This one's for my sisters in the struggle online.
I was going to share some happy news with y'all today. My sister is a mentor and the young woman she has been mentoring for four years...through some good times and a lot of bad times...will graduate from high school this May.
Words cannot express how proud we are of her and how exciting it is to see how proud she is of herself...it is one of the most amazing emotional highs I have ever felt.
And I planned to share some of it here but I just read an email and I've decided to write about something else entirely...about who I am, why I blog and control.
Shall we?
I am an activist who blogs.
I spend most of my time offline (gasp) working in my community as part of the reproductive justice movement. I blog...on my personal blog AngryBlackBitch.com, here and several other places too...because I believe that part of nurturing the movement is sharing it, part of my work is to encourage others to join in and because I know that the forces gathered to deny justice online must be challenged online.
In the four years I've blogged, I have taken incoming from multiple fronts. Oh, there have been the predictable knavish racists trolls who fail to see how they prove my arguments through their comments. There have been the homophobes, the shit disturbers and the deniers of any and all oppression. I've been accused of not being black enough, too black or a white man pretending to be a black woman...of being too liberal, not liberal enough and a conservative fronting as a liberal...of being dangerous to feminism, an embarrassment to womanism and of being a man pretending to be a feminist woman ...and so on and so forth.
I've watched some amazing bloggers go offline or take their blogs private and I've considered it. Oh, Gawd yes...I've thought about it a lot. But I always come back to why I went online in the first place and then I remember that there are as many people trying to control others offline as there are online. The anonymity of the online world adds a different angle to it, but it is still about control.
And I will not be controlled, silenced or shouted down. I'm part of this chorus and if it sometimes seems that I'm off-key...well, maybe I am.
Or mayhap the chorus is.
The thing is, I have also benefited greatly from constructive critique. I look back at my earlier posts and I can see an evolution of thought...a growth of understanding that has come from debate, discussion and disagreement.
But there is a difference between disagreeing with me and challenging my identity.
There is a difference between critique and seeking to shut my ass up because I'm not saying it the way you would, singing it the way you want to hear it sung or approaching a subject from the angle you want it to be approached from.
That's where control comes in...and it has become increasingly difficult to see the difference between a denier of any and all oppression and a denier of my right to speak an opinion that may differ from yours. I circle back to a hunger some have to control the discussion...my voice...my appearance...my opinions...my bitchitude...my blackness...my womanhood...me.
And that takes me back to who I am...why I blog...and control.
I am an activist who blogs.
I am unbought...unbossed...and beyond the control of others.
And I believe that part of nurturing the movement is sharing it, part of my work is to encourage others to join in and because I know that the forces gathered to deny justice online must be challenged online.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Notes from a bitch...untitled....
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/13179
SING IT, sista.
I loved this. It's a huge upright middle finger to those who think that opinions are invalid if they come from someone with whom they disagree, rather than using your words and perspective to reconsider their own ideas and experiences from a different angle.
Congratulations to the soon-to-be graduate! That's a huge deal.
Thanks for the congrats! We're thrilled for her. I'll share more of her amazing story next week!
"But there is a difference between disagreeing with me and challenging my identity.
There is a difference between critique and seeking to shut my ass up because I'm not saying it the way you would, singing it the way you want to hear it sung or approaching a subject from the angle you want it to be approached from"
I've followed your posts here for awhile and (moreso) on AngryBlackBitch for about a year now, and I have learned so much from your words. Most notably,you've modeled how I would like to articulate clearly and concisely the grey area of issues, while still being able to get the point across.
Wow, you have no IDEA how awesome it was for me to read this! I just got this terrile email from my grandma tsk, tsking me for sharing a Friday Feminist Fuck You post on my facebook account because of the "bad language" and how I need to act "more like a lady" because I am "upsetting people" with these words....
This part:
But there is a difference between disagreeing with me and challenging my identity.
There is a difference between critique and seeking to shut my ass up because I'm not saying it the way you would, singing it the way you want to hear it sung or approaching a subject from the angle you want it to be approached from.
