially as it allows most people (not saying *you*) to imagine ‘dark-skinned Black woman’ in the most negative ways.

          So in the flesh or site unseen, I am up against usually unwinnable racism/colorism/sexism: violent Angry Black Woman, of course she is!

          This was my point.

        13. So this comment is directly related to #Solidarity and is about being a good ally: if Jill didn’t believe me and wanted to substantiate what I wrote her, she could have asked for the specific evidence she needed to believe me. If a BE says I have proof of abuses and witnesses and you choose not to follow up to confirm, are you really trying to be a good ally? I have even said in this thread that I can direct her to a White male witness who can confirm what I’m saying.

          Solidarity doesn’t happen when you don’t want to make an effort to believe people and confirm facts that can be easily confirmed when one wants to make the effort. For me the part of Jill’s ‘reckoning’ post that resonated, such that I spoke up to comment, was her acknowledging that people like Hugo target WOC because they know they can get away with it and there is a larger pattern of seeing WOC as less-than, disposable, seeing their suffering as less important–if seen at all. It is how my experience speaks to this very pattern which led me to speak up. But it doesn’t seem that Jill’s own words sunk in deeply enough when she is still looking for reasons not to stand in solidarity with me and justifying not doing so in the past. Saying truth was not substantiated is not exculpatory if you made no effort to listen to witnesses who could have spoken up. And this is a larger complaint definitely relevant to the frustrations of WOC voiced on this thread.

    2. Yes, this:

      One thing that I believe needs to happen more is something that was mentioned in that last thread on how to be a good ally.

      I’m still waiting on follow-up posts about #sifww that specifically reference 1) WOC writers, scholars, and bloggers to research 2) learnings and readings that white feminists need to acquire now or 3) anything that suggests these so-called “allies” are doing something other than sitting back and watching the angry black women show. It’s telling that this cycle of mess up-callout-“we’re working on it” never requires any demonstrable accountability.

      And lurkers, go read this.

  8. I’m mostly a lurker within the feminist blogesphere and rarely comment and mostly have been sitting back and just observing. #SolidarityforWhiteWomen is really just re-hashing of a long history of racism within the feminist movement. It feels like a never ending cycle:

    “white feminist throws a WOC-under the bus- WOC out call white feminist -white feminist ignores criticism or gets defensive-WOC get angry-white feminist apologizes-WOC voice why they’re angry.” Until white feminists mess up again, the whole thing starts all over. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but I feel that in the near future we’re going to have this discussion again.

    Feministe I appreciate your efforts in creating a space for WOC to voice their concerns, but acknowledging privilege and racism is only the first step.

    1. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but I feel that in the near future we’re going to have this discussion again.

      It does seem inevitable. I do think that it’s important that these things continue to be repeated by those of us who have the stomach for it. But I’m probably just dysfunctional.

    2. I would amend “white feminist apologizes” to “white feminist writes some general statement about ‘inappropriate behavior’ and ‘mudslinging on both sides’ and admonishes/shuts down the entire thread with no acknowledgement of the racism that instigated the ‘inappropriate behavior’ [which is really just code for when colored folk get angry].”

  9. It is also worth returning to those on this comment thread who have worried that nothing has really been learned and the silencing and dismissal and marginalization will just keep happening. It already is.

    If after the debacle of not being more skeptics of Hugo when WOC asked her to be Jill is again not digging deeper to confirm whether or not a white male who used this site as an instrument of abuse is in fact an abuser, then what has really been learned? Doesn’t it look worse the second time around, when Guardian columnist Jill has to explain why she chose not to believe a WOC so as to stand in solidarity with her? This comment stream is a document of record on how I tried to get her to confirm I was telling the truth but she refused because solidarity is still for white women.

    1. I’m really sorry about all the mess that you’re continuing to deal with. I believe you. I want to support while I struggle to understand the issues. I don’t know who we’re talking about; did this person contribute to this site in some way?

      1. Thanks for the solidarity, trees. Much appreciated.

        No, the man never commented on this site directly: he abused me by stripping of my free-speech rights by posting on this site and telling the truth about his behavior, and naming him by name. I mentioned his name and a clearly misogynistic comment he made, on a previous post which discussed misogyny, to illustrate the problem being discussed in that post. He was willing to do anything–no matter how illegal, unethical, racist, sexist, and abusive–to keep me from speaking up and making documented *statements of fact* about his behavior. Jill claims that I libeled him, but had she asked for confirmation I could easily have provided her with written proof showing the abusive comment he had sent me as a text message, making clear I was not libeling him.

