The proper response to a call to end the erasure of women of color from the public sphere does not include silencing others, much less drowning out the voices of women of color who have a direct personal and professional stake in the discussion at hand with your righteous white feminist rage. At this point what I would like to see is less calling for the heads of others and instead a direct and genuine response and apology from the person that set all this off, from the purposeful silence to the purposeless assholery.
That being said.
You know, by blogging standards I guess I’m an old timer, but I do remember several years in the beginning of this mess where the biggest feminist blogger was a man (Barry at Amptoons) and the most irritating thing a blogger could do was to be Kevin Drum asking where the women bloggers were again (apologies to Kevin). There were numerous frustrations, flame wars, and divisions created that can still be seen throughout the liberal blogosphere, feminist or not, that resulted from women being ignored and looked over. Some of us banded together and worked our asses off to create visibility and bring traffic to smaller, newer blogs written by feminist-minded women, and in turn had a hand in building the feminist blogosphere that implodes today.
What I don’t get is how so many of us that were irritated by what often seemed like an intentional oversight are suddenly scandalized to be called out on our own biases, blindnesses, and lenses of privilege. Put your big girl panties on and take notice.
Nicely said.
Well said, Lauren.
Thank you. Well put.
I guess I don’t see assholery, I see defensiveness on the part of someone backed into a corner. But that’s probably nit-picking — good post.
I am of course biased in this; but because of your history, I see your voice as one of paramount importance here. I am so glad that you said what you said, and that you said it the way you said it.
Lauren, my partner and I were just talking last night about how you always seem to come through. I think a lot of the excellence of what Feministe is today is because of your influence.
Just–thank you. It’s nice right now to have reminders of allies.
Word.
Excellent post.
As one who knows you in “real life”, as in, living two blocks away…
Also: Doesn’t include the silence of one’s self. Where is the response? I read thru Pandagon’s (Amanda’s) archives for the month: as of April 25, 2008, still no response. But then, I don’t know the legal (publisher’s) response, as she’s bond to (or might be legally bond to).
However: You don’t link to enough “proof” for those of us who haven’t been tracking this important issue since “the beginning”: I can’t even count how many bloggers I’ve read in the past several days who have “blogged” about “this” but didn’t bother with linking for one “reason” or another.
A link to tell me (us) who this person is, would be great. This whole argument has gotten so convoluted (at once from WAM! and their [WAM!] inability to recognize WOC, to Amanda at Pandagon [and where ever else she blogs] [with the posts(s) about "illegal immigrants", and the images (holy shit!!) in her published book!]) that I have no idea who is referencing who….
To
According to some; at that time. My “biggest feminist blogger” at that time was Jill/Twisty. To others, it was perhaps you, while at Feministe.
This seems to be a sordid mess.
That needs to be cleaned/addressed by all those involved, and NOT by those not involved.
*nods head vigorously*