Definitely hit home for me and you have given me encouragement to respond to my grandma, letting her know that my words and thoughts matter regardless of how I say it.
Thank you!!!!
Good luck to you and stay strong!
Amen! Thanks so much for writing this pardner.
Well said-- So much of the crap that gets smeared online goes entirely unrebutted, which almost feels like collective tacit approval.
I was appalled yesterday to read a column by Kevin McCullough (parsed w/ commentary here on my blog from pseudo-mainstream conservative site Townhall.com that took the occasion of the "tea party" movement to make some horrifyingly misogynistic and homophobic comments about anyone who publicly disagrees with their message.
I'm rarely shocked, but it shocked me.
i find the word Bi%ch as offensive as Ni$$er. can you get with it and understand that using this word perhaps gets u the attention u crave, but only hurts other women.
Bi%ch, it's not for Breakfast any more!
*applause*
This post was awesome.
Jill, the texture and tone of your comment is a perfect example of what I posted about.
I don't have to do anything but stay black and die...the rest is negotiable.
Now, if you'd like to discuss why I use the word bitch and why I do not use the n word I'm more than happy to do so in another post.
And hey, we might not agree after that debate-based discussion...but then again, I don't need your agreement to be comfortable with my choice of language anymore than you should need my linguistic obedience to be comfortable with yours.
Blessed be.
"I don't need your agreement to be comfortable with my choice of language anymore than you should need my linguistic obedience to be comfortable with yours."
This is a really empowering concept. As strong, grown up women we have the right to make our own choices after informed reasoning.
It is important to hear one another out but in the end, trying to control how someone speaks displays lack of trust in their rights as a person.
The reason I have been drawn to feminism is because I have been told for TOO LONG how to think, act, and speak. I don't have time for that in the feminist community, it's my refuge.
To borrow from Shark-Fu...
All I have to do is be myself and die...the rest is negotiable.
This comment has been deleted.
If you don't want to hear how someone would respond to your argument, how do you expect them to get your argument clear?
I do philosophy for a living and one of the first things you learn about making a reason-based argument for a given position is that you need to know what the opposition says, and develop a response to it. Otherwise, you're not offering fully-developed reasons; you're just yelling and wanting people to blindly agree with you without thinking it through on their own.
If you think that your position is the correct one to hold, then you SHOULD want to hear the reasons people give for using the word "bitch" and "nigger", so that you can SHOW them why their reasons are incorrect.
If you don't think you can sway a person in this way, then you either take it that you are dealing with someone rationally inferior to you, or your position is not one of "understanding"; it's of dogma.
"you're just yelling and wanting people to blindly agree with you without thinking it through on their own"
I think that is an accurate assessment of jill's comment. :)
You are so inspiring. Keep on keepin' it real!
sharkfu, as per usual you rock my world.
*is also rocked by Shark-Fu*.
This is absolutely the best post on Feministing I've seen in a *long* time, Shark-Fu. Clear, focused, and inspiring to keep fighting the good fight. Thank you, dear one!
it is interesting the Shark Fu writes that she is all about not being silenced and then deletes a comment.
I don't know what Jill B said the 2nd time, but I must say, I found her 1st comment fully appropriate. I too do not like the B word and find its use contemptable.
It seems as though Shark Fu is happy to silence those who disagree with her. What up with that?
What, really? The OP says "There is a difference between critique and seeking to shut my ass up because I'm not saying it the way you would" and it's greeted with "don't use the b-word, I find it offensive", which is exactly what she was bitching about to begin with.
The first time I read jillb's comment I assumed it was a bad attempt at a joke. I mean, hell, that's like writing a post about how frustrating it is to have people write off what you're saying because you're on the rag, and then having someone comment that you're just being oversensitive because you're menstruating.
Maybe it is partly because the 2nd comment said the n-word many times.
Or maybe it was just because the second comment was not so much a useful critique as it was a patronizing reprimand.
Fuck YEAH! This post was *just* what I needed today! *joins in the chorus*