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

The Silence of Our Friends

piny

So this argument has cropped up a bunch of times over the course of the great Full Frontal Feminism debate. (I’m really, really not picking on hk, okay? It’s just a good handy example, so here it is.)

Even if the book had an in-depth long section or sections regarding woc-specific feminism she would still be writing it from her vantage point, not as a woc. So unless she got a co-author to write that section of the book she would probably seem to sound condescending or be just plain wrong or something else. From my reading experience of the blogs and blog responses on this type of issue, this just seems to always be how the arguements end up going. I totally understand the arguement and agree that she, with her life experiences, just did not write a book that has a lot of meaning or use for woc. I just wonder if anybody thinks she could have been able to write this style of book and include anything truly meaningful for anyone but a general white woman that would have been good enough to not still be criticized? I dunno, and honestly I’m really kind of just wondering out loud at this point, so don’t beat up on me too bad for my comment.

I’m not sure how I feel about the issue myself–that is, the question of how someone who is not a member of an oppressed group can write cogently about the position and experiences of that oppressed group. I know that simply giving up isn’t a solution. In fact, giving up is particularly dangerous given that the people in the oppressed group tend to be, y’know, marginalized. It’s the white woman who has the mike, and whose contribution to the general discourse can either add to or attack existing invisibility. That means that a co-authorship isn’t really a solution, either, in this case or in general. Assume there won’t be a follow-up segment. Assume that inclusion is an immediate task.

And yes, I’m sure that there would be criticism. There’s always criticism. I’m not sure why that’s so relevant. I don’t think that the lack of perfect solutions means that this is a true double bind.

However, even as I have complained about lack of discussion, I have had my own negative reactions to attempts to speak for. It’s…irritating. (Here’s one trans version of a how-to.) And, of course, I’ve backed away from all kinds of discussions because of fear or guilt.

I don’t want to turn this into a palliative for frustration. I think that would add to the phobia. I would like, however, to ask about the fine points of “Nothing about us without us.” What makes for condescension?

103 thoughts on The Silence of Our Friends

  1. I know that simply giving up isn’t a solution. In fact, giving up is particularly dangerous given that the people in the oppressed group tend to be, y’know, marginalized.

    Thank you. You beat me to it and for that I’m grateful, because I wouldn’t have put it this neatly.

  3. Like I’ve commented at Feministing and other places (I guess no one listens to me after all) women of color are now 33% of the female population so they should be in decision-making positions 33% of the time in the women’s movement. That means really good woc feminist blogs are part of the community, like Sylvias, etc. All the woc organizations I mentionned on Jill’s thread were featured or mentionned on Feministing. That’s commendable for a white feminist’s blog. But a third of the time, woc feminist blogs should get the attention and address their issues themselves. Equal access and decision-making.

  5. piny, thank you for writing this. I’m on the verge of trying to write something myself on the topic, because the whole FFF thread has left me feeling really frustrated. I checked out a couple of blogs people recommended in the comments because as a white woman I’d really like to educate myself (and have others educate me, of course) about the issues facing WOC and how I can be better at not adding to the invisibility.

    But in the first couple of sites I checked out (I’d rather not name names, mostly because I only read a few posts and would like to think that if I did more exploring this wouldn’t be the case) I found myself confronted by some really angry expositions on what white feminism is/does/says/looks like.

    And frankly, I was hurt. I was upset, then I felt guilty, and then I realized that any kind of splintering within feminist communities has the potential to hurt all of us. How can we find common ground? How can we voice our concerns without othering language? How can we bridge the gaps that are so apparent to some of us but so clearly hidden from others?

  6. Hmmm mk, I think you found my site. Maybe this one will help you to understand the anger: A Thank You, An Apology, and A Rant

    It’s funny how feminists understand why their sites can come off as sounding man-hating, even if they aren’t man-haters, but can’t understand that POC sites might sound like they hate whites, even when they don’t. Our blogs reflect our frustration and anger with white privilege and racism the way that feminist sites reflect the frustration and anger with male privilege and misogyny/sexism.

    I’d venture that half my readers and commenters are white people. These people do not feel intimidated by the things I write because they know I do not mean them. It’s the same with men who are comfortable with reading and posting at feminist sites. Don’t identify with the type of white people we are talking about if you don’t do the things that frustrate and anger us.

  7. Donna, yours actually wasn’t one of the ones I was referring to (though I did look at it thanks to this thread).

    Please note that nowhere in my previous comment did I use the word “hate.” Nothing I’ve read so far leads me to believe that you or other WOC bloggers hate white people.

    I’ve read that particular post of ilkya’s before, and it’s great, so I appreciate you making that analogy here. But it’s hard to do what your last sentence asks. Admittedly much of this must be my newness to the WOC blogosphere, but I had a hard time making a distinction between all white people and the type of white people you were talking about. And since much of the issue seems to be the more unconscious side of white privilege–the little or big ways we exclude other groups in our discussions without even trying–how are we to know we’re not doing the things that frustrate and anger you?

    I know this is asking a lot of you, and I’m sure it’s frustrating to try to explain what should be really basic stuff. But for me this is coming from a place of genuinely wanting to be a good ally, so I appreciate your patience.

  8. I’ll repost this from the other thread, I’m lower-middle class and a woman of color and I have absolutely no problem with white middle class feminism. The experiences of white middle class women are certainly just as genuine as mine.
    The only problems I have with it are when it sucks all the oxygen out of the debate and when it’s assumed to be universal, and that’s not always the case.

  9. Don’t identify with the type of white people we are talking about if you don’t do the things that frustrate and anger us.

    I hear you on this. My tendency is to go all, “Well, she might not be talking about me, but what if she is. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” And then I flip out and don’t write anything because I don’t want to piss off people I really respect — BECAUSE racism is ingrained in many people and is often subtle and picked up in the silences, it’s hard to identify when I myself am acting out behaviors and ideas I aim to work against. I’m all about learning, but since I’ve gone all Little Blogger the posts I do on racism in my daily life go uncommented, which makes me suspicious that I’m not getting something. But being quiet isn’t the point — “getting it” is the point.

    As far as the book goes, I’m not going to jump on any bandwagon merely because I like a person. I like Jessica fine, but I haven’t read the book. For all I know the criticism of her book is on point. And because I haven’t read it, this general argument goes meta.

    And since much of the issue seems to be the more unconscious side of white privilege–the little or big ways we exclude other groups in our discussions without even trying–how are we to know we’re not doing the things that frustrate and anger you?

    Ha. Well, if somebody’s really frustrated with you, that’s a hint.

    And personally, that’s why I try to be inclusive in my reading and also blogroll people who do extensive round-up posts on blogosphere happenings — it keeps me up on the debates.

  10. Mostly it’s the same way I just showed that comparison and from Ilyka’s post. Take the time to stop and think, if a man said this kind of thing to a woman, would it piss her off? Dismissing her concerns as unimportant is one, well we get that alot. Recentering the discussion, she wants to talk about women’s issues and he pulls the “what about the men?” trick: she’s talking about difficulties single mothers face and he pipes up but men have to pay child support! The most recent example of that on a feminist blog is when people were talking about Obama needing a security detail so soon before the primaries, and of course some woman comes in and has to talk about Hillary. A million other posts on that blog about middle class white women’s concerns, but could she leave that one alone to discuss race in America? Nope. Mostly it’s just putting yourself in our shoes.

  11. Donna:

    It’s funny how feminists understand why their sites can come off as sounding man-hating, even if they aren’t man-haters, but can’t understand that POC sites might sound like they hate whites, even when they don’t.

    I was once at a progressive meeting where there was some soul-searching going on, and a white person said something about how sometimes it seemed like some of the people of color there hated white people. I leaned over to the friend sitting next to me, and said “if you don’t hate white people, you’re not paying attention.”