        As I said, Jill is a columnist at The Guardian, so her lack of solidarity is even more disturbing: both given the ongoing discussion on that site about retaliation against whistleblowers (including the intimidation tactics used against David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald’s partner, and the punishment meted out to Bradley Manning and threatened against Edward Snowden) and the op-ed on why the #Solidarity hashtag was created.

        Why does Jill not realize that I have been retaliated against for being a whistleblower who spoke up here (in what she wrongly calls libel) and because of Berkeley’s now well-documented and confirmed history of covering up sexual abuse/harassment on its campus? The Gloria Allred suit makes clear that Berkeley and other schools routinely cover up the behavior of serial rapists just to protect their school’s reputation and keep from being sued, so why does Jill–especially as a high-profile feminist and a lawyer–make excuses not to confirm I am telling the truth and stand in solidarity with me? And why would she not believe that I am telling the truth given this pattern of institutional behavior? Like I said, after Hugo, shouldn’t she be doing everything possible to reach out to me and confirm that I am telling the truth, instead of trying to make excuses for why she wasn’t an ally standing in solidarity with me? After all, who wouldn’t be shocked that you could actually get smeared as a ‘violent ghetto criminal’ when you clearly are not and are a graduate of one of the most elite universities in the country? (Not pulling rank, but it has been totally shocking, especially given my immigrant background, to see how little actual facts about my actions and background matter such that all it takes to smear me and punish me of a crime I’ve never committed is finding a criminal lawyer willing to say that I’m a violent Black woman from ‘the ghetto’?)

        And Feministe doesn’t think this is a feminist issue they should care about? That all a White abuser and his White allies have to do is say I’m a violent ghetto criminal and that’s it, pattern of wrongdoing and covering up hostile sexual climate on your campus is swept under the rug? And then I have to hear Jill saying she can’t figure out why I emailed her? Um, hello, how was I not raising an important feminist issue this site should clearly have cared about YEARS AGO? Like I said before, how many women were raped or had their rape cases covered up because White Feminists like Jill didn’t stand in solidarity with me? And yeah, who is Gloria Allred suing now? And for what? So was the real problem that my emails were ‘incoherent’, or the racist blindness that allowed Jill not to care about why they weren’t more ‘coherent’? Like I said, major race fail. And one which makes me wonder what she has truly ‘reckoned’ with post-Hugo.

      2. Sorry, trees. Tried to respond directly to your comment but being blocked by the moderators.

        And for the record, it is super-shady to ask me to divert the comment to a different comment stream when I am directly responding to someone on this stream about issues directly related to WOC concerns on this stream. Shady. And a definite race fail.

        1. Comments longer than 500 words are automatically filtered to the moderation queue.

          Jill is not a WOC, and wishes to respect the designation of this thread as for WOC commentors only, that is why she does not wish to respond in the WOC-only thread.

          If you want Jill to respond to your comments, then you need to take them to a thread where she feels free to respond.

        2. I would like the still-censored comment posted so that trees can respond to it if she likes, as it is a response to her, and not to Jill. From the moderation comment below it seems unclear that the comment was a response to trees. So I don’t see why it still is not posted.

          [Moderator note: the comment in question has now been released from moderation.]

      3. Also, trees, I can’t remember where I read it, but on another discussion of #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, which probably was not on the site. someone quoted Eli Wiesel on silence as complicity with oppressors. Jill saying she stayed silent and didn’t defend me/stand in solidarity for me because she couldn’t figure out if I was telling the truth (though she made no actual effort to actually to do so), is more of the same.

        If we are going to talk about White women’s lack of allyship and solidarity, we’ve got to talk about this perpetual silence as complicity. Always with the excuses of ‘but I didn’t know if she was really telling the truth’ so as not so speak up to defend us and be allies. Enough already.

        1. And so why is the comment I wrote before this still in moderation/censorship?

  10. Especially with the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s speech right around the corner, I think there are a lot of people, including at The Guardian, who would find this entire race fail interesting. I don’t see how refusing to confirm that I’m am telling the truth and not standing in solidarity with me as my race and skin color are EXPLICITLY used against me in any way achieves making sure we live in a world in which people are judged on “the content of their character” and not the color of their skin.

    When you are a White Feminist with real power and you hear that an innocent Black Woman is being racially terrorized for speaking out against a White man’s predatory misogyny so as to protect other women from being abused, you should stand in solidarity with the Black woman not the White man. Period.

  11. It is also interesting that none of my comments show up in the ‘Comments’ sidebar on the Feministe homepage. Is it because Hugo’s name is in my screen name, or just the larger WOC silencing that this thread was created to speak against? Irony.

    1. ?

      As I’m writing this comment I can see three of your comments showing up in the Recent Comments sidebar widget.

