BrownFemiPower says:
I wrote what I wrote to say that there either is a feminist movement or there isn’t—and if feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing—if simply pointing to a whole sphere of pro-immigration bloggers (because, to be clear, I stated pro-immigration bloggers and men and women bloggers of color NOT brownfemipower) who have been blogging incessantly about this is too much work for feminism—well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement.
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I never said that it’s important to recognize that I had the idea first. I don’t give a shit who came up with the idea first—even if it WAS me. I don’t give a shit who thought of what first. I don’t fucking want credit for anything outside of existing. (For those who care, what I really said: There’s a lot of women of color (and men of color!) who have talked about immigration. There’s a lot of women of color and men of color who have examined how sexualized violence has been the foremost result of the “strengthening” of borders. There’s been a lot of us who have insisted for a long time now that immigration is a feminist issue, goddamn it, get your head out of your ass.
I even wrote a whole speech about it (link not available–BUT for those who DID see the speech, do you happen to recall that long list of LINKED work at the beginning of the speech?).
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This was NEVER ABOUT FUCKING BROWNFEMIPOWER except in the sense that I BELONG to immigrant communities and I BELONG to pro-immigration blogger community and I BELONG to the women of color community and I THOUGHT I belonged to a feminist community.
This was about women of color constantly being written out of feminism, being written out of our own communities BY feminism—then being beaten up by feminists with JUST DO IT, JUST DO IT, JUST FUCKING DO IT YOU LAZY SPICS.
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I know I’m brownfemipower and I want to end violence against women. And I wanted to do that with all the women who keep insisting to me that we are all in this together and we have common problems that we have to work against and we’re all sisters, and there is such thing as a commonality of experience between us all—as I said in my original post—I thought feminism was important because it brought women together (I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.)
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I realize now that “feminism” and I stand in direct opposition to each other—that the feminists who aren’t actively working against me and my community are, like Seymour Hersch, few and far between.
This has caused a radical shifting in my thinking. A shifting that I have no desire to work through online—but that I need to think through before I can act. I am not giving up. I am just thinking. And resting. And reading my beloved books and soaking my tired dogs.
Cuz giiirls, my dogs are TIRED.
As I said in my last post—I will find you, and you will find me.
Wow. I sympathise. I really, really do. I’ve said as much in my comments at Hugo’s, and I think the points I’ve been trying to make — against `both’ `sides’ — are the points BFP wants to make.
But. This:
“Feminists,” on the other hand, are not movement building, they are actively destroying women and blaming those women for the destruction.
and this:
I think that erasing an entire community through words is violence
are contradictory.
I followed the threads on Hugo’s blog pretty closely (as closely as I could during the last, very busy, ten days), and the impression I got was that the majority supported BFP, thought Hugo had misunderstood the situation, and that Amanda should, at the very least, acknowledge the work BFP and others had done on immigration before her RH Reality Check piece, even if she didn’t, strictly speaking, plagiarise from any of those other writers. Feministing and Holly at Feministe both issued posts that were supportive of BFP and resolved to do a better job engaging with RWOC bloggers. Holly even argued directly with Amanda in the thread below the linked post.
BFP is right — mainstream feminism has a problem ignoring the work of RWOC. But in claiming feminism is actively destroying and radically opposes that work — based, evidently, on picking and choosing comments in a single thread — she is ignoring an enormous amount of feminist support for her and her criticisms.
I’m not saying RWOC should throw white feminists a parade just for recognising that there’s a problem. And I’m not saying that feminism has miraculously been purged of all its flaws in this single incident. But don’t dismiss the movement and claim it’s ignored and misunderstood you when it agreed with and supported you.
But in claiming feminism is actively destroying and radically opposes that work — based, evidently, on picking and choosing comments in a single thread — she is ignoring an enormous amount of feminist support for her and her criticisms
take a look at the rest of the post–this is not about just one incident or even only online incidences. Hugo’s post/comments only *clarified* what I had been looking at for a long time. It wasn’t the first or the last “problem”–it was the beautiful molded half eaten cherry sitting on top of a melted dirt filled sundae.
I’m happy to grant that the problem is serious and much bigger than what a handful of people said on a blog. Or even what a bunch of people said on a bunch of blogs. (I argued as much on that very thread.) And I don’t want to argue sources and evidence. This isn’t a scholarly dispute.
I included that dashed clause in the sentence you quoted to stress the fact that not all feminists are dismissing you and the criticisms of feminism that you’re making. The impression I’ve gotten is exactly the opposite — that a vast majority of participants agreed with you, supported you, and resolved to work on doing better. Maybe this is inaccurate, or maybe it’s significant that several of the most prominent participants did shove their fingers in their ears and desperately try to change the subject. But still, there was an enormous amount of support and sympathy coming from feminists, as feminists. Dismissing feminism, as a whole, as thoroughly corrupt and hypocritical required actively ignoring all of us who agree with you.
I can understand needing to get out of an environment where you’re at the centre of one hell of an ugly dispute. I wish you peace and health, I really do. But `feminism is incompatible with justice for women of colour!’ is, I think, just as disingenuous and ugly a charge as `BFP is lazy and jealous!’ And I have to come down, hard, against them both.
Nuomena, my own personal take on that line you quoted above is that real/idealogical feminists are to “feminists” as genuine nice guys are to Nice Guys (TM)
Welcome, BFP, it’s so good to hear something from you in all this storminess. Your criticisms were so far afield from selfish/lazy/jealous – and it’s good to have you point that out.
I just want to add, that while a certain big time blogger may not every learn anything from these incidents, I certainly learned a lot from the FFF and book cover dust-ups, and I think there are a lot of white feminists and “feminists” out there learning a lot from you and learning a lot from watching how the white feminist community reacts to these incidents over and over again.