    I’d venture that half my readers and commenters are white people. These people do not feel intimidated by the things I write because they know I do not mean them. It’s the same with men who are comfortable with reading and posting at feminist sites. Don’t identify with the type of white people we are talking about if you don’t do the things that frustrate and anger us.

    Right. And I’d take it a step further — two steps further, really.

    First, I’d say that if you, the reader, are doing your best to do right, you shouldn’t feel intimidated even if you are one of the people that someone like Donna’s talking about.

    It’s not enough as a white person to have a critical relationship with other people’s whiteness — you also have to have a critical relationship with your own whiteness. If a person of color says something about white people that stings, let it sting. Think about why it stings. Think about whether you think it should sting, or whether it stings because it actually is hurtful and unfair. Don’t dismiss the possibility that it might be about you, and don’t flagellate yourself if it is. Deal. Dust yourself off. Do better in the future.

    And if you’re not one of the white folks doing the stuff that frustrates and angers someone like Donna, don’t be afraid to get frustrated and angry at the white folks who are. Get pissed off. Don’t make people of color carry all the weight of being pissed off.

    White people can’t speak for people of color, but they can — and should — speak for themselves as anti-racist white people.

    It’s not easy for a white person to learn to talk coherently about race, but we have an obligation to put in the work to do so. Because race doesn’t reside in people of color, any more than gender resides in women. White people talking about race from where they stand as anti-racist white people isn’t appropriation or condescension. It’s getting into harness and pulling our weight.

  12. But being quiet isn’t the point — “getting it” is the point.

    And to go on and on, because I can, “getting it” isn’t the point because I want some nebulous feel-goodism that I’m a Good Person, but because what I really want is an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic society. That means work, personal AND activist work, and hell if I want to be like one of the hypocritical liberal dudes who wants a better world but will settle for “progress” on the backs of people with less privilege.

    I’m all for radical organizing even if it’s against people who look like me if it means that the world will be better for that many more people. But selfishly, I do want to be a part of the change.

    It’s a dilemma. 😛

  13. MK, something to keep in mind when you read WOC blogs that there is venting frustration and there is true criticism. I’ve gotten to a point when I actually enjoy reading those blogs the most is when they make me wince, and that only happens when I realize I’ve been guilty of making the same “mistake”. The same is true when I read blogs LGBT blogs. It helps me evolve as a person, so I challenge you not to read it as an indictment, but as an opportunity to alter how you relate to women of a different background.

    guilt will get you no where, justifying actions that hurt someone else will not either. so listen with an open mind, do some reflection and i promise some good can come out of it.

    Donna has a point about feminist blogs and men, very often our rants are in context with other feminists in mind and it’s not an us Vs. them. the same is true for WOC.

  14. Brooklynite, thank you. I find your points extremely helpful.

    Can anyone give suggestions of more collaborative blogs, where WOC are working in tandem with white feminists? I’ve found a lot of single-author blogs on both sides, but not a lot of equal representation amongst panel-type sites.

  15. It helps me evolve as a person, so I challenge you not to read it as an indictment, but as an opportunity to alter how you relate to women of a different background.

    What I was trying to say, but coherent.

  16. ok, that last comment came out sounding like i only enjoy WOC blogs when they are taking white women to the mat. sorry, not my intention. what i wanted to convey was that, i learn a lot from reading those blogs, and when something makes me feel uncomfortable it is usually because i need to look at myself.

  17. how are we to know we’re not doing the things that frustrate and anger you?

    I’m honestly not trying to be flip with this answer, but there’s always asking.

    Which I admit I chicken out of doing a lot myself. At Donna’s recently, Blackamazon left the comment (paraphrasing) “don’t go to Ilyka’s then, you will want to do harm.” And I jumped at first, thinking, “Harm to me?” And then, just like Lauren says: “AAAAAAAHHH!”

    But in the context of the thread as a whole, and based on the participation I’d had at my own site from Blackamazon, it didn’t seem likely to me that this was what she meant (also: I’m very conceited), and then, too, if that had been what she’d meant, she likely would have said “Don’t go to Ilyka’s, you’ll want to kick her.” So I got over myself.

    But if I’d been genuinely worried about that interpretation, the thing for me to have done was just ASK: “Are you mad at me? Did I do something to offend?”

    Asking is terrifying sometimes, because you might get the answer, “Yeah, you really pissed me off with this!” But asking also indicates you care what the answer is.

  18. Can anyone give suggestions of more collaborative blogs, where WOC are working in tandem with white feminists? I’ve found a lot of single-author blogs on both sides, but not a lot of equal representation amongst panel-type sites.

    Not that I wouldn’t enjoy such a blog myself–I definitely would–but I have to ask, is this a requirement? Is that the only way you feel you can read women of color? If so, why?

    Also, do you see any potential problems with “equal representation,” as you have used it? How would you feel if a guy wanted to know where the gender-collaborative blogs with more “equal representation” vis-a-vis feminist issues were?

  19. mk, how would you feel if a man came into a feminist thread and asked if there was a man who could explain feminism to him?

    imagine as a feminist, how would you appreciate a man to approach you and ask you questions about feminism? you don’t mind so much if he is willing to listen to you, however if he is asking you to explain in a way that makes sense to him or asking loaded questions, you are well with in your sanity to tell him to f-off. and the fact that he would only understand feminism explained to him by a man, well let’s just say that’s all that more frustrating.

    i’m saying woc are talking to you, they are writing, and you can choose to listen.

  20. Can anyone give suggestions of more collaborative blogs, where WOC are working in tandem with white feminists?

    Hmmm how to say this tactfully? I find that many POC who blog with whites tend to tone down what they say or are what I call white POC. Racism is endemic in our society and some POC do internalize racism, think Condi Rice. On the liberal side, think Kos. I just feel that POC who write at white blogs have to be careful not to piss off the readers so they tend to write towards what they think whites want to hear or they were probably raised in white neighborhoods and have mostly white friends so they think like whites anyway.

  21. I think a large part of the exasperation on the part of women of color is that these arguments come up over and over and over again. Then, people start to feel frustrated. As exangelena said, this leads also to the tendencies for whites to control the debate whether intentionally or not.

    I think it would go a long way if many more white feminists just came out and admitted their own racism. We need to accept the notion that racism is pervasive, just as sexism is pervasive, and we need to acknowledged that we are part of the problem and then try to work towards being part of the solution. I think there are some feminists who are willing to try to work towards the solution but are not willing to admit that they are part of the problem. We need more feminists to say what I said here. How often does that happen?

    I also think we need moments where we (white women) need to just stop talking and start listening. That goes a long way to understanding and being a good ally.

    I don’t personally think most women of color have a problem with a white women writing about racism or women of color (unless what she says is completely ignorant and does not give voice the women she is writing about). The greater problem is being ignored and dismissed–most people will give credit for trying. I write about race and gender all the time, and honestly, I feel like I get much love from most women of color bloggers, and women of color (mostly black women) are a large percentage of the commenters on my site.

    (Yes, I am doing a little speaking for here. Please indulge for for one comment 🙂 )

  24. I swear when I posted #21, the comments were only at #8, but I really think the comments between here and #8 are very good.

    As for a blog that is a group blog that is truly multicultural, I don’t know that it exists right now. I’d be happy to be a participant in such a site if someone put it together.

  26. I’ll repost this from the other thread, I’m lower-middle class and a woman of color and I have absolutely no problem with white middle class feminism. The experiences of white middle class women are certainly just as genuine as mine.
    The only problems I have with it are when it sucks all the oxygen out of the debate and when it’s assumed to be universal, and that’s not always the case.

    I think exangelena hits the nail right on the head here. The problem is not that Jessica Valenti is writing about feminism from a white, middle-class perspective. It’s that this perspective is assumed to be capable of including ALL perspectives as the holistic uber-perspective. And I think we can acknowledge shortcomings in that model without giving up.

