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

Going to the Mat

piny

(Sigh)

So Jay put up a wonderful post about how it’s possible to value some of the wonderful contributions bloggers make and still take them to task for their failures. He was talking specifically about Heart, and how she’s boffo on the anti-racist stuff but still not getting it about the “trans issue.” He’s right: there are dozens of bloggers who disappoint me in some ways and impress me in others; I’m sure Jay and Heart feel the same way about certain of the white feminist bloggers they’ve been so harsh on lately.

He’s also right that she’s right about comments threads and hostile environments:

Exactly! Why are the posts of racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, white supremacist haters not being moderated? Are long-ass trainwreck comments threads, and endless displays of ignorance hits so important to you that you are willing to just blow off, ignore, the damage they cause as evidenced in posts and threads like bfp’s and nubian’s?

I’m doing some serious thinking and planning, both about how I moderate and how I respond as a commenter. There’ve been some pretty grotesque trainwrecks here, and they were as unproductive a use of my time–and everyone else’s–as I can imagine. There’s no excuse for that.

Heart responded, very nicely, but said something that just made my teeth itch. I’m just going to respond to it, in the spirit of activist compartmentalization:

Ah Jay. What a beautiful post, so powerful. Makes me cry. Thank you for writing it. I am going to blog soon about some of what you are talking about in your post, trans issues. I have a lot, lot, lot I want to say. For now, let me just say that I’m so very sincerely sorry to have caused you or anybody in your situation any pain–it doesn’t help anything, or solve anything, I know, but I never, ever intended to do that. That was never the plan.

*Sniff* Aw.

This goes out to Heart, to the defensive anti-racism newbies, to the men who can’t bear the thought that women might not like them*, and to everyone else who ever blundered into a progressive discussion like the proverbial bull into a china shop (myself included): No one cares how you feel. No one wants to waste so much as a nanosecond on your feelings, or your intentions, or your guilt, or your pain. Now and forever, keep them to yourself.

In this context, they’re not just immaterial: they’re a diversion, a red herring. This has never been about feelings. No one has ever believed that Heart sits up at night thinking about ways to hurt the transsexuals because she hates them so very, very much–just as no one ever believed that the IRS chortles to itself because transsexuals can’t deduct their medical expenses. It’s about the validity of her arguments (nil), and the effect they have (negative).

I don’t care whether she wants to give every transsexual on the face of the planet a big hug and a hot cup of camomile tea, any more than brownfemipower cared that I felt real bad about my inadequate linking habits.

Finally, an apology is a promise to change. I therefore don’t accept this as one.

But good work on the anti-racist thing, Heart! All my compliments!

*Not, mind, the comment itself, which was insightful.

21 thoughts on Going to the Mat

  1. I look at this from a couple different angles. First, i hear heart and jay on this…there are blogs i visit a ton, but you’ll never see me comment there. i have too much respect for the writer to ignore them, but enough self-respect not to engage the incredibly stupid and harmful things they occasionally say.

    I’m with y’all on this. But i might quibble with “No one cares how you feel.”

    If, as an ally, i see a person of whiteness/maleness/whatever same priviledge as i hold… My reaction is a little different. My job is not:

    To protect them from the anger of the (righteously) offended community or somehow play “middleperson” and negotiate between the two parties/ My job is to call them out, even if that means creating a perception of hostility. But after the dust settles, i’m more willing (than say if they’re a homophobe or someone who’s directly harmful to my idenity) to try to sort through things with them and explain why the language they used was bad, or why their thinking is racialized, etc…

    I’m not a “better” person for this, and it is 100% okay in my book to write off trolls, oppressors, and toxic personas. It’s just a matter of situational talent. As a white anti-racist (and feminist), it’s better for Heart to call out Twisty (to use her example)….because it assumes and demonstrates a white responsbility to interrupt and confront our own racism, not a black onus to correct and reform.

    If someone says something homophobic to me, it’s not on me to educate and enlighten them. but if one of my hetero friends wants to take them time to defuse them and make them see how harmful they’ve been…

    make sense? or have i missed the boat?

