I’m taking a break from packing for our spring break trip to offer a Sunday afternoon post. We’re off tomorrow to the place where ‘Canes roam, where Democratic delegates wait in limbo this spring, and where dear old Gianni Versace breathed his last. It’s a region I love visiting every year, but gosh, I’m always as happy to leave as I am to arrive. It doesn’t help that I love the sun and the sun doesn’t love me. (My friend Joe and I used to run shirtless together; Joe, an ER physician, always called me a “melanoma farm.”) And I’m eager for the warm waters of the Atlantic.
Later today or tonight, I’m going to close comments I have closed comments on this post regarding the Amanda Marcotte, feminists-of-color, plagiarism/appropriation/attribution fight that happened across our corner of the blogosphere this week. I don’t regret having taken the tack I did in the original post, but I do appreciate the many and disparate voices that weighed in here. The general rule that threads rarely stay productive after the 200th comment may not have applied, but better not to push it. Two other threads with good discussions of this issue were at Feministe and Amptoons. I remain convinced of two things: first, that Amanda did nothing to deserve the opprobrium directed her way; two, that the mainstream, predominantly white feminist blogosphere (of which I am most decidedly a part) has more to do in terms of both listening and crediting what we hear.
When we were gathered in Cambridge two weeks ago for the Women, Action, and Media conference, I chose not to go to the panel on women–of-color bloggers. I missed out on the chance to meet the likes of Blackamazon, Brownfemipower, and Sudy. And I’ll be honest: I weighed whether to go up until the last minute. I talked to a few people at WAM whom I trust, and who were familiar with the often bitter and bewildering exchanges I had with many of those same bloggers in last year’s long and exhausting Full Frontal Feminism fiasco. (Do a search in my archives or in the archives of half the feminist blogosphere — first in May, and then around Thanksgiving, things got heated.) These friends told me that while there was some potential for good, it might be best if I didn’t go to the Women of Color panel. That was my gut intuition as well. Perhaps I flatter myself unduly, but I wondered if, in the aftermath of all that had happened, my presence would be a noticeable irritant. It would be hard — given that I was just about the only man over forty at the entire conference, and the only one in a bright pink shirt — for me to be unobtrusive. So I didn’t go.
After this week’s brouhaha, I wonder if I didn’t make a mistake in not going. I may well have not given the folks with whom I have so vehemently disagreed nearly enough credit, and I may well have over-estimated my own capacity to prove an unpleasant presence. I’ll be at WAM 2009, and I do hope that many of those whose panel I missed this time around will be there as well.
In any event, I’ve learned a great deal from this discussion. Though Brownfemipower has now taken down the post that triggered this week’s intense debate, the google cache of the original post is available. (In the spirit of assiduous attention to good attribution, a tap of the cap to The Smack Dog Chronicles). In her lengthy and provocative piece, she said something that has stuck with me (and not just because she calls me out):
A while back Hugo S. proclaimed that he would be teaching the book Full Frontal Feminism in his class. His decision really irritated me on many levels, and I discussed them here and here. I recognize that Hugo hasn’t made any proclamations recently, and I really really don’t mean to get this going with him again–I am trying very hard to not make him the stand in for every problem that I’ve ever had with women’s studies departments.
But I do want to return to those posts because they set the groundwork for what I’m saying here. When professors decide that they will use the books of one scholar over another–what they are doing is saying that they will “cite” one scholar over another. That is–they are making one scholar’s work very important–providing book sales, name recognition, theoretical interaction with, and academic legitimacy to that scholar. But as they provide these amazing services for one scholar, they are also simultaneously *denying* those services for another scholar.
When you are cited, when your work is used in any manner in academia, you become necessary to the academy. When you are not cited, when your work is not used in any manner, you become unnecessary to the academy.
Which is why it pissed me off that Hugo said so proudly that he would be using FFF in his classroom. In privileging a work that is not scholarly by any stretch of the imagination (and it was written *specifically* and *purposefully* to NOT be scholarly, so I am not saying this as an insult), it is making THAT work necessary to the academy–and work done by women of color scholars like Andrea Smith *unnecessary*. Which in turn makes is such that more works like FFF will be published and shifted into academic settings and more work like Conquest will be left unwritten and shifted OUT of academic settings.
Bold emphasis mine.
Well, my syllabus need not be a zero-sum game. I’d be thinking about this before I read BFP’s post, but I’ve made the decision to add Andrea Smith’s Conquest: Sexual Violence and Native American Genocide to my reading list for the fall. Yes, I will still be using Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism, because it has proved immensely valuable. To make room for the Smith book, I’ll be rotating Lynn Phillips off the syllabus, at least for a semester or two.
I’m not doing this to assuage BFP or anyone else. I don’t think I can redeem myself with many of those who take what, for lack of a more precise term, is a radical approach to the intersection of feminism with other social justice issues. I am a proud “liberal feminist” in the traditional sense of both the adjective and the noun. I blog from that perspective, although my views are, as always, tempered by my Christian faith. But let me be clear: I am a good enough teacher to know that I cannot teach from that same limited perspective.
