The new photo of Harriet Tubman: this is what a GREAT American looks like!

Note her signature at the hem of her dress.

Source:
http://auburnpub.com/news/local/new-photo-of-harriet-tubman-surfaces-biographer-calls-it-remarkable/article_e1b56432-c234-55f1-b1fb-fbc8cf1fd5b9.html

On Attraction, Sexual Interest, and White Het Male Supremacy

the image above is from here

I chose the chart above to open this post not because it is one that reflects my beliefs, but because I think it does represent some dominant views about how relationships form and progress.

As I noted at the beginning of my last post, I recently submitted two comments to a white transgender feminist's blog. She didn't publish them but did explain that she wouldn't be posting them.

I'd like for the topics to be addressed to allow any of my readers to comment here on these issues. I think each issue is relevant to building respectful, radical, revolutionary community. So I've posted links to her blog's two posts (with my revised comments) here and in my last post, also published today at A.R.P. I've revised my comment quite a bit below to elaborate on and clarify points I'm trying to make.

Thank you to A Radical TransFeminist for promoting and supporting these discussions.

The discussion there, as I understand it, was about challenging our internalised and externalised supremacist attitudes and practices, including the practice of focusing our attention on those atop various hierarchies and leaving out of our vision of attractiveness those lower on various political-social hierarchies.

Related discussions and struggles elsewhere have focused on getting masculinist, pornographic, and predatory values, aesthetics, and practices out of our sexual, romantic, social, and economic lives. This one divided up the white queer community I was part of decades ago. (Masculinism and pornography won out, unfortunately. But with the awareness of the disproportionate number of queer people who are survivors of sexual abuse, particularly in childhood, at least predatory practice has been consistently challenged.) Yet another set of concerns and challenges relates to how lightness of skin, straightness and lightness of hair, and eye shape and color become a measure of attractiveness and value within and without communities of color, including Jewish communities.

Another dimension of this struggle is the one towards decolonial love, something I've heard only a very few white people talk about as an ethical value and political-personal necessity. Novelist Junot Diaz addresses this and intersectionally related matters *here* in a video of a speech he gave last year. This speech generated a very good and deep discussion among many activists and artists I know, which is taking place in email. And, I'll include a link to a critique of his work *here* at the blog QueerBlackFeminist.

On Attraction

http://radtransfem.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/significant-othering-attraction-down-the-privilege-gradient/

Here is a very revised version of my comment.

I’d written something a while back that I’d like to post a link to here as response-piece to what you’ve written above and in your second post on the subject.

Compulsory Sexuality and Asexual Existence

To summarise my reason for linking to it, I experience the perspective above as pro-compulsory sexuality and as pro-sexual, in the liberal sense. I question whether the challenge before many of us, rather than expanding who we find attractive sexually or romantically, is challenging why we find anyone “attractive” in the dominant sense. An argument I read somewhere stated that we ought to see the beauty in everyone. But that sentiment, while admirable on some level, unfortunately puts aside the issue of what ‘beauty’ is in imperialist, racist, colonialist, capitalist, patriarchal societies. I hear a clear demand that we challenge the ways we internalise oppression, writing off classes of people as unattractive.

That makes me uncomfortable. But why?

I get how white singer John Mayer stating that his genital is white supremacist is racist and misogynistic in all kinds of ways. I’m arguing that it wouldn’t be my counsel or charge to him, or wish for him, to find Black or Brown people attractive and to act on that; he’s clearly so bigoted that such interaction flowing from his white and male entitlements to get what he wants would quite likely trigger and oppress anyone of color; it would be my counsel that he interrogate what an attraction to whiteness means and is and see where that leads him.

I live in a dominant culture that requires us to manifest (well, sell and purchase) ‘beauty’ in some form. That requirement comes with the belief and attitude that being not-beautiful is to also be worthless, except perhaps as labor. Implicit in a charge for us to expand the populations of classes of people we find attractive, I see a somewhat anti-asexual charge to be attracted to people in the first place.

I want to support the effort to encourage meaningful, caring, honest, intimate, counter-hegemonic, decolonial mutual relationships among people as a way to build sustainable, healthy, revolutionary community; I just take issue with that being identified as primarily a matter of attraction and sexual interest. I see our struggle as this: to form friendships first–whatever else follows. Friendship, as many feminists and womanists have written over the decades, normally requires and presupposes a kind of equality of interest and needs. Romantic and sexual relating, historically and traditionally, requires and presupposes inequality. This is why sexual relationships are compulsory and institutionalised and friendships, however ubiquitous, are not.

There’s an appeal here in my remarks for people who occupy oppressive positions structurally to stop engaging in the practices that traditionally oppress, and nurture those that traditionally do not, in part because doing something with history and tradition behind it is, I’d say, going to be less exhausting than doing otherwise. Not that ease is a primary value. There's little about challenging and transforming the status quo that is easy. But an argument I hear a lot is how self-condemning it can be for lesbian, gay, het, and queer people to continually interrogate their/our lack of attraction to women or men or transgender people. The process of coming out as lesbian or gay, as I understand it personally and from personal friendships with lesbian women, involves unlearning heteronormative and patriarhcal ways of being, ways of feeling, and ways of acting. It may also lead to challenging ageist, racist, and classist assumptions, among others.

Speaking as a profeminist gay male, radically rejecting heterosexuality and heterosexism means rejecting the ways het men have arranged for people to meet and get to know each other. What het male culture appears to prize is a kind of attractiveness that is directly related to appearance, not substance. Looks are what matter first and often enough, most. Sexual desirability, determined and defined by het men, is what the human objects of het men's attention are supposed to achieve. To reject het men's standards for being "sexy" and "attractive" is to be deemed ugly and worthless--except as labor--by them.

I see the bar and club scenes as doomed to replicate heterosexist and heteronormative standards of appealing to one another as sexy things, as sex objects, as people who must do a whole lot to ourselves before we leave home to go to the bar or club.

So one question is this: in what social spaces are we supposed to challenge ourselves to be attracted to people lower on various social-political hierarchies? In the workplace? In the home? On the street? All of those places are sites of misogynist and racist oppression, and of ageism, of ableism, of classism.

It has been mentioned that if one’s social circle is white, that’s what needs to be challenged. A proposed antidote to someone's all-white circle of potential dates or mates is to bring white folks into potentially romantic or sexual contact with people of color. This, to me, privileges a value of white people expanding our dating pool, but in no way identifies what the benefit would be to people of color, should that pool-expansion occur. So I begin with friendship as a foundation for revolutionary community and affection, not with attraction and sexual behavior as that base. In the realm of friendship, physical and sexual attractiveness isn't a primary value; shared intellectual pursuits, common interests, similar senses of humor, and how people might be helpful to one another are at least as important.

White people, or men, learning to do 'attraction behavior' less oppressively isn't something I hear oppressed people wanting tried out on them. As a survivor of sexual abuse, as an asexual person, as a gay person, and as a Jew in a Christian-dominated country, I certainly don’t want more people smiling at me or approaching me because of ‘attraction’. I’d welcome someone getting to know me in contexts where it is appropriate for us to know each other, due to progressive economic, social, or political work, not in contexts where ‘getting to know someone’ is the sole or primary objective. Not where the reason for people wanting to seek out each other's company is to raise the possibility of obtaining sexual contact or fostering romantic feelings.

I don't want to negotiate social spaces where I'm increasingly put in the position to say no or yes to the advances of het-identified men who are challenging themselves to be open to dating or bedding gay men. Not discussed thus far is the issue of who along the hierarchies ought to be entitled to approach whom? I'd see it as radical if the challenge wasn't for oppressors to find those we oppress more suitable for dating and mating, but rather for us to altogether stop approaching (for the purposes of getting a date or "a fuck") those we oppress.

As I think Catharine A. MacKinnon states in one of her books of essays, consent isn’t all that meaningful a lived concept for women if one only ever is in the position of saying no or yes to the advances of men. One would have to live in a world where such advances are neither compulsory nor anticipated to know what one wants from and with men. I can extrapolate from that to other hierarchies.

I feel that very personally and very strongly, as someone who is gay and a survivor of child sexual abuse and adult sexual exploitation, who unhealthily while normally feels compelled to meet the sexual, emotional, and affectional needs of someone who shows interest in me, especially when they are men. As I contemplate finding someone attractive, and contemplating being found attractive, such imaginings are problematically bound up with racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, misogynist, ableist, ageist, heterosexist, transphobic 'beauty' standards and oppressive interpersonal habits and social customs. Challenging the standards without also challenging and interrupting the oppressive dynamics and habits surrounding them is, for me, a set-up for more oppressive behavior to occur, not less.

To even imagine someone being ‘interested’ in me–when they don’t know me–means that I am led to try and change myself in self-oppressive, self-objectifying, and dehumanising ways. Opting out of the social attraction circuit, like opting out of the social sexual-behavior circuit, can be personally and interpersonally liberatory. I don’t see that course of action identified as valuable and viable in the discussion thus far.

I'm not comfortable with anyone white addressing an audience that isn't only white with a set of demands for what we should do that is deliberately designed to inflict on people of color our own social learning curve. I’ll add that I experience the term “demand” here, in this context, as white or race-superior. Why? Because making demands on readers is something I only experience whites and men feeling entitled to do--and doing regularly. In other words, it demonstrates having enough racial (or, in my own case, also sexual) social power to even proceed in doing it. I believe those of us in dominant structural positions, by race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and so forth, ought not demand something from our political peers that will likely violate and trigger those we oppress.

Also on the matter of race, was the race awareness training session for bi community activists in the UK either white-led, white-organised, or majority-white in attendance? If any of those, I’d then proceed to articulate a critique of such a process for arriving at what terms are most racially respectful and appropriate. Recognising that there are some significant differences between U.S. and UK dominant society that I might not be sensitive-enough to, I’ll add that I prefer the term 'racially oppressed', to 'minority-ethnic' when discussing who is subordinated, marginalised, and imperiled by race. For me, the latter term problematically reinforces whiteness as normal-majority and race-neutral. It also pretends that whites aren’t a global minority. It also conflates race with ethnicity.

While this comment contains challenges, I want that to be held in the context of me strongly encouraging you to keep up the great work. I’m thoroughly enjoying reading your deeply thoughtful pro-radical posts. I find you, a white blogger, to be deeply and sincerely committed to complex, intersectional, counter-hegemonic practice and that’s as rare in my experience as finding a man who does the same.

On Trashing, Calling Out, and Accountability, with thanks to A Radical TransFeminist

portrait of Alice Walker is from here

I recently submitted two comments to a white transgender feminist's blog. She didn't publish them but did explain to me that she wouldn't be posting them, which I appreciate her doing. I welcome finding out what it is about the comments that led her to not post them, at a later date when she feels like communicating more with me.

I'd like for the topics to be addressed here to allow any of my readers to comment here on these issues. So I'll post links to her blog's two posts, with my comments in this and the next post to this blog. I'll revise my comments for clarity and to correct some typos.

I'm putting the initials of people's names in the comments below, as I don't have their permission to use their names here. One exception is the name Joreen, which was a chosen name used in movement work by Jo Freeman, a long-time white feminist writer and attorney. Her work is referenced; she isn't a participant in this discussion. See *this* for more, and see *this* for Jo/Joreen's piece on Trashing which is the foundation for the discussion at the other blog.

On Trashing

http://radtransfem.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/a-space-for-conversation-about-trashing/#more-668

Here is a revised version of the comment I submitted:

I’ve witnessed and experienced a lot of destructive dynamics, also some amazingly life-affirming and spiritually supportive dynamics, in feminist and profeminist spaces. I’ve seen far more positive than negative things happen. And I appreciate you creating this space to talk about this issue. While I’d like to be part of this discussion, I’m not sure I should be a contributor. If the issue is how people treat one another harmfully and abusively in the name of feminism and profeminism, I’d like to comment. If, on the other hand, that is the issue (with a focus on trashing), but only within women-only spaces, then that’s not something I’d feel would be appropriate for me, an intergender male, to be part of.

I nodded all the way through your remarks about Joreen’s piece. As a sexual assault survivor, I felt uneasy about the use of the term “psychological rape”. So thank you, L, and H, for sharing your response to that. I was deeply conflicted about whether to even mention it here, because, as H also stated, I don’t know her own story of physical abuse, and because, well, I’m male. The phrase that also felt deeply problematic to me was this one: “like a thousand cuts with a whip”. For me that phrase references an experience of physical-spiritual-political assault at the hands of white supremacists during U.S. slavery, Jim Crow, and since. I don’t think it is appropriate or respectful to survivors of slavery and those racially targeted for such abuse to appropriate the term even as simile.

That said, I respect Joreen’s bravery in tackling this issue and can hear how painful her experiences were. And I’ve seen how people in radical spaces sometimes want to demonstrate their/our/my sensitivity to issues by immediately and primarily pointing out what feels “off” about someone’s remarks, rather than by first highlighting what feels right on.* I feel for the ways she’s been hurt and rejected in spaces and by people she looked to for solidarity and community. I’ve known women hurt in so many ways, most callously, brutally, and lethally by men, but also hurt emotionally and psychologically by other women. And I’ve experienced, just within my own family of origin and friendship circles, how people closest to me in various ways, are capable, due to conditions of trust, shared history, and vulnerability, of hurting me deeply in ways some of my oppressors, now that I’m an adult, are not.

*I have been thinking about  this. I am aware that in online discourse far more than my offline discourse, criticism is, often, "what people do" without necessarily knowing the people we're criticising. This is dramatically different in my offline life. I'll far more typically withhold criticism if I think it might harm a relationship with someone I care about. The relationship's well-being is preferenced over my critical voice; it's not that I work to silence myself exactly; it's that I don't let criticism become the primary value. I suspect that because online forums make space for critique of writings and disagreement over discourse, that gets valued over the relationships that might otherwise form and flourish among the contributors. I've not found online sites to be a place of forming friendship. I've met people online that I've become friends with offline, or in email. But the nature of the online forums don't, for many reasons, create safe-enough space for friendship to bloom, in my experience.