  2. piny, I think this is a great, and important post though I do have a lot of the same problems with it sly does. It reminds me of how I always bristle when someone is called “a racist” or a “a sexist.” Doing something racist or sexist sometimes is pretty damned unavoidable over a person’s lifetime, but I think it takes some nasty, consistent behavior to have racism be someone’s defining characteristic.

    And, to add on to sly’s point, I do care how people feel. Ignorance isn’t a sin, and displaying it shouldn’t be so painful that you lose any desire to rid yourself of it. Willful ignorance is a pain in the ass and the trademark of someone begging to be banned, but just not knowing what the fuck is going on isn’t something someone needs to be punished. So, like you say, it’s important to converse in such a way that shows that a certain dumbass incident doesn’t need to define a relationship between people, nor does it need to define the person’s entire being.

  3. “Ignorance isn’t a sin, and displaying it shouldn’t be so painful”

    I’m actually leaning closer to Piny than to that…

    Ignorance is a sin in my books. A common one, but a sin nonetheless. Ignorance is what allows priviledge it’s operation…and the people who benifit from it have a vested interest in not knowing reality. Learning to handle righteous anger without excuses or misdirections or defensiveness is really important in the process of divesting oneself of priviledges.

    after that, i think allies can be helpful in offering suggestions on how to process that experience…but i’m not about to bail somebody out in the middle of it. They might be learning a valuable lesson, and the offended party has the right to make their wound visable and show what ignorance has done to harm them.

  4. The “nobody cares how you feel” angle reminds me of something my women-studies-major-coordinator-of-women’s-center roommate and I used to say all the time: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Your intentions don’t matter a damn when you fuck up. What matters is that you fucked up, and you have the opportunity to learn from it. Defensiveness and hand-wringing detract from learning.

  5. I care how people feel, up to a point. If they genuinely regret fucking up and try not to do it again, then I’m good with them. There are enough immature, defensive, self-centered halfwits in the world that I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone who actually cares and wants to do better.

  6. I agree, that’s certianly true. I don’t want to run any potential ally off because they still have some learning to do. Quite the opposite.

    But things tend to go a lot more smoothly if they just learn and move on, rather than making sure everybody know’s they’re not racist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist/whatever. I speak from experience. As a straight white middle-class male cisgendered male, I’ve done a lot of it.

  7. The “nobody cares how you feel” angle reminds me of something my women-studies-major-coordinator-of-women’s-center roommate and I used to say all the time: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Your intentions don’t matter a damn when you fuck up. What matters is that you fucked up, and you have the opportunity to learn from it. Defensiveness and hand-wringing detract from learning.

    And if you somehow never get any further than professed good intention and sincerity and goodwill, it becomes galling rather than merely immaterial. That’s the problem here. Make no mistake: when people actually do do the work, I don’t have a problem with them talking about it. This is different.

  8. I’m sort of on the fence on this whole “how you feel thing”. On the one hand, “oh, whoops, I feel bad” doesn’t change things; on the other hand, it is an acknowledgement (most of the time – sometime’s it’s not) of being aware that you screwed up somehow, even if you’re not sure how yet.

  9. Speaking from a lot of personal experience here (as the sinner, not the sinned-upon), I think the problem with apologies is that they really serve the psychological needs of the person apologizing. I do something wrong; I feel bad; I apologize; I feel like I’ve righted the wrong; I feel better. And sometimes I shouldn’t feel better. Sometimes feeling bad about something I’ve done is productive, because it makes me not want to repeat my wrongdoing. If you use it as a get-out-of-doing-wrong card, an apology discourages you from changing your behavior.

    On one level, it’s better to acknowledge that you screwed up than to pretend that you didn’t. But on another level, I think apologies can be a bit problematic, unless you realize that the important part is changing your behavior, rather than acknowleding your mistake.