    2. OK seriously wtf. I can see your comments on the sidebar. I have always seen your comments. And afaict being asked to go to #spillover is not a “race fail”, it’s an attempt on Jill’s part to not intrude on a thread where she’s been specifically asked to take a while reading and not comment. People get told to go to spillover all the fucking time. You have legit critiques to make; don’t wrap them up in a fail burrito of assuming the worst of everything ever in the face of fairly objective evidence.

      1. Sorry, don’t know what’s going on but don’t see them on my computer. I may be outspoken, but I’m not an ass. For some reason I don’t see them. And yes, being attacked and character assassinated (again, not saying you’ve done this) does tend to put a person on the defense.

      3. Even if there are ‘objective’ reasons to ask me to go to #spillover, it also has the effect of being an easy cop-out for Jill. I am only speaking here because it IS a WOC safe-space. I am not going to #spillover so as to be abused with the predicable White racist ‘well how can you get slapped with a restraining order is you didn’t do anything wrong’ shit. (I am so tired of people so stupid that they actually believe that this is how our judicial system works. As if.) Jill has already made it clear that she is going to re-deploy implicit bias against me to justify her inexcusable lack of solidarity. I don’t even know how you can lead this site and be a lawyer and think a Black woman and a White man ever go into court on equal footing. What??? Seriously??? Why does this site exist? So no, I am not going to #spillover for more abuse. Like I’ve said several times now, if she actually wanted (or now wants) to confirm the truth, I can direct her to a White male witness and other documentation confirming that I am telling the truth.

        Honestly, it is like I am living in the Twilight Zone. Because really, how is it not a huge red flag for you when a documented bull hires a convicted felon to falsely accuse a person the police themselves confirm is innocent???? And all you can say is, well I thought the emails were ‘incoherent’ and ‘really strange’–because you didn’t care enough to dig deeper?

        1. And this is another issue with lack of solidarity, people not wanting to admit they are wrong when they clearly did not behave as they should have. So like my handle says: Hugo was not the first to dupe Jill on this site.

          If Jill had actually believed me–which she clearly did not–she would have done the work to confirm that I was telling her the truth. But she was content just to do nothing and then write it off as ‘well, I don’t know either of these people and she seems strange’. Again, like I said before, what is the point to linking to posts on gaslighting and abuse if you’re not going to take seriously the effects of gaslighting and abuse–especially in attacking WOC? What actually ‘reckoning’ has thus occurred?

          And again, why did not occur to Jill that maybe I was speaking out about larger issues of misogyny and racist sexism and the cover-up of wrongdoing by universities that Feministe should and should have clearly cared about . So yes, let us stare the ugly reality in the face: How many (White) women were raped because people like Jill did not believe this Black woman enough to stand in solidarity with me, be an ally, defend me and have my back? How many more serial rapists were able to go on raping because people slapped me down as I tried to tell people that Berkeley (and Dartmouth) was covering up hostile sexual climate complaints and helping male abusers cover up their behavior? How many more sexual assaults did these universities get to cover up because people like Jill didn’t care that I was being retaliated against and discredited for telling the truth? Reckon with that.

        2. Since Jill didn’t take this situation or the despicable racist defamation she subjected me to seriously, I have complained to three third-parties about this situation, including filing an official complaint with one. Not replying to me on a WOC thread might be excusable, but not getting back to me via email to confirm that I was telling the truth so as not to publish statements about me on this site that help a documented sociopath racially terrorize and smear me is totally unacceptable, especially given the huge public platform Jill has.

          If someone is innocent and being falsely accused of a crime, you should not be doing things to help bolster this false accusation. This certainly doesn’t count as good feminist solidarity.

        3. First time commenter (and desi woman, for the record)…I am appalled at how Jill keeps baldly dismissing you. FWIW, HWNTF, I agree with you about everything. Jill’s mea culpa was disappointingly low on introspection: why did she fail to “[register] his history of abusive behavior toward women of color”? Why did she ignore commenters like Flavia asking her to speak out against HS, when she claims that Feministe’s policy of silence on HS was made with commenters in mind? The obvious answer, and the one that Flavia and others have identified, is internalized racism, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for Jill to address hers. She says “I do want to find a way to discuss the systematic problems within feminist spaces that allowed an abuser to thrive in our ranks,” but condescendingly dismisses a WOC’s experience with an abuser days after writing that. It all comes off as painfully disingenuous.

          I don’t intend to keep reading Feministe, but I’ll stay abreast of this thread. Got your back.

  12. It’s late and the Moderator Team will not be available until morning. This thread is being placed into full moderation for the time being.