As part of my own effort to disengage from behavior that I now see as non-constructive and anti-revolutionary, I’ve decided not to engage in “snark”, let alone trashing, because I see it as part of the same cluster of cynical, self-protecting while hostile, anti-revolutionary practices that apparently passes for radical and profeminist behavior in lots of places (feminist and non-feminist). I used to direct snarky comments to white men on and off my blog, and I don’t any longer: a white man just submitted a comment to me, on an old post, about his view that misandry is a serious social problem, not as harmful as misogyny, but not non-existent either. I've heard similar things from so many white men that I've grown weary of responding. Often, in my weariness or my laziness, I might resort to snarky response. Because I'd be tempted to do so with this newest comment-submitter, I won't publish his comment and won't respond at all. His comment also violates some of my comment policy. (I don't publish pro-MRA positions here.)

I value direct, emotionally honest communication. And I also have complex PTSD which means that my feelings and reactions sometimes exceed what’s happening in the present. I can suddenly feel tremendously vulnerable or in danger. How I respond in those instances is sometimes out of proportion to what is happening before me because my history is dredged up and projected into the moment. I've often described this as "my past bleeding into my present". Due primarily to privilege, including access to mental health care workers who regard me as fully human because I’m male, white, and not poor, I have learned to identify when I’m triggered and have learned some methods for re-grounding myself in the present. But that’s not always easy or even possible to do. And I also see how, with my many privileges, I can too often get away with not taking full responsibility for my actions and pretend that other conditions are responsible for how I behave.

I have seen how white supremacy and male supremacy generate and exacerbate complex PTSD for white women, for women of color, and for men of color. I’ve seen how whites and men deny that our actions trigger distress and many other feelings and experiences in people we structurally, systemically, institutionally, and interpersonally oppress. And I’ve seen how, when whites and men are called out by women of color especially–almost always in ways that strike me as profoundly measured and respectful, that Calling Out is named many negative things by whites and men. Most of the things it is called effectively (and often enough willfully) work to further hurt, subordinate, and silence women of color. One of the things such Calling Out is called is “Trashing”.

For example, I’ve known whites who consider being named “racist” by a person of color to be a violent and inexcusable form of trashing. And the politics of what is considered violent is noted quite succinctly by the white male radical Derrick Jensen in his Premises of Endgame: “Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed [by oppressors]. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.” I thought about that as I was appreciating J.M.’s comment.

One of the requests I hear Joreen making is to not talk about someone’s ‘being’ and instead to critique the behavior or what someone is ‘doing’. This is consistent with my own values: challenge the behavior; don’t go after someone personally. And, when possible, try and hold the whole of someone’s humanity in mind and heart when offering critique. My values were learned mostly by studying and being around modes of critical engagement practiced by womanists and feminists. Alice Walker has been a significant role model in this regard. Her open letter to Tiger Woods is an excellent example. Also Flo Kennedy on horizontal hostility ["Women Against Women: Horizontal Hostility," domestic violence; "Sexuality '85" conference; Alabama NOW; Massachusetts; Ohio; Ontario; Wisconsin; Wyoming], Pearl Cleage on the necessity of oppressors listening to the oppressed-as-experts [see pages 32-33 in Deals With the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot], and Andrea Dworkin as evidenced in her address to allegedly anti-sexist men at a men’s conference.

With that in mind, I’ve also heard many times from women of color how whites and men try and control how women of color behave. They/we try and control how women of color speak, how they express their emotions, and, especially, how and to what degree they critique whites and men. Whites and men (and especially white men) also hold the unearned power to allegedly ‘accurately’ name what occurs, to construct and determine which stories comprise truthful history, and be the final arbiters of (white- and male-centric) justice on matters of social and interpersonal wrongs. As I see it, oppressive sexual and racial politics are at work when people with various forms of privilege agree to critique ‘trashing’ without also explicitly putting on the table the issue of how people with structural advantage and power get to name the behavior of those who are oppressed. In that context, Joreen's or my own priority to be critiqued on our behavior not on our personhood, when the person calling us out is structurally oppressed by us, becomes a secondary matter to oppressed people naming what is harming them in ways meaningful and helpful to them. Simply put, Alice Walker's level of grace and compassion in confronting Tiger Woods is hers to determine; it is not for him to require.

I just want to place that perspective front and center, with the intention of fully supporting your own concerns along those lines, L.

Finally, I'm wishing a belated Happy Birthday to Alice Walker! (Her birthday was February 9th.)

Why should non-oppressed people focus on oppression?

image is from here

As I look back over some of my posts and some of the themes I've focused on, I thought I'd write up something about "why": why this focus, why these issues?

From a pretty early age, the things that stood out for me were how some people suffer injustices systematically, and that those injustices didn't appear to register as such by the less-effected masses. The pain of enduring oppression--the depression, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the psychic, sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual assaults, the post-traumatic stress--were as real as blood, but were somehow not registering as important, not sounding any alarm in those not oppressed. The pain wasn't just unheard and unseen; when heard and seen it was ignored and denied, when not ignored and denied it was called something else, like "what she really wanted" and "what they deserve".

Seeing both disregard and contempt among whites and men, disregard for women and men of color, contempt for women and girls across ethnicity, is something that demands a humane response. Not excuses. Not denial. Not lie-telling about oppressed people.

If you scratch the surface of the intellects and psyches of enough oppressor-class people, you'll find unsubtle thought processes and distancing mechanisms that allow them/us to not feel and not think about and not know what oppressed people contend with and die from.

This blog exists to say, "What oppressed people experience is real. And once faced as reality, oppression calls us forth into action to create justice and liberation where there is none."

As a Jew, the stories of "the Good Germans" of WWII haunted me: how could ordinary citizens of a country stand by while other citizens were carried off, gassed, and burned into ash floating in the sky?

The question may be answered this way: How does it happen that the on-going genocides against Indigenous people worldwide demands no action at all from the non-Indigenous? How do the realities rape, incest, battery, trafficking, and poverty not call resource-advantaged people to stop these atrocities?

Because isn't the answer the same about the non-Jewish Germans as it is about the non-Indigenous and about men? Isn't it the case that whites, for example, express some variation of this: "I didn't know there were any genocides still going on." Don't men express, in one way or another: "I don't see rape and the rest as endemic and horrifying."

Once the horror, the terror, the atrocity is as real as anything else, one is called forth to act. Enough things happened to me early in life, and through my early adulthood, to make it impossible to not see the horror and not feel the pain.

I want other whites and men to work together in alliance with oppressed people, to take down the defences and barriers whites and men construct to stay separate from the conditions we don't live with so directly and daily, but are primarily responsible for. And to dismantle the institutions and transform the structures that hold hate and disregard in place. I want oppressor-class people to see oppressed people as fully human beings who cannot deserve the oppressive conditions. And to act humanely with everyone's life in mind.

