look it's not a gchat transcript.
so. this is a post made partly from a chat i had with someone the other night. i was sad and dispirited! it is my usual mode, lately. in any case, it doesn't actually take a whole lot of poking to get me to go all "yeah yeah wait let's not focus on the personal thoughts or emotions or whatever, let me find my FLAMING SWORD OF JUSTICE" (nb i really only use my flaming sword of justice to soapbox a bit. possibly it is in actuality my FLAMING SOAPBOX OF JUSTICE. anyway. also i tend to only use it in small groups, and not generally as weaponry. though it's actually got some specific opinions this time, rather than just vague rallying. whatevs.)
anyway. the next day she (the person i was chatting with) emailed me the cleaned up text of our chat, specifically the swordy bits, under the subject line: "You are going to post this". which is why it includes proper capitalization (fyi). also why it is more hortatory and less structured.
so. a tiny preface. i have been otw staff for four years. i was a chair in my second term, a board member in my third term, board president in this, my fourth term. i love the otw, desperately. but i'm out. i let the board know in september that i am resigning my seat as of the end of the term; i am also leaving all other roles, entirely. that's...well. it makes me more than a little heartsick. this, in many ways, is the best job i have ever had. i've worked with an amazing, breathtaking assembly of people, across roles - volunteers, enthused supporters, staff, board members. it's been a tremendous honor. i spent much of the year telling myself that i could not walk away honorably because i had asked people to donate both money and time, and i asked them for those things on the strength of my belief in the org, and my belief that it was for them, for all of us -- and that i have a responsibility to them to make sure that the org they believe in is reality, or becomes reality. but then i had a bit of a revelation. there was a conflict, and i realized two things: (1) i cannot effect that change, that transformation. i am too conflict averse, too unwilling to assert, and at this point, everything i put forward, no matter what, is unacceptable not on its own merits or lack thereof, but because it comes from me. (i tested this recently! oh the lols when i saw that a different voice meant that a suggestion was laudable rather than evil. well. my internal, depressed lols.) (2) i am just going to further destroy my health, my career, and my personal life if i stay, to no end. i'll throw myself on your damn grenade any day of the week; but not if it is entirely in vain.
the otw, staff, volunteers, and board, is crammed with wonderful, amazing, inspiring people. you probably wouldn't recognize their names. i've been in arguments with some, some have made me cry, some have made me roll my eyes. they're almost entirely people i would happily do anything for. i've mentored a whole bunch of them, which has been -- well. that alone was worth the price of admission. i will always be grateful for that.
and. i am working on a post specifically about the election, and who i think will be amazing on the board, and why. i hope to have the spoons. people already on the board who are amazing? kristen murphy and ira gladkova. people leaving who have been amazing? hele braunstein and sheila lane. thank you. thank you for our disagreements and long talks and for your passion. (i also was going to make a post about non-board amazingness, but that will need to wait. this is wordy enough.)
and finally: my philosophy (some of it): (1) ymmv, more voices more better, there is no such thing as one true pov, and you cannot generalize the specific onto the other specific; (2) you cannot have responsibility without authority *or* authority without responsibility, both are toxic.
I want us to build a better world, one that has space for us and recognizes our worth, and I think the OTW is part of that. I think it's a means to that end, one of many, hopefully, but that's part of what upsets me when I hear Francesca Coppa & Naomi Novik say it's only about the archive. It should be about all of us (equally) having a voice in our own culture, not being erased, not being belittled, knowing that we have value, and knowing that we have a heritage. That's why I joined. The archive is one of many pieces of evidence for that larger fight; it's a platform for legal battles, preserving our work while we stand to defend our own thoughts and their validity.
Francesca Coppa and Naomi Novik talk a bit against top-down culture, but then they turn around and defend it, pander to it, because they, they specifically, have spots to preserve. But I want all of us to have equal voice in legal fights, testimony, whatever. Sure, we need the big names to be there, but that isn't all of it. You need the little voices, too. We need to show that it isn't one woman or five friends, but thousands worldwide, maybe more, and we engage, we think, we create. That's the insides of our brains. That's what we do while working third shift or doing data entry or driving our commutes or talking with friends or reading a magazine. We are in conversation with the world. We are NOT passive in that: CONversation, WITH -- and advertising, arts, events, books, movies, TV, comics, all of it, we interact with it. We aren't just consuming. We are never passive. We're thinking, musing, exploring, joking, discussing, wanting, mocking, hating, and loving. All these are 1:1 acts, not top down. It shouldn't be about maintaining the visibility of a few individuals and having an archive. We're not passive, and trying to build an org to communicate that 1:1 experience on top-down principles is doomed -- not as an organization per se, but in carrying out the mission as currently stated.