I don’t stress this often enough: I don’t teach the way I blog. I do struggle for a degree of balance and openness in the classroom that is not always evident in my online writing. I’ve acknowledged a blind spot when it came to incorporating issues of race in my gender studies classes. And part of addressing that blind spot, and broadening the pedagogy, will be to teach Smith’s Conquest as one of the core texts in my introduction to women’s history class.
These books are very different. They exasperate and enrage and provoke in different ways. They also, in some ways that are surprisingly similar, have the potential to start some important and uncomfortable discussions about the intersections of feminism and race, as well as the enduring tension between those who privilege autonomy over community and those who privilege the reverse. I’m more comfortable with Full Frontal Feminism, not because it lacks heft or because I know Jessica personally, but because Valenti’s vision of feminism more closely parallels my own. But in her brief, impassioned, scholarly and devastating book, Andrea Smith challenges virtually all of the assumptions that those of us who call ourselves liberal feminists treasure. My students need Valenti’s accessible manifesto; they need Smith’s layered, often-dazzling polemic. Read in conjunction with other texts and the class lectures, reading these books the same semester will give my students a broader understanding of the internal debate within the women’s movement than they have had previously. That’s exciting to me.
I’m going to be asking for help from those who have taught Smith’s work before. I read the book when it first came out a couple years back, but never considered it for classroom use until after I was called out on this “blind spot” of mine last year. BFP’s post this week clinched it for me, and the book will be on the fall syllabus. I’ll report, of course, on how it is received. Those who have used the book in a classroom setting are welcome to share their experiences with it; any suggestions will be appreciated.
During this time of debate about feminist publishing, I stand with Seal Press, who publish Full Frontal Feminism; I stand with South End press, who put out Andrea Smith’s wonderful tome. I’m going to direct dollars (both mine and those of my students) to both. I am saddened that some voices in the blogosphere have called for a boycott of Seal over their admittedly amateurish handling of criticism from women-of-color blogosphere. But choosing to cut off support for what has been, what is, and what will be one of the cornerstone progressive publishing houses strikes me as a lamentable mistake.
Back to packing.
When you are cited, when your work is used in any manner in academia, you become necessary to the academy. When you are not cited, when your work is not used in any manner, you become unnecessary to the academy.
I am unclear as to how one could ever fully address this problem. Sure, in this case Dr. Schwyzer is using both texts to some degree. I am sure that he isn’t using *every* feminist book though. So, arguably all of the authors of all of those texts have become unnecessary to the academy.
Ultimately, there is too much out there to use. Any professor who uses criteria other than (1) the amount of supplementary teaching materials that accompany the book or (2) the book they are already most comfortable with is doing well above average.
Interestingly, that’s the same argument used by right wingers trying to get Toni Morrison off syllabuses.
During this time of debate about feminist publishing, I stand with Seal Press, who publish Full Frontal Feminism; I stand with South End press, who put out Andrea Smith’s wonderful tome. I’m going to direct dollars (both mine and those of my students) to both. I am saddened that some voices in the blogosphere have called for a boycott of Seal over their admittedly amateurish handling of criticism from women-of-color blogosphere.
I haven’t followed the wider publishing issue with Seal and South End Press, so I’ve only read what I found at your link to Blakamazon and a subsequent link to the Salon.com article. This is a really dumb question, but do small publishing houses rely on literary agents the way places like Random House do?
The critics are definitely right: there are huge racial issues in publishing. While a large chunk of it is definitely due to editors’ profitability concerns, I have to wonder whether literary agents play a role.
To be more precise, most people don’t know how the publishing industry works. I mean, why would they? Hell, I only know a little bit because friends from college work for a pretty large publishing company and have become published authors themselves. As a result, if you don’t know anyone in the industry — that is, come from a pretty privileged background — chances are you don’t know just how crucial an agent is.
Because editors are so swamped, they’ve effectively sub-contracted manuscript 64-85% of manuscript selection and development to lit agents. Further, because lit agents are also swamped with manuscripts, they really don’t exert any effort in promoting their services: it’s mostly word-of-mouth.
I’m not sure whether focusing on lit agents would make any difference for Seal Press or other small publishing companies, because I don’t know how their business model and practices differ from the firms I’ve heard about. I just wonder whether a new strategy– one that focuses on persuading lit agents to change their business and outreach practices — might produce substantial change for WoC in the largest sectors of the publishing industry.
Oddly, I have a hunch that Angry Black Woman’s suggestions for increasing minority submissions to SciFi/Fantasy fiction magazines might work on literary agents as well. ABW’s descriptions of her life as an small magazine editor sound oddly similar to my friends’ description of their life as lit agents.
Wow, sorry for all the typos. I didn’t realize just how distracted I was by the t.v.
I’m going to be asking for help from those who have taught Smith’s work before. I read the book when it first came out a couple years back, but never considered it for classroom use until after I was called out on this “blind spot” of mine last year. BFP’s post this week clinched it for me, and the book will be on the fall syllabus. I’ll report, of course, on how it is received. Those who have used the book in a classroom setting are welcome to share their experiences with it; any suggestions will be appreciated.