The Questionable Ethics of Outing People Online, and Other Topics for Discussion Between Julian and a White Feminist Friend

image is from here

One criticism I have of myself is that there is sometimes a lack of openness and a use of analytic thinking to avoid other ways of being. It's not that I'm invulnerable; it's that being vulnerable has made me open to a great deal of pain and trauma and so I'm careful about where I'm vulnerable. Like so many other people, I was bullied. Many males and a few females were the perpetrators. It went on for seven years in my childhood and adolescence. To this day, when I hear people laughing in a group near me, I assume they are laughing at me and my first reaction is to feel humiliated.

Social networking sites don't feel very safe to me in part because of the bullying and meanness I've seen happen there. In my experience, that has happened especially and most egregiously to women of color, by white men, by men of color, by white women, and by other women of color. The thing about bullying is that anyone can be a perpetrator, even the victims of bullying. I tend to behave in rather invulnerable ways when at such places, when I'm there, which is rarely. So, with that said as sort of a personal preface, on with the conversation:


What's on your mind, Julian? Why did you want to get together to have a talk that will be public?

Well, there are few things distressing to me at this moment, other than the usual list of atrocities. Thanks for being willing to engage with me--people being willing to engage with me, respectfully, is one of the things I want to get to today.

Who is engaging with you disrespectfully? 

You know me well enough to know I won't name names. I'm not about that. Suffice it to say that some people have, and some other people have been saying things about me that are not true to the very best of my knowledge and recollections. They're not all saying this to me. In some cases it's being said about me in places when I'm not around.

What's being said about you?

That I have either outed women online or have supported women being outed online. And that I have supported women being called misogynist names.

I know you well enough to know that's not very likely. 

I don't believe I've ever done it, actually. But if someone has specific information to the contrary, I'd certainly hear them out. I welcome them to contact me and I will listen, with care. We may disagree about some things or have different recollections. But I'll listen and really try to get what their experience was and not dismiss it.

Julian, I gotta say this before we go on. I'm not a fan of you showing up in feminists spaces to voice your opinion in a way that triggers, annoys, or bores women. But I've never known you to "out" any woman. I know you're deeply concerned about how women have been terrorized by male supremacists online and offline.

That's what I generally stay very conscious of when writing about women here. If I have any doubt about whether naming someone--only as they publicly name themselves--might cause them to be more socially vulnerable to verbal attack or to other forms of abuse or threat, or to economic distress such as losing one's job, I won't name them.

What I have not taken to heart enough, nor to mind enough, are the ways some of my social behavior has been triggering to women. There's no good reason for me not considering it. I can say this: most people don't know when I'm triggered by them because if the triggering leads me to feel threatened or unsafe, I'm likely to simply not want to engage with them at all. My own triggering is specific to me but is also not atypical. And men can trigger me in various ways. I've grown immune to some things, such as men sending emails to call me a f*g or the classic "mangina". When someone is that ridiculous, it's kind of easy for me to just write them off as behaving like a jerk. But what you've helped me understand is that my anger, no matter what it's about, can be or may be or IS triggering or troubling for some women, for reasons having to do with sexual politics.

Yes. It can be, it may be, and it is. I know before I knew you better, I felt uncomfortable with your intensity at times and it gave me pause when considering whether to take a risk and get to know you better. 

Yeah. I'm glad you were willing to do that, but I'd also have understood if you didn't. I'm quite supportive of women not giving males energy.

I know you are. Which makes you showing up in feminist spaces more perplexing, honestly. Why do you do that, Julian?

Well, I don't show up in places where I haven't been welcomed to appear, by at least one woman there. And if a space is set up to be woman-only, I don't go there. But over the last decades, most feminist spaces aren't woman-only and that's a decision made by the organisers or administrators of those spaces. But because I do believe in woman-only spaces existing without male intervention and interruption, I have chosen not to go to most gatherings or discussion spaces that are woman-majority or woman-led. But that's truer now than it used to be.

Maybe because lately you don't get out much, huh?

Well, there is that! But I've been very slow to get that my presence isn't wanted by at least some women in most spaces where women gather, even if the organisers or administrators don't have a policy of being woman-only, or are explicitly welcoming of male presence. I plan to appear less in such spaces in the future. My appearance in a discussion in a feminist discussion space on Facebook was, I hope, one of the last times I do that.

But why have you done it? I mean regardless of what administrators welcome, why do you feel like it's ok to be there? You know as well as any male I know how hard it is for women to create woman-only space. And you know as well as I do that many women don't set up spaces to be woman-only because they don't feel like they have the right to do so. Or because men insist the women be liberally "fair" by being accommodating.

I know. It's such a common male supremacist argument. ... Why have I done it so often? I guess because feminist discussion spaces are spaces where the topics, the conversations, are of interest to me. I mean most of what men talk about isn't of interest to me. I've always had closer relationships--friendships--with women than men. I've always organised my private and social life more around women than men.

But you know that some women feel that you're presence is not only not helpful, but plays out some really typical male supremacist patterns, right? And the point of the conversations isn't to be appealing to you or to engage you or make your social world less small.

Well, I know. Yes. I mean my loneliness leads me to do things that I'm not necessarily prepared to do well.

Like offering to politically or more personally converse with gay and queer-identified men who seem like they are anti-racist and anti-sexist who you know you won't be able to tolerate for more than ten minutes?

Yeah. Like that. (Laughs.) A lot like that.

And like that last place: you went there, tossed out a whole lot of commentary, and then left abruptly, stating that you don't even like the space to begin with!

Yeah. I'd like to fill you in on what was going on there for me, if that's okay with you?

Sure, go ahead. I've been really baffled by that, to be honest. And pissed off with you too.

Okay, so first of all, I have been having the experience in many places that my voice isn't welcome, isn't wanted, and that even if I'm speaking to the issues at the center of the discussions, the response is to hear crickets chirping. And I'm not talking about women-majority spaces, in this case. I'm talking about male-dominant spaces. Or in places where discussions are led by men. Women do tend to respond, including by letting me know what I'm doing is male supremacist. Men often just ignore the comments.

And that's relevant how?

Well, because I have come to believe that people--in general--don't wish to talk with me about things. In my experience recently, most women don't want to and most men don't want to. And so this has led me to offer a perspective on what's being discussed, and then just leave. It shocked me that anyone actually objected to me leaving a place suddenly. I know that could sound silly in a way. But it really did surprise me. So I think that whole dynamic has led to a kind of "say what you have to say and then leave them alone" kind of approach to "engaging". Which is to say, I don't assume "engagement" is going to happen to begin with. I assume if I speak I'll either be ignored or disrespected. Because that's what's happened in enough places.

I'd think that would lead you to stop speaking up in places.

Yeah, you'd think. But I have this thing about not speaking up in spaces when something is going down that isn't okay--or, well, that doesn't feel okay to me or isn't okay with women I know well, and also with me. Almost without exception, if I'm speaking up in a space, it's because something is upsetting to me about what's being said. Like, either it comes across to me as male supremacist or white supremacist, or close friends alert me to how it is both. Or it could be profoundly liberal discourse. Those are the kinds of conversations that get me riled up.

What I haven't exactly tracked is how such conversations also upset me in ways that make constructive engagement unlikely. I have learned how to hold my tongue when I'm triggered by something--well, more often than in the past, but I have actually practiced NOT holding my tongue when something male supremacist or white supremacist is going on. Because that's what it means to be an ally, according to the radical women I hold myself most closely accountable to. It means you don't let shit fly around unchallenged, pretending it smells good.

