Ohh Donna

For week Red I wanted to write letters .

To Female Bloggers of Color about things the wrote or we talked about and why they were connected to the concepts and values that I ( only me by myself this girl here) thought were important to silence.

My first letter goes out the lovely Donna at The Silence of our Friends, ( why yes her blog title is serendipitous and related)

Dear Donna,

This is a horrible convoluted conceit as I emailed you like yesterday , but please indulge the sniffling toddler.

As per your usual your post Bitter Laughter was awesome . Kind of uncomfortable making , full of fire and brimstone but it really, really got me thinking. It also made me think back to Kindergarten .

Remember the Golden Rule.

" Treat others as you wish to be treated"

Up until blogging I thought that was a great idea . It is the liberal mantra ne plus ultra. Everyone is equal we are same under the skin , or the goal is to make us same under the skin.

Thank god I gave that ish up.

Your post which i know refer joyously to as " Hypocrisy: The Madlibs version" made me think hard about why it offended me so , and I noticed your blog title and i Thought of red and thhen my mind did a happy synaptic firing

And then my heart kind of broke.

Silence.

Silencing.

The reason the " golden rule" offends me so now , is that it appoints the user ( we'll say me ) as the "decider" of what way they should treat people. I get to say that this is the way I enjoy being treated , I will treat everyone that way and it shall be good .

As Women of Color , we know more than anyone else that we are not the same , and the incidences of oppression and violence we face , while achingly similar are often wildly divergent in their historical origins, and personal impact.

And every time someone gets up and says that this will work for women without addressing seriously the very explicit gaps ( or GORGES) in female experience , it fails certain women.

And by certain women , I mean the same women ( trans, disabled,WOC,queer, etc) over and over again.

Worse yet when it is talked about , the white women tend to phrase it ( and I'm not kidding I noted this in both real life and online conversations ) as " a constant criticism , or one criticism of feminism"

So for what is for many women a long standing barrier to them becoming part of feminism ( if i read one more white woman be shocked and awed about WOC " espousing feminist ideas" but not claiming feminism . I'm just gonna start a mockery list) is not to them a grave concern but one of the many criticisms of feminism.

Silence.

We are not specific but simply one of the many things people "complain" about, how is it to be addressed.Suddenly we are in the conglomerate with or without our permission .

Our successes are "theirs" and our challenges are their statistics.

I live in an area that has one of the highest HIV rates in America. Also an extremely high incidence of sexual violence, to my knowledge their are no immediate women's health centers or WOC friendly women's health professionals available.

Programs that were and continue to be stunted by the efforts of not just patriarchy but women who believe that any focus on WOC is divergent from the " real goals" while still campaigning using these lives to bolster their position WITHIN patriarchy.

It would be funny , if it didn't involve wondering how the two twins in my yard were gonna live with out their mother.

Silencing induces more silence permanently.

But it is better to speak.

The post itself and the post script , and your first comment from zuzu.

Donna they honestly made me cry.

In thinking about this and what this RED is trying to be, and places where there are problems and seams and things that we are doing right and doing wrong . The sheer effort on so many women are putting in , that they HAVE to put in .

Because WOC organizations are underfunded. Because people ( my simple ass included) are often inconsiderate of LGBT issues, because disabled people are so quick to be made as non obtrusive and so on and so on and so forth.

IS NOT A QUESTION OF CLARITY.

It is crystal clear we are failing each other.

It is crystal clear that from that post , it is much more important to engage and intellectually deal with men who are condescending and snide, than with women who are honest and committed.

You brought up the book and I went back through it and it still is a gut shot. These men who are condescending assholes are given point by point rebuttals. Petit,Sylvia and I can't even get our names said.

Not because of hits or traffic but because we are/were real people with real issues who invested REAL time and damn it WE WERE there and trying .

Because it was important that what we loved was treated fairly because IT HAS REAL LIFE Consequences.

Not even our names.

But whats his face can get entire paragraphs dedicated to how he's a " good guy" ?

Your entire post pouring your heart out about how this behavior is damaging and hurtful to our spirits and souls

One line about how you misunderstood and not another engagement? Something to acknowledge the actual time and feelings you were in while you did this.

Nope just a line so you didn't misunderstand HER words?

Is this truly what we are? To be used to show how they are evolving in arguments with white men?

Is it any wonder that anytime an ally posts for Red anywhere there is an upcropping of what about this case ? And that case is without fail a white woman?

OR that people still truly think that an attack on LGBT people aren't crimes about sex?

That it is ocmmon thought that because it's a DV case Megan Williams can't be a hate crime

While the difference between cyberspace and real life gets more blurred every day. The lives of WOC do not.

We are not anybody else, we are not a faceless , voiceless mass, we are NOT one and the same.

And we are not argument fodder., or stepping stones.

Do they realize we are people ?

Independent autonomous people who are NOT extensions of some nebulous ideal?

We do not wish to be treated the way they are treated

but as ourselves.

And we shall be silent on that no longer