Seal and Amanda have revealed their latent racism again. Okay, sorry, I’m being totally sarcastic. Yes, the images in Amanda Marcotte’s book were racist (and sexist) and it was a mistake to use them. Everyone’s apologized, the images are gone from future editions, all should be well, but it somehow isn’t. Of course it isn’t.
Amanda and Seal haven’t examined their “white privilege” quite enough to satisfy. They probably never will. Are they racist? I seriously doubt it. At worst, they’re clumsy. But to all intents and purposes, right now they’re being perceived and treated as the worst racist fucks to ever walk the earth. Being white makes you incapable of being anything but racist, apparently. (Except for all the white women who are taking down Amanda and Seal; I notice most of the non-whites have packed up and left in disgust.)
I find the whole thing strange and overblown and well… kinda ridiculous and beside the point. AM and Seal are not destroying the country and shredding the constitution. It’s funny they should get so much shit for this.
Anyway. My unsolicited advice to Seal? Take down your blog. Nobody’s reading it except to find elements of racism embedded deep in your white subconscious minds. And I didn’t think this before, but I really believe any more “engagement” will continue to harm you. You can’t do anything right. You’ve already lost. The people who were/are angry are not in a forgiving mood. Stop digging.
Which is not to say that pulling the imagery wasn’t a good idea. Anything else? Protestations of innocence? Commitment to be less of a racist? No point. You’ve got white privilege and we’re damned if we’re going to let you get away with it.
Gosh, it must really suck to be white.
Edited to add: Is this guy for real? If I hadn’t seen him at WAM with my own two eyes, I would imagine his blog to be one riotous fucking parody. The fact that he is, in fact, real and instead of offing himself for being such a miserable masochistic idiot, he publicly self-flagellates and keeps ejaculating all over the feminist blogosphere, is downright creepy. I’m officially creeped out. But hey, what’s one more freak in the online feminism circus?
I’m going to go back to bashing Muslims. Feminists are too full of it to merit any more of my attention.
Filed under: Books/Music/Art
Gosh, it must really suck to be white.
Yeah, it’s pretty rough being white, what with having to occasionally deal with angry posts from a small group of not-that-widely-read bloggers.
Stentor, don’t know how you wandered over here, but I’ll say this: The whole white privilege thing is bullshit for more than a few reasons.
At best, it’s a red herring. A lot of the time, it’s false to fact — there isn’t automatically privilege where there’s white skin, or vice versa.
Also, your point regarding “not that widely read bloggers” is also bullshit. Many of the bloggers involved are widely read and all of them have brought the discussion home to the “big bloggers” thus getting as much exposure as anyone could want to publicize their views.
This is not happening in one corner of the feminist blogosphere. It’s poisoned the whole well to the point where I, for the first time and after fierce defenses of feminism, hate to use the word for myself almost as much as calling myself a liberal.
And yeah, the sentence you quoted? It’s called irony, a word we can’t use any more. It was pointing to the inherent ridiculousness of the whole white guilt phenomenon.
Don’t come back. You aren’t welcome.
Your trackback at Hugo’s.
Overwrought insanity everywhere stemming from white guilt.
Yeah, that guy actually exists. I took a history class from him at Pasadena City College. He’s actually a pretty good teacher, if you ignore his politics. But that post was a little… um… frightening. He’s racist because he hasn’t examined his whiteness? Who gives a fuck?
The “not-that-widely-read” bloggers are for the most part just that. Their own blogs run the gamut between obnoxious and pedantic and for the most part, except for their own little group of sycophants, go unread. And for good reason. Their writings suck. And 20 posts of “you go girl” or hearing for the umpteenth time that your going to soak your feet, and it’s white feminists fault that nobody hears them ( translated: nobody reads their blogs or wants to publish their work) gets pretty boring after a while.
But, you are right: they are prolific posters. You can’t swing a dead cat in the feminist blogosphere without hitting one of them. There’s a group of about 10 or so that are hitting every feminist blog they can find, using those amazing mind reading skilz to determine all us white folks are without exception. privileged racist assholes. They find racism in *everything* and of course, if you question that premise, you are, you guessed it, a racist asshat whose privilege blinds you to the (real) truth. Pretzel logic at its finest.
Last month is was how Women’s Studies didn’t focus enough on racism. Last week it was stealing, plagerism and appropriation (depending on who you ask). Right now it’s Seal Press and Amanda Marcotte’s book illustrations. Next week, it will be something else equally lame to get fired up about. Which of course, drums up both attention to their own personal activism ( at the expense of Feminism) and generates blog hits. \
And to think. MRA’s and others wingnuts have been trying to tear down Feminists and their blogs for years. All it really took was a handful of WOC’s and a few of their white hand wringing allies. It’s unfortunate for WOC’s, but not everything for everybody revolves around racism.
On a selfish note, this whole controversy has personally benefited me — I found your blog because of it!