So surely, then, you'd support women speaking up if you're presence is male supremacist, right? I mean, if the male supremacist part of the dynamic is partly or mostly yours, coming from what you are doing there, then you're not surprised if women respond negatively, are you?

I'm not surprised, no. But I have been alarmed by some ways a very few people have responded. Because in one case, a person responded with both disrespect and by engaging in terrorist tactics with me. And neither is okay with me. I mean I get how we can do things that come across as disrespectful. I'm not talking about that--shit happens. People upset each other. People trigger each other. And we can't always anticipate that. Hopefully people learn from past experience, and strive to trigger people less, or upset or hurt people less. Hopefully I learn to be less male supremacist.

As I said, I've been slow to "get it" about some of my behavior. I think that's partly because some of the people I've upset or triggered have withdrawn from me altogether--which I understand. My learning process is mine and is not for others to do for me or walk me through. I get that. I've witnessed enough males and whites saying to people we structurally oppress "Teach me!" or "Help me understand how what I'm doing is insulting or invisbilising of you" to know that it's not for the oppressed to educate the oppressor, even if oppressors are only likely to learn by experiencing the world from the vantage point of those they have structural power over.

And at the same time, people do learn best, I think, in relationship, in community where people share with one another. Me withdrawing from most spaces, for reasons stated above, and people withdrawing from me, means that I'm not likely to know what effect I'm having--I mean very specifically, to particular individuals.

I value my friendships because we do value letting each other know whether something upsetting has happened. And when I find out that what I've done is upsetting, I usually care about that and want to make amends or offer something that can be healing or productive. But I know that takes time and trust. And what I've been realising more and more is how internet spaces and many offline spaces too, don't have either time or trust as a base. So when people upset each other, or when one person--say, me--upsets a whole lot of other people, there's no agreement about how that will be dealt with. People do what seems best for them.

But you were saying that your experience is that you're ignored or insulted.

Yes. Or threatened.

So some people have actually threatened you? 

I can't really know what their intention is. I can tell you that some people--just a very few, fortunately--have employed exactly the same cyber-terrorist tactics as a way of engaging with me and mostly they've done so privately. Like there's a text book for how to do it and these people have followed the "to do" list to a T. Down to the smallest details. And that's not something that leads me to have much faith that healing or building relationship is possible with those people.

Again, I understand someone withdrawing and not engaging. And I don't think any woman owes me a damned thing. If I piss a woman off, I believe she ought to take care of herself as she sees fit. But going out of your way to terrorise someone, or insult someone, or disrespect someone--well, that's just not helpful to being in constructive, healthy relationship, in my opinion. But the thing is, it's not really "my opinion" alone. My feminist role models didn't model abusive interpersonal behavior. The women I learned radical feminism from didn't treat me like that. And they wouldn't have termed such actions as "feminist". So I took that to heart a long time ago.

You know that some kinds of meanness is especially commonplace now--on social networking sites, on blogs, at discussion sites. I mean I see it a lot in woman-only spaces. I see a hell of a lot more of it in spaces where men engage with women, though.

I know snark is valued in many spaces. And I can reflect on my own past snarkiness with men to see that when I've been in that mode it's because I didn't feel safe to engage in more honest ways. And I'm certainly under no illusions about woman-only space being utopian. I've known too many lesbian women well over the last few decades to arrive at that conclusion. But what I hear women say--you included--is that often enough there's a commitment to valuing community that often doesn't exist in spaces that include men.

So if you understand and appreciate--and support--women not engaging with men when the man, or male person, or the men have come across as threatening, abusive, hostile, or just plain annoying and typically sexist, why do you expect any woman to be honest with you about how your behavior has made her feel?

I don't expect that. And I wouldn't tell any woman she "should" talk stuff out with me. But I can want it or be hopeful about it nonetheless. I've been surprised by woman friends going the distance with me, and they've explained they're sure as hell not doing it for me: they're doing it for themselves, because having another male around who gets it that much more means their lives are that much less burdened by sexism and racism.

What do you hope for?

I guess I hope that a safe-enough space can be created with any woman I've hurt or upset or harmed in some way that was not intended by me, for us to heal some of that hurt or wounding. And to go on in such a way that the woman feels like she's less likely to encounter that from me in the future. And with the experience that I'm caring of how she's feeling.

Whenever I find out a woman is upset with me I do try and put myself in her shoes, to try to feel what it might have been like to be her, hearing or witnessing me be the ways I've sometimes been. But you know that only goes so far because each person has their own history, their own associations; their own wounds, their own triggers, and so forth. What's saddest of all to me in relationship is when both people are triggering the other, and wounding just gets compounded. I've seen that so much in work I've done when counseling couples. Sometimes the wounding and re-wounding is just too severe. There's not enough safe space for healing to occur.

In my case, I think some of the things that deeply alarm me, or trigger me, are so commonplace that the only solution is to withdraw in some way. I know that withdrawing is only an option for some people and I'm privileged to be able to withdraw in many of the ways I do. But I also see how people in long-term abusive situations who are not free to escape or leave, find their own ways to withdraw, such as through dissociation or being silent, or being cleverly dishonest, or getting into arguments chronically. And so when someone says something like "People should always be honest!" I often feel, "Well, being honest in some situations will get you beaten up. Or killed."

And those of us who have had our lives threatened and who have had death threats against us, if we don't want to give up publicly challenging the status quo, figure out how to go on being outspoken but also somewhat protected from the thugs and terrorists.

What I want women who I've upset or hurt or scared to know is that I'm willing to listen and that I will be caring.

I know you do care when you've upset someone. Well, if they're a woman. I've seen you not care so much when you've upset a man. 

Well, it depends on what has upset him. If me challenging his sexism or misogyny or whiteness is what's upsetting to him, then I'm not going out of my way to be too concerned about making things better. Well, unless there's a significant relationship there already. But I don't have a lot of relationships with men, as you know. But me challenging someone on their structural privileges and power isn't an open invitation to be abusive, mean, or intentionally hurtful to them. Nor to dehumanise them. According to my feminist mentors, anyway. I think Alice Walker is one person, someone I haven't met and don't know, who really models that behavior.

Do you maintain a relationship with those mentors, Julian? I'm not sure I know what happened to those relationships.

What happened, sadly, is that most of those women passed on. They died far too soon, of illness or disease. I miss them. And I miss the kind of culture that I had with them, and that they nurtured most when among women. Caring community where being mean and snarky just wouldn't fly without serious challenge. The whole reason I said, in that last conversation, that I hate Facebook, is that Facebook, in my experience, is a space that seems to encourage snark and meanness as an M.O., as standard operating procedure, for having political discussions. I am pretty sure there are plenty of conversations I'm not privy to that don't operate that way.

There are--and you're not privy to them. But there are always struggles and like you said, people do unintentionally hurt or upset one another. 