I asked this on the other thread: you mentioned there that the book made you wince and that you were nervous about teaching it. I’m just wondering why - are you worried about it’s relentlessness and the impact of that on your students? Does it challenge things you teach in your class? What is it that made you hesitate to use it in the first place?
I ask, because as soon as I read it, I couldn’t get it into my classroom fast enough.
All of these, pf, all of these. I hesitated because I was scared that it would be so jolting and searing that it would put some students off. And it does set up a very different sense of what feminism can be than what most of the texts and readings I use suggest. But I think that the way in which it jolts and discombobulates is essentially positive, and I think I need to push harder to wrestle with material I find troublesome — and to ask my students to wrestle with it as well.
I think for some students, “Conquest” will be the sort of book that clicks with them on a very deep level. For others, it will raise uncomfortable questions about our orthodoxies that they will have to deal with for a long time.
I’ve been working on an Introduction to Political Philosophy seminar, and I was having trouble finding accessible (to first year and sophomore undergrads) radfem critiques of liberalism. At the same time, I was dismayed at how difficult it was to cover the `big debates’ in Political Philosophy and while showcasting a variety of voices. (Philosophy is probably the only discipline in the Humanies that is still profoundly male-dominated.) I’m definitely going to have to check Smith’s books out.
Oh, damn teevee. I’ve been working on a syllabus for an Intro to PoliPhilo seminar.
Oy. This post presses all my “hold me back” buttons, but I’ll try to hold myself back and maybe summarize my reaction later in a post when I’m calmer.
However, this I can’t ignore:
I can name one thing she’s done. It’s right here in this thread:
In the Feministe thread, Amanda, I tried to say that this situation and prior situations between you and women of color are heavily influenced by your own behavior. You rejected that in favor of the hypothesis that you attract this by virtue of your popularity.
Well, frankly, I talk to some of these women and you don’t; do you think I’d keep silent if I were hearing from them that it really IS just because you’re popular? I assure you I wouldn’t.
I think it’s far more likely that you’re in this mess because every time a conflict arises, you compare your critics to right-wingers. I’ve cited one example in this very thread, but you know, I know, and Hugo knows that isn’t the first time you’ve gone there. So Brownfemipower is just like Confederate Yankee now? Is Sudy the new Jonah Goldberg? What does that make Sylvia, John Derbyshire?
Would you take just one second to consider how thoroughly disgusting and offensive that comparison is? Proponents of torture and genocide = mean women of color? Would you, would Hugo, would anyone be capable of granting the benefit of the doubt to, or assuming good faith on the part of, a progressive who called you a wingnut? Or would you taste blood?
I can’t speak for WOC bloggers, but I suspect that there are white women progressives out there who could have written an article on immigration for Alternet, failed to cite the work of BFP and other radical women of color within it–and still not have ended up where you’ve ended up. I think there are white women writers who would have received instead the discreet email inquiry or the gentle post reminder.
But no one paying attention can look at the way you have treated these women and reasonably expect them to be gracious to you. You compare them to wingnuts, accuse them of jealousy, IGNORE them in comment threads, and dismiss their contributions to the blogosphere.
Small wonder, then. And every time you’re faced with an opportunity to turn that train around, you opt instead to go right off the cliff with it. That isn’t the fault of wingnuts or women of color, Amanda. That part’s all on you.
Well, my syllabus need not be a zero-sum game. … To make room for the Smith book, I’ll be rotating Lynn Phillips off the syllabus, at least for a semester or two.
Um.
Ilyka, I tried replying at your place; I assume I am stuck in moderation somewhere.
Stentor, I was poor in my phrasing. I ought to have said: “my syllabus need not be a zero-sum game between liberal and radical feminist voices”. Of course, adding one book means deleting another, unless I want my students to spend more money than is decent and be over-burdened with reading. I already push it, as it is.
“These friends told me that while there was some potential for good, it might be best if I didn’t go to the Women of Color panel. That was my gut intuition as well. Perhaps I flatter myself unduly, but I wondered if, in the aftermath of all that had happened, my presence would be a noticeable irritant. It would be hard — given that I was just about the only man over forty at the entire conference, and the only one in a bright pink shirt — for me to be unobtrusive. So I didn’t go.”
Oh, please.
If you even stepping into the room is disruptive…there’s not a cause for that? And seriously, do you flatter yourself that much you could singlehandedly derail WOC meetings? I mean, this is about the most circular and frankly self-serving logic i’ve seen in a long time.
Way to go on completely absolving yourself of actual responsibility.
“These friends told me that while there was some potential for good, it might be best if I didn’t go to the Women of Color panel. That was my gut intuition as well.”
Did this involve actually *asking* anyone involved with presenting or attending the panel about it?
He should have gone. I suspect by now he realizes he should have gone.
That said, I regularly skip events where I don’t think I’ll be welcome. So far, none of these events have been WOC events. Oh, there are a few WOC who don’t especially care for me–but the folks who actually hate my guts, in the local community, are all white.