    Take about fifteen steps back. Look at what some of the peripheral problems are here. The book industry, for one thing. Star-driven. Author’s name in big letters. One author, one voice. But hey, include everything!

    Compare this book, which is totally amazing and something I’m proud to have contributed a handful of words to:
    Incite: The Color of Violence Anthology

    Compare how these two books are marketed. Think about how a book becomes “popular” or “mass market” or “mainstream” and everything that’s involved in that.

    Are both of these books necessary? I’d say so. They’re really different books. They are going to be heard by different people, and they’ll definitely speak at different volumes in feminism, in the culture in general. Valenti is a white middle-class woman who has a soapbox and a much bigger megaphone. Like all kinds of privilege, that comes with responsibility if you ask me.

    How to foster inclusion? Include some actual people. Don’t think you can really speak for anyone. You can mention people, you can give them shoutouts. You can say “I think this is incredibly important, but there are other women who are much better and wiser and more appropriate voices on this than me… and HERE they are. Right here.”

    The blogosphere is kind of great for this, right, because you can go read some really damn amazing WOC blogs (brownfemipower! blackamazon! little light! the list goes on and on!) and you know, link the hell out of them. Do people do that? Not too many, not too often. It’s interesting to note who does and doesn’t.

    It’s a little more complicated in the book publishing industry, unsurprisingly.

  27. Well, as someone who said something here that pissed people off, this is a good opportunity to say that I fucked up, and after thinking about it for a few days, I know how I fucked up, and why my comment was offensive.

    I spent a lot of time being defensive about it, because it was being interpreted in a way that I did not intend at all. It was intended as an eyerolling sort of response to an argument that was irrelevant and kind of silly. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that book deals are easy to get, and that getting one is a simple fix (hell, if they were that easy, I’d have one. Seal Press shot down the proposal I pitched to them), or that there are no differences between the way they’re given out to white middle-class authors and people of color or of a different class. But it came across that way.

    Also, I get defensive when I feel attacked or misinterpreted. I’m having a particularly hard time with this reaction lately because I’m working for a capricious, condescending, psychotic asshole, and I spend a lot of time feeling attacked at work. BEING attacked at work. And when you’re on the defensive against someone who treats you like an untrustworthy idiot for failing to read his mind, you tend to file all things that look like or feel like an attack in the same bin. And you shut down and don’t want to deal with it.

    But of course, it’s not the same thing. I see that my comment appears dismissive of the class and race issues with publishing, even though that was not my intent. I recognize, and have always recognized, that even though book deals aren’t easy for anyone to get, they’re a great deal easier for structural reasons for someone like Jessica than for someone like Brownfemipower. I expressed my criticism for a flimsy argument clumsily, and that clumsiness offended a number of people. And I further put my foot in it by trying to defend myself. I apologize.

  28. ilkya- I didn’t mean to say that I would only read a panel-type blog. Rather, I’m noticing that I really dig sites like Feministe and Feministing specifically because having multiple bloggers means multiple styles and points of view. I certainly don’t think that’s the only way I can read women of color–I’m also hoping to read up on the single-blogger sites I’ve discovered. It’s just that those have been relatively easy to find, whereas multi-author blogs haven’t jumped out to me. So I thought I’d ask here for suggestions.

    I’m sorry if I didn’t convey what I meant by using “equal representation” in the initial question. All I meant was that the panel sites I’m used to are quite lacking in representation of WOC, so I wondered if there were sites I was missing.

    and sassywho- “how would you feel if a man came into a feminist thread and asked if there was a man who could explain feminism to him?” I guess I would hope there was a wan there who could, and that he could also tell the guy he had a lot to learn from women, not just about them. But I hope my question didn’t come across that way, and I’m sorry that it seems to have. I didn’t mean to say “Hey, can someone tell me where the white women are who can tell me about the issues affecting POC?” That would be pretty shitty, and you’d have every right to call me on that.

    What I meant was this: in the past couple of days, I’ve noticed a lot of clear divisions between white feminist blogs and the blogs of WOC feminists, and I was just wondering if there are sites that are trying to bridge that gap.

    Again, I’m really sorry that I was offensive before. That absolutely wasn’t my intent, and I can totally see why I came off wrong. Thank you, sassy, for framing that so clearly for me.

  29. We need more feminists to say what I said here. How often does that happen?

    I’m going to risk putting my foot in my mouth, like that ever happens, but here is my problem:

    I think sometimes these conversations read, in large part due to white defensiveness, to some whites as, “Here is what you must do, it is THE thing to do, it is exactly what I did, and if you do not do it, you’re racist.”

    Which, I know, the whole point is that you just said you were racist yourself, so that’s a weird reaction for people to have. But it’s one I’ve had, and I’ve had it specifically in response to things you’ve written, Rachel.

    What I have found for myself is that what is more effective for me, not prescribing for anyone else, but for me–I do better reading what women of color have to say themselves than I do reading what another white person thinks is the best way for me to be anti-racist. Too much of that comes off as preachy to me.

    And there’s a bad side effect to that sometimes: One of the things that’s come up in this discussion is last year’s burqa debates. And one thing that Donna Darko noticed in one of my comment threads, in which those prior discussions were referenced, was that everything about those discussions that the person who brought them up was objecting to had been said not by people of color, but by other white people.

    Except, this person was then using what those white people had said to her to dismiss people of color. That’s unfair, to say the least, but that’s what was happening.

    I’m having a hard time saying what I mean so I’m going to grasp at what may be a poor analogy: It’s a little like one’s comfort level with the notion of original sin. My boyfriend is a lifelong Catholic who’s had some bad experiences with the religion, and it’s left him hostile to the idea of original sin, and so framing things in terms of that turns him off his faith, makes him despondent that there’s ever any point in trying to be good, and just generally has the opposite effect from the one intended.

    But I’m a convert, and the concept doesn’t do to me what it does to him. So often we have widely varying reactions to any given homily, because he’s hearing “you’re doomed” and I’m hearing “we’re all in this together.”

    I think anti-racist work is like that in the sense that some people hear “We’re all racists, all of us, and we need to say that more often” and they become despondent and paralyzed, unable to act, unable to engage. They stuck in the shame of being racist. And I guess I’m saying that while I don’t deny the truth that we’re all racists, it may not be the best approach for every white person to start out with.

    My approaches might not be the best for everyone either. That’s cool. I think we have to build a big basket of possible solutions, solutions only people of color should have the authority to approve as effective, but then encourage people to try them out and see what works best for them.

    Did this make any sense at all?

  30. mk, i did not mean to single you out, but only to point out that WOC feminists are writing about these issues and they can use us as allies, but if you want the real story, there is no better of a place to get it than from them.

    i write occasionally on race/class issues and when i do, i know it’s sorely lacking, and half the time i think it’s just better to put up a link and say just go read.

    but the truth is a lot of people who read my blog and are my friends, are not feminists and many more are not aware of the depths of racism… and so i’m left with a feeling that i need to bridge that gap somehow with something, some kind of nudge to wake up. and more often than not, it sterilizes the cause. that frustrates me, but i know not as much as it frustrates the women who are affected.

  31. Thanks to everyone who did such an excellent job framing this conversation.

    It’s not easy for a white person to learn to talk coherently about race, but we have an obligation to put in the work to do so. Because race doesn’t reside in people of color, any more than gender resides in women. White people talking about race from where they stand as anti-racist white people isn’t appropriation or condescension. It’s getting into harness and pulling our weight.

    Absolutely, this problem resides first an foremost with white folks, and we must do the heavy lifting with other white people who don’t get it.

  33. I think anti-racist work is like that in the sense that some people hear “We’re all racists, all of us, and we need to say that more often” and they become despondent and paralyzed, unable to act, unable to engage. They stuck in the shame of being racist. And I guess I’m saying that while I don’t deny the truth that we’re all racists, it may not be the best approach for every white person to start out with.

    […]

    Did this make any sense at all?

    Absolutely. I think it’s important stuff.

    And for me, there’s another problem with the statement “all white people are racist.” Two problems, really.

    I’m a historian, and I’m a father. My work as a historian deals with the American civil rights movement, and through it I’ve had the opportunity to meet and to write about white people who have committed their lives to anti-racism — in some cases, people who have given their lives. If I were to say that all white people are racists, I’d be saying that these people — my friends and heroes — are racists, and I’m just not comfortable saying that. That’s the first problem.

    The second problem is that my four-year-old daughter isn’t a racist yet, as far as I can tell. If I say that all white people are racists, I’m saying that there’s no hope for her, and no hope for her kids, as a matter of principle, and I’m just not comfortable saying that, either.

    I’m all for people owning their racism. I’m all for people standing up and admitting the prejudice that’s within them, if they believe it’s there. I’m all for people acknowledging that the fact that they can’t find it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

    But on top of everything I’ve already said, it seems to me that it’s a far more self-critical, far more radical thing to say that you yourself are a racist if you don’t say in the next breath that all white people are racist. Because if all white people are racist, including the most anti-racist and the most committed to racial justice, then saying that you’re racist isn’t saying much at all. It’s not putting yourself on the spot, and in some sense it’s actually taking yourself off the hook.

  34. (And yes, I realize that saying someone is a racist isn’t the same thing as saying there’s no hope for her. But saying that all white people are racists is saying that there’s no hope for any white person to transcend that racism.)

  35. This discussion reminds me of how new I am to reading feminist blog or blogs in general. This is one of the few feminist blogs that I read, and I as much as I enjoy it, I would like to find a few others (maybe because I enjoy it 🙂 ).

    Do any of you have suggestions for good blogs by WOC or other marginalized groups within the feminist community? I know that this thread has mentioned a few. I read Spanish, and if you know of any good Chicana, Latin American women’s blogs, or indigenous women’s blogs please tell me. As a white, college-educated, lesbian, from the South who studies Latin American issues, I would Iike to experience more feminist view points.

  36. (And yes, I realize that saying someone is a racist isn’t the same thing as saying there’s no hope for her. But saying that all white people are racists is saying that there’s no hope for any white person to transcend that racism.)

    I don’t think so. Even if you’re a racist, it still comes down to how you behave, what you learn through your experiences, how you reject your social conditioning to act like a racist, how you address your thinking even when you’re not acting, how willing you are to examine yourself even when it’s so uncomfortable it hurts. How you grow. Sometimes it’s a sting. Other time, somewhat worse than a sting particularly when your racism hurts other people and invariably it does. How willing you are to confront your racist behavior and belief systems(and yes, most Whites do have these belief systems whether we believe it or not) and change to become truly effective as an anti-racist activist and a feminist.

    I consider myself a work in process, but I do think I’m a racist because I’ve still got a lot of work to do in examining my own thoughts and actions, and most often it’s not the overt expressions of racism that we often associate with the title “racist”(which is one of many reasons why we shy away from that label so much I think) but whether or not we admit that we enjoy White privilege or entitlement and how we address that. I still feel that sting a lot and that’s not entirely a bad thing in that hopefully I’m learning and still feeling the need for growth, but bad if that growth comes at someone else’s expense.

    Many of those heroes that you mention did some serious self-examination to get where they were able to be effective and they still likely struggled with their racism if what I’ve read in the words of some of them is what they felt. It’s not impossible to do the work they did and not seriously examine your own feelings and racism but I’m sure more than a few of them felt that they were flawed in terms of racism, still working on their own probably up to their deaths however they came about. And if your heart is there, you are constantly examining yourself and asking yourself difficult questions, but you have to get to that point.

    (Though I don’t think the overt expressions of racist behavior particularly institutional racism are as rare as many people think. If they were, I’d probably be less busy at work.)

    I do agree that it’s taking yourself off the hook if that’s all you do, is say it. It has to be more than that.

  37. To Ilyka,
    I am confused about what you are saying.

    I think there are multiple approaches to comabting racism and depending on the time and place I try to deploy them. People need to be strategic in what methods they use. Sometimes I use the kinder gentler approach and other times I appeal to people’s narcissism. My goal is more to end racism than to make people happy. In fact, if people are happy about racism, I’m not doing my job.

    I also don’t look for any permission slips from people of color broadly speaking, and that is primarily because “people of color” encompasses billions of people who are going to have billions of view. (I just got in an argument with some black people who were white supremacists the other day.) I know that is very politically incorrect of me to say, but I pick and choose who I listen too. Individual people of color have to earn my respect just like whites have to earn my respect. Well, that’s a little disengenous because I try to start out with a basic level of respect for all people, and I read what they have to say and either gain or loose respect. For example, I have much more respect for Sylvia at Anti-Essentialist Conundrum than I do for LaShawn Barber. People of color are diverse. Hell, I’m married to a black man, and we disagree on many racial issues. I listen to him, and I listen to other black/Asian/Latino/Native American folks. I try my best to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and sometime I fail at that and sometimes I succeed. I guess I’m saying all of this to say I don’t really agree with the idea that only people of color have authority to approve of anti-racist strategies. I actually think that view does more to paralyze whites that the bold in your face approach.

    I was trying to figure out exactly what posts you were referencing (besides the one I linked to) in this quote:

    Which, I know, the whole point is that you just said you were racist yourself, so that’s a weird reaction for people to have. But it’s one I’ve had, and I’ve had it specifically in response to things you’ve written, Rachel.

    I also was a curious what the pronoun “that” refers to. I can’t really respond because I’m not sure what you mean.

    I also think I was very careful to not say all white people are racist in the link because I believe that racism as a social system and an ideology affects all people (people of color too). Not just all white people.

    In response to Brooklynite, I see racism as a social system, and I responded to some of your criticisms in a follow-up post.

  39. Melissa, one of the things we don’t like to see is people asking us to do their homework for them. I think we also know that sometimes the problem seems so large that white people are really asking, “Where do I start?” and would like to find the best resources as quickly as possible.

    But I still feel like I should say, It’s like I explained before about men doing things that piss women off, if a man showed up on a liberal blog where there was some flaming going on about feminist issues, and asked “show me some feminist blogs”, many of the women would be angry that he can’t take the time to find some himself, or he would get ignored. I’m not saying this is what you are doing. I don’t know. I am saying it’s one of the things to be aware of. Besides, I can’t pass up this opportunity to send you (and everyone else) to one of my favorite bloggers. It’s BrownFemiPower/BfP who was mentioned in the first comments thread. Her blog is Women of Color Blog. Up at the top of the page it says, “links” scroll down and she has a huge blogroll of WOC bloggers.

  40. Donna,
    I didn’t mean to come across as saying “Hello, I’m white and want to learn, tell me where to go.” I’m not blog literate yet, and this is the first blog that I’ve read. I probably should have contributed to the discussion first before asking about the WOC internet community, but I wanted some context to understand everyone’s comments on this thread. It never occurred to me that asking for links would come across as interloping. I honestly don’t know how to look for good blogs on feminist or minority issues because google is a blunt tool at best, and generally, when society marginalizes a group of people their writings and contributions can become harder to find through “mainstream” methods because dominate groups in society disvalue or ignore their contributions. Thank you for pointing out BrownFemiPower’s blog.

    I do understand what it feels like to be marginalized in the feminist community. I’m gay and when “mainstream” feminists discuss issues of sexual consent and violence they almost always concentrate on heterosexual relationships. I know that violence and coercion occur in lgbtq relationships too, but almost no one including people in our (lgbtq) community talk about it as a serious issue.