I guess the question is: Are we in the struggle together, or aren't we? If the struggle is to create safe woman-only space, then I'm not going to be in on that--other than by not showing up in woman-only and feminist-majority spaces. But if the spaces are committed to being open with regard to gender or sex, then I'd better only show up if I am in a mental and emotional space to be present, be accountable, and be caring--and when invited and welcomed, of course.

So why didn't you show up to do that, to be present and accountable, in this last case?

When I tried, I couldn't get back to it. I'm not sure why. Maybe one of the admins blocked me. I wouldn't be surprised if she did. But to also be named by other women in that space as someone who is not willing to engage, when further engagement is no longer an option, well, that feels hopeless. Because while I did engage in ways that seemed like I didn't really want a genuine exchange of ideas or perspectives, that doesn't mean that if me doing that was upsetting or alarming or annoying, that I wouldn't be open to processing that.

That's kind of problematic, isn't it? For you to want women to make some sort of exception with you? To give you some sort of benefit of the doubt when that may well be too costly to do, emotionally and politically?

Yes. It is problematic. It's outright unfair. I can be far too self-concerned sometimes.

And far too self-negating at other times.

Yes. That too. But the self-concern or prioritised self-regard--and this might also be called "being self-centered" or "typically male", when it's present, is kind of balanced with a lot of compassion and an ability to get beyond myself. I know that in so many situations, suddenly making such a process--about me and my feelings--the center of attention functions to derail the original conversation.

And socialisation being what it is, it is far too often the case that the man's, the male's, or the white person's feelings will get attended to while the sexually or racially or ethnically oppressed person's feelings will get ignored, or the assumption will be "the oppressed person exists to take care of me". But processing can happen away from that conversation and if it's mutual, then those oppressive dynamics don't have to be resurrected and reinforced.

So maybe a safe-enough conversation happens in a separate space. Maybe it happens privately. Because when it's public, that generates another set of dynamics--other people can get appropriately dismayed that any time is being spent attending to the feelings of the male or the white person. But that risk-taking to resolve or heal some negative interaction is probably only going to happen if it's worth it to the person who was hurt or upset--if it is in her own interest to do it.

I know you know what was said about you in that discussion, and what others have charged you with doing, because the conversation was sent to you after you couldn't get back in. I just want that to be clear to whoever reads this when it goes public.

Yes. That's how I know. Someone sent it to me to question what was going on there, to question the allegations, and to let me know the effect of what I'd said there initially.

And I know you get into trouble when you bring up the politics of whiteness, or of ignored white supremacy, in majority-white spaces where that's being ignored or put aside in favor of a politic that goes, "let's only talk about sex and gender even though most of us are white." 

Yeah. I'm also being accused of perpetuating or promoting "identity politics". As if refusing to be silent about race and white supremacy has anything to do with identity politics. I welcome anyone who feels that way to respectfully engage with me on my blog about that.

I know why you do bring it up and for me the problem isn't you bringing it up--it needs to be brought up and it's only the responsibility of white people to do it. The problem is that you're so intense about it sometimes, and honestly I think triggered too because of being Jewish and your own experiences with that ethnic bigotry and invisibilization, and knowledge of the history, that you do it in a way that frightens or triggers women: you become "the visibly angry man" in the space. 

Not just that. I am realising I also become the man who seems to be judging women harshly. Yet another male in the white women's lives who is judging them without knowing them well. But what I'm judging harshly is the white supremacy, not the white women personally.

You know, when this plays out with gender, white radical feminists are usually pretty clear that men should learn to take criticism about the politics of their gender and not take it personally, as if it's a personal attack. But the difference here--you know the difference, right? I don't have to spell it out, I hope.

The difference is that I'm a male doing it in female-majority spaces. I realise it's not the oppressed person challenging their oppressor, in which case the politic, the ethic, ought to be the one Pearl Cleage describes [in her book Deals With The Devil and Other Reasons to Riot]. Basically, "Listen and learn, in a posture of non-defensiveness."

Some white feminists could get the sense you go out of your way to challenge white women on racism, but let white men off the hook on that. And that you're trying to assert power over white women by doing so. Or that you're judging them as if from a superior position--like you "get it" about race and they don't.

Well, you know I also challenge white men about a lot of things including their racism. Which is why most white men won't engage with me. And I challenge men of color on their male supremacy and misogyny too.

I know that. But because that is done in spaces online that are predominantly male, white feminists won't necessarily see you do it. So I think it appears to some women like you only do this to women and that you've found this spurious way to go after women, not men.

I am realising that. Thank you for making that clearer.

Look, Julian: it's really upsetting and painful to see that racist shit play out again and again and again. Whiteness is not regularly interrogated in majority-white places. That's just the damned truth. And it's got to be different. Radically different. Andrea [Dworkin] named that shit in 1974. It was practically the first thing she wrote down when speaking as a white radical feminist. So did many radical feminists of color--correction: so DO many radical feminists of color. And there's nothing at all radical about protecting white power. And I don't think you mentioning that, as you have several times on your blog and elsewhere, is liberal, or is engaging in "identity politics." I really don't.

The same holds true with patriarchal shit in male-dominant places: there's very little commitment among men to collectively root it out. We know this. The collective commitment is to protect male power and to pretend male supremacy is a figment of feminists' imagination. I wish rape and incest and trafficking were matters of imagination. 

And the collective commitment among whites, among white women and among white men, is to protect white power, even though I've never heard any white feminist say that's what her aim is. I have heard white women decades ago say they wanted to protect "white people," though. And I have read online where men say their aim is to protect male entitlements and power. And the big-boy pornographers make a damned good living at protecting that white and male power, at promoting it as "good sex," and at unleashing it against women of all colors. It's always been the pimps and pornographers who most conflate sex and rape, not radical feminists.

It's all disgusting and I don't fault you for finding it profoundly upsetting and for feeling a need to call it out. I know you work hard to be accountable to radical feminist women you are especially close to. And I know why most of those women won't identify as "radical feminist": because the term is used so routinely by white women who, consciously or not, protect white power. I know you work to sincerely be a responsible ally to women fighting male and white supremacy. And I do hope you continue to be accountable to the women most centrally in your life, and that they continue to consider you as a solid ally. 

But I also hope you steer clear of majority-white woman spaces dedicated to feminist discussions. I hope you've learned that your ways of being there are, often enough, too upsetting or annoying or triggering for enough women--and not only white women, to make your presence not only problematic, but more to the point: not pro-feminist.

I do get that now, yes. You won't be seeing me participate, whether more or less obnoxiously, in those discussions in the future.

Good.

Now, what do you want to eat? I'm cooking.

Damn right you are! (Laughs.) 

"Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992" gets UK premiere on April 14th, 2012

What follows is being cross-posted from *here*. I am so excited about seeing this documentary!!!! (And it annoys the piss out of me when Lesbian and Gay, or LGBTIQA films are categorised as only "Gay". But whatever. They didn't ask me, nor should they.)

"Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992" Gets UK Premiere Date - April 14th

News by Tambay | April 2, 2012 12:04 PM | 0 Comments

photo of Audre Lorde is from here

Previously profiled on S&A, it made its world premiere in the Panorama Documentary section at the Berlin Film Festival in February; and now Dagmar Shultz's Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 is scheduled to make its UK premiere on April 14th at Fringe Film Gay Film Festival which takes place at the Rich Mix (35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA) in East London.