  10. Amen, it’s nice to see somebody give an opinion, and unfiltered and raw.

    Often, this whole blogging thing gets like the high school lunch room. “I’m gonna be your friend if you’re my friend.” “I don’t like what you said, so I’m not gonna talk to you anymore.” “You talked to her, and I don’t like her, so I’m not gonna talk to you.”

    I’d be a liar if I said, that there aren’t a few people out there who drive me crazy some times–and I’m talking about people who are generally of the same ilk as me. I try really hard to keep my opinons about those folks to myself because I agree with this–“This has never been about feelings.” But hey, we all get tired sometimes. And often I agree with this, “No one cares how you feel. No one wants to waste so much as a nanosecond on your feelings, or your intentions, or your guilt, or your pain. Now and forever, keep them to yourself.” Which is why I keep a lot of that to myself.

    I’m not talking about Heart, but I am talking about the blog world in general. I get real tired of the whoa is me to the thrid degree stuff. Can we talk about the issues?

    Someday, I just might go off like this, too. I give myself another year before it happens. LOL!

  11. But things tend to go a lot more smoothly if they just learn and move on, rather than making sure everybody know’s they’re not racist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist/whatever.

    There was a line from Pandagon a while back, the gist of which was: When someone tells you there’s a booger hanging from your nose, you do not pretend that there’s no booger, that no person like yourself would ever have a booger hanging from their nose, or that snot is just a natural thing. You say “Oh, thanks for mentioning that. Ew. I’ll go find a tissue.”

  12. Speaking from a lot of personal experience here (as the sinner, not the sinned-upon), I think the problem with apologies is that they really serve the psychological needs of the person apologizing.

    Precisely. In my experience, it’s good to say so when you realize that you screwed up, but that’s all you need. Any futher handwringing just sounds like “VALIDATE ME VALIDATE ME VALIDATE ME.” Almost like they’re begging for absolution on the understanding that they’ll try harder next time.

    “Ok, I now realize you’re right about this, I apologize, and I’m going to sort things out for myself” is a lot better than “oh my gawd, guys, I’m soooooo sorry. Your post was beautiful, I’m totally crying. I hope you understand, though, that I never meant anyone any offense, cause slavery/wives-as-chattel/labelling transgenderism as a psychological disorder/buggery laws/the Holocaust/the Armenian Genocide/Japanese Internment/US sponsorship of the Contras was totally bad. I’m honestly really moved, guys, and I’ll never make any mistake about anything ever again.”

    Not that that necessarily applies to the example at hand, but just to give a flavour of some apologies I’ve heard over the years.

  13. Well, I am CLEARLY in the Minority here, but I TOTALLY care if someone feels bad about fucking up. Everyone fucks up, and when people realize that they have, and post that they feel terrible about it, I think that is valuable and good, albeit only a FIRST STEP to ceasing to fuck up. But it is clearly not something that begs for your mockery!
    Piny, I am a big fan of yours, and I read your posts with great interest…..but If I HADN’T been reading them, I am SURE I would not have a CLUE how most transpeople would like others to behave towards them. And FRANKLY, according to YOU YOURSELF, every single person at every single point on the LGBT continuum often has a Uniquely DIFFERENT attitude, and different expectations.
    Once you get in that situation, where there is very little defining correct behavior except individual preferences, it is statistically just plain GOING TO HAPPEN that someone who means no harm is going to hurt or offfend someone. ANd if they feel bad about it and want to learn, and are sincerely hoping that the person they offended doesn’t hate them for it…..you think that’s BAD?
    Well I just have to disagree.

  14. Kathy – I’m not piny and certainly cannot speak for him, but your post has been up for well over an hour and a half, and it really bothers me, so I think I’m going to take a shot at replying to it. AFAICS, a big issue here is largely with the way Heart has treated and spoken about transpeople in the past. While I certainly don’t doubt that she isn’t trying to go around pissing off and hurting transpeople, she has a history of saying bigoted/prejudiced/ignorant and just plain unkind things about transpeople, and then refusing to listen to or respect our experiences at all; this is esp. clear if you read any of her posts on TS/TG people or issues at the Margins BBS. She may well feel very bad about angering or hurting people, but such guilt does nothing but make a privileged person feel good about how ‘sensitive’ they are if they go on and continue making bigoted/prejudiced/willfully-ignorant statements.

