Mordant Belle

I am back — sorry for the unannounced hiatus! I had to post this because it is awesome:

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.

I am devastated today. I look up to Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, and I am heartbroken to learn of her appropriation of RWOC brownfemipower’s work, which ultimately resulted in the removal of bfp’s powerful and wonderful blog.

As a female blogger who forged something amazing out of her righteous feminist anger, she was someone I had hoped to be. Her blog is one of those that I check every day, and I alway look forward to her humor and scathing commentary, her unabashed willingness to “call bullshit” when she sees it. Many say that being so caustic is damaging to “the cause”, but to the contrary, a perspective that is blunt, straightforward, rightfully angry, and unashamed is refreshing to me, since I’m so used to rhetoric, hedging, evasion, and empty words.

I’m not going to link to any of the multitude of the conversations taking place elsewhere, because they are too many and too confusing. I believe Amanda when she says she did not “steal” brownfemipower’s content, and it appears that she wrote every word of her original article herself. However, I also believe it is intellectually dishonest for her to claim no credit is due to brownfemipower, whose entire activisim and more importantly her blog was based on the topics covered in Amanda’s article, which Amanda has admitted is on her reading list. This is practically a textbook case of appropriation of WOC work.

I understand Amanda’s defensive stance, and her perception of being attacked…she IS being attacked. The question is whether the attack is warranted. Even if some of the accusations are overreactions - which brownfemipower’s was decidedly not, though some of her loyal friends went much more vocal and accusing - that doesn’t invalidate the original complaint. As a woman and a feminist, she knows and understands the effects of discrimination. She can understand what its like, for example, if a male colleague repeats a suggestion of hers and it receives consideration since it came from a male mouth instead of her own. She understands what its like to be ignored, dismissed, silenced, called “hysterical”. This makes her actions regarding brownfemipower all the more disappointing. I’m not sure how this will affect how I read her blog.

There is a simple solution, which I think could solve this, at least between Amanda and bfp. Amanda, apologize. Say you’re sorry for the lack of mention. Say appropriation was not your intention, and thank bfp for her blog, which you have read, which helps you track the discrimination and racism people of color, especially women of color, experience. Add a link in your article, either at the end or within the text, to brownfemipower’s work. Maybe even link to some other inspirations…you said you were inspired by speeches and texts not from brownfemipower. Acknowledge those too.

That’s all. That’s really all it would take. At that point it is not longer appropriation, but you adding your unique voice to the work of the RWOC. You would be defending WOC and their right to speak and be heard, rather than undermine those rights.

Your unwillingness to do that, for whatever reason, is what the uproar is all about.

Hello all! After several false starts, I have finally committed to creating a blog that really does something for me, and for the feminist blogosphere.

I am going to feature media on this site prominently, namely reccomended feminist literature. But I also intend to critique mass media and cultural messages, which includes advertising, magazine articles, journalistic pieces, television, web sites, etc.

On occasion I will probably add personal elements, as my relationship with my guy-lover-man-thing and my friends often set off personal insights and applications of feminism as I’ve come to understand it. Also, because I am an angry feminist journalism nut, I will probably post rants on here. And since I’m a librarian/research/intellectual/academic nerd, I will probably feature some academic studies and developments that pop up in scholarly journals if I run across them.

I also plan to feature resources and links, notes from class, the occasional well-developed list, timeline, statisitical table, or historical piece, as well as activities and exercises for feminists n00b and old.

This is my vision for Mordant Belle. Onward!