If it was identified as an WOC and allies event, then I say Hugo should definitely have gone, if only to send the clear message that he’s an ally. But we all make mistakes.
Sometimes even-handedness reveals a bias, like in high school where we where taught Communism followed by McCarthyism, just to balance things out.
I anticipate the problem you’re about to have, Hugo, is that the two works won’t balance the scale. In other words, a white feminist can write a breezy book like FFF and get included in your syllabus, but a WOC must provide a scholarly treatise; proving the point that mainstream feminism, though friendly to RWOC, nonetheless institutionalizes white privilege.
In my experience (as a history undergrad) ANY Native History text that’s somewhat honest is enough to turn a lot of history undergraduate students right off. While discussions of other race issues seem to be a bit more comfortable to most students my age, most non-native students get profoundly uncomfortable when the word “genocide” comes up with regards to North America, even though according to most accepted definitions of the term, Canada and the United States are both guilty states (See Ward Churchill’s many writings on the subject if you’re wondering why).
However, the fact that students might not like their own country’s history is no reason not to teach it.
The two works won’t balance the scale. There’s nothing Hugo could possibly do to balance the scale. Mainstream feminism is institutionally racist, and Rebecca Walker’s vision of a third wave has not yet been realized on a movement-wide level. But incorporating Conquest is a good first step, particularly in light of Professor Smith’s shoddy treatment at the hands of the U of Michigan.
In the spirit of ensuring that feminist authors of all colors receive appropriate classroom exposure and credit for their ideas —
http://blogbullet.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/views-feminism-appropriation-and-racism/#comment-19890
In the spirit of actually taking action to create change — as opposed to repeating yet another refrain of the Progressive “We Need To … In the Future We Must …” Rhetorical Chorus and letting the actual issue at hand fade into the distance:
I think the point has been made that people are noticing the phenomenon.
So let’s make it stop.
And that means that mainstream white feminist authors who
agree that this is a problem, and who have acknowledged that (there’s that phrase again!), make — and continue to make until the problem is rectified — public statements demanding that the prominent white feminist author who has committed the most recent instance of this repetitive and historical phenomenon acknowledge and credit her sources.
(By the way, I’m repeating myself on this point because so far the above has not happened.
And I don’t think I have to harp on the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from lack of activity by the alleged supporters of “Doing the Right Thing” — if they fail to challenge an author who, as long as the sources in the article in question remain unacknowledged and uncredited, continues to refuse to “Do the Right Thing”. We’re all intelligent people here.)
Thank you again, Jack, for taking the time to compile all that material and post on the subject, as it clearly still needs to be reiterated.
(And you know, I’m just musing here … as a lecturer and writer myself, if it were me (and G*d knows I know — and thank the Deity — it is not), and my article, and several communities outside of my own ethnicity(ies) accused me of cultural appropriation … and there was more than one person of some prominence — with a reputation at least arguably equal to mine (like, say, someone working for a known and visible Legal Defense Fund, or an Asian feminist scholar or two) — whose ideas I’d been even arguably discussing/publishing without giving them credit — even if it looked a little teeny weeny bit like that (there’s this standard in some professions that’s known as the “appearance of impropriety”, you see) — I’d certainly want to revise that article and credit them before they got wind of it and/or even considered questioning me — or my book publisher, or agent, or hosting university or organization, or the other publications for which I write — directly.
Because — even if the only thing I was concerned about was my own personal career and reputation, and I didn’t give a d*mn about anything else related to the matter — *cough cough* — that???
Could be really embarrassing.)
I don’t have a copy of BFP’s speech with which to compare Amanda’s article. I know that ideas, arguments, and talking points float around without attribution all the time. When I come up with talking points for distribution in the local activist community, I don’t even put my name on them. Many of the talking points I read or hear also don’t have a byline. I’m not going to sit here and say that every idea folks mention in an op-ed needs to be traced to its source, and I haven’t seen anyone say that.
But if people feel that the recent and clearly identifiable work of WOC has been appropriated, the best thing to do is to highlight that work and draw more people’s attention to it. If Amanda had said “BFP, this is wonderful stuff, and I agree that we do cover many of the same bases–I’ll crosslink it on my blog,” never mind the op-ed, I’m reasonably confident that we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.
What should bother EVERYBODY–and I’m looking at folks who believe that Amanda did not intentionally steal anybody’s ideas or argument–is that BFP brought this up, got jumped, was treated with a TOTAL lack of respect by the white feminist blogging community, and split, depriving the world of all this wonderful material that none of the white feminist bloggers, for the most part, had ever even bothered to read.
During the discussion on Feministe you openly disrespected Holly by ignoring both the examples in her opening post, and her explicit request to direct the conversation away from an individual case and onto the larger issues of credit due to WoC. You delivered an ultimatum that there would be no discussion of larger issues until Ms. Marcotte received an apology and retraction. You used a racially charged metaphor to describe people who disagree with you. And you repeatedly ignored multiple people telling you that the issues of provenance of an Alternet article a week ago, pale in comparison to the issues demonstrated in its defense.
