My Statement to a New Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist Conversations Facebook Group: "The Radical Inclusivity of Radical Feminism"

This is a shortened version of something I posted to a relatively new facebook group. I'll be writing more soon. The bottom line for me about the group is not only am I questioning what is radical about a white-led, liberal discussion project--however well-intentioned, but there is no system of accountability in place there to prioritise the concerns of radical feminist lesbians and radical womanist and feminist women of color I know and care about: long-time friends, colleagues, mentors, and some who probably don't like me very much for operating out of privilege and entitlement in ways that have hurt some women interpersonally online.

This was posted to the membership of this group: "The Radical Inclusivity of Radical Feminism":

I may be working out some of my concerns--stated [in the facebook group] already--on my own blog, because this space, itself, is a bit uncomfortable for me--in part due to it being facebook: I dislike the interface, as I've stated elsewhere here. (I feel the same way about Tumblr and Twitter!) The way my body/mind works and the way these interfaces work don't make engaged, sustained conversation very easy for me. Using the image of offline textual communication, It feels like I'm in a room where lots of sheets of discourse get distributed and are almost immediately covered up by lots of others. One paper gets tugged out from the bottom, notes are added, and it is then lost again. I actually tried to go back to the start of this forum and it was, wait for it... virtually impossible.

More seriously, I also need to be sure I am being respectful and accountable to people who are dear to me, to people who I endeavor to serve in my work. And that simply cannot happen in this space because they are not here, as far as I know!

Response-ability and Account-ability to those I structurally oppress is a core radical 'profeminist' value. One of many things I've learned from radical feminists is that I cannot be outside the structural positions of power and entitlement I occupy and am afforded.

I don't want to accidentally be presenting myself as someone who is embarking on a project that is purporting to be liberatory to children and women of color, to anyone of any ethnicity who identifies as radical, feminist, or lesbian unless that venture is clearly and unambiguously led by radical, womanist, anticolonial, and feminist women of color, in partnership with white feminists. And unless clear and functional systems of accountability to those women are in place. Operative. "Online."

Why do some white folks ask what we should do, to be an ally, when a Black woman is being abused in public by a Black man?

image is from here

This post is in response to a discussion over to Crunk Feminist Collective. You can read that post and the comments there first if you want, but it's not necessary. But to do so, click on the title of that post just below:

On Black Men Showing Up for Black Women at the Scene of the Crime

The reason it's not necessary is because white folks are asking questions there what white folks ask far too often in the wrong spaces: What should I do to be a good ally to people of color? Usually this assumes people of color exist to educate whites about how to be anti-racist/anti-sexist. And usually in contexts where people of color are not there to teach whites anything. (I mean, like not in a classroom with bell hooks as the professor teaching a course to people of color and whites on how to support one another across various political struggles.)

Too often, in PoC spaces or in conversations led by people of color about something awful that happened to someone, white comments become a white-centered distraction from the main issues.

But related to the post above, I wonder to what extent the Brecht Center is a white-majority or white-run space, an academic space. I wonder how that contributed to the lack of response from the audience to Crunktastic being intimidated, threatened, and assaulted at a progressive political panel discussion, by a well-known Black male activist, Kazembe Balagun. My experience of white and class-privileged academic spaces is that there is an expectation that audiences remain passive witnesses to what's going on (or down) onstage. That to do otherwise is to break the unwritten cultural rules of (non)engagement. I wonder if that's part of this story.

But there are always plenty of explanations for why folks don't intervene on violence against women, including racist misogyny (rarely identified as such). It shows up in male-bonding rituals. It shows up in the refusal of the public to see the harassment, disrespect, disregard, harassment, violation, and abuse of women of color as violence. Other dynamics are described later on in this post.

At issue is our collective response-ability to co-create anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal spaces in which to organise and, well, just live with dignity and relative safety. I've seen response-ability shut down by anti-activist liberal white and male self-reflection. "What can I do that won't be seen as racist or sexist?" is a question in service to white male supremacy. Because "how privileged folks are perceived" already presumes the issue is the image of the oppressors, not the harm done to the oppressed.

I'm making space here, at a white person's blog, for some of that discussion. A white woman at CFC left a comment, which I'm excerpting just below. The reason I'm copying and pasting it here is because she acknowledges this is a conversation that maybe shouldn't happen there and then, at CFC. And I agree. Other whites on that comments page appear to me to be making this about liberal white guilt and the matter of whether we should do anything, rather than about what we must do to intervene when we witness violence occurring right before us in social spaces.

