Link round up on "digital colonialism"

[badgerbag]

A small link round up for the responses to the digital colonialism post.

(I noticed today that Van Devin and Shoot, or the Professor What If blog admins, have now linked up the urls in the references, in response to criticisms.)

BFP writes on flip flopping joy, on a post which is open to comments by women of color only:

Which leads to the issue of tokenism. First, I think it’s bullshit that ANY white woman would tell ANY woman of color that she’s a token. This is NOT about women of color–and even if they are complete and total 100% Clarence Thomas golden coin tokens–it is NOT the place of ANY white person to question or challenge how ANY person of color negotiates survival in a racist, white supremacist world. Ever. Period.

and

But again, having said all that–the ONE good thing that I think that this whole stupid blow up has done is it has pointed to a tension that I think has been around women of color bloggers for a long time. The tensions that specifically rest on 1. what is a woman of color, 2. what is a *radical* woman of color, 3. how are we all interacting with whiteness 4. how is whiteness forcing us all into one lump of “WOC” or “RWOC” when we all *clearly* don’t stand together politically on some really really important things and 5. how does the way we identify *ourselves* make us interact with each other, if at all?

Delux commented there,

I honestly think that these types of conversations between women of color *cannot* happen productively in the public eye. This is why I am such an advocate of closed online spaces for people of color, if people can’t interact in person.

I have to agree with that. 100%!!!!

Shark-fu over at Angry Black Bitch has a post very much to the point

And as I read it hit me that they were kinda talking about me…since I’m a blogger of color who has my own blog but also contributes to Shakesville and Feministing.

So, a bitch has been colonized?

I’ve been purchased…gobbled up…hoodwinked and bamboozled?

And my simple ass just didn’t notice that shit…right?

By not naming the blogs and the people they were talking about, Shoot and Van Deven insulted all women of color who write on blogs with white women. (I assume except for their own Feminist Review blog, which does everything right?)

Renee at Womanist Musings weighs in with great analysis and a very long comments thread. (This is one of my favorite blogs right now, along with The Curvature - I only just started reading them both).

blackamazon, who has no patience left for any of this but who kindly still posted her thoughts: http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/2009/02/response.html

Mamita Mala: One Bad Mami

Porque first I get all tripped up over the word colonialism. I carry that word close to my Rican heart shrouded by U.S. citizenship. I wince when I read white mujeres trying to tell a woc how she is being colonized, as if my body and soul doesn’t know what that is. Hell mi abuela muerta y su vientre operada still knows what the fuck that is. As if this cyberworld that radical women of color have chosen to make space on is magically disconnected from the real application of colonialism. As if my being here and the como y cuando is not clear to me.

It’s one of the reasons I have been called a bad feminist for my puta ways, and I’m like, who the fuck ever said I was a feminist?

Tami from the excellent blog What Tami Said goes easier on Van Devin and Shoot.

It isn't just the feminist blogosphere that works like this. Women of color live a variation of this experience every day; and most of us are bone tired from trying to change it. And here is where Van Deven and Shoot made a mistake typical of well-meaning white progressives. They strip POC of agency and awareness and cast us as victims. One problem is that the writers fail to explicitly and in more than passing address the many WOC bloggers who are constantly giving voice to this issue.

Tami is going to do her podcast on this, soon, and calls for participants:

Note: I'm considering making the issue of WOC bloggers and their place in the larger feminist blogosphere the topic of next week's podcast (4 p.m., Sunday, March 1). Professor Tracey says she's game to join me again. Anyone else want to join the panel, e-mail me at whattamisaid@gmail.com.

And now for something completely different

Meanwhile, here are some of the apologies and fauxpologies from FR who just continue to piss me off with nearly every word that comes out of out of their fingertips.

On ABB

Thank you for your critical feedback. I recognize that this aspect of our argument was flawed, and we should have spent more time clarifying what we meant exactly. We should have left that more open, and used our own experience as working class and/or queer women to exemplify that point. Instead we opted for something we believed was more visible. That was a mistake. That clarification can be found on Octogalore’s blog.

butterflywings: Living in India, a full 10.5-13.5 hour time difference from the US where most of the more popular feminist bloggers reside, severely limits my ability to participate in the "real time" of the feminist blogosphere.

On BA:

First, I feel it is necessary to apologize for the hurt you felt at FR reviewing YMY. No excuses. No justifications. Just "I am very sorry to have hurt you."

Second, I would love for this to be added to the Comments on our post. May I do that?
To clarify, I am asking to add this to the Comments to both YMY on FR and Fem Blogs as Digital Colonialism on PWI.

I liked what Renee commented on Astarte's Circus:

While there may be an element of patrionizing in the inclusions of WOC on feminist blog, this is certainly not universal. I think to infer that we are only there as diversity symbols discounts the legitimacy of our work. Samhita of feministing does excellent work and in fact if not for her, I probably would very rarely read that blog. This argument is very much like a white person questioning the value of a POC's work because of the exsistence of affirmative action. All that matters is the work produced in the space after achieving an objective. If we continue to speak our truth in what can be largely considered white feminists spaces, I fail to see how this is sell out behaviour or a failure to live up to so-called blogging standards.

Meanwhile more flailing by Mandy commenting on Womanist Musings:

Renee, I’d like to add to what you’re saying truth not being static (so true!) that neither is it singular. Nor is opinion static, and all of the comments and posts that have followed the PWI post have really provided a lot of things to think about. For my own personal growth, the point is not to be “right”, but to engage with others. I’m so glad this discussion is being taken in so many different directions, and I really hope that folks are able to read all of the posts and comments together as a conversation, not as yet another hierarchy of opinion and perspective.

