The Full Frontal Feminism discussion continues in various fora. I’m struck this morning by this long, powerful, angry, passionate, frequently funny poem by Ilyka: Letter to a Puppet. It’s written more to a well-meaning commenter than to me, but I’m provoked and stirred — in the best way — by it. Poetry frequently gets things across to me that prose can’t. This bit is haunting me right now:
Moral triage was performed,
and some people
were just going to have to sit in the waiting room
a little fucking longer than they had been,
and they’d been there for hundreds of years already, that’s the really shitty part.
I thought that was sad,
and hateful,
and patronizing. That it was said in an earnest,
well-meaning,
conciliatory,
and no doubt civil tone–
well. It didn’t make ME any less angry,
let’s put it that way.
Speaking only for myself — not for Jessica Valenti, not for any of my commenters, not for anyone else — I do perform moral triage all too often. And time and again, as much as I say I don’t want to play the “oppression Olympics“, I do create “hierarchies of hurt”, saying “well, we can’t fight all the battles at once, so let’s pick the most important ones.” My instincts and my training, and yes, my whiteness, lead me to see the mistreatment of women (all women, irrespective of color or class) as the Greatest Crime. And I’ve been called out more than once for continuing to rely on the problematic Shirley Chisholm model, the one in which I get a famous black woman’s blessing to perform “moral triage.”
And let me say this as well: speaking only for myself and for no one else, I don’t think anyone in the “women of color” community has been “hating” on me. I’d like to think I can distinguish between being the target of righteous anger and being an object of mindless hate. In the blogosphere, I’ve been on the receiving end of both from time to time, and have noticed that there is a difference. Saying “Hugo is a privileged ass who doesn’t get it” is very different from saying “Hugo is a self-loathing mangina”.
Thanks, Ilyka. I loved the poem, and it’s got the chinchillas who live in my head racing extra-fast on their wheels.
Well-meaning? You gotta be kidding, someone says something that racist, and it’s well-meaning? So a guy comes to a feminist blog and says something like women are all whiners just looking for an excuse to be angry and would it be ok to characterize that as “well-meaning”? Because that is what your well-meaning commenter said about WOC. It makes me wonder if you actually read what Ilyka wrote, or just skimmed it.
Donna, I use the term “well-meaning” the same way my Southern relatives use the term “oh, bless his (her) heart” — as a polite way of saying to someone that they really, really missed the boat.
We all have our tools for discourse, and one of mine is the use of exaggerated civility as irony.
I’ve heard that, “bless his/her heart”, one before and would have picked up on it. Thank you for the explanation on “well-meaning”. I am relieved you meant it that way, because during other internet flame wars there have been some very unhelpful people jumping in siding with normative and status quo who if you are normative and status quo could be seen as well meaning. For example, with Rosie O’Donnell and her ching chong thing on The View. Asian people were trying to explain why it’s hurtful, why slurs can lead to violence, etc. But there was this contingent of her fans telling her, don’t apologize to those oversensitive Chinese people, we know it was just a joke. And she fell for it! She was answering, Yeah fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke. From a white privileged perspective those fans were just trying to make her feel better, which could be taken as well meaning, “Don’t let the meanies get you down” kind of way. I was worried that is how you saw what that person said. The same, “Hey Hugo some of us are on your side!” but they aren’t if they keep you from learning anything or becoming a better teacher or even having an honest dialogue.
Indeed, Donna.
I often get comments from “friends” who say things like “You’ll never please those people, why even try?” They may genuinely be trying to reassure me, but what they’re really doing is trying to get me to stop engaging in dialogue that might actually make some headway.
Sometimes, I need to quote my Lord, who when tempted by ol’ Peter to give up one aspect of his mission, told him “Get thee behind me, Satan!” And that’s what I say to anyone who wants me to STOP dialoguing with my critics.