I can’t pretend that the dynamics of my interactions with black women aren’t colored by our different races. I do not want to presume to act or speak for a black woman who is perfectly capable of acting or speaking for herself. Nor do I want to appear to be attempting to exert authority over a space for black people based on my white skin. It can be difficult at times to decide whether my intervention in a tense situation would be seen as welcome support or as hijacking. In this situation, I think the answer is clear (both from my own judgment and from the message of the post), but it’s not always.

Obviously, how a white woman would have felt/what she should have done should not be the center of the discussion here. What happened should be. But there seems to be a substantial discussion going on around that, and thus probably room for a thread or two on this point: that is, how SHOULD an ally best respond in this situation? There may actually be a different answer for other black men, for white women, for white men, etc.

Should whites respond differently to violence happening when the aggressor is a Black man and the person harmed is a Black woman? Are the responsibilities of a white ally to a Black woman facing male supremacist hostility from a Black man (or from a white man, or a man of color who isn't Black) different than the responsibilities of an ally to a white woman facing male supremacist hostility--from a white or Black man, or another man of color?

Beyond, "Don't do something racist", I don't think so. 

But it is, unfortunately, the case that we whites can be confused about what it is to be racist.

One way racism shows up is whites thinking that intervening when a Black woman is being abused by a Black man is in and of itself racist. When, in fact, not intervening is the act of racism, and sexism.

This was going to be my reply at CFC but I've decided to put it here instead and link to this post over there.
 

Dynamics are raced, yes. Always. And gendered. Whatever I did there, if I were there, would have been the actions of a white male. But our race and gender doesn't mean we're not capable of responding to other humans as human beings. 
 

I read another comment, in response to the one quoted above, stating clearly that the woman assaulted is a human being and ought to be responded to as the human being that she is. 
 

I thought about how whites use our whiteness as a way (and too often an excuse) to not do something we'd do if it were happening to someone white. We don't tend to ask ourselves, when in an all-white forum or social space, "How might my whiteness be a problem here, in possibly intervening when a white man is harming a white woman?" I'm just as white in all-white spaces too. That whole way of responding or not and acting or not is white supremacist to me. 

Black, Brown, white, female, trans, male: if I'm a person in the room, and I see someone being assaulted, I intervene, if I care and if I can. I do what I can do, given my own limitations, strengths, privileges, and experiences of trauma and resistance.  
 

One thing I've seen play out far too often is that whites assume a Black woman (a particular Black woman, any Black woman, or all Black women) is strong enough to handle things on her own. While whites often want someone (of color) to have our back, it is assumed by whites that a Black woman has her own back and doesn't need anything more. The misogynist-racist Super-woman stereotype. There's the issue of Black woman-as-mammy whose only role is to take care of whites. In such a racist imagination, how could she possibly need whites to emotionally or physically take care of her? In reality, in what spaces would whites do so at all without expecting public or private props?
 

I've seen how Black women's womanness is erased and how Black women's Blackness is eraced. Each of which contributes to how Black women's humanity is made invisible socially by white and male supremacy.
 

When women's liberation is discussed in white spaces, the talk often assumes an alleged common denominator of white experience. So Black women, and other women of color, are assumed to be part of that struggle--to be "women"--only to the extent that they share the experiences, analysis, and agendas of whites. Usually unasked and unanswered in such spaces is this question: how could white experience be a common denominator for all women, most of whom are not white?) In my experience, when women of color assert their womanness not in white or colonial terms, or outside a white frame of experience, whites often claim they are being divisive, disruptive, or collaborators with patriarchy. (In truth, whites invisibilising whiteness is always in service to colonial patriarchy.)

  

When Black liberation is discussed in Black spaces, the talk often assumes a common denominator of Black men's experience. So Black women, again, are assumed to be part of the struggle only to the extent that their lives and struggles match up with men's. When Black women assert their own experiences as distinct from men's, the men often rebuke, retaliate, and revolt against the women, proving the point far too predictably.

What gets lost, obviously, is the humanity of Black women as Black, as women, and as Black Women whose lives, however personally complex and culturally dissimilar, do not and cannot only mirror the struggles Black men and white women face, in part because Black women are oppressed by both groups and by white men too.
 

I open the post to comments and conversation.