It's being screened as part of the Fringe Film Gay film Festival.

Courtesy of Third World Newsreel, who acquired the 84-minute film, it made its USA premiere it at The Brecht Forum in New York City last week Monday, and will be out on DVD sometime this spring.

Specifically, the film focuses on...

Audre Lorde's years in Berlin in which she catalyzed the first movement of Black Germans to claim their identity as Afro-Germans with pride. As she was inspiring Afro-Germans she was also encouraging the White German feminists to look at their own racism

The film will serve as a historical document for future generations of Germans, which profiles and highlights, from the roots, the African presence in Germany, and the origins of the anti-racist movement before and after the German reunification, as well as facillitates an analysis and an understanding of present debates on identity and racism in Germany.

So UK folks, now you'll have your chance to check out the doc. Info on tickets can be found HERE.

A trailer for the film is [available to be viewed] below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mPEkqykAik&feature=player_embedded

Alice Walker discusses the life and legacy of Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

I never got to meet or speak with Adrienne Rich. Or Alice Walker for that matter. But there's still time with Alice. What I remember most about Adrienne was her willingness to struggle with whiteness and the unearned power that defines and sustains it, and her lesbian-feminist brilliance in analysing heterosexuality as a socially and politically compulsory condition for women, not a natural one.

Below is the video featuring Alice Walker. Below that is a transcript of the conversation.



To link to any of this, please click here: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/30/adrienne_rich_1929_2012_alice_walker

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): Alice Walker & Frances Goldin on the Life of the Legendary Poet

by via Democracy Now!, Wikipedia & Flickr
Friday Mar 30th, 2012 11:57 AM

Adrienne Cecile Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.

In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."

Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home.

640_audre-lorde-meridel-l...original image ( 1280x960)

PHOTO: Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, Adrienne Rich 1980 by K. Kendall
"They led a writing workshop together in Austin, Texas. I was in it, and they let me take this picture of them."

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): Alice Walker & Frances Goldin on the Life of the Legendary Poet & Activist

by Democracy Now! — March 30, 2012

The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich, who died on Tuesday at the age of 82, was one of the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice. Rich drew widespread acclaim for her many volumes of poetry and prose, which brought the oppression of women and lesbians into the public spotlight. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful. In 1997, Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." We remember Rich’s life with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin.

Guests:

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, poet and activist. When Adrienne Rich was awarded the 1973 National Book Award, she refused to accept the award alone. She appeared onstage with poets Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on behalf of all women.

Frances Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s longtime literary agent and friend.

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help Democracy Now! provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on the TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.

Transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Rich was one of the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice. Rich drew widespread acclaim for her many volumes of poetry and prose, which brought the oppression of women and lesbians into the public spotlight. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful. Rich won numerous awards and honors, including the National Book Award for the 1973 collection Diving into the Wreck. Refusing to accept the award alone, she appeared onstage with poets Audre Lorde and Alice Walker, and the three accepted the award on behalf of all women.
AMY GOODMAN: In 1997, Adrienne Rich famously declined to accept the National Medal of Arts in a protest against the Clinton administration, writing that art, quote, "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage."
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and Rich’s literary agent Frances Goldin. But first we’re going to go to Adrienne Rich herself, reading her poem "What Kind of Times Are These."

ADRIENNE RICH: There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Adrienne Rich reading her poetry. She died on Tuesday at the age of 82. Alice Walker, as well as Frances Goldin, her literary agent, are here to talk about her life.
Alice Walker, your thoughts about Adrienne?
ALICE WALKER: Well, it was very interesting. She and I saw each other infrequently and almost always by accident, so it was quite magical. We would be sometimes in an elevator together, and she would have come from one part of the country and me from somewhere else, and there we’d be. Or we’d show up at a movie, and there she’d be, and there I’d be. She was very close to a friend of mine, June Jordan, and so I got to know more about her through June, and also, of course, through her poetry, which was very meaningful to me. And my sense of her, the thing that I most loved, was her integrity. She lived exactly what she said. And this was so rare and so beautiful. And we will miss her.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the National Book Award in 1973 that she won for Diving into the Wreck that she insisted that you, Alice, and Audre Lorde accept the award with her on stage? Talk about that moment. Where were you?
ALICE WALKER: I was in Mississippi. I was, you know, fighting the good fight down there. But anyway, what happened was that we were all three nominated for this award. And we understood that we were living under apartheid and segregation and, you know, all of that, and that under such a system, which favored white people, she would get the award. We knew that. And so, we decided, before anybody—anything was announced, that we would not accept being ranked, and we would not accept the racism implicit in an award that would go to someone—you know, she was a great poet, but it would go to her also because she was a white person. And to her immense credit, she had no desire to be honored as we would be dishonored. And so, we got together. Audre called me in Mississippi, and we chatted about it, and Adrienne. And so, we decided that we could only accept an award so suspicious if we accepted it in the name of all women and indicate by that action that we understood that women were not honored in the arts and elsewhere.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Frances, you represented her for many years. Talk to us about how you first came to know her and what kind of person she was, and especially this issue of her stances on principle and social justice.
FRANCES GOLDIN: I met her at a dinner. The gay and lesbian rights groups had a dinner the night before, every year, when the publishing world came together in various countries—cities in the country. And I was sitting next to her and met her for the first time at that dinner. And we bonded, because we had similar politics, and we had wanted to meet each other for some time. And when the meeting was over, I said to her, "Can I hug you?" And she said, "It would be a pleasure." And we hugged. And then I said, "Well, if we can hug, can I kiss you?" And she said, "I would love to." And we left, and that happened.
And then I really campaigned for a couple of years to be able to represent her. And I remember taking a camera on a city bus, because they had on the billboards of the buses the poet of the month. And once, it was Adrienne. And so, I took a picture of that and sent it to her and said, "Millions of people in New York know about you because you were on the bus this morning." And, you know, I just courted her with anything I could think of.
And then, one day, she called and said, "I need some help. My publisher, Norton, has two offers from England, and I don’t know which one to take." So I said, "Well, just sit there, and don’t go away from your phone." And I called my British agent, because I certainly didn’t know which was the better of the two. And he called her, and she explained it, and he told her which was the best publisher for her. And she called back and said, "He was so wonderful, and he didn’t take any money, and he wouldn’t charge me." And I said, "Well, of course not. It was just a favor." And she said, "Well, then, can you represent the book?" And I said, "How can I? You signed a contract. And if I called with a question about it, they would hang up on me, because I didn’t agent this book." And she said, "Well, can you do my next one?" And I said, "Does night follow day?" And we became agent and author. And it’s been 25 years.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to that moment in 1997 when Adrienne Rich refused the National Medal for the Arts to protest the growing concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands. Adrienne Rich informed the Clinton administration of her decision in a July 3rd letter to Jane Alexander, the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts at the time, which administers the awards. Adrienne Rich appeared on Democracy Now! soon afterwards, and she read her letter.