I'm not letting Walt Disney tell me what to think; why would I let anyone else? If the org, as individuals and as a group, can step forward to talk as an equal, to ask, and to find common ways we can work together to achieve a common aim, then yes, this is our answer. That is the power and potential of the OTW. But I cannot deal any longer with an org that echoes the very thing we are fighting.
originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/672594.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see:
anyway. the next day she (the person i was chatting with) emailed me the cleaned up text of our chat, specifically the swordy bits, under the subject line: "You are going to post this". which is why it includes proper capitalization (fyi). also why it is more hortatory and less structured.
so. a tiny preface. i have been otw staff for four years. i was a chair in my second term, a board member in my third term, board president in this, my fourth term. i love the otw, desperately. but i'm out. i let the board know in september that i am resigning my seat as of the end of the term; i am also leaving all other roles, entirely. that's...well. it makes me more than a little heartsick. this, in many ways, is the best job i have ever had. i've worked with an amazing, breathtaking assembly of people, across roles - volunteers, enthused supporters, staff, board members. it's been a tremendous honor. i spent much of the year telling myself that i could not walk away honorably because i had asked people to donate both money and time, and i asked them for those things on the strength of my belief in the org, and my belief that it was for them, for all of us -- and that i have a responsibility to them to make sure that the org they believe in is reality, or becomes reality. but then i had a bit of a revelation. there was a conflict, and i realized two things: (1) i cannot effect that change, that transformation. i am too conflict averse, too unwilling to assert, and at this point, everything i put forward, no matter what, is unacceptable not on its own merits or lack thereof, but because it comes from me. (i tested this recently! oh the lols when i saw that a different voice meant that a suggestion was laudable rather than evil. well. my internal, depressed lols.) (2) i am just going to further destroy my health, my career, and my personal life if i stay, to no end. i'll throw myself on your damn grenade any day of the week; but not if it is entirely in vain.
the otw, staff, volunteers, and board, is crammed with wonderful, amazing, inspiring people. you probably wouldn't recognize their names. i've been in arguments with some, some have made me cry, some have made me roll my eyes. they're almost entirely people i would happily do anything for. i've mentored a whole bunch of them, which has been -- well. that alone was worth the price of admission. i will always be grateful for that.
and. i am working on a post specifically about the election, and who i think will be amazing on the board, and why. i hope to have the spoons. people already on the board who are amazing? kristen murphy and ira gladkova. people leaving who have been amazing? hele braunstein and sheila lane. thank you. thank you for our disagreements and long talks and for your passion. (i also was going to make a post about non-board amazingness, but that will need to wait. this is wordy enough.)
and finally: my philosophy (some of it): (1) ymmv, more voices more better, there is no such thing as one true pov, and you cannot generalize the specific onto the other specific; (2) you cannot have responsibility without authority *or* authority without responsibility, both are toxic.
I want us to build a better world, one that has space for us and recognizes our worth, and I think the OTW is part of that. I think it's a means to that end, one of many, hopefully, but that's part of what upsets me when I hear Francesca Coppa & Naomi Novik say it's only about the archive. It should be about all of us (equally) having a voice in our own culture, not being erased, not being belittled, knowing that we have value, and knowing that we have a heritage. That's why I joined. The archive is one of many pieces of evidence for that larger fight; it's a platform for legal battles, preserving our work while we stand to defend our own thoughts and their validity.
Francesca Coppa and Naomi Novik talk a bit against top-down culture, but then they turn around and defend it, pander to it, because they, they specifically, have spots to preserve. But I want all of us to have equal voice in legal fights, testimony, whatever. Sure, we need the big names to be there, but that isn't all of it. You need the little voices, too. We need to show that it isn't one woman or five friends, but thousands worldwide, maybe more, and we engage, we think, we create. That's the insides of our brains. That's what we do while working third shift or doing data entry or driving our commutes or talking with friends or reading a magazine. We are in conversation with the world. We are NOT passive in that: CONversation, WITH -- and advertising, arts, events, books, movies, TV, comics, all of it, we interact with it. We aren't just consuming. We are never passive. We're thinking, musing, exploring, joking, discussing, wanting, mocking, hating, and loving. All these are 1:1 acts, not top down. It shouldn't be about maintaining the visibility of a few individuals and having an archive. We're not passive, and trying to build an org to communicate that 1:1 experience on top-down principles is doomed -- not as an organization per se, but in carrying out the mission as currently stated.
I'm not letting Walt Disney tell me what to think; why would I let anyone else? If the org, as individuals and as a group, can step forward to talk as an equal, to ask, and to find common ways we can work together to achieve a common aim, then yes, this is our answer. That is the power and potential of the OTW. But I cannot deal any longer with an org that echoes the very thing we are fighting.
originally posted at http://general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/672594.html. possibly there is commentversation there? let's see: