Mordant Belle

For me, this shit has all been about community. I did not expressly state this in my original post. I was angry enough at the time that I really didn’t flesh out my ideas fully. Having since had the time to think things through more carefully and surf around several of the blogs that are talking about this—part of what I was trying to say was that feminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with.

~Brownfemipower, on her new, one-post-only blog

I heard of your work long ago, when I first dipped my toe into the pond of the feminist blogosphere, but never read more than a post or two. I am white, so it seemed so far removed from me. Now I am filled with regret…I wish, I wish, that I had had the wisdom to read your words before they were gone. I always thought I could come back and read them later.

When I read the first post on the subject by Feministe, I was shocked. I could not believe that Amanda, a feminist, had done such a thing — a feminist, who should understand better than most about the politics of appropriation, discrimination, and injustice.

The more I looked, the more heartbroken I became, because every bit of evidence I saw — even the posts by Hugo, a man I consider a friend and source of inspiration — pointed in the same direction. They were defensive. They were dismissive. They were playing to the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of a feminist community. It could only mean one thing. What you said was true, truer than they were willing to admit. Amanda had done something horrible, and more importantly, she refused to try and fix it, or even admit it was wrong.

Almost everyone I looked up to as a feminist mentor was suddenly perpetrating an amazingly outrageous level of discrimination. I never expected such people, self-identified progressives, to be tinged with such hate, to be clinging and spreading such injustice…and to seem so blind to what they were doing. Can they really be THAT ignorant? I am not sure that I want to know the answer, or what it would mean.

I don’t know where to go from here. I want to let you know that as a result of this I have started to reach out the the blogs of feminists and women of color who I previously thought did not apply to me. I start to see the tiny undercurrents of racism and classism in everyday life that were previously invisible to me, that are now glaring, screaming, and I wonder how in the world I managed to miss them before. I have ordered books on race and class. I tried to find the blogs of other white feminist who “get it”, to see what wisdom they can give.

For what it’s worth, this whole shitpile woke me up.

I don’t know what to do to help, but all I can think is to try, as hard as possible, to make “feminism” something that embraces women like you, something that gives you hope and courage in exchange for inspiration and a powerful voice. Most importantly, I want feminism to BE the community you’re talking about. Community is what it has always been about. I want to make my feminism, my community, one that welcomes a brownfemipower, a blackamazon, an angry black woman.

I’m mentally sending you hugs, tears, friendship, and regrets for my past indifference. I hope one day to be able to see your words, for the first time.

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