it's about movement building and justice
prologue -- must-read text: "on prisons, borders, safety, and privilege: an open letter to white feminists" by jessica hoffmann
so. a prominent feminist blogger (amanda of pandagon) writes a story about sexism affecting immigrant women in the u.s. - an important issue that's been under the radar on big (white) feminist blogs while others like brownfemipower (of women of color blog/la chola) have been covering it faithfully and thoroughly for a long time. recently, brownfemipower even focused on this in a speech at the women, action & the media conference (part of the session on "immigration in the u.s.: the women’s rights crisis feminists aren’t talking about"). amanda's article didn't mention or reference any of those voices that have brought attention to this issue before her - and then when called on it, responds with stuff like "The larger picture is something I can only care about if the people who want to draw attention to it don’t put their need to tear up someone’s career to get some frustration first. Sorry.", "If you have to unfairly malign someone’s reputation to make your point, then you have to reconsider if you have a point." and a generally infuriating self-involved, entitled, "i'm hurt by your accusations and that's all that matters" stance.
"don't hate; reappropriate." by sylvia/m provides all the references that could/should've been there - if those links still worked [not wanting to be in the middle of this crap, brownfemipower took down her blog]!
for more: "stealing other people's stuff is not cool" by rebecca and "this has not been a good week for woman of color blogging" by holly
i can't even understand amanda's "approach." i don't read her much, but from what i gather she's a good writer and usually quite sharp - it would've been so easy to react differently and fix some of the problem at least, but she only digs herself in deeper, not understanding any of the criticism and inconsistently arguing that "... it quickly became evident that accusing me of plagiarism wasn’t going to fly, because it’s an unprovable assertion. Then it became “appropriation”, which only makes sense if you think immigration is a topic not covered in the media or conferences. In all honesty, my views on this were mostly drawn from speakers I’ve seen at the NOW conference and the ACLU conference, but not BFP." and "I’m sure BFP is a giant in your world on the subject, but seriously, she’s not the only person out there doing the work." and "If I had gotten my ideas from BFP, I would have linked her." and "I make a point of linking anyone that I think made the argument I’m making and borrowing." when the thing is, her article doesn't reference anyone (except for two big newspapers and endabuse.org)!
so besides the fact that for some reason she's dead set against admitting she was influenced at all by brownfemipower's posts covering all of the stories/points she incorporated in her alternet piece (though she says she was a reader of brownfemipower's blog), she's obviously not giving a thought to the fact that in that piece she didn't mention the name and work of a woman of color she does admit influenced her. ("The speaker who really impressed me was Nina Perales of an organization called MALDEF, who made a really great case about how illegal immigration is a cover for large scale racist disenfranchisement of Hispanic Americans, because it created this cover story that leads to dumping many legal citizens from voter rolls. I thought, “This is an important angle that I need to incorporate into my writing.” When I saw the story about a legal immigrant who was raped with her green card used against her as blackmail, I thought that was the perfect opportunity to bring that analysis in.") and yet somehow it's not obvious to her that she is appropriating and slighting certain voices left and right...
it's just so painful! as is seeing the many comments in support of amanda that boil down to the most privilege-blind position ever: "well, even if 'they' had a point, they could have said it in different words/more nicely/less personally and then amanda might've listened"... right, because as any woman knows, when someone takes your criticisms of stuff they do that affects you and first makes it all about them and then informs you that they might listen to you if only you didn't make them so uncomfortable by being too passionate, aggressive, unladylike (or whatever it may be), it's not that they're acting on privilege, dehumanizing you and trying to put you in your place at all. no. they might listen! so thread carefully and perhaps you'll get some crumbs. it's not at all a "subtle" reminder that because you're you (i.e. their identification of you), what you have to say doesn't really matter so you might as well act like they want you to. (see also "wite-magik: the drowning maestro" from the unapologetic mexican glosario)
and then there's an even more fundamental point. from another post by sylvia @ problem chylde ("a note (and then hiatus)"):
(for the "seal press situation" see "that's all she wrote" by blackamazon and linked from there: "on seal press and the fucking of same" @ bitch magazine)
Regardless of whether or not Amanda outlined the article prior to the speech, her refusal to include WOC who obviously wanted to be included in the discussion is the real issue here.Oh my Jesus, no. It’s not. It’s really not.
The real issue is the work of women of color gets trivialized or rendered invisible every time our feminisms intersect.
