January 24th, 2008
Some things to read
WRT to white people recognizing white privilege, dealing with challenges, and calling each other on it so people of color don’t have to:
Theriomorph on who determines ‘our most important ideas’?
Because extremely privileged white women are not only ignoring, but actively insulting and exploiting women less privileged than they are, whether via appallingly badly made insta-book proposals, or active bigotry and dishonesty of their own, or silence as their commenting communities wreak havoc in their name.
What I see, more and more, is Audre Lorde’s adage in operation: the utter failure of adoption of the master’s tools to do anything but build a little mother-in-law apartment over the master’s garage for the single person or few people waving the hammer – and it’s a small, dark, badly constructed little apartment, at that.
Let’s just note, too, that for the most part, the collaborator’s little construction blows away in the first high wind, taking the newly-accepted member of the Master’s house along with it.
Collaboration is not only ethically wrong, it is a poor strategy for the collaborator.
and all the pieces she links to at the end including this one of ilyka’s:
I am free to argue with a neurosurgeon about the best way to repair a cerebral aneurysm. I am free to argue with a homeless person about the best way to stay safe on the streets. I am free to argue with an astronaut about the best way to prepare for outer space travel.
I am free to argue all these topics, but it should come as no surprise when other people, every bit as free as I am, think me a jackass for doing so. I’m not a neurosurgeon, I am not homeless, and I am no astronaut. I don’t actually have a shred of authority to invoke in any of these discussions.
And as a white woman, I don’t have a shred of authority to invoke in any discussions of racism as it is experienced by people of color, either. If a woman of color says to me, “What you are doing right now is silencing me, what you say here is patronizing, I experience it as dismissive,” I am free to argue with her, all right; but Theriomorph or Tom or R. Mildred are also free to say, “Hey, Ilyka, stop that. You’re being a racist douchebag. You can do better than this.”
Secondwaver’s down to grit and brass tacks these days
Magniloquence on a lightbulb moment:
Nothing new under the sun there. Clearly, criticism of a specific thing is the same as criticism of the person who said or did or wrote that specific thing, and means that they should shut up forever and turn in their feminism card. After all, if it works for some people, it should work for everyone! Besides, if it could have been written better, it already would have, so your criticism is wrong because they did the best they could. [/sarcasm]
Ow. My cheek hurts from having my tongue thrust in there so firmly.
plus all the things she links to at the end.
There, that should keep us busy for a while.