Auntie M, some of them ARE actually widely-read, which is great — good for them. But there seems to be a dissatisfaction with that if there are also widely read white feminist bloggers who blog about reproductive rights and other such feminist shit.
As for racism… it’s taking over feminism, to the extent that criticizing Islam now might offend brown patriarchs, so white feminists can’t go there. It’s absurd.
And while there is legitimate historical injustice, these white bloggers who are currently hand-wringing are not racists. The whole thing is absurd, not at its basic criticism — the comic images were racist and they’ve been removed for that reason — but at the level of sheer drama.
Even as a white person, those images made me squirm. She gave a gracious apology, which she should have. But seeing her equated with the likes of men who crack rape jokes is just horrifying, and there are people out there who will not be happy until she is nothing short of crucified. This is the part of feminism I struggle with: the infighting. While we are all tearing each other down, the patriarchy just keeps rolling right along. Aren’t there bigger fish to fry than a feminist author who made an honest mistake and apologized for it? No, it should not have been overlooked, and no, being a feminist author does not give her a free ride to turn a blind eye to racism. It has been pointed out though, and she has apologized. She did not try to defend herself, or give a non-apology.
What I want to know is what is expected of me if being white makes me a racist by proxy, honestly. Am I supposed to vanish from the face of the earth, leaving the real self-entitled bigots to continue the oppression? I want to help, and I want to listen. I don’t think the images were acceptable on any level, but the author’s apology is met with nothing but vitriol and accusation of self-serving insincerity.
Do all people of color that I interact with think I am doing so only to patronize them and receive self-satisfaction from not being a racist? Do they think that I’m doing it for a reason other than that they are people, with voices and ideas that I deeply respect and can learn from? Honestly, I’m curious.
Maybe if we turned this sort of anger towards unapologetic, male-dominated, female-hating society, we could get somewhere.
Have you seen Twisty’s ongoing parody of herself in her comments section? She calls me pompous for trying to be civil to Lara — but the second I give Lara what she gave us, she deletes my comments. To be fair, in my fury I forgot to put “white” in scare quotes. I’m Indian, but WoC who disagree with me always call me “white” — and, somehow, that label makes everyone ignore the zillions of references I’ve made to my culture.
From hereon out, you’re going to be the only one on my blogroll.
Here is the link to the comments Twisty deleted.
Anonymous Lawyer, I stormed out of Twisty’s thread and didn’t go back because I didn’t want my head to explode. I’m not entirely surprised she deleted your comments, but I AM disappointed. It’s easy to bemoan one’s white privilege, but Twisty’s real privilege is her wealth/class, something I haven’t seen her talk about (because you know, she might actually be able to do something about that, whereas her whiteness she can’t help).
I was also more or less called white when I defended Planned Parenthood against accusations of racism. Apparently, if you disagree with a group of multi-hued people and you happen to be brown and not feeling particularly oppressed by white liberals — you’re white. And fuck your point of view.
Thanks for the comments. Sorry you got deleted — that REALLY sucks.
AL… removing Twisty from my blogroll now — her patriarchy blaming rings hollow now, sadly — but don’t know what your blog is.
Ingen, don’t worry — the feminist blogosphere is divorced from reality in a lot of ways. The in-fighting is ridiculous and has nothing to do with how most people in the world feel and think.
It’s okay to be one of the good guys without endlessly beating yourself up over your relative good luck when compared to most people in the world.
I don’t have a blog. I work for a prominent non-profit organization, and I don’t want my private opinions used by opposing counsel to harm my clients’ chances in court.
AL, fair enough. You mentioned a blogroll, so I wondered. I guess you meant your blog-reading list.
As for racism… it’s taking over feminism, to the extent that criticizing Islam now might offend brown patriarchs, so white feminists can’t go there. It’s absurd.
If I were a white feminist, I would have done the right thing two years ago instead of feeling guilty and apologizing but I’m also uncomfortable with the mob mentality and lack of nuance you mentionned earlier. The Combahee River Collective Statement:
In the practice of our politics we do not believe that the end always justifies the means. Many reactionary and destructive acts have been done in the name of achieving “correct” political goals. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics.
Donna, two years ago? What wasn’t done two years ago?
It’s come to a head this week and it appears they’re finally doing something. These incidents built up over two years and all we heard was apologies. No action was taken.
I’m also suspicious that because similar critiques aren’t made of the white male progressive movement and communities of color. It’s directed at whtie feminists but the base is misogyny.
We’ve heard this before: Feminism is racist, anti-racism is sexist, but some of us are brave.
Ah. I haven’t been following all this for long — this is the first time I’ve seen it.
You’re right, people ought to be attacking Daily Kos with this much anger.
Feminists are relatively easy to target (and I may be wrong, but I also don’t see feminists in their twenties as part of the problem).
Apostate — why do you feel the 20-something feminists are less likely to be part of the problem?
They aren’t racists? That was what I meant.