Hugo Schwyzer and Miley Cyrus: which person deserves their bad press?

HUGO SCHWYZER:

image is from here

This is, unfortunately, another in a series of posts about Mr. Hugo Schwyzer. (For some additional history and analysis, you may also read my August 14th and Sept. 8th posts.) Only Miley Cyrus seems to be getting more bad press lately. His, however, is fully deserved. (I won't go into the Miley Cyrus media controversy other than to say that it is clear female performers are held to a very different standard than are male performers. Her racist misogyny in some performances should be called out. And to say that Sinead O'Connor is a long-time shero of mine.)

Yesterday, journalist Lauren Gold of the Pasadena Star-News reported the following news which is excerpted from her article which may be read in full *here*:

"Attorneys for Pasadena City College have sent a letter to porn professor Hugo Schwyzer, asking him to resign.

The letter came one day after Schwyzer admitted he was arrested in connection with a drunken driving accident that left a woman injured.

Schwyzer said he has no plans to resign before his disability retirement benefits from CalSTRS kick in on Jan. 1 because he needs the health insurance coverage for his children."

If he were truly concerned about health insurance for his children, he ought to have chosen not to be a sexual predator and flagrant abuser of rules and regulations at his place of employment. What he has insured is that his behavior has threatened the mental health and general welfare of his children and spouse by giving his employers no other reasonable choice but to ask him to resign or fire him.

He reminds me of the procurers of women in systems of prostitution who argue their names ought not be revealed to the public because publishing them will negatively effect their private and professional lives. The perps complain that the press is doing them harm. Hugo argues the actions of an academic institution and their attorneys, not his own, will cause his children harm.

“[M]y entire career is not defined by a few affairs with students. I was also a successful professor and what I’m asking from the college is that they forestall termination until Dec. 31. ... I think after 20 years of teaching that’s not an unreasonable request.”

It's not only an unreasonable request. It's an unethical and unconscionable one. Hugo's career is appropriately now defined by his serial sexual exploitation of young women. He's made sure that's the case by systematically abusing his position, privileges, and power, and also by publishing accounts of those abuses. His termination as "a successful professor" is something he brought about, not anyone else.

In an Oct. 1 letter to Schwyzer, attorney Mary Dowell told Schwyzer his admissions and conduct are sufficient grounds for termination. The letter encouraged Schwyzer to resign.

“The District views both your recent conduct and the past conduct which you have revealed in your recent public statements and writings as grounds for termination. ... The disciplinary process will begin well before January 1, 2014,” Dowell wrote. “However, the District has asked me to advise you that you can avoid discipline if you unequivocally and irrevocably resign from your employment.”*

I am considering the annals of allegedly pro-feminist men's history. (There aren't that many records; this doesn't take long.) Comparing the professional and political life of Hugo Schwyzer to the others, could there be a more glaring example of a chronic misuse of power, as a "pro-feminist", in defense of one's abusive behavior? Could there be a more offensive attempt to claim mental illness as a cause, an excuse, for doing what white men have done for centuries without fear of arrest, incarceration, or demotion in status, position, entitlements, and power?

How can someone so practiced at teaching sexual politics be so completely self-centered, arrogant, and in denial about the blatant political nature of one's harmful acts against children, women, and society? That's the wrong question, perhaps. Maybe the question ought to be: What kind of power has to be institutionalised and systematised in order for U.S. white men to get away with flagrantly abusive activity for so long? Or to do so while pleading ignorance or illness? Or to do so while preaching what one doesn't practice? The answer is colonial patriarchal power and entitlement infused into every sphere of social life.

Hugo's actions are causally and effectively political. His actions are appropriately and adequately described by the feminist activists he refuses to be accountable to. The complex of self-serving attitudes and harmful behaviors he has displayed consistently over many years cannot be appropriately explained or adequately understood by mental health professionals. Nor by the attorneys who use such professionals to protect their clients from legal consequences any adult sex offender should face.

The comprehension of Hugo's behavior ought not lead one to conclude he is suffering from mental illness or unfair persecution by people around him. One ought to conclude he benefits from the white colonial male privileges he consciously exercises, so far, with impunity.

To Hugo:
Stop manipulating everyone around you with claims of mistreatment and start accepting full responsibility. Stop pretending the college you've worked for doesn't have the legal and ethical right to fire your ass without you and your lawyer retaliating. Stop pretending a college can take away protections for your children when you, yourself, have done so. Seriously. Stop being such a white prick. Once and for all.