You want an example of white feminist bloggers discursively bulldozing over the concerns of WoC and then taking credit for being progressive on race? The Feministe thread followed by this one is a great example. The dynamics that WoC were pointing out as larger issues, were at play in the microcosm of that conflict.
Making the decision to put the right articles and the right books onto a course syllabus is easy for you. You are exercising your privilege as a teacher and scholar.
The very hard decision for us pro-feminist and progressive white men to make, because conflict is such a deeply integral part of masculinity and manhood, is to learn to talk softly. I agree with you, but I cannot respect the way you used your voice on Feministe, and I can’t respect your lack of reflection on how you used your voice there.
I’m trying to gently and firmly say that to me, you are demonstrating the exact problem that WoC have been complaining about. It’s not that you’ve decided to put another book on a syllabus, it’s that this comes just after you’ve spent considerable time and energy being rude to the WoC raising the issue, and that you feel the need to make a post taking credit for it rather than just doing it.
[i]But if people feel that the recent and clearly identifiable work of WOC has been appropriated, the best thing to do is to highlight that work and draw more people’s attention to it. If Amanda had said “BFP, this is wonderful stuff, and I agree that we do cover many of the same bases–I’ll crosslink it on my blog,” never mind the op-ed, I’m reasonably confident that we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.[/i]
If people feel that a particular work has been [i]plagiarized[/i] and can’t produce proof, the polite thing to do is renounce the accusation and then maybe get on with the conversation about appropriation. The reasons for this, well we’ve gone over them, but what it comes down to is a bunch of people called Amanda a thief, and then when they were called on it, tried to change the subject and called Amanda and those who defended her assholes for not going along with the change of subject without, you know, some idignance about the whole false accusation thing.
When I read this what I see is: “why not just tokenize BFP even though Amanda was pretty clear that BFP wasn’t her source at all? that’d make everyone feel better.”
You’re basically saying that Amanda should fix this problem by acting really patronizing, it seems pretty lame to me.
And again I must say, overall I agree with Amanda in the Feministe thread - it’s hardly inexcusable to “ignore the broader issues” when those issues are raised in a way that piggybacks on a really lame an unsubstantiated accusation.
[i]What should bother EVERYBODY–and I’m looking at folks who believe that Amanda did not intentionally steal anybody’s ideas or argument–is that BFP brought this up, got jumped, was treated with a TOTAL lack of respect by the white feminist blogging community, and split, depriving the world of all this wonderful material that none of the white feminist bloggers, for the most part, had ever even bothered to read.[/i]
Actually, BFP was largely treated with being ignored by the white feminist community (as usual, unfortunately), and the few people who did defend Amanda (herself, Hugo, and a few others) were treated as stand-ins for everything that’s wrong with white feminism by a lot of bloggers (many of whom were far less polite than Hugo or Amanda), many of whom insisted on calling Amanda a lying thief without evidence. BFP took down her blog for specific reasons I don’t know but I can assume had to do with the fallout. If it was because she felt attacked, I’d say that’s kind of wierd because hardly anybody was specifically attacking her. Amanda said that her accusations were “scurrilous” but BFP said some pretty insulting stuff about Amanda, too (although she didn’t quite go so far as to directly accuse her of plagiarism, as some people did). Now, I really adore BFP, but honestly, what else was she expecting?
As I said in the last thread, it’s too bad we don’t get to read BFP’s writing anymore (I really am a big fan), but pretending that Blogging is the most important thing she does as activism seems kind of wierd to me, since I know she’s involved in real-life things like Incite! (which she’s blogged about a fair bit) which have relevance beyond petty internet arguments. I think I can sincerely hope BFP’s doing well and hope to see her blog reapear without having to agree with her, or use unfounded accusations as a jumping board to talk about issues she and I both care about (which leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth, and maybe should in yours, too).
High on the fucked-up meter from the last comment thread: Nope, I think you missed my point. My point was that in an article where she herself writes pretty much exclusively about Latina women of color, it would have been better to cite a Latina woman of color.
Because, you know, nobody from anywhere else immigrates to America and gets fucked around? Honestly, who’s being racist here again, I forget?
labyrus writes:
“When I read this what I see is: “why not just tokenize BFP even though Amanda was pretty clear that BFP wasn’t her source at all? that’d make everyone feel better.”
No, it’s more like “Why not acknowledge somebody who’s blogging on this issue who has covered much of the same territory in a more comprehensive way?”
“I think I can sincerely hope BFP’s doing well and hope to see her blog reapear without having to agree with her, or use unfounded accusations as a jumping board to talk about issues she and I both care about (which leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth, and maybe should in yours, too).”
Given that the broader issues were exactly what she attempted to focus on (which was why she removed Amanda’s name from the relevant blog entry), I don’t see why it would leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I also don’t like the “precondition” idea that until “those people”–unnamed, of course–apologize for suggesting that Amanda cribbed her article, we can’t talk about this broader issue. That reads like an excuse to me. Maybe you can give me a list of five names and when three of those folks apologize, we can discuss this? Or maybe we should make it all five? Or four? Or only two?
