I couldn’t write this on International Women’s Day and that’s probably part of why this happens to me.
Because it felt wrong. Because it feels wrong and mean and petty to me to bring something up like this on a day to celebrate women.
Like I shouldn’t be furious and upset and fucking devastated that at least peopel I thought were with me would at least notice I got disappeared.
Like hey maybe on International Women’s Day , me an international woman would matter, but hey this is a week where I’m starting to let go of illusions , and maybe this illusion of me being anything than a postcard to your revolution is one of the things I need to let go of.
Because certainly it’s not like anyone else is changing or growing no matter how much they claim to be.
And people get applause and joy and shows for their wisdom and growth.
And I , I get the fucking grief and the debt and the wasted potential and the sorrow. I get to say really smart thing , and make really important observations and two hour communtes
but if you say what I said over cocktails in a way that makes people feel good you are leader and you get to feel bad about the way you came .
but you’re conflicted so hey RIOTGIRLL HIP HOP FEMINIST SOCIAL MEDIA HOT STUFF BULLSHIT.
and yes I am talking about this
It must be nice to be able to write your woes and cares and concerns for being able to have your book ready by winter .
To write an entire section , well lets be honest MOST OF THE GODDAMN article about a moment you ” witnessed”
to be assured that no one thinks your the failure of feminism when you penn your misgivings.
wonder what it’s like to make that stand when all you have is your
crying friend in your arms
your tattered dreams of studying
your belief in fact that we are and forever will be enough?
The Seal Press debacle wasn’t WOC engaging in negative discourse magically happening ( though the cut to the white women who wrote about instead of me was slick )
Ms. Nigga
I got to be that NIGGA BITCH for years.
Because I said fuck em.
To look at from a lens of wanting to believe in your friends good intentions, I got to look at it from being called a date rapist by no less than one of the premiere English language FEMINIST magazines
IN THE WORLD
” look to the comments”
You mean the one where a commenter spends here entire commentary going fuck me?
I looked to the comments , on 15 minutes at 9-5 job , wondering what the fuck I had done SO BAD vomitting into a toilet.
You didn’t read the premiere African American site write you out for how hard things like this are ON WHITE WOMEN ( I WISH I WAS KIDDING)
And picking my shit back up and smiling.
Because that’s what you damn well do.
or that around all this new found LEARNING and analysis of the role of what happened here
NO one talks about what happened here
About how when I asked those questions pointed out these gulfs , I got slapped around , because that is not at all pert of what happens to women who ask questions and the isolation of feminism
It’s not just a silent isolation but often a pragmatic one a loud dusty Bloody rageful silencing for the ” greater good”
or that to this day I am still called a beggar
because when I turn down jobs and book deals and ” offers of partnership” and possibilities of panels I’m just playing the game badly
and when I have to chase people for 25 or 50 dollars because this week this is the difference between being able to give my mother the money for this weeks Doctor’s appointment of having the lump in her breast go unchecked for possibly another month.
or begging may be the only way i got to see my father THIS FUCKING decade. Because of the same state violence everyone likes TALKING about
and no one gets BACK to you or even fucking ANSWERS .
but they respect your work
Right?
The cut the deep bit , the part that drips tears onto this keyboard that , makes my heart hurt.
is that it still is the ” Seal Press” debacle.
It’s not the Blackamazon/Adele Nieves/BFP/Sylvia attack
It’s not the racist cartoon problem.
It’s the Seal Press debacle because no matter what in the end everyone is still more concerned with how the white press house felt about it.
It’s the Amanda Marcotte controversy because dying jungle natives are incidental?
It’s not coincidental that the issues around white women are given deep thought , the concerns of ” cool” women of color are revolutionary and thought provoking ( and let’s not even talk about how much of that is connected to their proximity to white media)
but “those” women , those who scrape it together, who make words and sounds and little pieces of earth for ourselves
are not enough.
Aren’t diversified enough could ” use some critique”
Need to tell you what they want?
and now after all of that you still can’t say my GODDAMN NAME
but wait for it wait for it
I am sure you’re sorry
yeah—i have a LOT of conflict over that post. on the one hand, I am glad that at least somebody remembers. because I’m sick and fucking tired of seeing amanda marcotte quotes reblogged uncritically or in high praise—and most times I just don’t feel like saying—listen. these quotes have a context.
but….if that post is a historical testimony—one to remind people that these things happened—
i have *real* problem with who is recording the historical testimony and the way it is being recorded. As BA notes above—let’s make a particular note of how close in proximity this “recorder of history” is to white media that is being critiqued compared to radical woc media makers being “remembered.”
and lets notice the links and the voices doing the “remembering.” i, for one, don’t think that what I experienced were “some issues…around plagerism etc” and the response to my thoughts was not “defensive posturing.”
I’ve talked about my experiences. But you know what? I’ve talked about them with people who I am in committed working and/or living relationships with. Those who I know I can trust, and who will not filter my words and my testimonio through their own filter of “negotiating whiteness.” I have made the choice to not work politically with white women—or if I do—we work on terms in which my voice, needs, desires, goals are all visible and integrated into our working method (i.e. my rethinking walking series with Jessica Hoffman). I don’t feel the need to negotiate my words with how white women might take them.
Keep that in mind. *I* control my own story. And I have chosen to share my story with *very* *few* *people*. So what you read through other people’s links and filters and interpretations? It is *their* understanding of my experience.
Not mine.