    I didn’t mean to offend. If you don’t mind me saying, I think that your response shows how personally charged issues can become when marginalization is occurring in a progressive movement that is supposed to be inclusive.

  41. Can people really call White feminists racist for their exclusion of WOC and then say that they have no right to write about WOC because they are White?

  42. I think that allies should not feel intimidated about studying or publicizing the struggles of WOC or lgbtq women. The same goes for allies of other marginalized groups. I have more ambivalent feelings about allies participating in movements themselves. People with more privileged positions in a society have better access to resources and have the potential to coerce members of a movement into making decisions that they would not make of their own accord. When people who are trying to be allies end up silencing the voices of the oppressed people they are tying to support, we have a problem. Relations of power and privilege exist and they influence people’s interactions. Allies need to be aware of their relative power in relation to the people they are supporting.

    At the same time, saying that people should only study, write about their own group is problematic because it effectively gives bigots and majorities free reign to write histories and study topics that they think apply to their group while ignoring the experiences of subaltern groups as “something they can’t possibly understand anyway.”

    This discussion had direct bearing on my own experiences. I am the midst of getting an advanced degree and study Latin American indigenous movements. I am neither a latina nor an indígena. As a gringa writing about indigenous mobilization, I must grapple with the fact that I will never have the same subjective understandings of the movements that I study as the people involved in the movements. No matter how careful I am to read the writings of movement activists and let their understandings guide me, there will be things that I will miss or misinterpret. Does this mean that as a scholar I shouldn’t study indigenous movements or Latin America and should instead stick to issues of white U.S. citizens? I would hope not. However, I also know that I must never use other people’s struggles and experiences just to advance my career or make an argument. I do think that scholarship about people whose experiences so called traditional historians and scholars ignore for “more important” mainstream groups and events matters as activism as well as scholarship. I have no place trying to direct other people’s mobilizations and activism, I can, however, publicize their existence and struggles as an ally.

    I know that this post goes a bit off topic in terms of feminism, but I think that broader issues of who gets to speak for a group and to what degree outsiders can or should write about a group are pertinent to this discussion.

  43. Can people really call White feminists racist for their exclusion of WOC and then say that they have no right to write about WOC because they are White?

    Of course, because you know, there are other options besides “skimming over or ignoring an issue” and “writing about an issue as if it’s yours,” which is what people are objecting to. I haven’t read FFF so I’m not clear for myself to what extent Jessica V. did either of those, I should say.

  44. Another thing that bothers me is that some feminist viewpoints are assumed to be “white” or “nonwhite”. First of all, because I am a feminist and the myth still lives that feminists are all white, middle class academics, people assume that I am white because I am a feminist (and what? nonwhite women can’t be feminists?). I have been attacked for my viewpoint on other issues not related to race (like beauty culture or prostitution, or that I identify as a radical feminist) and accused of being racist, because apparently nonwhite women don’t hold those beliefs. I haven’t liked the strain I’ve seen on WOC blogs, that the Makeup Wars and the clavicle blogging are only white women’s issues, because I’ve certainly commented about those things a lot and I’m not white. In the end it’s still people telling me that I can and cannot think things because of my race.

  45. Of course, because you know, there are other options besides “skimming over or ignoring an issue” and “writing about an issue as if it’s yours,” which is what people are objecting to. I haven’t read FFF so I’m not clear for myself to what extent Jessica V. did either of those, I should say.

    But when White writers talk about an issue as if it isn’t theirs, they are usually accused of reducing WOC to “otherness”. It seems like a no win situation. Sure there are ways to write about things poorly or insensitively, but when someone really tries to talk about an issue and does her best, shouldn’t that be acknowledged positively?

    I think a lot of the same people who complain about separatism in the feminist movement also seem content to keep it that way. Why should it be “us” and “them” all the time? I am biracial- so am I allowed to write as White or Brown person interchangeably? Also, I have never been a victim of sexual assault. Does that mean I shouldn’t write about it as a women’s issue even though I have not experienced it first hand? What exactly are the rules here?

  46. Ok, I saw this and my first thought was, oh shit. I had really been debating on posting at all, I usually lurk.

    I would like to say I was not advocating giving up. I just know that her book was described as not really in-depth book and I wondered how well could she have kept to the style of writing of her book and still covered woc in a way that would have been, i don’t know, acceptable or good enough or something like that. And I guess by criticism of her book I really meant the level (really upset, rather than “it could have been better), type (the issue), and amount of criticism she received, not that she got any at all. I should have been a little clearer on that point.

    And I just had to say great comment #31, bluestocktingsrs.

  47. Danyell, I don’t think the best wording would be “acknowledged positively” that sounds a little too close to “get a cookie”. I think if a women writes about WOC issues and she skims or gets some of it wrong, then she should hear the criticism.

    A writer is going to have critics from every angle, and quite frankly the most important ones should be other feminists. There is a way that are more conducive to having a conversation though, attacking the author directly is going to put them on the defensive and and dismissing criticism with hurt feelings won’t help much either.

    i haven’t been sexually assaulted either, but damn right i’m going to write about it because it is a woman’s issue. and one that i am committed to making an effort to eliminate, and the same goes for WOC issues, i may stumble when i write about either one, but that is just a chance for me to learn more.

    i think as biracial you could have a lot to offer to the conversation no matter what perspective you write from.

  48. I usually just lead by example on the debate about what women of color talk about. I talk about how racist porn is, and I talk about disrespect to young women in our community. You just got to keep working and get it out there.

    Trying your best is all well and good, but I don’t prefer to coddle folks since often people will pretend they don’t know better when they really do.

  50. A couple of thoughts:

    When white people like me add their disclaimers to their posts about race acknowledging their own racism and privilege, it can sound kind of perfunctory and hollow. It’s not the infamous cookie grab, but it does serve as a deflection of criticism (fairly or not). If we’re all struggling with how to identify our own racism and how to deal with it, it’s not especially useful to mention that every time, or at least not the general point. We know. What’s more interesting and useful to me is to hear and talk about my own specific feelings and thoughts that have made me go “Whoa, where did that come from?” So on the rare occasion I actually have the guts to address an issue of race, I’d rather say that I think x y and z about this issue, and I wonder if y is really rooted in racism because … than just refer people back to my “I am a racist” post and feel like I’ve paid my dues.

    Also, I think it’s a little dismissive to just tell white people that they have to work these things out on their own and get over getting hurt, etc. It’s not the job of POC to make us feel better about our own damn problems, but I do think that white people can help talk each other through these things. I, as someone who is not trained in theory or social sciences, and am around white people almost all the time, don’t feel like I have all the tools to figure this out, and don’t want to let that shortcoming cripple otherwise constructive conversations. But then again, I doubt I’m the only person who thinks that way. Is there an anti-racist allies blog around that serves this purpose? I guess I’m thinking along the lines of the feminist allies blog.

  52. Sassywho- It may sound like “get a cookie”, but that’s not what I meant. I haven’t actually read the book yet (I didn’t realize it had come out until the last post) so I don’t actually know what we’re talking about here. I’m just going by the conversation. I think skimming and stumbling are way different from saying something inherently ignorant or prejudice- and I just think a lot of feminist writers get equal crap when they try and make few mistakes than when they don’t try at all. That’s what I’m trying to say.

  53. I’ve only flipped through a few chapters before deciding it wasn’t for me, so I am only going by what I was told by WOC who have read the book. One of the reasons there is a problem with the book is that there is a conversational style, Jessica is having a conversations with or at least to the reader. But when it gets to the chapter that discusses racism, that style changes, she doesn’t talk with or to WOC, she is talking about them with white readers. She also does it in a way that is about pitying them. In the other chapters she is telling the girls/women what other girls/women are doing in feminism to make their lives better. They aren’t to be pitied, they have power to change their lives. The WOC don’t.