What, exactly, are you waiting for here? Is appropriation and proper credit to WOC worth bringing up in this conversation or not? Why all this business about waiting until random folks on the blogosphere apologize to Amanda Marcotte? That seems to be making it more about Amanda much more than BFP, or most of her early allies, did. As I said: Search “Amanda Marcotte” and “plagiarism” and you get these threads, not the threads of BFP supporters actually making accusations against her. So why do we continue to focus on the Trial of Amanda Marcotte when we could be discussing the more productive issue of how we can avoid appropriating stuff?
The other thread closed so I have to vent here! :) A couple months ago, there were very few known Clinton bloggers so we were/are just happy to find each other. Now there are so-called A-list Clinton bloggers including one who seems to have signed on with the campaign. I don’t know if she’s paid. I doubt they’re reading this blog so I just want to say she visited my two blogs 50 times a day for the last 30 days because I aggregate Clinton/gender/class/race/politics info. Another visits 15 times a day, blogrolled me and we’re cool. They linked me a couple times. Is it because I’m not white? I have no clue but this kind of thing happens to me all the time.
50 to 15 visits a day and no links is NOT COOL.
I love the Clinton blog community that formed but this seems to happen to me everywhere.
In case she does read this, I wrote 73% of the posts for the group blogs she visits. It’s either because I’m not white or because I like to be low key.
Rather 73% of the posts in the last 30 days. I love my co bloggers and commenters to death. Sorry for mucking up your blog, Hugo! Done.
Hugo,
Other people have pointed out that using a popular summary of feminist thought together with, and apparently on the same terms as, a ground breaking work of original scholarship hardly qualifies as dealing with the privilege that goes to people identified as “white”.
I’d like to add that American feminism, like American government overall, has substantial sources in non-European, particularly indigenous societies (link via Sylvia M). The bad habit of not giving people of colour credit for their contributions to contemporary thought pervades mainstream society, and inevitably infects the feminist movement.
I consider he reduction of this issue to the most serious (and almost certainly untrue) charge of plagiarism extremely unhelpful. So far, I have yet to read anyone who has actually levelled that charge against Amanda. And that raises three specific comments for me.
First, I don’t see the emphasis on what anyone can prove Amanda actually did or did not do as consistent with your position on other issues. If a commenter pointed out that violations of the sexual ethics you have promoted would never sustain a criminal case or even, in most cases, an actionable case of sexual harassment, I strongly suspect you would tell them they had missed the point, and invite them to take their perceptions to some other web log.
Secondly, I think you (and I) have to accept that the history of white supremacy has caused enormous pain for a huge number of people, and that people identified as “white” will occasionally get that pain thrown back at us as anger. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t always seem just or fair. Sometimes, it leaves me wondering what people want from me. But all that misses the point, because if I never face that pain, then I can’t get past it to work effectively.
Thirdly, I don’t think talking about epistemic gulfs will cut it this time. You and I have profoundly different personal histories. You and I have lives and experiences far different (and far easier) than the radical women of colour in this discussion. But I think we all know (or we can learn) the stakes in this issue, and we can find common ground to address them.
Man, this is a vicious episode that has pretty much put me off the feminist blogosphere and academic feminism/womens studies altogether.
I think I’ll go back to my job which involves, you know, actually helping people (of all colors) in a material way, rather than becoming fixated on who gets “credit” for what completely immaterial contribution to the “discourse.”
Less talk, more action, people! It’s not really tough to figure out the battles that we really have to win to make an *actual* difference. Put aside the language games and roll up your sleeves.
I also don’t like the “precondition” idea that until “those people”–unnamed, of course–apologize for suggesting that Amanda cribbed her article, we can’t talk about this broader issue. That reads like an excuse to me.
I think the precondition is an inevitable part of this, because we’re not just talking about this “broader issue” in some neutral context. We’re talking about this “broader issue” because we (or some of us) see Marcotte’s actions as a particular instance of the “broader issue.” That’s how this subject got brought up at this particular time in the first place. So that means we do have to clarify and come to some kind of a consensus on what exactly Marcotte’s actions are, or were.
To do otherwise seems disingenuous to me: it’s like you accuse someone of stealing, then find out that maybe they didn’t steal, but go on to have a long conversation on how stealing is bad without acknowledging that the initial accusation was shaky. It’s dishonest and unfair not only to the person accused (think how you would feel if you were unjustly accused of stealing and then your accusers didn’t retract their statement but instead treated you to a discussion on why stealing is bad) but also to all the participants in the conversation. Because you can’t discuss “broader issues” without specific examples, and for the sake of discussion it helps to have those specific examples be clearly and thoroughly hashed out.
As it happens I agree that Marcotte at the very least missed an opportunity to give credit to BFP, which is something she should have fixed. But I think the attempts to depersonalize this discussion are, though well-meaning (I can definitely see wanting to get this away from the issue of personalities), ultimately misguided. This particular conversation is rooted in a specific context. Trying to make it an impersonal discussion of the “broader issues” doesn’t remove that context, it just pretends it’s not there, which I don’t think is helpful.