*If interested, you may click on the predator's name for many more stories on Hugo Schwyzer, PCC’s Porn Professor at pasadenastarnews.com.

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.)

I encourage you to read this guest post: "In a Quiet Place", by Itoro

What follows was posted originally on Itoro's own blog, "Thoughts of my Mind". She has welcomed me to repost it here. And it is with gratitude to her that I do so. To link back to the post on her blog, please click *here*.

In a Quiet Place

why some people be mad at me sometimes

by Lucille Clifton

they ask me to remember

but they want me to remember

their memories

and I keep on remembering mine

This testimonial is a celebration for all the ways we survive, often unnoticed and alone in our struggling to make a difference from the many places we inhabit. This testimonial does not belong to me, it could not be written without the wisdom and knowledge of many other peoples remaining vigilant in putting our dreams of a world free of exploitation into practice. Our collective memories of the ways in which unchecked supremacy can run rampant in our practice towards one another fuel our determination to realize this dream. We often find ourselves marginalized and alone, unwelcome in radical communities with curt responses or none at all, and usually no acknowledgement of the ways in which we have been torn in these movements.    Radically telling this truth can be viewed as divisive to the movement and a “pathological” issue. This logic is an effective tool to manage dissenting voices, sanitize our lived realities and allow for treacherous interactions. Many of us have horror stories of the types of systemic disrespect and negation we have gone through.  In fighting for a more expansive politics, to openly name the ways dominant behaviors surface across many institutions and people is met with hostility. To honor our rage and pain, to use our stories as a way to salve our wounds and name the abuse is a radical endeavor. It suggests the possibility of healing and allowing ourselves to find wellness. Acknowledging pain demands a critical reflection on all the interactions that happened to get us to the point of betrayal in the first place. It also demands us to interrogate our own habits and question the role we have played in the matter. Often, this type of radical truth-telling does not happen, we end up leaving or staying in these places looking in from the margins, completely discredited. So of course, the scars are here, still swollen and bruised. Wherever do we go from here?

Hey, big woman–

with scars on the head

and scars on the heart

that never seem to heal–

I saw your light

And it was shining.

(Assata Shakur)

As someone who identifies as Black, as woman, first-generation, African, working class and energetic, I have seen how my rage has been treated as counter-productive to the movement.  I think of my own horror stories expressing the destructiveness that can come with doing this work. The most recent and painful memory. I am working as an educator within a radical teaching organization. We care about solidarity, critical thinking, understanding and liberation across difference for our common struggles, Yet, when I note the overwhelming whiteness and privilege often exercised within the organization I am either met with an eerie silence or hostility. More specifically, when I say that the movement to end class exploitation must also deal with white supremacy and assert that we (yes we, not just the ruling classes) must investigate our roles in reproducing this class system with our own internalized supremacy I suddenly become that sore on every one’s side.

 “Am I crazy? No one has said anything so maybe it’s me…”

I soon start to believe that I am the problem. Besides, there are people of color here too, who care about solidarity, critical thinking and liberation across difference. We have to care about it and love each other fiercely…right? When trying to voice my concern to this woman of color she swiftly cuts me off and says, “It’s not about a black pedagogy or white pedagogy but a class pedagogy.” End of discussion, there is no longer a conversation to be had. She does not even look me in my face, just like the rest of them. Maybe I should have said something else, maybe I missed something… I am that sore on her side. This is a woman of color, she holds a lot of respect and authority within this organization. I respect her too…is this my fault?

The refusal to not scrutinize how we practice freedom in our daily lives often leads to this type of unspoken and unrecognized pain. When these contradictions remain unchallenged, usually the most vulnerable within the organization are the one’s who experience the worst of what the organization has to offer (or refuses to offer). In other words, we become easy targets for your unspoken rage and anger to be unleashed and accepted at any moment when our mere presence calls out your particular contradiction and shortcoming. My rage speaks to the pain of the explosive silence and broken relationships that has deterred all our efforts to see us finally liberated from a larger structure of outright violence, denial and repression. I think of my sources of anger. I have had to go back and scrutinize these memories to break my own fears and silence:

●      A colleague of mine has told me that the all white teaching staff is wondering out loud if I am really serious about teaching. Constantly dealing with these students and administration is hurting my health. I have had racial slights hurled at me and most of the teachers act as if I am not there…living in this area has physically made me sick and yes I have been absent for a couple of days. I come back to hear that now the teachers are talking about whether or not I am serious about this work…never mind that my white colleague can go to a wedding for a week and not have these things wondered about him, or the quality of his work questioned…in fact, his teacher mentor wants to keep him for the next semester…

● I demand a meeting to talk about the institutional racism going on in the schools and teaching program. I go to the administration (comprised of two women of color and one white woman) they ask me questions about why I am so upset. One of the women (a woman of color) even says that when she saw me crying one day in front of my classmates she read my display of emotions as “impulsive.” She notes my silence as the primary reason the administration does not know what is going on (never mind that I told her about the “white teachers gossiping” incident a couple weeks ago) She questions why I want special treatment around race when other people in the program also have their issues. I am questioned so much that I begin to think what I am asking for is trivial. All the things I “demand” remain mostly unchanged.

● A white male student has been allowed to teach in Harlem New York. It was my understanding that no student could travel this far out for an internship. I think back to previous meetings I had when I said I wanted to work specifically with children of color. The administration told me that my wanting to teach students of color is a subjective issue.  Most of my white peers talk about wanting to do prison work, feeling that people of color need the most help and wanting to work with “vulnerable” populations. But this colleague can go teach students of color and even travel away to do so. He comes back to class saying he is having a difficult time relating to the issues he is seeing with this population. I watch the same woman who used her questions to discipline me, use her questions to help this student with his specific situation.

●  I have become completely silent in class no longer wanting to engage. I should do better and hate the fact that I feel so stuck. But still, I do have to note that two of my other colleagues are incredibly silent however no one seems to stare their way and demand and answer when the white people exclaim, “Not enough people speak up in class!…”

● I’m in a role play in a small group on intervening to stop racism. The scenario: One woman wants to cross the street because she spots an African American male walking on the sidewalk. The other friend is supposed to intervene. For the next ten minutes I watch these two white, well meaning women theorize around why they would not intervene in saying the woman wanting to cross the street is acting in a racist manner. I finally come out with my uneasiness and say this is dominant thinking. After I finally said those words I dealt with the brunt of these two “allies” insidious shame and guilt.

●      A teacher is teaching us aspiring teachers about cultural sensitivity and bias in the classroom. She is White. (This should not matter because we are in a radical setting.) In order to teach us about cultural understanding, she makes an almost entirely white class take the Chitling test. These are the things I know about the Chitling test 1). It is extremely offensive 2). It pyschologizes the black experience and 3). It should not be taken (even with well meaning adults) if we do not talk about the legacy of white supremacy. None of this is talked about. In fact, the white teachers defend why this test makes sense. One of them notes that a black sociologist created the test. I don’t give a damn if a black sociologist created this test. We are not all on the same side. Some of the students look confused, most of us say nothing, most of us do not understand the history behind this test. This is confusing. One white woman across the table from me laughs and says, “Let’s take the test!”

●      I’m working at a new teaching site. It’s a progressive school. If I want to be paid for substitute teaching I must go through a background check. I pass in the required documentation within the first two weeks of school…two months later I hear no word about my paperwork going through. I send emails to no avail. My other white male colleague who entered the site the same time I did has passed his background check. He has started subbing and is getting paid for his work. I take on the same teacher load but the situation is different. Not having my background check cleared requires a “real” substitute teacher to sit in and monitor what I am doing. By law I am not allowed to be alone with the kids. The kids wonder who is the authority figure…I teach any way. A week later I am sitting eating my lunch. The lady who is supposed to handle my paperwork comes in wanting to check in about the situation. She tells me that for some reason my documentation has not yet been passed in. She proceeds to ask me, “…so about your background check. Are you…legal?”

● The most devastating memory: A professor of color asks me in front of the all white class, “You’re black, why are you silent?” I express a tenth of the rage and anger at white supremacy and finally say I am tired. The teacher says “I knew you would say that,” and for a moment I think I have an ally. She goes on to swiftly tell me that John Brown understood what this struggle meant, and that I am doing this work for the people. It is this day when I really start to wonder if by the people she is referring to the predominantly white middle class students sitting in her classroom.