ADRIENNE RICH: "Dear Jane Alexander,

“I just spoke with a young man from your office, who informed me that I had been chosen to be one of twelve recipients of the National Medal for the Arts at a ceremony at the White House in the fall. I told him at once that I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. I want to clarify to you what I meant by my refusal.

“Anyone familiar with my work from the early Sixties on knows that I believe in art’s social presence—as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright. In my lifetime I have seen the space for the arts opened by movements for social justice, the power of art to break despair. Over the past two decades I have witnessed the increasingly brutal impact of racial and economic injustice in our country.

“There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored. I know you have been engaged in a serious and disheartening struggle to save government funding for the arts, against those whose fear and suspicion of art is nakedly repressive. In the end, I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist. I could not participate in a ritual which would feel so hypocritical to me.

"Sincerely,
Adrienne Rich"

AMY GOODMAN: Adrienne Rich, reading on Democracy Now! the letter she wrote to the actress Jane Alexander, who was then the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, rejecting the 1997 medal, the 1997 National Medal for the Arts. Alice Walker, your final thoughts on Adrienne Rich?
ALICE WALKER: I think that that letter demonstrates that integrity that she had that I so admired. And I think her legacy for all of us is to continue to believe in the power of art, especially in the power of poetry, and to keep moving and not to be dissuaded, not to be discouraged, but to take heart from a woman who lived for 82 years giving her very best, growing out of every shell that society attempted to force her into to become this really amazing figure of inspiration and hope and love.
AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, we want to thank you for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and activist. Frances Goldin, Adrienne Rich’s agent and friend. And we will post you reading, Frances, Adrienne’s letter to you on our website at democracynow.org.

Living a Public and Private Life as a Profeminist

image is from photobucket here

With my next post being my 1700th, I thought it was about time I shared with my readers a few thoughts about being a socially advantaged white male and an anti-racist pro-feminist.

I've been blogging for coming up on four years (well, three and a half at this point, although to be honest it feels like seven or eight). Few of my posts are about me... I mean really ABOUT ME. There are several reasons for this. One is that I feel and think there's far too much "white males talking about ourselves" happening habitually offline and on. Also, this blog, increasingly, has become woman of color-centered and woman of color-focused, with some posts about white women's work and men of color's work, and a few tossed in about work being done by white men.

I've seen so many white males develop political agendas and perspectives that assume that what happens to white males is happening to everyone--the way it happens to white men. Not only is this false on many levels, but something happens when we make men and whites the center of our viewpoints and political agendas. What happens is, by effect or by intent, women of color's lives get invisibilised, distorted, or subsumed in the assumptions about humanity that go along with centering white men as the standard of being human.

Also, though, there's the issue of what happens when white males speak out about anything at all. People listen to us differently, often enough. And the way that white males insinuate ourselves into history books and academic journals, in Western religious teachings and secular law-making, in global affairs and sports, in medicine and music, as the heroes", "the great ones", "the experts" and "the geniuses", I am left feeling a bit reluctant to promote or communicate much about myself here.

I won't publish photos of myself for many reasons but one reason is that once a white male has a public face, that face may then be associated with all the things that are typically and habitually afforded white men in racist patriarchal societies. I also won't appear on radio or television even though I've been asked. I won't become a public figure "in person" because I think doing so ends up promoting the person at least as much as the things the person is addressing in media. I've gotten into some trouble with this. Some people think I should be far more "out there" and "public" about myself.

I've also been asked to co-lead some feminist groups. Not gonna happen. I don't believe males should do so. I've seen it happen and the way it usually works is this: white women work with white men to promote feminist practices, or men of color work with white men to promote anti-racist political perspectives. What happens time and again ad nauseam is that women of color are left out and left behind, in the work of whites and men.

What also happens a lot is that white men earn money for promoting feminist ideas and for teaching Women's Studies courses (I am on record as believing that under no circumstances should white men teach Women's Studies courses--there are too many out-of-work women of all colors with the training and education to do so). And there are white men who earn a living on their anti-racist views while people of color--especially women of color--generally earn nothing at all for promoting and advocating anti-racist practice and political work. Enough members of the liberal and progressive side of society adores the white men who do this work and public and private institutions rewards them much more than they reward women of color who do this work--far longer than the white men have been doing it. It is also the case that I can do my work not-for-money and still pay my bills. So I acknowledge that economic privilege being a factor in my refusal to be paid for any political work I do.

My whiteness and maleness shows up in my work, hopefully in self-critical, transparent, and responsible ways. That's my objective. Along with all the other readers, I want white males to read this work and see what it means to value the work of women of color--to witness an example of that happening. The fact that I know of no other white males who do this alerts me to the emergency of white males ignoring the lives and theories of politically active women of color. Not that we're surprised.

I have an emotional life. I have a private life. Each is shaped by my social and structural advantages and disadvantages. My life straddles many hierarchies. Most of my political work, by far, is done offline and most of my readers don't know about that work because that's how I've organised my life. I live privately while also fully accountable to all the women in my private life. I've welcomed the women who know me well (meaning: not just someone who I've exchanged a few emails with) to make public anything that they experience as misogynistic or a form of mistreatment. My friendships with women go back a long time from over twenty-five years to just a couple of years; thus far no woman in my personal life has found it necessary to publicly report on my behaviors as being harmful to them personally or to women generally.

This certainly doesn't mean I haven't triggered or upset women in my private life. I have--far too often. While I believe there's no way to be emotionally involved with someone without that happening, I'd add that I've also taken way too long to "get it" about some of the ways I've been emotionally triggering, to one woman in particular. Our friendship has survived my too-slow pace and fortunately that triggering hasn't happened for many months. I work hard at being accountable, which for me means being present, empathic, caring, responsible, and responsive. I don't value mind games and emotional coercion. I detest meanness and cruelty. I'm not a physically aggressive person, I suspect because I didn't grow up in homes that were that way: I didn't learn how to be physically aggressive and when picked on and bullied, I never fought back. I'm glad I've never punched or hit anyone, not that the bullies didn't deserve to be stopped. But I doubt my punches would have stopped them.

Most of my friendships are with women and I've arranged, with sufficient health care coverage in place, to bring most of my own inner and difficult emotional work to a health care professional not to my women friends: we all know how rapidly and readily men and males use women as their emotional care-takers.

I've let most of my friendships with men lapse. But there are a few that are in place and are meaningful to me. (That means you, Katlego.) One of the reasons I'm not just asexual but also celibate and non-romantic is because I know that were I to get involved with a man it would steer too much of my life towards him and away from women. It's also the case that PTSD and other personal struggles rule out me being intimate (not meaning 'sexual') with men. There's nothing especially self-effacing, altruistic, self-negating, or noble going on here in my life, just to be clear. And, also for the record: I'm gay and am not bisexual; I do not get romantically or sexually involved with women. Another reason for me being celibate (which is not a given for asexuals--we are conditioned, after all, to believe we ought to be sexually active in some way, shape, or form), is that I've seen how pro-feminist males fuck up other people's lives in fleeting or longer-term sexual relationships, heterosexually and homosexually. I won't be "that guy".

The deep and long-term friendships I have with radical and feminist women serve me well and I hope serve them well too. I am grateful for each one of them.