  13. To the Moderators,

    With all the comments all over this site, as well as in posts, about triggering behavior, how on earth did you think it was acceptable to have Jill smear me as she did, giving zero concern to whether or not her comments would be triggering and abusive to me?

    Especially after discussions of the racism of the Zimmerman trial and the way in which an innocent Black victim was successfully turned into a guilty criminal responsible for causing his own death simply for walking home from the store while carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea, why on earth would you allow Jill to smear me with accusations rooted in *demonstrable* lies about me being a violent ghetto criminal? How on earth can you think that was acceptable?

    Honestly, what you have done is heinous abuse. And the fact that you see nothing wrong with smearing me as a crazy woman writing ‘really strange’ messages because I was legitimately traumatized by acts of heinous racial terrorism and defamation is just really appalling and the height of hypocrisy–especially on a #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen thread which should have been a safe space in which racist anti-Black stereotypes should not have been used to attack me (including by Jill doing the dirty work of a racist sociopath and misogynist and repeating his defamation against me).

    Just truly despicable racist *abuse*, whether or not it was ‘intended’. It doesn’t matter if Jill says she didn’t intend to be racist. She was still racist. And she should have the courage to admit such. Especially as she and the moderators of this post should more than be aware of the concepts of institutional/structural racism (and sexism) and ‘racism without racists’. For shame. Truly.

  14. I hope the moderators will take Jill’s unethical racist abuse statements against me seriously. And take seriously that her actions harmed not only me, but my family and young son. The racism and insensitivity she has shown me with her happiness to use the Crazy Black Woman stereotype against me is a sad reminder of why Trayvon Martin’s killer went free while Marissa Alexander was convicted for shooting into a wall.

    I truly never thought I would be subjected to such vile racist abuse and character assassination on this site, with Jill Filipovic de facto saying she can’t be bothered to care whether or not I’m being falsely accused of a crime. I am beyond shocked and appalled. The normalization of anti-Black racism, and the moderators inability to identify it as such, especially on a thread on #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, is flabbergasting. I have a hard time seeing Jill having been so indifferent to and smearing a white woman who had been speaking about abuse and trauma. Where is the basic decency and compassion. To the person who told me not to expect anything from Jill/this site because “as a Black woman your perspective will not even be considered”, I am sorry I did not listen to you.

    1. Interesting how my comments are now being censored given the commenter above who wrote:
      “shuts down the entire thread with no acknowledgement of the racism that instigated the ‘inappropriate behavior’ [which is really just code for when colored folk get angry].”

      Irony.

      And interesting how Jill said she had no idea why I was contacting her in light of the fact that I made it clear to hear that I was voicing frustrations similar to the one’s voiced here in relation to Diane Lucas’ post on her experiences at Harvard Law school. Truly, the racist, abusive characterization you have allowed Jill to post about me is just truly unethical, as is censoring me for legitimately saying so.

      Again, what was the point of Jill’s ‘reckoning’ post if she is once again going to engage in the same behavior #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen is intended to challenge?

  15. Hmm.

    I was looking for the continuation of this conversation on Spillover threads #7 and #8.

    I confess, I am not seeing it.

    Before I make any sardonic remarks about the irony of erasure or falling through the cracks, am I missing something …?

      1. An ‘impasse’ which the Feministe moderators have responded to by making sure to censor/moderate all my comments going forward such that comments I just made in response to Jill’s latest post on implicit gender bias in op/eds is now being ‘moderated’. Very ‘discipline and punish’, to let me know I am a Black Girl With a Bad Attitude who must be controlled, censored, silenced. Can’t let the truth about how I was retaliated against for trying to address the same issues of implicit gender bias and de facto hostile climate, and pointing out how race/gender/color affect who is seen as credible, rational, ‘coherent’, truthful, authorized to speak and be an expert.
        In the aftermath of Jill’s CodeSwitch interview on NPR, it is the height of hypocrisy that Jill has still not reached out to confirm that I have been falsely accused of a crime by a known convicted felon, especially when the Gambil retaliation case at UNC-Chapel Hill shows universities will happily retaliate against female students who speak up about their hostile sexual climate cases being covered up, and will happily help the male abusers go after these female students by claiming that the female student is harassing and threatening the male student who abused her by speaking up about the abuse and how it is covered up by university officials. Interesting how for far too many such behavior is unacceptable retaliation for a White female student, but perfectly ok when one can be described as a “frightening” “very dark-skinned South African” (though I am not South African, but this was just a euphemism to not use the word ‘black’, which would have counted as clearly discriminatory and racist retaliation on the part of the university for using such a description in a retaliation email against me, which was leaked to me by a courageous whistleblower).

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