I am so tired I could die so please excuse the general cranky smutty that this post will generate as I have no developed the habit of having to write
No Seriously?
Yep Seriously.
NO SERIOUSLY?!
I Wonder at this point for serious, why the fuck i even bother.
Happy now .
Call this bitchy call this fucking evil call this teh beggining of the barrage.
But
MY FUCKING GOD
Do you want their government names, addresses , church memberships.
Would you like my CV?
Octa has it
OR maybe Sylvia's college transcript.
Possibly Bint's fucking medical file.
I mean that's what it seems it;s gonna take for people to get it through their thick skulls?
That we are peopel ?
THat we live lives and make choices and decisions and are well and intelligently equipped .
Maybe if I told you that I work nine hour shifts so i can have health care
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE ( after the Ivy League degree , know the difference between me and my " finding themselves peers" Our parents back accounts)
Or maybe if we made a sex worker point out x,y, and zed of why they chose sex work over the MYRIAD of other options available ( wait you mean there aren't necessarily myriads of options)
Or maybe if the idea of consent and respect was sexy and media challenging enough for you.
Maybe if the idea of HAVING To EARN A LIVING being paramount besides the feminist implications of it was on your mind, you might might have some semblance of decency and respect when it came to talking about sex workers and WOC before you OPENED YOUR MOUTH.
maybe if FOR ONCE IN YOUR FUCKING DAYS, when you thought of women you thought of not nebulous points of data but really human beings having to survive with grades, or aches or pains, or loves and needs and desires and people of flesh and bone
and not this group " always in quotations"
that seems to pick up and harm you for going about your privileged way
MAYBE IF JUST ONCE
FOR GOD SAKE MAYBE YOU THOUGHT OF US BEFORE NOT AFTER
you opened you mouth to find new way to " solve problems" " save girls like YOU" " or get as much POWER consolidated under one roof as possible to extend your fucking /reach /brand/type of feminism"
Maybe if you understood what it was like to ONLY have you wits and your identity.
And to have to fucking scream at the top of your lungs juts to get people not to try and buy and sell and " aside " it like a fucking poker chip
Maybe then you'd get it.
If I told you I was stunningly beautiful, I get stopped on the streets everyday If i told you I was off the charts smart , if i told you I was multilingual, four octave soprano, or Ivy leagues educated, if I told you all those things
maybe just maybe you would believe that I wouldn't trade TWO WHOLE FUCKING YEARS commiserating mourning laughing celebrating LIVING in sacred space with my sisters
TO BE THE WHITE GIRL OF THE FUCKING DAY YOU BELIEVE I ENVY
THat you stopped trying to figure me out like I was some dissecting frog so i can't inhibit her latest triumph and NOT EVEN SAY MY FUCKING NAME(s)
Maybe if you believed in this shit as a living breathing and could go grow and change like I do and am
That no one is asking you to step down but to listen learn and stop STEPPING THE FUCK ON OUR BACKS
Or doing your best to make sure you never have to work or hear or grow at all
That maybe with the same reverence and deep measured consideration YOU treat girls
like YOU
your treat girls like ME
and stopped treating it like grand conspiracies to muzzle your voices
when you can chuckle over the myriad of books you can find for you
ANd we have to plumb archives to find the amazing articles we mine for
and pass back and forth like the very bread of life
Maybe if for once you thought deportation was as IMPORTANT as some other women's BREAST SIZE and how she got that way
or the urinal and this months casino
Maybe if you knew you wouldn't have to type this with shaking fingers and a queasy stomach through tears
AND BE GLAD IT WAS ONLY THAT
MAYBE you'd find it in you to extend some basic historical
HUMAN RESPECT
but you know what for the next couple books that insult my history , marginalize my voice, co opt my foremothers work ,and use my struggles to bolster you appearance fees and book sales
WHile telling me it's all bout the sisterhood
I'll just keep my mouth shut say it's wonderful pimp to everyone one i know even if their not in it and hope next time the cops bust my fucking door down youll get to it in two weeks instead of two months
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
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16 comments:
I've asked you this before, and I'll ask again: why do you engage w/ these people? Honey, what is the point? They don't listen. They don't want to. They won't. What are you getting out of this?
I did NOT just read that WOC and their allies "made two mistakes" (!) in, in what?--Catering to the very important whims and egos of white feminists? I'd be delighted to fail at that, thanks. Please direct me where to sign me up for that failure immediately.
I just deleted the rest of this comment because the last time the source of the quote above stirred the shit, I got caught holding the spoon handle; so anything further I have to say about this will be about the thoughts not the person, to borrow from BFP, and the thoughts are sadly not voiced rarely anyhow--I'm thinking more like "weekly" or oftener. They're all over.
i am so pissed off right now.
she asks why we keep begging for inclusion.
aint nobody begging for fucking "inclusion."
why don't we go create something of our own instead of always begging for inclusion in the pretty white feminist club?
gee, why didn't we ever think of that before? thank god this tiny cat pants person came along and pointed this out to us, otherwise we might've just wasted our entire lives waiting for white feminism to give a shit. now i guess we can finally begin writing blogs, publishing zines, helping each other fundraise, organizing events aimed specifically at sharing media strategies with each other, circulating petitions, youth/community organizing, organizing events speaking out against violence against women of color and publishing anthologies.
Delux :
NothinG i get absolutely nothing.
And it's not even in engaging with these people. It's in the can i even talk without you makings hit up venue I ca't even walk away with out hearing my fucking image caled up liek the fucking boogie man.
So i'm 23 years old and teh feminists ignore my words restate them and talk about me like a fucking monster
I GET NOTHING
I mean its not liek we make blogs and purposely dont promote them on non allied blogs
its not liek i dont link my blogs to any of those sites
WAIT IT IS THAT
Its not liek i havents pecifically said im not all woc
I was teh one talking about x and everyone else had covered a-y but
"some woc"
were some "woc"
or WHAT DO I DO TEACH ME even though when shit was pointed out to you you ignored it
or didnt even read teh person you called an attention monger
I GET FUCKING NOTHING
and frankly there may be nothing fucking left in a bit
cause delux is right what is teh fucking point
Oy. I commented on TCP's thread because I was baffled by it and by her perceptions, and also by the way she worded those perceptions. And I was bowled over as always by BFP's ability to say everything so clear and have a willingness to say it there, to engage Aunt B. on her post. My gut feeling then and now is that Aunt B. is, well, not like some people who I have felt very creeped out by in the white feminist blog areas. My feeling, sadly, is also that although I was stung by that post, my feelings about her as a person are irrelevant to anyone else's feelings about that post. It's just a sorrowful thing to me, something that has surprised me to read at her site and that I'm sad about. And do not blame anyone else for being pissed about, at all.
I went and read the post by Aunt B, and two things stood out.
1. "I remain confused by what some WOC bloggers and their allies are upset about."
I am trying not to get upset about this and failing. If she cannot grasp what the issue is, then she needs to be reading more carefully. She needs to be reading more widely. This is really not all that difficult to understand, and I am concerned (more than concerned, but I'm trying to rein it in here) at what I see as a fairly common tactic - "I just don't understand, oh it's so hard" - in white responses to anger voiced by W/POC.
2. "[...] you are going to be treated by white people how we treat other white people. Which is… not always very nicely."
This is crap. I know this because I'm a white person who bitches and moans about the ableist rhetoric on many feminist websites, and argues for inclusion of PWD, and I am *consistently* treated better than the monolithic WOC Aunt B is referring to here.
so. I don't know if this is helpful
p.s. Four octaves? Really? Yeesh. Wussy little mezzo over here, and suitably impressed.
Blackamazon, what I see is: white feminists are actively pushing a white supremacist landschape in which you and other women of color aren't actually human beings.
In my perception, that is a form of violence in itself that links into, interacts with and supports so many other forms of white supremacist violence. This is a historical and current pattern that goes on and on.
So I wonder, I could be so so wrong, I could totally be projecting here in so many ways, but I wonder if maybe you respond despite not getting anything out of it because IT FREAKING HURTS.
Which in my view opens up more questions if so, but I won't go there because
I really seriously could be wrong.
I posted what I did because, well, anyone who wants to know anything at all about WoC bloggers could be arsed to go read WoC bloggers and see what y'all have to say. I mean, maybe it's too easy to head over here or BFP's or Angry Black Woman or any other WoC blogs and look for posts that talk about white feminism marginalizing women of color, and then maybe learn something.
It's like, fuck, just listen. Don't fill the air with your assumptions, just listen. Look for the answers, don't dominate discourse with your questions, and listen.
Maybe that's too radical. :(
"your assumptions" being "their assumptions," of course.
I can't read this or respond to this without crying. You done gone contagious.
Because I had to really think about it. And when I realized that I was asking you to stop crying and to *just* ignore them like it's *just* that simple, I realized that I was still ascribing a personhood to *them* and I can't even get that. Neither can you.
No matter what we fucking do we can't even get a damned name check from people who insist on telling us what we do and do not want, and what we can and cannot do.
my god BA...just...my god...
"If I told you I was stunningly beautiful, I get stopped on the streets everyday If i told you I was off the charts smart , if i told you I was multilingual, four octave soprano, or Ivy leagues educated, if I told you all those things"
You shouldn't need to, of course, and you don't need to, of course. Beautiful post. I hope it works its way into the minds and hearts of many.
OK so when are you going to fill us in on the latest and greatest in your life? Must we live in suspense for much longer? The hint was quite interesting.
yeah. you blow my mind (as usual).
*t'bella kicks her self cos she needs to check in here more often*
I've read this a few times and it just keeps getting more powerful, meaningful and heart wide open. Which is, of course, the reason why your writing (as well as that of Sylvia, bfp, and of course others, but yours especially, it seems) is so feared.
gurrrrrrrrrrrl.
And I thought my lil corner of the world had it poppin'.
The Brown/White Feminist tension is in full effect I see.
I am glad.
You are still writing.
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