I don’t know how anyone could read the Seal Press situation as a request for inclusion unless they have a highly inflated sense of their worth. “Fuck Seal Press” is not a cleverly short and provocative book proposal, not a plea for love, or a request for respect. It’s a dismissal. Though it may lack context in the post it’s written in, it is NOT without context in Seal Press’s decline in incorporating and publishing works by women of color.
I also don’t know how anyone can read this situation as a request for inclusion into dialogue. It is about work and respect for that work which is ongoing, with or without the weigh-in of white mainstream feminists. Just tossing our names in isn’t enough. But it’s a start in showing that the ideas that you’re presenting are not novel and that they have a foundation beyond the “zeitgeist” of the time. This is not a new concept. It’s called appropriation. May not have the force of “stealing” or “plagiarism” but it’s much worse in its impact.
That’d take knowledge and engagement with the idea that women of color do feminist work, anti-racist work, work involving people with disabilities and LGBT that decidedly does not depend on white feminists noticing them. Yet the ideas and information from the work of women of color find its way into the books and articles of white feminists without attribution.
Feminism is not limited to one action or conceptualization. There is not only one movement. We are not trying to join anything or to have ourselves included in anything. Once again, please stop ego tripping. There are publishing houses, copyrights, programs, networks, opportunities and consciousness for women of color. We pour our experiences and our passions into the work we present, the work we do, the work we live everyday. We want credit for what we’ve done and what we’re doing when it trickles down and through to white middle-class feminism.
We don’t want disembodiment from issues that affect us because it reached someone [else] later than it touched us. We don’t want our bodies and our lives and our truths dependent on whims and zeitgeists and bound to arbitrary timelines. Our strongest claim to these issues beyond dates and clear similarities of theory and synthesis is we live in them and they live in us.
The red herrings tearing this discussion away from this fundamental request for respect are galling.
the "bigger picture" that should be talked about right now, though? it's this (from brownfemipower's own post, now only in net archives):
... I don’t give a shit about being published, I don’t give a shit about the interviews or the jobs or the fame–I DO give a shit that a Chicano is reading a white feminist talking about immigration and politely distancing himself from a gendered analysis of immigration because the author exhibits no historical or contextual awareness of women of color led feminist interventions into immigration.the saddest part of all is that brownfemipower took down her blog... hope it'll be back, because her voice and her writing are very much needed!
I give a shit about that because not only does this erase the work that women of color are doing within racist white dominant structures, but it erases the work we are doing within our own communities. It makes it ok for men of color to dismiss the need for feminist interventions into our communities–AND it makes it ok for white women to continue beating up women of color with the idea that showing any concern for what happens to men in our communities is ridiculous, because, see, they don’t approve of feminism!
Poof! Just like that, feminists of color are made invisible even as we are the ones laying our bodies down for the foundation of the communication between men of color and white women.
I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.
It was all worth it to me, because it meant that I existed and my daughter existed and the women I love existed and we had the right to demand the violence committed against us ends.
I see now that feminism is nothing more than erasure. A conversation between white women and men. A commitment to the safety and well being of people who are never women of color.
But all the while–even as there is a studied avoidance of the women of color in the room, the women of color are there nonetheless. They are working and agitating and moving and changing the world–and they are doing all this without money, without support, without mainstream media, without jobs, without praise and admiration. And to me, it’s a sin and disgrace to force such an unworthy label on them–they who wouldn’t steal food from a neighbor if they haven’t eaten all day.
oh, and one more thing...
added 18.4.2008: also read some final words from BFP (lots of good stuff there, including a lot about indy-media/media justice and how it plays into all of this... IMPORTANT.)
i also changed the title of this post to better reflect the content.
added 25.4.2008: well, apparently amanda marcotte's much-touted "feminist" survival-guide book includes these images. i guess by now i'm not surprised - though i don't really understand how anyone ever supported it at all... what's with that title, anyway? isn't it problematic (and symptomatic of these issues) in and of itself? am i missing something? holly does a write-up on all this @ feministe, and it's really good: "i guess it's a jungle in here too, huh?".
above, i said that "i can't even understand amanda's 'approach'" to the whole controversy and why she's dead set against acknowledging that she did something wrong in not referencing women of color and their work. obviously, it really doesn't have anything to do with being sharp or having good writing skills (as i'd already figured out). it's because she's clueless, entirely wrapped up in her own importance and oblivious to her/white privilege and matters of racism in general. also, i've been disappointed with jill from feministe from the start - when she didn't post anything on the controversy herself, and then once holly posted her excellent and truly "fair" analysis, jill's own first/only comment of substance was essentially a defense of amanda and amanda's feelings; it was a show of solidarity to exactly the wrong side. sadly. but at least she's addressing that now.
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