A response

Thank you for alerting me to your post.

I have read and reread your piece with great heaviness in my heart, it is on my blog because after the first 1,000 words I thought posting it as a comment would be rude.

I start this letter with the first and foremost desire to clarify,

That I am not a feminist blogger. At this point I am barely a blogger and it shall deplete even more in the future.

It is important to note that because this very colonial theory you have mentioned is one of the huge reasons I am not. One of the most important steps of any form of colonialism is that one most create an Other and strip it of it's humanity to justify one's exisistance.

I do not fele in community in any way with any of these women, and this is a decision reached not out of spite or malice but out of a constant reminder that none of them had nay desire to be in community with me.

In answer to your question there is no What If?

Feminist blogging not only is a digital colonialism , but has for myself and far to many women of color become a site of happy erasure, and staunch upholding rather than moving of the status quo.

I write this letter even with a sense of dread becuase the act of attaching my voice to critiques to any of these big bloggers even to rectify the reinvention of history is immediately tagged with jealousy distrust and bile that I have no desire to welcome into my spce or my life but can not be ignored.

At best some of these exchanges have benn privilege blindness at worst it has been deceitful dishonest purposely malicious racism that has gone unanswered for the sake of maintaining this network.

When teh FFF debacle happened I was contacted , but the minute I did not assure the person who contacted me that this couldn't happen in a shadow network where in that person had loads of support and I had none, where in I demanded they be accountable not becuase i Was some raging hose beast but having already begun to see my work cropiing up in places and in stages that I has a person NEEDING to work full time could not control.

They were gone. In the mean time , women who claimed they were aginst racism against injustice against inhumanity were silent SOLELY to support this network.

against a MENACE

that menace was me.

This was not community.

The Seal Press debacle which was not just about a hierarchy but spun out of control because later racist, solipsitic imagery was used and the worlds least sensitive apologies were issued, is even as we speak being dismissed as a kerfufle or a "goings on" that is two sided because of osmeone careers.

and not because someone I love and know dearly cried in my arms.

Or that being called a DATE RAPIST by a FEMINIST magazine, or being called a whiny race baiter. BY ONE OF THE LARGEST LIBERAL BLOGS ON THE WEB. Because what no one notes in these milleus is that the same unearned privileges that allow these oppressive acts ( race,age,class,ability) automatically casts those who protest not only as outsiders but dehumanized defeminized attackers on a metaphoric presumed white sisterhood not worthy of basic human decency. That casting means we can get rape threats death threats or more succinctly.

Hvae you ever cried till you threw up cause people put pictures of your people being killed by a white lady was "funny and kitchy"?

Have you ever had that kind of psychic violence justified by we went to this bar/conference/party /training session together?

And yes it is still happening . Yes Means Yes was recently published and before it was published a large and PROMINENT critiquing of that was issued. One of the most prominent and important being made very eloquently by a person whose voice as a young queer transperson is often marginalized.

The subsequent debates involved THE ENTIRE SUBMISSION HAVING TO BE REWRITTEN. WHile I myself personally asked not to ever never be connected with the book again by name

NO MENTION AT ALL WAS MADE OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT PRECIPITATED THAT REWRITE

by anyone who reviewed it ( including feminist Review) anyone who supported it , and anyone who did mention reduced it to a "small drama" . Because really calling transpeople crazy, non citing work, and dismissing WOC as bitter and jealous is a small thing.

it is because these people have no desire to be accountable to me.

And the argument that you don't get paid enough for it to be monetary , in mine ears means that we are getting dumped on disrespected, and ERASED continually for a pittance.

But outside of the emotional violence , the unaccountability, the self indulgent navel gazing the assinine behavior that is not even directed at full misogynists( they will at very least name teh misogynists when responding. Many neigh most of these blogs while calling me essentiallya hating demon for two years DO NOT LINK ME)

is also the knowledge that with the coming of the " zeitgeist" everything mentioned by WOC bloggers

The need for increased diversity

The need to even superficially create community

A broadening or dialogue

that were unreasonable and out of the question when we asked for it because we are human and should be considered not just part of but integral TO this movement

became very attractive and do able when that small revenue went down and traffic started fleeing to POC blogs.

and that movement we're supposed to be a part of of where we are powerful and can make change stops RIGHT where it might make someone feel bad.

This exchange between Lauren of Faux Real Tho and Courtney of Feministing broke my heart.

When Lauren expresses a deep issue within THE ENTIRE MOVEMENT about how it has evolved and continued to evolve she is marked as jellus and mean and told by OTHER WOMEN that why is she perpetuating this idea that women should apologize for living well?

Lauren a FOUNDER AND DESIGNER OF THE EMBLEM OF ONE OF THE OLDEST FEMINIST BLOGS ON THE NET.

And for all her " excitement at being challenged" and throws around enough meta data to seem like she's unpacking knapsacks Courtney's main response and final paragraphs are straight up insulting and yes disgusting to me ( and yes i divulge that I am poor as a church mice but ivy league educated, private school educated and Facebook obsessed but hey grassroots organizing involves cheap materials where you can get em)

You see the issue is men. Not Lauren's hurt not referencing the larger comment she made, not what it says to other women( but more about why her privilege is to be shared not dismantled) because she wants all teh things "men have had for centuries"

Now I leave the obtuseness and ridiculousness of that statement ( which men, what class , what race) to be FLABBERFUCKING GASTED at the fact that in a response to Lauren about a large issue her focus is not addressing Laurens points but her self , an invitation to that kind of thinking to other women of privilege ( Yes i have it I am not at all excited in reveling in it) and to say

" Men have done it for so long why not me?"

Because truly that is what we are looking for? A repeat of that colonial man in room of their own mentality?

That Gollum like addiction that is repeated OVER AND OVER AGAIN ad infinitum that ' THIS WHAT YOU DID IS WRONG AND HURTFUL AND SHOULD BE RECONSIDERED AND CORRECTED" is the same as YOU ARE TERRIBLE NO GOOD PERSON WHO DESERVES NOTHING

so you spend half of you r working time trying to say " NO THATS NOT WHAT I SAID"

and the thread about brainstorming tells more about training people to be in " positions of power" with no clear idea of what they do with it.

as if that in any way addresses a damn thing that has been brought up but you knwo what Lauren is at least granted the courtesy of being in the conversation.

or to put in a blunt situation. You know WAM that conference that ended with me , my best friend, my sisters in TEARS.

The one that has a theme of inside outside but personally addressed none of teh issues or critiques in any public accountable way.

The one that a boycott is STILL in progress from teh behavior of " Women " putting " women back in teh picture " ON IT's PREMISES

that is so concerned with the voices of women.

I cleared my schedule my 14 hour a damn day schedule , my best friend did another amazing WOC blogger did to talk to meet to try and be part of this movement.

It was so valued I was stood up,

because they can,

because they suffer no repercussions even of conscience.

That's how much i matter .