John -
Secondly, I think you (and I) have to accept that the history of white supremacy has caused enormous pain for a huge number of people, and that people identified as “white” will occasionally get that pain thrown back at us as anger. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t always seem just or fair. Sometimes, it leaves me wondering what people want from me. But all that misses the point, because if I never face that pain, then I can’t get past it to work effectively.
I think this is a very important point that’s getting lost on a lot of defenders of Amanda and Seal Press (see the thread on Broadsheet on the Seal Press altercation for copious odious examples). Maybe the critics of Amanda and/or Seal Press are making unfair and unjustified accusations on the basis of misdirected anger and frustration. This doesn’t mean the accusations are irrational or can simply be dismissed. If someone — especially your political allies — is pissed off, the right assumption to make is that there’s a reason why they’re pissed off. Rather than just dismissing accusations that (you think) are unfair, try to figure out what’s really going on. Either you’ll find some substance to the accusations, or you’ll find a substantial problem lurking in the vicinity.
Susana -
Less talk, more action, people! It’s not really tough to figure out the battles that we really have to win to make an *actual* difference. Put aside the language games and roll up your sleeves.
Hear hear! And yet …
Working together requires trust and communication — it requires that the institution within which individuals are working be stable and functional. I think this/these incident(s) show that the institution of North American feminism was rather dysfunctional. Small corners — like yours, presumably — have been doing okay, but the structure as a whole has been very unstable. (And, sadly, has been so for a very long time. The critiques we’ve been hearing from RWOC for the past week are much the same as critiques of feminism we heard in the ’70s and ’80s.) I think we’re witnessing — and participating in — a collapse of part of that structure. Which makes me wonder: how much is going to come crashing down around us, and what will be left when the dust settles?
NB The use of `we’ in the reply to Susana was deliberately nebulous and open-ended. When I mentioned the critiques `we’ve’ been hearing from RWOC, I did not mean the critiques white feminists have been hearing. Perhaps that whole sentence should be rewritten: `The critiques RWOC have made over the past week are much the same as critiques of feminism RWOC made in the ’70s and ’80s.’
I also don’t like the “precondition” idea that until “those people”–unnamed, of course–apologize for suggesting that Amanda cribbed her article, we can’t talk about this broader issue. That reads like an excuse to me. Maybe you can give me a list of five names and when three of those folks apologize, we can discuss this? Or maybe we should make it all five? Or four? Or only two?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking about the larger issue, but most posts I’ve read have basically said “well, maybe Amanda didn’t crib the article, but she still should be aknowledging the larger issue.” Most of the people who want to talk appopriation seem to really want everyone to just agknowledge Amanda personally did something wrong with this particular article, and I’m not willing to do that because the ideas that were supposedly appropriated have been floating around Indymedia and dozens of Zines for over a decade.
What, exactly, are you waiting for here? Is appropriation and proper credit to WOC worth bringing up in this conversation or not?
I think it’s worth bringing up in a very different conversation that isn’t so centred on the importance of blogging
Why all this business about waiting until random folks on the blogosphere apologize to Amanda Marcotte?
I’m not saying apologize. If Amanda wants an apology that’s her business, but I’m saying - stop implying that even though the charges against her are false, she’s still somehow to blame for this fiasco.
That seems to be making it more about Amanda much more than BFP, or most of her early allies, did. As I said: Search “Amanda Marcotte” and “plagiarism” and you get these threads, not the threads of BFP supporters actually making accusations against her.
Sudy said “steal”, and clearly implied that Amanda stole her article. Rebecca at Burning words said Amanda Cribbed the article. BFP’s original post is no longer up but I believe she said something a bit more neutral along the lines of “I don’t believe (X) could have come up with this herself” More discussion has happened on Feministe than anywhere else because it’s the highest-traffic blog to post about it, and a bunch of people from that thread jumped over to Hugo’s blog because they don’t like him.
So why do we continue to focus on the Trial of Amanda Marcotte when we could be discussing the more productive issue of how we can avoid appropriating stuff?
Because the issue was raised in an insensitive way and most people (maybe not you personally) who want to talk about that also want to say Amanda appropriated a bunch of ideas that I first read in an indymedia article that was propably in ‘99 or something.
I’m interested in talking about appropriation, but first I’m interested in talking about why it is that the WOC blogosphere - a very small group of women who draw on ideas from dozens of social movements - seem to think they’re the ones who get to judge what is and isn’t appropriation. Hell, even the whole “look, we’re using the internet to revolutionize media” thing was cribbed from Indymedia (a movement that included lots of Women of Colour from the start, but none of them are ones who the RWOC blogosphere seems interested in giving credit to) and from Chomsky (yes, Chomsky, the institutional left white dude who was talking about democratizing the media back in the 70s).
Noumena: I think this/these incident(s) show that the institution of North American feminism was rather dysfunctional.
I think you’re deeply mistaken if you see Feminism as an institution.