  15. Piny,

    I clicked over to Heart’s blog and looked up her trans posts. I probably didn’t need to go further than the category, which – as you know – is titled “Questioning Transgender”.

    I can definitely understand your issue with those posts. It’s difficult to imagine she didn’t know they were pretty nasty. She claims to have not intended to hurt, but theme I got from her trans posts was she dismisses trans issues as of little importance compared to her fight.

    Why is it necessary to throw *anyone* overboard?

  16. Personally, I don’t mind being “called” on ANYTHING. It can be uncomfortable, but I honor it every time it happens. Even if the accuser is wrong, he/she gives me an opportunity to reassess.

    That said, I must take exception to this (self-centered) attitude on the part of blog readers that their favorite site “owes” them . . . well, ANYTHING.

    Most blogs are personal indulgences. We can write about, or choose not to write about, anything we please.

  17. ANd if they feel bad about it and want to learn, and are sincerely hoping that the person they offended doesn’t hate them for it…..you think that’s BAD?

    I can’t speak for piny, but your post aplies to my opinion, too.

    My point isn’t that it’s bad for people to feel bad if they’ve offended someone. My point is that it’s generally not helpful for go overboard apoligizing for it. Typically, people take from that (rightly to wrongly) that, to the person apoligizing, their need to feel like a good ally takes precedence over their quest to become a good ally. As good and pure and honest as the impulse to apologize might be, the best way to make amends is to keep quiet and learn.

  18. Typically, people take from that (rightly to wrongly) that, to the person apoligizing, their need to feel like a good ally takes precedence over their quest to become a good ally.

    Exactly! You said it better than I could. Thank you.

  19. SO, perhaps the B*E*S*T thing would be, a SHORT, PITHY apology, followed by…….silence? I mean, for a while? I haven’t read Heart’s blog, so I don’t know how offensive/short-sighted she has been. But the point would be, not “No one cares how you (John Q Blogreader) feels”, but more like, “Enough already with your over-the-top, teary-eyed, and frankly somewhat suspect apologies, and you KNOW WHO YOU ARE”?
    (If I sound like I am snarking, I am NOT, I am chuckling (a little), and I think I UNDERSTAND Piny’s post at last.

  20. SO, perhaps the B*E*S*T thing would be, a SHORT, PITHY apology, followed by…….silence? I mean, for a while? I haven’t read Heart’s blog, so I don’t know how offensive/short-sighted she has been. But the point would be, not “No one cares how you (John Q Blogreader) feels”, but more like, “Enough already with your over-the-top, teary-eyed, and frankly somewhat suspect apologies, and you KNOW WHO YOU ARE”?
    (If I sound like I am snarking, I am NOT, I am chuckling (a little), and I think I UNDERSTAND Piny’s post at last.

    I’m chuckling too. That’d also be a good approach.

    The best thing would be a short apology followed by some actual change or indication thereof. Whether or not anyone’s intentions are or were sincere (which is a whole ‘nother question, not to say a trivial one), the problem is effect.

    Say I were a guest in someone’s home. I flushed my tampons and pads down the toilet every day for a week. Every afternoon, my hosts took me aside and asked me to please stop clogging the toilet. Each time, I responded, “Omigod, you guys, I’m sooooo sorry you’re suffering! I never meant to hurt any of you! Or your toilet! I love you all!” Would you expect them to care more about my sincere goodwill, or about the bill from the plumber?

    In this context, this kind of apology turns the issue into one of feelings, when those aren’t terribly relevant. I understand that it could have come off as bitter and unfair, and I’m sorry about that, but…it’s a frustrating kind of interaction to have.

  21. And one that I gather that people in activisty type work have to have WAY too often. In many ways, the short-apology-then-shut-up approach is well received because it cuts off the “dear Christ, another one of these” reaction in the people who’ve seen it before.

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