Micole ([info]coffeeandink) wrote,
@ 2008-04-11 12:03:00
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Entry tags:anti-racism, cultural appropriation, feminism

Feminism and Appropriation
(Cross-posted to the Aqueduct Press Blog.)

If you haven't been following [info]delux_vivens' posts on the discussions as they've broken, [info]shewhohashope has a roundup of the BrownFemiPower/Amanda Marcotte imbroglio*. Marcotte recently published a story on the institutionalization of sexual abuse of women immigrants in the U.S., without referencing or crediting the work women of color had been doing on these issues for years, particularly BrownFemiPower, a blogger Marcotte has acknowledged she reads regularly.

There's been a lot of blogosphere discussion, not all of which I've followed: I found ProblemChylde's post linking Marcotte's article to previous BFP posts especially instructive, and High on Rebellion's Intellectual Theft Is Still Theft, discussing the ongoing problem of white feminists appropriating the work of women of color, painfully resonant with the discussion Pam Noles initiated over last Wiscon's "But the Master Has A Black 'N' Decker Cordless Power Drill" panel (on which I appeared).

[info]delux_vivens has also linked this to the ongoing Seal Press/BlackAmazon imbroglio, in itself just a single example of the divide between women of color and white women at the Women and Action Media conference, which is in itself part of the long history of the contemporary feminist movement's failure to acknowledge, include, or respect the work of women of color. The responses from all too many white feminists have been ... awkward.

*TM [info]zvi_likes_tv, with apologies for kvetching about the term before.


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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 04:29 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for the roundup; I've spent the past couple of weeks trying to absorb it all.

BTW, some of your links on the Aqueduct post are broken -- the Aqueduct URL seems to have been mysteriously inserted.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 04:32 pm UTC (link)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH Microsoft Word, I will never compose a post in you ever, ever, ever again.

Thank you for letting me know.

I would like to write a post linking this set of discussions to the Black & Decker Tool/Lorde panel for ABW's Allies Carnival, but there was no way I was going to get it done before next week, and it seemed important to get something up sooner.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 04:43 pm UTC (link)
Oh MS Word, your evil is legendary. P. is trying to create a website in it, and I'm just...no.

I appreciate your swift response to the crisis, and your ongoing blogging on this stuff. It needs to make it into the fannish sphere, as it's so directly related to what we do here.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 04:44 pm UTC (link)
ha, this isn't swift. But I hope it's not so slow as to be completely redundant either.

A Website? Oh, P., no.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 05:08 pm UTC (link)
Well, it's either that or iWeb, he says. I keep telling him to hire a professional, but...

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[info]cofax7
2008-04-11 04:47 pm UTC (link)
A website in WORD? Oh, P, a world of no.

Mely, this is interesting and I appreciate you taking the time to do it.

Also, I compose posts and responses in Notepad. Much less likely to result in badness.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 05:08 pm UTC (link)
See, that's what I keep saying! But iWeb doesn't generate good code, either, and he doesn't know HTML, so.

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[info]serrana
2008-04-11 05:20 pm UTC (link)
Not to go completely off-topic, but we have a copy of an earlier edition of this, which is what my husband's library school "basic web page design for librarians" class used as a text, and it's very handy. Not as handy as Dreamweaver, but....

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 05:47 pm UTC (link)
Thanks, but I've already tried. He has no time or inclination to learn to build web pages.

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[info]chomiji
2008-04-11 05:11 pm UTC (link)

There's also a very nice free product called Notetab that's meant for HTML editing (I use the full-powered paid-for version at work). It lets you do search/replace on line endings, tabs, and other useful "landmarks" in the source text. I compose longer posts in it during the workday (there's no Mac version for me to use at home, alas).

No one should use Word for HTML. Word HTML = very, very bad.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 05:47 pm UTC (link)
You're preaching to the choir, here. (:

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[info]genarti
2008-04-11 09:05 pm UTC (link)
I use Wordpad, if I don't just do it in the LJ interface. A bit less bare-bones than Notepad, so I find it easier on the eyes, but it doesn't do "helpful" things like smartquotes and so forth.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-12 12:41 am UTC (link)
I usually use Textpad, but I had Word open for work.

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[info]delux_vivens
2008-04-11 10:49 pm UTC (link)
MS Word, your evil is legendary. P. is trying to create a website in it, and I'm just...no.

OMG U R OPPRESSING BILL GATES UNFAIR!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 10:51 pm UTC (link)
Bill Gates has no we-sha-sha.