Hugo Schwyzer is a Christian, a liberal, progressive Christian, but still a Christian. So he’s got the “wretched-man-that-I-am” masochism going on. Repentance for one’s “sins” and atonements of various kinds are the one-size-fits-all solution for Christians, and my observation is, that’s where Hugo tends to go whenever he feels guilty about something for some reason. I feel sorry for his wife, in the same way I feel sorry for all the wives of devout men like this. Whenever there’s a fight, the guy immediately gets into repent mode and makes everything all about his own wretchedness, and then the woman has to take care of him and console him and in a certain kind of marriage, they have to pray together. Very sick, this stuff. Just stop being an asshole, the sackcloth and ashes are optional, jeezus.
Heart, that’s a really terrific analysis of Hugo. I believe you’re right.
Also, when he used to be anti-choice, his whole schtick was about his girlfriend of 20 years ago getting an abortion and he would creepily calculate how old the child would be if he/she hadn’t been aborted.
So women’s inability to control their bodies = all about his pain from his girlfriend’s decision to abort.
I’m not so down with the meme that second-wave feminists are racists, is what I meant.
Octo, I don’t believe that either — but second-wavers weren’t being attacked, so I didn’t think of them in this context.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear!
No worries. But I’ve decided to pull my blog. Clearly feminism is ageist. I can no longer be part of that as a forty-year-old. The folks criticizing Steinem and Morgan as relics, et tu Brutus. The folks getting book contracts are not just white but also 20-something. Why isn’t Seal doing nursing home outreach? Hanging out at botox clinics, perhaps? Not edgy enough? Humph. I’m going to focus on anti-ageist work because that’s where I really feel included.
Octo, that’s hilarious. But don’t pull your blog. At least so long as you manage to have a forehead that is less lined than this 25 year old’s!
Apostate,
Thank GOD somebody is saying this.
I have been scouring the feminist blogosphere threads on the latest dust-ups looking for a voice of reason, and not finding one until now. Thank YOU!
I am white and I do buy into the notion that sometimes I am oblivious to issues that are of great concern to people of color because these issues do not affect me. I guess you can call that privilege. I also buy into the notion that we all have an obligation to try to see things from the point of view of others differently situated. I guess you can call that an obligation to overcome one’s privilege. But I’m damned before I will wear sackcloth and ashes, and run wringing my hands and falling over myself to placate an unforgiving mob of woc bloggers.
Er, and just to be extra careful, my last comment was not meant to say that I am offended by the unforgiving mob of woc bloggers because they are woc. I am offended by them because they are acting like an unforgiving mob. Also my statement should have read “unforgiving mob of woc bloggers and their ostentatious white allies.” As you pointed out, it is the white allies who are really bringing on the dramatics on this.
I agree that Amanda and Seal Press should have apologized and agreed to remove the offending pictures from future editions. They did just that. Presumably they have learned to be more sensitive in future. Case closed.
Oh, shit, Hugo Schwyzer?! I think I had to read an article by that complete fucktard in grad school about how he was a rapist by sheer dint of having a penis. I got in so much trouble during that day of class; I think I actually used the words “this self-hating douchebag is full of shit.”
I remember in grad school getting hit with a lot of the white privilege theory stuff. And there’s a point to be had — not a lot of people actively appreciate the institutional barriers people of color face. But fuck, isn’t really all that one can honestly ask for is that someone try to be sensitive to nuance and work to understand when someone gets offended? I’m sure I say offensive stuff all the time; if I’m called on it, I apologize for offending and work to understand why it was offensive so I won’t do it again. But, shit, how can someone who hasn’t grown up in that situation do more than try to empathize when it’s pointed out? I don’t have time to self-flagellate.
And I’m still pissed off for being called a racist for supporting vocational education in high schools. Fuck you, whatever your name was.
Thanks for your blog and your comments, which were some of the more sane ones I read during this whole controversy. I am sick to death of reading white person after white person trying to outdo each other as more anti-racist, more ally-to-WOC than the next – when proving so appears to be based more on piling on one person and shaming them for something no one can even name anymore because it’s become so blown out of proportion.
There is no room for disagreement or discussion or growth in a witch hunt. There is no room for actually discussing and working on racism in the feminist movement, when the real issue is drowned out by hateful, destructive vendettas and a chorus of hand-wringing enablers.
And the loudest most bullying voices seemed to be from white women!. Nevermind that in ignoring the voices of women of color who disagree with them, they are ignoring the voices of women of color who disagree with them!
Bullying is not “working on the issues” and public self-flagellation serves only the person doing it and those who can now feel superior in having publicly enforced submission.
Wow, wow, wow. I know this is old but believe it or not these issues are still coming up and yours is the first sane link I have seen on the whole feminist blog war this year. I keep poking around your blog and I see more sanity everywhere I go. Where has your voice been on these issues? It is so very necessary and I can’t seem to find much of you out in the mainstream blogs. it is a shame that voices like yours are drowned out by voices that are ironically incredibly racist and sexist. Thanks for writing and I hope you never stop agitating.