  54. I wouldn’t say she pities them in the history chapter

    http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/05/16/full-frontal-feminism/#comment-105652

    In the intersectionality chapter, she mentions Audre Lorde. To explain racism in feminism, she quotes Peggy McIntosh.

    That’s the issue I have with the book. It centers whiteness. Of course, Jessica is white. An integrated book would quote Combahee River Collective Statement like BA said.

    So it’s a white feminist book. It’s not an anti-racist book. An integrated feminist book would be equally feminist and anti-racist.

    But we should ask the same of any progressive book or Asian American book. An integrated progressive book would be like Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the USA or something like that. A poc history book would cover men’s and women’s issues equally.

  55. women of color are now 33% of the female population

    33% of…the U.S. population?

    Because, that’s another thing: people like bfp take a far more global perspective. Which, I’ve been trying to do a bit more, decenter my U.S.-centricism.

    and the thing is, when you do -that-, well…the percentage jumps up rather a lot.

    Like, as in, white women are -in the minority.-

    And when you narrow it down to white women of a certain degree of privilege, Anglophone, yadda yadda…

    well, that narrows it down even more.

    Just notin’.

  56. I have the same issues with the feminist blogosphere. It centers whiteness. Women are not always white and the issues covered are mostly white. I read feministblogs.org and feel they are not talking about me. Even if I can extrapolate how women’s issues are the same for all women of color, the overturning of Roe v Wade for example, the feminist blogosphere should include issues about women of color. How do we fix this? More woc feminist blogs on the blogroll. Dark Daughta is there. Nubian was there but the constant dismissiveness and erasure made her quit. PseudoAdrienne is there and possibly Professor Kim. I forget. There is probably another one there but I forgot the name. His or her name is Bernie.

  57. That said, I think, you know, no one is asking JV to write as though -she were- a WOC, or even to put aside her own experience in order to focus on someone else’s. As has been noted, that 1) would be subject to charges of appropriation, and 2) a completely different book.

    Dealing with the book that -was- written, though, which I read parts of in the bookstore, now:

    well, one thought I had was: if you’re going to say you really think Angela Davis is awesome (or whatever word was used), okay, but maybe some elaboration of -why- you think she’s the bee’s knees would be appropriate, in that case. It doesn’t have to be heavy theoretical analysis, you know, “here’s what she said in ‘Women, Race, and Class’ that really gets me hot,” or, “here’s what she did that really inspires me.” A page, a paragraph, even.

    And, you know–and maybe this -is- in the book, like I said, I didn’t read all of it and don’t have it in front of me, but: okay, you’re talking about the age gap when you sit in with NOW. How does it play out with WOC at NOW? How many WOC -are- there at a typical NOW meeting? What do some contemporary WOC activists of your acquaintance have to say about that?…

    and so on.

  58. But when it gets to the chapter that discusses racism, that style changes, she doesn’t talk with or to WOC, she is talking about them with white readers.

    Yes! That.

    Again: she quotes her friends and peers Amanda and so forth; if she were able to do the same with more WOC, even in the same casual, breezy way the rest of the book is in, I think that might go a long way. It’d feel less “speaking for,” it’d get the point across that oh, actually WOC are -also cool and hip contemporary activists, not just a museum piece.

  59. …so, you know, maybe not so much a serious exposition of Combahee and so on, but at least, in keeping with the pop culture/blog theme–and maybe she did do this, again, didn’t get to read the whole thing–you could talk about “Racialicious,” you could quote WOC who’ve written for Bitch or Bust, you could have quotes from “Colonize This!” or “Border-line Personalities” or other, similar, contemporary books geared to young women;

    I thought I saw Pam from Pandagon given a mention, in passing, as it were, but again, I don’t have it in front of me.

  61. What I have found for myself is that what is more effective for me, not prescribing for anyone else, but for me–I do better reading what women of color have to say themselves than I do reading what another white person thinks is the best way for me to be anti-racist. Too much of that comes off as preachy to me.

    Yep.

    And when that comes to blogs–putting people in the ‘roll is fine, but speaking as someone whose blogroll is now longer than certain whole sections of the Yellow Pages, I know -I- don’t get to read most of them every day or even regularly.

    Better (in addition to, not instead), I think, is to

    1) read at WOC (and LGBT, and disability-rights, and and and) blogs

    2) when you come across a post that strikes you as something your readers might be interested in, POST THE DIRECT LINK TO THE BLOGGER IN QUESTION, with a snippet of quotage and “go read this right now,” (or whatever).

    3) If you have any commentary on the story in an “engage with this” way, then go for it; otherwise, just let it stand.

    But yeah, I think that’s a lot of it: sometimes you just have to be willing to step aside and hand someone else the mike.

  62. That graph was about cool stuff that came out of the second wave in which she mentions Steinem, Morgan, Marcia Ann Gillespie (a black woman), Roe v Wade, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX, Angela Davis, Brownmiller, Alice Walker and sex wars. That’s three black women and just says

    Angela Davis (yes, just her – she rocks)

    because Davis does indeed rock. But she does say Gillespie was associated with the beginings of Ms and says Alice Walker

    coined the term “womanist” (”a black feminist or feminist of color….Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior.”)

    .

    My comment on this history chapter in case ya missed it:

    I looked at the history chapter again today. WOC may be heartened or not. Jessica continuously talks about the dismissal and erasure of women of color. She gets the facts right but centers whiteness but of course she’s white. She includes a number of women of color.

    First, she says Cady Stanton, Anthony, Paul and Burns fought for the vote and won. Then she says:

    The problem with the way the first wave is generally talked about and is taught is that it tends to ignore contributions by women of color and women who weren’t all rich and privileged. It’s all white, middle- to upper-class women all the time. (You’ll see that this is a trend though the waves.) In fact, the most famous suffragettes turned out to be a tad racist. Stanton and Anthony got all pissed that black men got the vote over white women and forged some pretty unsavory alliances with groups that opposed enfranchisement for black people and even said that the vote of white women (of “wealth, education and refinement”) was needed in order to combat the “pauperism, ignorance, and degradation” of voting immigrants and men of color. (reference to Stanton). Lovely.

    Fact is, women of color were fighting their own battles at the time and not getting nearly enough recognition. One speech that (thankfully) gets a lot of play is Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I A Woman?” delivered in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Ohio.

    She then excerpts the Aint I A Woman Speech starting with “That man over there” and ending with “And ain’t I a woman?” (footnote reference to Truth’s speech)

    Awesome.

    Now, of course, it’s great that women got the vote and that so many women fought for it – hard. But we have to take an honest look at history. Because unfortunately, this dismissive nonsense about anyone other than educated women women would repeat itself, to some extent, later on in feminism.

    She talks about the second wave for a while and says:

    Criticism of NOW as being a middle-class white women’s organization – along with the second-wave movement as a whole – isn’t exactly a new trend. After all, much of the movement was based on the idea that women should be working outside the home. But low-income women and women of color had already been working outside (and inside) the home – they had to!

    She then mentions Marcia Ann Gillespie (of Ms.), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Angela Davis, Alice Walker who

    coined the term “womanist” (”a black feminist or feminist of color….Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior.”)

    The third wave:

    When I think third wave, I think academic stuff, like different feminist theories (queer, postcolonial). But the less dry stuff associated with third wavers is magazines like the fabulous BUST and Bitch, books like Manifesta, and (swoon) Kathleen Hanna scrawling SLUT across her stomach.

    She speaks of theory (which is mostly about queers and woc these days):

    A note of academic feminism: So I have a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies[…] That said, academic feminism isn’t for me. I like activism. My parents didn’t go to college, but my mom is the person who really got me into feminism. (Though grudgingly at first.)[…] When I started coming home from grad school with ideas and theories that I couldn’t talk to her about, academic feminism ceased to be truly useful for me. I think feminism should be accessible to everybody, no matter what your education level. And why while high theory is pretty fucking cool, it’s not something everyone is going to relate to.