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[info]delux_vivens
2008-04-12 12:22 am UTC (link)
*howling*

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-12 04:16 am UTC (link)
::buffs nails::

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[info]ladyjax
2008-04-12 10:16 pm UTC (link)
You are so wrong. Obviously you need *more* we-sha-sha!

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-12 11:32 pm UTC (link)
Clearly. I mean, a girl can't have too much.

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[info]spectralbovine
2008-04-11 04:41 pm UTC (link)
A friend of mine also wrote about this. I thought you'd be interested.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 04:47 pm UTC (link)
Thanks!

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[info]shewhohashope
2008-04-11 05:36 pm UTC (link)
Wow. The comparison of brownfemipower to a man wearing a t-shirt (with a slogan too offensive for me to feel comfortable re-typing any of it) came off as kind of an awkward analogy to me too.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 05:51 pm UTC (link)
That was BlackAmazon, not BFP, but yeah.

I made a further reply to the thread, but either it's in the moderation queue or it got lost due to the vagaries of the Internet. Anyway, I agree with the people who replied to me that Andi Ziesler@Bitch didn't intend to compare BA to the man--she was focused on the Seal part of the analogy--but for me, that's part of the problem. The focus is all on Seal, and there's a lack of understanding that there were two parties in the conversation ("conversation"?). I don't want to lambaste Ziesler, whose final advice to Seal to shut up and listen makes it clear she gets at least part of the problem, but she is not thinking through her analogy or her implications.

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[info]shewhohashope
2008-04-11 05:55 pm UTC (link)
I just now saw that it was about the Seal Press/BlackAmazon situation. Well, my point stands.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 05:58 pm UTC (link)
NP. Thanks for linking to Holly's post @ Feministe; it was excellent and the comments thread was instructively horrifying.

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[info]liviapenn
2008-04-11 06:11 pm UTC (link)

I could not BELIEVE the comments Amanda Marcotte left in the thread at Feministe. This is all a smear-tactics campaign against you personally, Amanda Marcotte, because you are a Big Shot Blogger with a book deal, and WoC bloggers have nothing better to do than plot sneaky conspiracies against you? REALLY?

I don't know why I'm surprised, though-- is that this is *exactly* the same stuff she was saying back when people were pointing out that the cover of her book (which features a gorilla carrying off a screaming blonde) used imagery that, historically, has racist connotations. WHICH IT IS.

But apparently, no, that was just a big personal attack on Amanda, too, and it's not possible that anyone could ever have anything to say on that topic unless it was secretly a conspiracy to mask an attack on Amanda.

You can just SEE people's heads beginning to explode as the thread goes on. AMANDA IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU.

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 06:17 pm UTC (link)
Was that what the previous arguments are about? My god! I had vaguely heard of Shwyzer and Marcotte before, but this has really not inclined me towards reading more of them.

In retrospect, having read the thread, I would write my summary differently, because it really is not all about Marcotte's personal behavior -- but mainly I want to re-cast things so it's NOT ALL ABOUT HER.

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[info]liviapenn
2008-04-11 06:23 pm UTC (link)

Was that what the previous arguments are about? My god! I had vaguely heard of Shwyzer and Marcotte before, but this has really not inclined me towards reading more of them.

Yes, and the discussion was fucking HORRIFIC. "You're the racist for seeing racism!" "She didn't mean it, so it clearly isn't racist!" "If you would stop bringing stuff like this up, racism would be over!" And then Amanda, of course, being all "No, I understand, people are just going to cut me down because I'm successful and they're not, so let's just ignore these petty, jealousy-inspired complaints."

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[info]liviapenn
2008-04-11 06:25 pm UTC (link)

I was just... it was so horrifyingly *disappointing*. I couldn't believe the crap I was seeing coming out of people's mouths on a *radical feminist blog*.

Ever since then when I hear WoC feminists talk about not being able to communicate with white feminists, it's like "Yeah, I understand *exactly* what kind of crap you're talking about." It was really unbelievable.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 10:55 pm UTC (link)
I like Feministe okay, but it's hardly what I'd call a radical feminist blog. I go to Twisty for that.

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-11 11:03 pm UTC (link)
Wait, I may be wrong here, but I think you might be confusing two separate conversations.

This is the cover of Amanda Marcotte's book. The conversation about racism, gorillas, and screaming blondes that I saw had to do with this Vogue Magazine cover. I don't think the two conversations are directly related, although both have been discussed in the feminist blogosphere.

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[info]liviapenn
2008-04-12 06:24 am UTC (link)

Sadly, I'm not. That's the cover she changed it to after the original imbroglio. This was the original cover. Gorilla carrying off blonde and all.