I also would like to draw attention to what Laurelhed is saying. This conversation most definitely did not start three days ago. Brittany’s and my writing of this post (as demonstrated by the 20 links that we included, which could easily have been 200 or even 2000 links) is built from years of reading the work of others on- and offline in the same way that anyone who speaks of the “Other” is building from the work of Simone de Beauvoir and anyone who speaks of the “Subaltern” is building from the work of Gayatri Spivak. To say that what we have written is a rip-off of the work of others is a vast overstatement.

It is not beyond my concern that our post has gotten a lot of attention and that no doubt has something to do with Brittany’s and my whiteness. This only serves to further exemplify the points that we and others are making about the blogosphere’s replication of “real world” hierarchy.

Last, while no work is perfect or beyond critique, the presumption that one must throw the baby out with the bathwater is faulty and unfortunate. If that is what one decides to do, so be it.

What Would Gayatri Spivak Do? *eyeroll* Invocation of the holy academia! fauxpology with claim of superior authority and intent.

There is some serious whining over the time difference as she is posting from India, and a lot more complaints about how hard it is to track all the comments on different blogs and why can't they all come to her original post and comment there so it's easier for her and Brittany, because they have to work and this is all so distracting (!!) They seem to be doing a fair job of using the google alert and blogsearch so far. Yes, we all have day jobs too.

and then much from Mandy more including,

Okay, so why does that give you the authority to attack me personally instead of creating your own critique of what you see as a systemic problem? To claim that what I say about my motivations and desires is not true? To deny me the ability to speak about my own experience and desires?

I'm not sure why it is not obvious by our linking and our references and our words themselves stating that this work is a part of a long history of work being done by WOC, queers, disabled women, working class women, and other marginalized groups, that we're building on that analysis and adding our own. That is included in the original post. That has been stated multiple times. Now it is stated again. Or am I not allowed to build upon anyone else's work? Because I'm not sure that's possible.

Several "apologies" later, on Womanist Musings, Mandy says,

Another perspective, which might be what FSB & Octogalore are saying if I am understanding them correctly, is that it is a groupthink effect... and "follow the leader". But since the people who are commenting no doubt have different reasons for doing so, making any kind of definitive guess will always be somewhat incorrect.

Oh seriously... "groupthink"?

ego bruising, in Astarte's Circus comments:

Thanks Lisa. We're also quite happy with the respectful way folks are discussing. We were bracing ourselves for the worst, and this has been really pleasant for the most part. A little ego bruising, but that's to be expected.

Yeah. It is certainly to be expected.

On Digital Clusterfuck Feminism
Dear White Feminists, quit goddamn fucking up.

When I hit the "groupthink" accusation Mandy made that was like 4 dimensional hyperbingo!
How about you?

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

This was me losing my mind at ABB:

Jesus Haploid Christ, Mandy, THIS IS THE CENTER OF YOUR ARGUMENT. If this is "flawed", what's the point of your argument?

Like you, I'm a white woman. Unlike you, I would never believe that I knew better than actual women of color who blog what their experience was.

Your piece made me physically ill, but I forebore from saying anything because it's not about what the white women think.

But this latest in a series of fauxpologies is the LAST STRAW.

I am still so angry about this that I can't think about it without muttering to myself and clenching my jaw. I am in awe of all the women of color who have responded to this toxic nonsense with admirable clarity and detail.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Rule #0 for white allies:

Do not ever assume the role of policing anyone else, white or POC, on issues of colonialism or cultural appropriation or etc.. b/c You Do Not Know. You Do Not Get To Be The Expert Here. Questions are fine (if you're willing to hear the answer :hell no!", e.g. Q: "are POC posters on white feminist blogs being co-opted, tokenized, colonialized?" A: "Hell no!"). Lectures, no. Please, god, just no.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Aiiii, my head hurts trying to untangle all this. Or, yeah -- clusterfuck feminism etc.

Love, C.

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Good. Ghu. You read it, so I don't have to...

Reminds me uncannily of the SDSC Women's Studies meltdown in like 1972, when I was only a sprout.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

groupthink? i missed that shit, i think. what's next, hivemind? orcing hordes?

because poc are the borg.

[dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

"because poc are the borg."

OMG. Maybe I've had too much coffee but that just made me LOL like crazy!

The worst part in all this is that their post could have, you know, been useful. If it had been written with input from some of the bloggers it purports to speak for. Shark-Fu said all this so much better than I could but, yeah.

And then like Delux and others have pointed out, this discussion has happened so many times... to talk about "theory" seems just another iteration of an endless cycle. As long as everything is theoretical, nameless, unspecified--well, there's no accountability and no change. At least that's how it seems from my increasingly cynical vantage point. --- Ico

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

Once I saw that woman babbling at yeloson about how dare he interrogate her text from the wrong perspective but then asking a white woman to use her 'wisdom' to help her 'process', I was completely fucking done. Well that and the 'i'm having a learning experience!!!!' shit.

[belledame222.livejournal.com]

"What Would Gayatri Spivak Do?"

Well, in the year 3010, when fighting grizzly bears...some incomprehensible 31st century jargon.

on second thought I'll stick with Brian Boitano.

[belledame222.livejournal.com]

yeah, I think 5 dimensional Yahtzee happened when she crashed Holly's threads at Feministe to make it all. about. herself. again! and then called Holly a "bully" and flounced off. klassik. under all the jargon and verbiage, it's all too familiar.