● Note to self: Document everything you can and don’t let them get you alone (unless you’re strong enough to take them on), that’s their way of coercing you into things you might not want to do. Try to have someone there as a witness to verify what they tell you in private from what they actually do when everyone is watching. My last day meeting with two of the administrative members at the end of program. I finally tell one of them that I felt chastised within the program and that there was absolutely no support offered. She asks me, “Did something deep in you change?” At this time, I do not realize how deeply patronizing and dismissive her question is.  I reply yes. The respect for her authority is still there. I still try to hold my position that there should have been some support. She goes on to tell me: “The institution is not supposed to be supportive.” This feels like the twilight zone. It also feels deceptive. This is confusing.  I was under the impression that we wanted to build community, namely with one another… I’ve seen her be supportive when she needs to be…why is she always so heavy handed with me? And what about me needs to change? And if something is wrong why can’t she at least be clear about it so I can fix it?  Has she said this same statement to any other student? This is information you do not hide, if I had known she felt this way I would have known that for all this talk about principles, it was a “pick and choose what works for me” game at best.

●  A little over a year and all’s been said and done. I must still ward off these anti-racist white women who have not shaken their case of Missy Anne syndrome. One of them wants to “touch base.” She cannot take no for an answer when I say no to meeting and hosting her. She uses her creativity to get my phone number, my partner’s phone number and persistently texts and calls. She’s found out where I work and I hear that she’s been to my workplace. With all this persistence there must be something she needs to say. When we finally meet she smiles without acknowledging anything. Not what happened back then and certainly not that her supremacy is showing now.  She still feels insufficient in her work for social justice and something about maybe buying a house. This meeting is awkward at best. I will not use my energy to soothe her guilt. People reflect the organizations and ideologies they’re coming from.  And inaction and denial is such a reactionary and tired tune. Haven’t heard from her since. You cannot force a relationship.

As I think of these memories, I wish I had been resolute in knowing that these people were very much tied to their positions of power and dominance.  Under such an abusive gaze, where there was much more going on than this little story can touch, I celebrate that I did not give in to grief.

Finding the language to analyze these habits becomes a necessary task when the words of radical thought is so readily available, while in the same hand, we feel the constant jerking of an elbow hurting our sides. Like everything, there is no pure place to work from. Social justice work is also rife with historical contradiction and struggle. Within a capitalist structure, it has become professionalized. If you play your cards right, you can make your meal ticket off of “helping” people, and even your feelings of wanting to “do good” can be used to buttress your career. So please be sure, this is not a compartmentalized race story. The way things played out politically was steeped in the protection of white supremacy and tokenized positions of status for a few people of color.  These terror stories should alert us to the types of spaces we inhabit within the overall class hierarchy when there are no built in structures for us to critically reflect and change these contradictions as a collective. When we look at how our right to lead our own movements, to teach in our communities, to have our ideas heard and published, and to safely work, is constantly thwarted by this type of hidden supremacy, we cannot be so naïve as to not connect these structural behaviors to our economic options.  If we care about movement building we must challenge the institutional silence that erases and shames us while these injustices occur in the space and cracks of our liberation work.

Where does the pain go/when the pain goes away?

Audre Lorde

Women of color, in a quiet place, come together to talk about the ways in which we have been hurt. We name the things we have had to go without; from adequate health care to employment discrimination to worrying if we’ll be the one picked up on the street when walking home at night from the train station. We talk about our struggles and dreams. We choose to use rage as insight to continue. We are not fodder for the “cause.” We are here. There is much to fight for and no time to waste.

Without the love of my sister-friends I would not have made it. They built me up to be a warrior and tore down those sinking doubts and feelings I had. Their stories put steel in my spine and resolve in my throat. They massaged that crackle in my voice that had internalized blame and doubt. They were committed to practicing love as a principle.  They were confident in knowing that we should not be the ones to always receive the brunt of contempt, to be the ones who must be taught harsh lessons so we can really internalize how dreadful this system is, for fear that we become too “coddled.”  Mutual caretaking and intimacy is part and parcel of our survival. To toughen ourselves does not mean we must be cruel to one another. To survive does not have to mean that we allow ourselves to be tokenized to call rank on one another, that we give in to the values of this system and see each other as an opportunity for individual benefits. Through their words and commitment to heal what had been scarred I was made whole.

Constant conversations with sister-friends who knew what I was going through was my healing balm. Whenever we could get together, we would develop strategies to protect ourselves from the daily blows and assess how far we needed to go with our particular struggles. One sister-friend would write very detailed and thought out letters that helped develop my analysis when I needed words to name behaviors beyond feelings. In one tough situation she wrote:

In many ways being in this situation has helped me to polish my analysis, and understand more broadly what boundaries i must establish.  i am able to also see more clearly my own internalized oppression and how this manifests in my comments/behaviors, etc. In addition, i can also see how my knowledge and analysis is quite powerful and if not used carefully can be destructive towards my allies as well as others who do not hold my same opinion.  I am very glad to have gone through the process of conflict transformation.  for though i am a big critic, i learned much about myself and my capacity to try to bring understanding and solidarity in situations like this, without negotiating my fundamental values. i really don’t think i will be able to work with this group of people, but i will continue to support their efforts for social justice, as i will others.  the white privilege is present in every work, gesture, and suggestion.  it is much to much and will take to much of my energy which is continuously being challenged by those who are really in power.  but at least there i am visible…..very visible. i will be writing soon, with details, attaching emails, and recording the negligence of some of our colleagues, who just happen to be people in positions of power and decision making. i never thought these groups were perfect, for i am also not.  but, i was not expecting to have to put up with so much rejection and dominance. this is absolute nonsense coming from such an organization. let’s stay positive, let’s not dismiss anyone regardless of their positions, left, right, moderate, even fundamentalist. let’s try not to do what they do.

And I must shift the eye towards myself. I fed into the supremacy and hatred for another woman of color who I consider a dear sister friend. I should have raised my voice when her anger was being laughed away in front of my peers. I did not intervene when another woman of color said that she would not respond to this woman’s anger. Never mind that she was a professor saying such a dangerous statement to two students of color.

The “angry” woman in question was just “easily pissoffable.” That day, I did nothing to earn my title as an educator truly wanting to see a just world. I was too afraid to claim a position that brought humanity to my friend;  I chose to stay comfortable. I should have said it would be more productive to analyze the situation than to individualize her anger as an unwarranted abnormality. Or say that we have become all too accustomed at discrediting each other when the other is not there and this is something to be pissed off about.   I did not use that moment as an opportunity to speak to the larger structure of the organization and our serious issues around not explaining our choices, ignoring one another, and justifying our positions as the only fact that can exist. I could have even gone on about how we explain away brutal ego-tripping gossip as “analysis.” My friend’s anger was justified and should have been taken seriously. I did not have to contribute to the cruelty of that situation. When I look back, there are many could-a, should-a, would-a’s I wish I had claimed as moments for clarity.

I am sure that there are stories about my shortcomings that has done an incredible amount of damage, and I have to hear them if I am committed to sharpening my analysis, healing and creating solutions that restore dignity.

Too many of our stories are fraught with betrayal, distortion and violence in struggling to reach a place of equality. What type of hard and difficult work are we doing to ensure that we are creating the conditions for the massive change we want to see? Are there structures where we can all be clear about the choices we make? Do we consent to the targeting of our peers? Is our work restoring our dignity? The struggle continues. In my new place of struggle I knew what mistakes I did not want to continue…this knowing is liberating and involves much risk.

It took me a while to own that burning part of myself, the part that could spit fire and the part that could honor my resistance. Being around such strong women made me want to own that power and continue to struggle. There are so many peoples we do this work for, who have given much more than I can imagine and suffered greater losses. I am still here. To give in to my fear is a slow death at best. There is much too live for.  I remember a time when I wrote an email about the privilege and dominance within the program, how it hindered our goals. There was no response from my peers and I began to wonder if there would be a punishment for my thoughts. My sister-friend was able to salve my wound with her final words:

“And yes, I noticed no responses. As we know this is a strategic move of privilege and hegemony…to deny the existence of our thoughts, ideas, and creativity. Oh, but they heard loud and clear…do not doubt this my friend. Keep speaking, for if we don’t we will lose our humanity and dignity.  i know what it feels like when we feel we have spoken to much. it’s really okay. Breathe and know it is okay.   gather your thoughts, honor your life and your way, give people a chance to take it in….you will know when and how to continue. but never, never, be silent for too long…remember that what we say is deep, much to deep for others to sometimes handle.  but remember we have handled even more and have survived and become better women because of it.  don’t let guilt or shame stop you….those are the masters tools….do away with them.”

[The website this is from is: http://thoughtsofmymind-itoro.blogspot.com/2012/10/in-quiet-place.html ]

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.)