After a couple of people pointed out that the imagery was racist, in the original thread where the image was posted (it's since been removed)-- Marcotte's responses included,

Good to know what the joy-killing narrative is going to be. My money was on “pornographic”. Shows my guessing skills.

Later:

Well, I knew people would complain about something, since they have to. I’ll admit, I didn’t see “racist” coming. But I knew it would be something.

Later:

I am saying that my sense that these flamewars erupt in good faith disappeared a long time ago, since it appears that there’s exactly no way to avoid them. ....... Big things create long threads and long threads tend to flamewars. Anything outside of that, I won’t commit to. But I am going to point out that the inevitability of this makes it a lot harder to take it on good faith.

So, in other words: there are occasionally opportunists who criticise Marcotte whose arguments are made in bad faith, therefore EVERYONE who criticises Marcotte is an opportunist whose arguments are made in bad faith. No one is really upset about racist imagery. They're just out to get Marcotte and crush her squee for some hidden reason. Marcotte knew it before they even said anything! So there!

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[info]laurashapiro
2008-04-12 02:53 pm UTC (link)
Oh. Em. Gee.

I'm feeling very grateful now that I missed that when it first went down. @@

I stand corrected. I just wish I didn't. ): Damn, I've really enjoyed Marcotte's writing in the past, but now it's always going to have a bad smell to me.

On the up side, I now know of a lot more WOC bloggers to add to my blogroll.

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[info]miriam_heddy
2008-04-12 04:06 pm UTC (link)
Wow--Amanda Marcotte scooped Vogue! She's so progressive.

Blech.

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[info]vito_excalibur
2008-04-12 05:39 pm UTC (link)
Damn, that's fucked up.

I used to love her when she was back at Mouse Words. But I had to stop reading Pandagon because there was no moderation at all on those comment threads and therefore they were like trying to swim through a sewer.

Shame it's come to this.

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wow.
[info]shati
2008-04-13 12:34 am UTC (link)
Next time somebody helpfully warns me that I'm about to make a hurtful mistake, I'm gonna accuse them of creating a joy-killing narrative.

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Re: wow.
[info]liviapenn
2008-04-13 07:37 am UTC (link)

Well, you'll be in good fannish company-- see icon (made by me for [info]thete1.)

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[info]delux_vivens
2008-04-12 12:23 am UTC (link)
WoC bloggers have nothing better to do than plot sneaky conspiracies against you?

I'll admit it's been *MY* lifelong priority.

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[info]liviapenn
2008-04-12 06:32 am UTC (link)

The blinding self-absorption is really kind of impressive. I mean it's one thing to be like, "Man, these WoC bloggers, always complaining about stuff ... they must have a victim complex! Or an entitlement complex! Or have Scary Black Rage that they need to get over!"

It's a whole other thing to be like "Man, these WoC bloggers, always complaining about stuff ... They must be doing it because they are JEALOUS OF ME."

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[info]shewhohashope
2008-04-11 06:11 pm UTC (link)
It was all on user first.

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[info]shewhohashope
2008-04-11 06:12 pm UTC (link)
that would be [info]sex_and_race.

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[info]loligo
2008-04-11 07:00 pm UTC (link)
Really, truly horrifying, right from the start. Like this bit from Amanda: "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." Nice to know that her commitment to justice is conditional on people being nice to her!

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[info]coffeeandink
2008-04-11 07:01 pm UTC (link)
And the thing is, people kept giving her chances to back off and she kept turning them down.

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[info]wrdnrd
2008-04-11 07:28 pm UTC (link)
I was glad to see you comment about exactly that on the Bitch post, because i thought pretty much the same thing: Way to focus on just the Seal part of the situation.

I got to only the 2nd comment from Seal on the "fuck Seal Press" post at Black Amazon's blog before i had to stop reading -- it was just too painful to see the Seal editors putting more and more of their foot into their mouth. It's especially painful and embarrassing to me to watch them doing that because Seal is where i did my internship back in 2001 (i was one of The Last Interns before Seal left Seattle as they were acquired by Avalon). Granted, the current Seal editors are no one i know, but it's still embarrassing to watch Seal making a fool of itself.

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[info]delux_vivens
2008-04-11 10:51 pm UTC (link)
LOL i was wondering where all the traffic was coming from...

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[info]ithiliana
2008-04-12 01:52 am UTC (link)
Belated thanks for this excellent round up--I was getting bits and pieces which were horrific enough, but your post really helped!

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