  63. Donna D, so you are saying that Nubian was right? It should have been subtitled a young white woman’s guide to why feminism matters. That’s just another reason she should have stepped in for Nubian. She should have told her readers that Nubian had a good point and that the target market is white girls.

  64. 1) read at WOC (and LGBT, and disability-rights, and and and) blogs

    2) when you come across a post that strikes you as something your readers might be interested in, POST THE DIRECT LINK TO THE BLOGGER IN QUESTION, with a snippet of quotage and “go read this right now,” (or whatever).

    LINKING. Yes.

    Seal Press has Colonize This! which I haven’t read either and Listen Up!, a pretty intregrated anthology I have read.

  65. She should have said it was for mostly white sorority girls who need a kick in the ass.

    But if you look at her interview on Feministing now it seems she is not allowed to say this. She says it’s “inclusive” which is true but it’s not “integrated”.

    Listen Up! is an integrated book by a white feminist but it’s easier to do with an anthology. If you’re writing a love letter to feminism from your point of view, it’s different.

  66. danyell, i know that isn’t exactly what you meant, and that we should encourage white women to talk about race, there is a very fine line though from being uninformed and talking about it and being dismissive of certain aspects.

    sara, you make a good point. i live in kansas, unrecognized racism is the norm in the polite society of the midwest. people who pay attention to international politics and are generally progressive still have a lot of unspoken racism. it’s important to talk to our peers about it, and that means more than just speaking up when someone speaks with clear racist intent, but the less obvious ones too. and sometimes just talking about it can help you with your own struggling.

    Even if I can extrapolate how women’s issues are the same for all women of color, the overturning of Roe v Wade for example, the feminist blogosphere should include issues about women of color. How do we fix this? More woc feminist blogs on the blogroll.

    DD, just reading a review of This book made me re-think my admittedly militant abortion stance. I still am, and I look forward to reading the book, but I will more likely revise some of my thoughts about the relationship between abortion and poverty. I would be interested in hearing if anyone else has read the book, I believe the first review was at Bitch PhD’s place.

    and belle, a’yep:

    But yeah, I think that’s a lot of it: sometimes you just have to be willing to step aside and hand someone else the mike.

  67. She wouldn’t be allowed to say it’s for mostly white sorority girls who need a kick in the ass either.

  69. No but she still knew it was true and sat idly by while Nubian took all that flak. She knows it was shitty and unfair to Nubian but she acts like she’s the victim? And golly gee can’t figure out why WOC might have a problem with that?

  70. Listen Up! is an integrated book by a white feminist but it’s easier to do with an anthology. If you’re writing a love letter to feminism from your point of view, it’s different.

    It depends what your point of view is.

    There seems to be an assumption operating here (not a universal one, but a common one) that rests on the premise that for white progressives, white-dominated movements as “their” movements, and that when whites talk about people of color they’re talking about something that’s fundamentally external to their own concerns.

    And I just don’t buy that. I don’t think that makes any sense.

    Look, I’m a white guy. But when I think about the parts of American history that I’m passionate about — when I think about American history from “my point of view” — I don’t think about George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy. I think about Abigail Adams and Frederick Douglass and Ella Baker. That’s my point of view. When I think about sixties activism, about the stuff that happened then that’s relevant to my life today, I think of feminism and civil rights and black power and gay liberation as much as I do the white-male-dominated student and anti-war movements.

    Piny’s right. There’s no simple answer to the question of “how someone who is not a member of an oppressed group can write cogently about the position and experiences of that oppressed group.” But she’s also right that “inclusion is an immediate task.”

    It’s an immediate task not just because inclusion and integration and de-centering are progressive or coalition-building or necessary, but also because inclusion and integration and de-centering are intrinsic to any progressive project worthy of the name. If the experiences of white straight middle-class people are what’s centered in your head, it’s not because you’re white and straight and middle-class, it’s because you haven’t spent enough time and energy thinking and talking and reading and writing about how this country and this world work.

    Okay, I’m ranting. I’ll sit down now.

  71. Amen Brooklynite. Get back up again, encore! encore!

    This is what we are talking about when we mean inclusion. It means we are a part of the movement, when you talk about “us” we are part of that us. Alot of these white feminists can’t get that through their heads they think everything is ok as long as they talk “about” us once in awhile, as — those people over there. That isn’t inclusion.

  72. I agree with the general point about “inclusion.” Nonetheless–have you seen “Listen Up?” Because I actually ended up picking it up the other day, it’s…a good collection, I think. It’d be a good answer or at least companion piece to FFF.

  73. …that is to say, I think it actually goes a fair way toward “decentering,” taken as a whole. maybe not as much as it could do, but: it’s fairly broad in its overall representation of voices and subjects.

  74. belle is indeed right. Some woman of color bloggers(not me) feel they need more linking and less appropriation of their work. I link blog a lot, so I can’t complain. Colonize This was a great anthology, and I recommend it. Personally I think we should be giving that sort of thing to girls- stuff written by people the same age or a little older, but with political consciousness. I think giving young women primers that understand that feminism is global and for women as a whole(not just white ones who have cash) is probably a better approach because they are just going to have to unlearn the idea that feminism is only for white girls anyway..

  75. I was thinking of writing almost this very thing earlier, just for people to keep in mind, but I came across someone who put it better, in piny’s link to the trans how-to piece:

    15. If we attend to your work closely enough to engage in angry, detailed criticism, don’t take this as a rejection, crankiness, disordered ranting and raving, or the effects of testosterone poisoning. It’s a *gift*. (And it’s praise: there must be something we value about you to bother to engage you, especially since such engagement is often painful, as well as time-consuming, for us.)

  77. That’s how I felt about that whole Burqa thing, Nanette. I just couldn’t believe that we couldn’t get through to Marc and later Amanda. If I had thought it was hopeless or that they were completely blind to privilege I would have given up, but I thought we just didn’t explain it in the right way, and kept trying. Lindsey I gave up on long ago, she and TRex are vying for the covetted liberal racism trophy.

  78. Donna said, “Lindsey I gave up on long ago, she and TRex are vying for the covetted liberal racism trophy.”

    ROTFLMAO!!! Yes.

  79. Amen Brooklynite. Get back up again, encore! encore!

    Oh, all right. Twist my arm.

    These discussions can only go so far on a theoretical plane — at a certain point we have to start talking about nuts and bolts.
    I haven’t read FFF, but looking at Donna Darko’s account of how Valenti sets up Sojurner Truth’s speech, it strikes me as an opportunity to talk about how de-centering (or re-centering) can work in practice.

    Like I say, I’ve only got limited context, and I apologize if I’m reading this unfairly, but it looks to me like Valenti sets up the white suffragists as the core of 19th century feminism. The talks about their racism, and that’s important, and she talks about how Sojurner Truth has been written out of the history books, and that’s important too, but consider this:

    She starts with Stanton and Anthony and the rest and then saying “the way the first wave is generally talked about and is taught is that it tends to ignore contributions by women of color and women who weren’t all rich and privileged.” At some level that construction accepts the centrality of white, privileged women, and presents everyone else as an add-on. You can see that again when she says that women of color weren’t “getting nearly enough recognition” for their struggles at the time. Recognition from whom? Who is the presumptive audience, and why are they cloaked in universalizing anonymity? Sojurner Truth’s decades of activism are reduced to a speech, and that speech is presented as a black history sidebar.

    And let’s just look at the speech:

    That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

    As Valenti says, it’s pretty awesome. But why is it awesome? What makes it awesome?

