(no subject)
we dont need another anti-racism 101: very thought-provoking blog entry at guerrilla mama medicine. I thought of the white folks I've encountered online who use anti-racist rhetoric to bolster their self-esteem, by attacking others or seeking approval (not to mention the appropriation of progressive language generally to make fannish outrage look less self-serving!).
Now... for a long time, for several reasons, I've seldom read anti-racist blogs and forums. One reason is that I had confused conflict with bullying. Honest anger and frustration are only to be expected in such difficult, painful discussions. They're scary as hell, of course, but I can deal with that. The problem is that I'd confused those genuine responses with the dishonest responses: malicious gossip, dogpiling, exclusion, all the ugly weapons of the playground disguised as "anti-racism" while actually being used to maintain in-groups.
That confusion is one of the reasons I set up this blog in the first place. I wanted a "safe space": not one where I could avoid being accused of racism - an accusation which has no power to frighten me because, alas, it's only true - but because I needed somewhere I could think through the issues without being bullied. (At least directly - there's not much you can do about malicious gossip!)
Don't confuse this with white liberal timidity. I have that, too, obviously; but you don't get psychiatric referrals and prescriptions for it. I was bullied throughout high school - excluded, gossiped about, constantly harassed - with predictable results: depression, social phobia. In the long term "marthagate" has done me the favour of forcing me to distinguish between the honest and the dishonest, freeing me from the worst of the terror.
Now that I can tell the difference between the genuine and disingenuous responses, the voices and statements I need to listen to and the ones I should ignore, I feel less timid about visiting blogs and forums and maybe even actually talking to people. But I suspect my main source of information, and content for this blog, will still be books (and magazines and documentaries). Partly that's because hard issues really need the time-consuming, slow thinking and writing of the published word - the net tends to be quick and shallow and that works against real communication. But also, if I can inject some of what I discover into the Internet, that may be more useful than just posting a bunch of links.
Which said, here's a link: Restructure!. There's so much meaty stuff at that blog that I'm not going to point to individual entries - rather, page through it and see what you find. :)
Now... for a long time, for several reasons, I've seldom read anti-racist blogs and forums. One reason is that I had confused conflict with bullying. Honest anger and frustration are only to be expected in such difficult, painful discussions. They're scary as hell, of course, but I can deal with that. The problem is that I'd confused those genuine responses with the dishonest responses: malicious gossip, dogpiling, exclusion, all the ugly weapons of the playground disguised as "anti-racism" while actually being used to maintain in-groups.
That confusion is one of the reasons I set up this blog in the first place. I wanted a "safe space": not one where I could avoid being accused of racism - an accusation which has no power to frighten me because, alas, it's only true - but because I needed somewhere I could think through the issues without being bullied. (At least directly - there's not much you can do about malicious gossip!)
Don't confuse this with white liberal timidity. I have that, too, obviously; but you don't get psychiatric referrals and prescriptions for it. I was bullied throughout high school - excluded, gossiped about, constantly harassed - with predictable results: depression, social phobia. In the long term "marthagate" has done me the favour of forcing me to distinguish between the honest and the dishonest, freeing me from the worst of the terror.
Now that I can tell the difference between the genuine and disingenuous responses, the voices and statements I need to listen to and the ones I should ignore, I feel less timid about visiting blogs and forums and maybe even actually talking to people. But I suspect my main source of information, and content for this blog, will still be books (and magazines and documentaries). Partly that's because hard issues really need the time-consuming, slow thinking and writing of the published word - the net tends to be quick and shallow and that works against real communication. But also, if I can inject some of what I discover into the Internet, that may be more useful than just posting a bunch of links.
Which said, here's a link: Restructure!. There's so much meaty stuff at that blog that I'm not going to point to individual entries - rather, page through it and see what you find. :)