AMC thoughts and request

IU am a wash with thinking

It was not uncommon to find me laid out on the couches in the AMC building

Tapping my chin Winnie the Poo like.

But first off I need to realize self care

and in realizing that self care

BlackAmzon has not been good.

Black Amazon hasn't seen a doctor in ages

OR a dentist

because before BA had insurance her doctors
were night mares

so.....

Anyone got any recommendation for a fat friendly POC friendly dentist,gynecologist,GP, and dermatologist in the NYC area?

My insurance is good enough that for real just recommend if they can see me I can probably see them
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A heartfelt Thank you

I am off to AMC where my skin shall grow back connected to soul .


Thank you to everyone.

Personal thank yous coming when i get back
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Caution

You see this is what i Feel about " trying" right about now. In the current state of intra womyn relations Trying should be a Caution sign.

Like on construction sites when you see the sign things may be falling, you know you need to put on a hard hat.

When certain white women claim to be trying you know you need to put on a hard hat, grab a stiff drink and start deep breathing.

Cause stuff will be falling


My first response to this mess was to punch things

my response to Jill's response and a lot of the comments out side of my anger ( which of course I will explain)

was straight up laughter.

Now BFP one of the primary DEFOCUSERS and my fellow meanie lays down the factual power and in a much nicer than she gives herself credit for.

My primary problem with the article of course is not the re invention of women's history to prove a point.

Middle Class white women started feminism??

Now using google and my library card basic research in any book can help you figure out what spurred Seneca Falls and how much working women spurred both women's and workers rights , but since like that aren't related to the class ceiling but the need of women to oh survive let's not trouble our selves with that shall we . Nor her ridiculous assertion about identity groups like the NAACP ( being actively boycotted by many black women for their stances in things such as Dunbar Village) not having to answer to gender questions.

nor her mind numbingly simplistic categorization of the " childcare problem" as a middle class white women's issue , uh whose taking care of these kids and what pray tell do those care takers have to do with THEIR kids. And using those dynamics why does affordability trump sustainability?

My big problem is

Well she hit up my family but managed to not actually interview them but found time for Jill and Jessica Valenti or shit even Amanda Marcotte ( who might want to take a minute and think about how scurrilous attacks and usage of peoples motives as fuel for punditry and being generally unopen to anything but your own privilege and CAREER without say a basic grasp of history or human respect is not so fun now or the time when I wrote defending her ass during the Edwards kerfluffle but shh I'm jealous or something)

was the sloppy. This continued and really really aggravating habit that somehow when it comes to the words of WOC sloppy shody journalism, ethics, quoting, and thinking is A OK!

Cause we trying/working at it/ thinking/listening. That the absolute horror when done to women of color is part of a process that we can't really judge , unlike the HARD TRU FAX of sexism when it happens to white women, or their issues.

THAT THAT RIGHT THERE ! That manages to irk me as a woman, a WOC, a person of color , a nerd , a historian, and person who struggles to if not pleasantly at least COME CORRECT!

Which leads into my problems with the general blogosphere response and comments that a followed and essentially the behavior that folks will condone .

I was not and will not by any development connected to this article be surprised or sympathetic.

You see WAAY WAYY back when WOC pointed out that modes of discussion predicated on filtering out those who mattered from those who didn't ,

on declaring certain people jealous or "angry" ( let's not even take on the inbred misogyny and sexism of categorizing the emotion of anger a s problematic for women),

when we pointed out that targeting any bring up of those concerns with refrains like , "I am busy", "we're a small staff", " what would you have us do?", or " what we cover does affect everyone". or " we talk about intersectionality see ( the internet equivalent of I has black friends wish to see them!!!)

was besides being racist/ableist/heterosexist/classist/ageist/sex shaming/religion bashing US centric just plain wrong/ and not to mention cruel

BUT ALSO PRETTY BAD PRECEDENT AND BAD FOR BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF EFFECTIVENESS iN RESPONSE TO CHALLENGING ISSUES

the response was well lets look at the response , using the incidences Ms. Hirschman so kindly pulls to the table.

Let's go back to WAM . No seriously because since Jill is hesitant to bring it up let's go there. Has Sudy been officially in capacity considering her testimony is on PUBLIC RECORD , been apologized to in any way that isn't " that is inexcusable"

Has anybody who participated in the WAM list serve debates or private get togethers and luncheons ( statcounter may not be the most schmancy counter but it sure nuff can follow a google group, and log even broken link IP's *WAVES*) PUBLICLY repudated that , made any attempt ( without qualifying language that basically was " well if the little Fillipina woman isn't LYING) to truly discourse that?

Has anybody made any attempts that didn't sound straight out of the how to handle angry colored folks guide book at ( "attempts for dialogs") that didn't precedent themselves on making sure the conversation was first and foremost comfortable for THEM and not the people they were approaching, AND/OR held up steam past oh say a month ( or basically till it looked like white folks stopped being appalled) .

And yes should anyone want to go my email inbox is full of the half assedness but please try.

And the complete utter know nothing piece about Amanda and BFP . How was that handled. WHile people went out of their way to say how good and kind and wonderful they knew Amanda to be, how this was a SERIOUS CHARGE ( even though the charge that was being made wasn't being made BY BFP) , how come their " words of support" NEVER SAID BFP's name. Never once except to solidify their places as women who give voice, or champions of inter sectional third waveness established a direct and NAMED WORDED support of BFP , of her work ( which odly somehow made it into just about everybody's bibliography!) ,the actual discrepancies , and problems with the situation and healing processes that INCLUDED

oh i don't know

not talking about WOC "sisters" as some kind of OTHER! over there other while making sure EVERYBODY knew how diverse they were ( and sadly this goes across MULTIPLE progressive feminist sites") while affirming their places in a hegemonic hierarchy ?

or how many folks just kind of sat there? Saying they were listening , but not exactly getting the reason why the listening was important except to save their " feminism"?

Because yes the reason we need to deal with these issues is not the CRUSHING NEED TO SAVE LIFE AND QUALITY OF LIFE , but to build a better MOVEMENT!

That some kind of a way is never the movement YOUR involved in when it's wrong merely, a facet?


So with this history , the GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! ANGER ( wait anger's okay now?!?!) at how she could write such a thing

Well if everytime people bring up somethings we need to work on, (and I am Yoda right now, DO OR DO NOT THERE IS NO TRY ,) if our policy is to mock them , isolate them or blithely use them as charity cases , while gazing happily at our navels and reaffirming WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE!

while AFFIRMING that the move towards intersectionality is somehow governed by not wanting to be old or stodgy , or to prove how good your feminism is

rather than I don't know a concern for the lives of women SPECIFIC women.

that in the end the movement is what's important.

Of course someone will essentially agree with you , just maybe not with your specific tenets.

OF course they will use women of color in a snide " quoted " way to emphasize how poor middle class women are being attacked ( yet miraculously not raise any you know concrete issues out side of young women don't say there feminist")

And retreat behind it's a good dialogue thanks for helping my work .

( I take this moment to say when I pitched Holy Hell about Yes means Yes THIS was my problem. It seems folks thought I was just unpleaseable but no in fact I resent being framed as an unpaid editor rather than you know a horrified objector. " this is a scary terrible unfocused destructive idea /=/ "here's how you write a better book ")

That the same condescending entitlement that was wither performed on WOC blogs with LITTLE ANSWER in terms of actual engagement wouldn't be considered perfectly serviceable on "mainstream blogs".

I pause now to say regardless of whatever else I feel about Feministing and it's writers, their blog their right to write. MS Hirschman don't you feel not being her family nor her teacher your high handed disgusting condescending tone should be reserved for your own articles. Because since you can't even manage to figure out how to call any brown folks even when using em, or master basic handling of events and their actual rammifications, I'm gonna think you need to not lecture any woman on how she should express her feelings on what is and isn't bullshit till you can muster up the energy to learn how to do basic research on how black women respond to various historical events.

In the end however the thing I am most amused by is the fact that neither Sudy nor BFP has been involved in the exchanges . NONE have happened their blogs ( and the probably don't want them to and frankly I'm wary but I'm also loud and foolish) , and multiple folks are going this is a good thing .

No specific voices involved ( except for BFP just sprinkling awesome all over the place ,linked AGAIN) is GREAT.

You see Ms. Hirschman is right about two things , though she quoted Jill on one of em. There is no fear there for the " progressive/Democratic men" because they know were not going anywhere.

Anyone who reads this friend and foe alike , knows were not actually committed to the rough work of engagement , or fairness equality and actually raising our awareness and consciousness to truly become sisters and or allies, instead merely trying to constantly reframe the movement to make it appear like it's been that way all along.

That rather than build our own spaces we continue to concentrate in various unhealthful destructive ways on pushing symbols , and rates and numbers and power at THE EXPENSE OF OTHER WOMEN and when called upon we just may consider about every damn thing else but our own culpability .

Who needs to fear that?

But what has always been taught to me as a WOC by her foremothers ( often in battle it ain't always sweet)is that we DO HAVE OTHER PLACES TO GO and we MAKE THEM OURSELVES.

and suddenly that fear of our ability has gotten folks to pay attention.

isn't that the problem at it's root, that by being ourselves working our ways good or bad , we've moved the attention from where she wants it?

Rather than the ceiling but at the foundation.

But from now on I'm bringing hard hats.
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 I enjoy apologies that address neither the concerns I voiced, my specific identity , the identity of those who voiced them an inclusion of the actual critiques, the assumptions that cause you've decided what a symbol means . IT MEANS THAT YES IT DOES. But your trying.

I'm trying to be okay with repeating myself  as  I said before the first woman in the presidency or the mill doesn't actually always have a symbolic meaning to every woman , but hey lets not deal with those specifics.

I'm trying to understand  the generalized address that tends to  go to WOC versus the specific support and engagement even in anger that goes to men or other white women. OR that address turns into how YOU can be better understood

or how communication involves nether quoting specifically or acknowledging SPECIFICALLY who said what and why . JUst this Emblem of your trying

But hey I'm trying and consensus seems  to be that deciding Your trying or I am trying is good enough.

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Broken Record

First and foremost I would like to thank form the bottom of my heart all of you who have donated. I am writing my thankyous before the end of the week. Uh I am a l iar I misse dmy airfare and still need help! WHOOPS!Also for others and their support ( belledame cake will happen on my honor)


When I said I was feeling uncomfortable about coming back , I wasn't lying. I came back one because frankly grad school the great corporation it is needs proof that I am an " important Thinker" . Also it's my own personal thing but I can not deal with myself erasing any public record ( somewhere the wife is gnashing her teeth at me) , but I can't. I don't any more see this blog as just my spaces , but myself as a ward of this space and people have spoke and discussed in ways that barring my very real desire to ward certain folks off my archives, is something I feel I can not justify hiding from public record.

I am actively trying to break myself of that habit.

But for me it is very important because one thing I have learned about my time online is that given space history can and will be re written so that people can learn " lessons"

I am not okay with that. I am less okay with that when it involves me, and mine and the pain we are caused constantly consistently in the most flippant offhand un thinking ways possible , because people can not , and will not be bothered or troubled to go outside their own navels.

I am not okay with people lacking basic respect of the actual chronology of events.

While I tend not really to be concerned one way or the other with the opinions of this one way or another ( Once I got my " apology" and my friends had to watch me type my I quit crying and then when I came back that my peoples being arrowed was snark and the remedy was some uninvolved man running an optional seminar my pretty brown head exploded). I really don't like taht the article portrays that I cussed cause of Amanda's Book.

Not because it's untrue which it is, but because it sets that lovely frigging precedent of " oh this is jsut another slap/angry blackwoman/ just mad teh book wasn't what she wanted to be"

As I have said before I am not at all proud or entirely happy with how that came about but , that comment was connected to a VERY SPECIFIC conference where one of my loves was " jokingly" threatened with execution ( no apology there) right after another one of my loves talked about being ACTUALLY threatened with execution , and then love number three basically heard " We don't believe you, you need more White Ladies"

I did not denounce Seal Press cause of this book, they did not come here and try and amend a damn thing. They came here and tried to control and snark a dialogue and basically used juvenile tactics to do so. The apologies came AFTER the girlcott was proposed , the apologies which hey a link to them so folks could see for themselves would be nice but shh let's not get mired down in details like what was said., that ACTUALLY upset people because that would spoil a tone of nice white ladies here's how ya learn.

And this just I don't even know:

It' s the last sentence that gets me . BEcause really I am waiting in teh wings for them to screw up cause then I GET...

What might have seemed like it was going to be the blogger's version of hitting the big leagues— publishing a real, tangible book, maybe ending up as a talking head on Bill Maher, maybe even making a little money off your words and opinions—turned into something else for Amanda Marcotte and her publisher. It seems like Marcotte will land on her feet. As for Seal Press, I'd be interested to see what's on their list the next few years. There's a girlcott just waiting for the next mistake.

Oh right I get nothing. I get called a crackho ( and if you want I'll link you off site I am not linking here AM NOT).

I get to watch the ever entertaining spectacle of the disrespect of black woman and their feelings couched in apologies .

I get the HOW DARE YOU YOUNG BLACK GIRL YOU BIG MEANIE SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT PEOPLE MAKING MULTIPLES OF YOUR SALARY DON'T YOU KNOW ABOUT SISTERHOOD!!!!

I get love and support , and I get the often unsaid but continued reminder that for people who would disrespect my very existence that is both shocking and HOW DARE THAT HAPPEN!

But yes I am waiting in the wings for some more of that.

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So I'll be an asshole, because this to me is ugly. Not just a lil bit ugly but heart retchingly ugly.

Especially this last piece:

And I'm sad because I know there are women who are hurting. Not because their candidate lost. Clinton may not have even been their candidate. They're hurting because misogyny hurts all women, and because they have fewer allies than they once thought.

And unlike the people (including many of these women) who are feeling the same way with regard to racism in this campaign, who are licking wounds of racist attacks even as preparations begin for the breathtakingly awesome celebration of the first ever presumptive nominee of color, ZOMG, these women do not have an equivalent wonder to celebrate. They don't have a "despite it all." They don't have a step forward to point to, to say the pain was worth it.