    I think part of what makes it awesome is that what Truth is confronting us with goes far beyond the experience of enslaved women in the 1850s. When she says that men say that “women” need to be helped into carriages, but leave her to fend for herself, she’s speaking not just for slaves or for blacks, but for poor women of all races. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that she’s speaking for women who perform physical labor, and women whose gender presentation is insufficiently femme-y, and for women who are invisible to chivalrous men for all sorts of other reasons.

    She’s speaking, in other words, for Valenti’s stereotypical “ugly, fat, … hairy” feminists.

    I’m not saying that Truth should have been yanked from her historical context, or that Valenti should have glossed over the fact that she was a former slave and an abolitionist. But what I am saying is that there are ways of framing her story that would have done more to encourage Valenti’s young white readers to identify with Truth — to see her as part of their historical legacy as feminists, rather than as a figure out of someone else’s past.

  80. When she says that men say that “women” need to be helped into carriages, but leave her to fend for herself, she’s speaking not just for slaves or for blacks, but for poor women of all races. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that she’s speaking for women who perform physical labor, and women whose gender presentation is insufficiently femme-y, and for women who are invisible to chivalrous men for all sorts of other reasons.

    She’s speaking, in other words, for Valenti’s stereotypical “ugly, fat, … hairy” feminists.

    If you weren’t already (and if my boyfriend would allow it) I would demand here that you marry me right now. Because exactly.

  81. Brooklynite, super great post! When dudes go around saying women have so much power! They can get free meals! I want to be like, what about the women across the world doing most of the world’s work with a really small share of the world’s property? Not to mention us plain girls. An equal paycheck would be a revolution as Dworkin says.

  82. It depends what your point of view is.

    There seems to be an assumption operating here (not a universal one, but a common one) that rests on the premise that for white progressives, white-dominated movements as “their” movements, and that when whites talk about people of color they’re talking about something that’s fundamentally external to their own concerns.

    And I just don’t buy that. I don’t think that makes any sense.

    Which white feminist bloggers could do this? Vegan Kid, Rachel S…. But I don’t see either of them writing a love letter to feminism. lol

    It wasn’t just Nubian. Samhita was severely trashed on every other post she wrote in the last year because she’s a woman of color. They don’t ban many commenters which drove me NUTS. Since most of the racism was in the comments maybe they shouldn’t have comments. The posts are great by themselves and almost integrated (esp with their new Voices of series).

  83. About de-centering, I wrote a comment a year ago here that said there is no center. Progressivism is constantly “pivoting the center.”

  84. I’ve been thinking about what to post to this thread ever since piny posted it, but you guys don’t need me.

    belledame222, shannon, and donna darko — thank you. I feel like I’m finally starting to understand what I wasn’t getting in the other thread.

    (And Brooklynite, too.)

  90. it’s for mostly white sorority girls who need a kick in the ass

    I have to step in and really object to this characterization of the book. I’m still waiting for my local bookstore to call me and say the book is in, but from the excerpts, I don’t think this is the case at all.

    I feel like people are banding around the term “sorority girl” as a code for white, upper/upper-middle class extremely privileged Christian spoiled straight heteronormative conservative conventionally-feminine young=>25 female. While I tentatively agree that the book is aimed more at white women (again, haven’t read it yet), I don’t think it is only aimed at “sorority girls”.

    I was white young non-Christian non-heterosexual not-conventionally-feminine-enough and upper-middle class liberal when I found feminism at college, and I think this book would have been a good primer for me because I *wasn’t* a sorority girl. And I object to this lump association of all white women as sorority girls. What exactly is the use of that term accomplishing?

  91. Samhita was severely trashed on every other post she wrote in the last year because she’s a woman of color.

    I dunno about that.

    I think she got trashed because many people thought what she wrote was nonsense (especially her views about the Duke case). I know I posted some criticisms of her posts before I discovered she was a woc.

    Does disagreement with, or criticism of the views of a poc always equal racism?

  92. That’s the way that Amanda characterized the book and since she is friends with Jessica I think people are giving it more weight. While you are taking it in a bad way that isn’t what Amanda meant. It was more like, we gotta get to these girls/women before they turn into Republican voting soccer moms.

  93. RM, that’s a troll question. I know I disagree with Samhita a lot of the time (maybe even most of the time – her science coverage drives me batty) but she’s definitely subject to some creepy racist harassment.

  94. RM, that’s a troll question.

    I don’t think so. It was stated that Samhita was trashed because she is a woc. That indicates to me that any criticism of her views is unacceptable, as it a sign of racism.

    I know I disagree with Samhita a lot of the time (maybe even most of the time – her science coverage drives me batty)

    Again, according to Donna Darko, it seems your disagreement is due to your racism, not Samhita’s opinions.

    but she’s definitely subject to some creepy racist harassment.

    Absolutely. But I don’t think it is helpful (or accurate) to paint all those who disagree with her with the racist brush.

  96. But I don’t think it is helpful (or accurate) to paint all those who disagree with her with the racist brush.

    Take off your racism-paranoid-poc-colored glasses and reread the statement. She said Samhita’s being trashed because of her race – something about which we all apparently agree. Did she say that was the reason for every criticism of Samhita? Nope.

  97. -ech- it was -how- she was disagreed with, quality and quantity, and say, when did you stop beating your significant other?

    Exactly. Every post she wrote I feared for her because of the creepy racist sexism that –creeped–in. I’m pretty sure Jen posts very little out of fear of creepy racist sexist trolls that come out of the woodwork for these posts too.

  98. Ok, I’m trying to work through this in my brain. Can someone help me?

    So some people feel as though there is a SERIOUS commenting problem over at Feministing, because when nubian was posting there, a lot of commenters said some really fucked up racist shit. As a result of the fucked up shit over at feministing, nubian left the site, then later quit blogging because of it(?). And the comments policy sucks because Samhita can’t seem to say anything about anything without there being horrid racist slurs/accusations/comments/knives being thrown at her (I’ve seen it, not pretty).

    This is where I’m loosing it: How is Jessica to blame for this? Is it because there are some people (mostly seems to be woc) who want a more aggressive comment policy enforced, to cut down on this kind of thing? And how is this tying into the book? I’m gettting the impression that certain woc like Donna and Brownfempower dislike feministing’s commenting policy and use that as what? Evidence that Jessica really doesn’t care about woc? Collaboration with their view that woc are treated poorly in the book?

    I think I’m just kinda lost. Jessica said in the interview over at Feministing that they have struggled with the comment policy. Is there something more that people want her to be doing? The only thing I can think of is moderating all posts by or about woc more heavily. Is that a good idea? Will that make people like her book more? I’m coming into this debate way late, and like, I said, I’m kinda lost. Maybe it is just the lapsed Catholic side in me that likes to fix everything, but is there a way to solve these problems? Or are they the unsolvable kind?

  99. Good questions, Sarah.

    I don’t remember exactly why Nubian quit. WOC are transposing the extreme frustration with racism in the feminist and progressive blogosphere (thinking of Jane Hamsher at FDL) onto Feminsting and Jessica because it is the biggest feminist blog right now. Of course that’s not fair but people assume rightly or wrongly that big bloggers have a lot of power and gatekeeping power relative to unknown bloggers. It’s not just the last year and a half but the last 150 years of racism in feminism that is transposed onto Jessica right now. Oops. But people assume she has decision making powers rightly or wrongly. I have no clue myself.

    There were a handful of threads (including Samhita’s) where racist sexist trolls come out the woodwork to trash the poster or woc commenters. WOC do not feel safe commenting there because they do not come down on racist comments the same way they come down on sexist comments. Or commenters themselves handle the other sexist commenters but racist commenters tend to eat woc alive. I’ve been defending woc the last year but am just one commenter and don’t have much power over there. Racist sexist trolls don’t listen or care what I say.

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  101. DD in 99: *nod*.

    The general sense I’m getting is: it may not be totally fair, but it hasn’t BEEN fair, and finally one thing too many and BOOM.

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