things that have pissed me off today:
1. reading about the blog demise of BrownFemiPower. damn. i came to the whole kerfuffle too late (caught up with it via Post Bourgie as well as some other brown blogs) but it's upsetting to read about. i read BFP on and off and, though she was way more radical than i and it scared me because i'm a timid bougie brown girl who likes things a little too comfortable, her work and voice was/is important, rigorous and fierce.
i call myself a feminist, and have done so for a very long time, but the whole thing (which is part of a larger history of the rigorous work academics/activists of color being completely glossed over and/or appropriated) just makes me wonder why i even fucking care to call myself one anymore. i mean, events like this just rear up to ride my last brown nerve like a pony. it also demonstrates for me again why impact needs to be considered when something like this happens; whatever some folks' intent was when it all first blew up, the end result is that an important woman of color's voice on the blogosphere is gone.
maybe i'm naive, but i don't think 'sisterhood' is supposed to end up with one of us battered and exhausted from the struggle.
(shrug) i don't know.
maybe sisterhood isn't even the fucking point of 'feminism' anymore.
2. reading the 'post-game' wrap up of last night's PA primary.
3. realizing this never-ending primary season is going to drag on forever and, meanwhile, whatever hope we had for an exciting and civilized election season is choking in the weeds.
4. my social life. yeah, the thrill is gone. dating sucks and i don't care if i never go on another one again.
5. my wallet. it's nearly empty. oh, to sell out and get wads of cash in return. but how can an overly educated woman of color with authority issues sell out? hm. it's a puzzle.
6. that BFP thing is still pissing me off.
6 comments:
how can an overly educated woman of color with authority issues sell out?
Ask Condi Rice?
(snort)
you're bad. condi's just misunderstood! i mean, ok - so she knew about torture but she was just doing her job! and she knew the war was bogus - but hey, everyone else was going along with it!
i should ask her for an informational interview: 'dear condi, how can a bougie girl like you get to be two or three seats away from Power? it's a drag working in non profit...'
i mean, like me.
I'm late to the news about BFP too. That is deeply fucked. On top of everything else, about the situation, it pisses me off that *they* (white, visible public figures like Marcotte) get to define feminism as if they owned it. Fuck that.
i was hoping you'd heard about this and was curious about your thoughts on it.
if you read the link to BFP's 'farewell,' she says something about realizing that she and mainstream feminism were *never* on the same page and that was a really startling statement for me to read. for me, that threw everything into doubt: if this can happen in a so-called feminist community, then what is my feminism based on? what gives my feminism strength? who am i aligned with in this feminism of mine?
you know?
I need to educate myself more on this subject - on the self-identifying/alignment front, though, I've never been real comfortable with the idea of 'sisterhood.' I consider myself a dominance feminist which, the more I think about it, is shorthand in my mind for being broadly Anti-Patriarchy.
And I've seen some things I would describe as using a feminist stick to prop up the patriarchy - as, perhaps, here (and, I would argue, in recent political discourse).
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