They just have the pain.

And I'm sad because I see so little evidence of people who are willing to understand that.

See we don't understand we got a consolation prize!

I guess for me part of the straight up disgust ,is that for real they said this in 2008. Forty years after King, and Kennedy. Forty years after the brutal violent awful deaths of TWO men ( one black one white ) who were by many black people beloved.Who seeming to have triumphed, to have unified to have created great change.

Were killed by those who felt that change was too much.

That every elder I know , thanked god for this day and then proceeded to add " I pray for him/say rosaries/ask Allah to cover his steps".

This ignorance of what it means to black people to be in this position , as if we haven't been here in some way before and mourned it horribly. That we should be giddy cause this is a first! and respectful for Hillary's time to " mourn"

As if part of her being hustled of stage isn't because of how she behaved and let others behave while she was on stage. As if no one should be stung by the fact the thought even crossed her head to question the importance of MLK.

That she was willing to run on the fact that hard working americans , in her mind were white . and racist and that was a good reason to stay on, in addition to you know Obama could get shot!

You want to talk about questioning allies?

Lets talk about reading that as a young woman and hearing that older women who have means will gleefully and happily fuck you over because their pride is hurt. That the very real spectre of a court that leans so hard right as to truly make a challenge to just about ever gain made since the sixties , is worth it to spite you.

Lets talk about women " your generation" who through concession,omission,distraction, or even more scary agreement, stayed silent, obfuscated, hemed and hawed about the sheer disrespect heeped on your head cause you had the nerve to have a vagina and not think EVERYTHING MEAN SAID TO HILLARY IS SEXISM AND MUST BE WATCHED


or the sudden interest in both parties in the Green party also running a woman who the sexism,racism,classism , and cultural disrespect during her candidacy,career, hey life,just couldn't seem to peak their interest enough.
( by the bye the comenter who suddenly has an interest in Green cause you know this is such a slap , Cynthia Mckinney is never EVER to be treated as you "standby" , you disgust me)


I will also leave out the fact at this juncture that Hillary not even the first woman nor Barack the first African-American. Let's not let facts get in the way!

Cause let's be honest this was always tacked at the end of BOTH candidacies

" with a chance to win"

And that right there is what their mourning and why I have NO sympathy. It's not the sexism , the misogyny , the absolute exposure of our media networks as sexist and racist( because much to their blind spottedness Hillary sexism attacks were almost always followed by racist attacks on Barack and Michelle [yeah I know shocking she got both and she's not running] and there is something to be said about intersectionality but we gone keep it simple )

their upset about the loss of power.

Because here's the thing Melissa McEwan misses as do most of these kind of rending of garments( and more is coming) response will miss.

People actually concerned with the sexism and racism and misogyny displayed in this campaign, not the " barriers being broken"

aren't doing some kind of mathematical calculus of plusses or negatives.

The fact Obama IS the nominee does not even come close to mitigating the sexism,racism, and misogyny that many have BEEN saying has plagued the left , which has now become important as it is happening to a (white) woman.

That terror was neither begun nor exemplified by the Clinton campaign. Because shockingly it wasn't now and will never be hinged on the treatment of one white woman but the continued and disturbing treatment of all women in it's practices and dealings. But lets not forget that this white woman is the symbol of all women , yet somehow the actually experienced Rep Mckinney is a second choice.

Their is no transcendence for Obama supporters who shockingly may have been some of them a courtesy not even mentioned voting with their lives not their entitlements , in realizing that the fate of the nominee for the PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES is prayed over daily , nightly and hourly because it is considered to be hand in hand with the fate of Sean Bell, wondering will this man, this candidate suffer like far too many have for being black and male and the wrong time.

BUT WE GOT A CANDIDACY RIGHT CAUSE WHAT WE WANTED WAS POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That may be enough for some people to sleep at night , but it has not now or ever been enough for FAR too many of us. And the thing is Hillary never saw that as she went from 75% of THE AA vote to single digit support.

Her " feminist" supporters never saw that as everything up to an including "boy wait your turn" and their just seduced by his "good looks" and " charisma" ( got love the black man as walking sex and the black woman as walking sex obsessed that never fails to sneak in)even though both candidates have nearly identical platforms ( except where he DOES BETTER ) .

Or taht in large amounts brown folk won't even engage with this anymore but , come on people who MATTER are hurting. Their being attacked by other people who MATTER , those people who don't matter with real grievances who won't even talk to us are SECONDARY, these people who MATTER won't let us GRIEVE . THEY CAN'T SEE!!


Maybe their right I am an asshole , because if this is what their grief is for. You best believe form me they get no rest.
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