I’m not trying to say that POC haven’t been the source of a lot of great and important ideas in radicalism, but it seems like a lot of what’s happening here is that people are looking at history and not really seeing the cross-polinization of ideas.
Some examples:
(exercise for the reader, Is someone appropriating in this example?
what could they have done instead?
Is someone being appropriated from?
Why should they mind?)
The Black Panthers took a very black idea - Black Nationalism, something which dates back at least to Marcus Garvey and propably more properly to the San Domingo Revolution and fused it with one that had up until then mostly been thought of as a “white” idea in America - revolutionary Marxism.
I’ve read some histories of the IWW that suggest that a lot of the reason they were so democratic was because they absorbed a lot of Native Values from western members, who in the early years freqently were native or part native. I don’t really think the IWW could be said to have “appropriated” democracy, but maybe some people would? The IWW was a multi-racial organization of people who were basically just fighting for their survival, and they used whatever ideas worked, there was no question of “credit” or whatever because nobody got much but jail-time out of it individually (although we ALL got a 40 hour work-week thanks to them)
Consensus organizing, something that is a big part of activism in the US in Canada nowadays has been alternately been traced back to Quaker tradition or Native tradition. That’s because both cultures use very similar decision-making systems sometimes. The original Quakers had no contact with Mayan people, but somehow came up with a very similar idea, and in the American anti-nuclear movement in the ’70s and ’80s, there was a lot of involvement both from Quakers and from Indigenous groups. Sometimes ideas have more complicated and varied roots than it seems on the surface.
In interviews at Oka, some warriors said that while the Warrior movement was mostly based on Iroquois traditions, their approach to politics was inspired by the successful Zionist movement, which they felt insured the survival of the jewish people in a way that they’d like to see happen for Native people in North America. (Source: People of the Pines: The warriors and the legacy of Oka By Geoffrey York and Loreen Pindera Little)
Hugo- if you feel I’m turning this thread into an extension of the last one, feel free to delete this comment, it’s your blog.
Flap flap flap flap flap. Lots of talk, no action. What a surprise.
SpacedCowgirl - who is white! (since that seems to be the only way to speak credibly on this issue — which is, to come full circle, the whole point) - says this:
http://spacedcowgirl.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/in-which-i-give-my-totally-unqualified-and-unsolicited-opinion/
And still, no calls from the “mainstream feminist” community for the author whose conduct is a textbook example of the conduct over which that same community is wringing its hands to acknowledge and credit her sources.
*crickets* *smh*
Oh, and one more time? NOT ALL WOMEN OF COLOR ARE RADICAL.
If, as a community, you’re going to stand by someone who condemns others by accusing them of using “Republican tactics”, stop using them yourselves.
Cross-polinization: Tolstoy inspired Ghandi!
labyrus:
By `institution’ I mean a system for the production, acquisition, and distribution of money, power, and other resources that are necessary for the pursuit of a more-or-less well-defined (set of) ends or goals. (Or something like this; the definition is a bit off the top of my head.) Feminism — or, perhaps you would prefer, the feminist movement — does seem to me to qualify. (The goal here would be gender justice, cashed out variously in terms of formal equality, substantive equality, a gender-neutral society, etc.)
Nouema - I think you’re really hitting the nail on the head here. The problem is that Marcotte and BFP belong to two different institutions and competing for incommensurate resources. BFP is operating in the paradigm of an academic institution, where the resources include broad attribution and “name checking”; Marcotte is operating in a different institutional paradigm (activism/politics/PR) where the resources are the immediate, persuasive expression of an idea in an efficient way.
(To clarify, the resource for activism/politics/PR is to influence public perceptions, without concern for where that influence came from. In fact, often times an activist/politician/PR person will prefer to obscure where the influence came from, preferring it to seem like a natural groundswelling of public opinion.)
Maybe it’s because I’ve basically spent my entire adult life in the academy, but I don’t think that the academy and activism are all that radically distinct, especially when it comes to feminism. Unless I’m getting the history wrong, it’s feminist intellectuals who started the modern activist-scholar movement embodied in today’s gender studies programmes. Individuals certainly tend to fall either on the more theoretical or the more practical sides, but it’s quite evident (at least from where I’m surveying the history of the second and third wave) that the two are often closely intertwined and mutually supporting. Certainly feminist intellectuals will say they do their theoretical work to support the political movement, and activists will draw on feminist theory. It’s the Susan B. Anthony dollar of the old Marxian coin.
So I think it is fair to say that feminists activists and intellectuals will use resources in a different way. But that doesn’t make the resources all that distinct, much less `incommensurable’. (NB I don’t consider theory a resource. It’s one of the particular products of feminism, very different from money or power or other `external goods’.) For example, the activist uses the resource of rhetorical power — having a popular blog, say — to disseminate the critiques of the status quo developed by intellectuals. And the intellectual develops her critiques by drawing on, first, the experiences of activists, and second, the economic resources that give her the opportunity to just sit and think for long periods of time.
Is it okay to think everyone’s a bit wrong in this episode? I feel like the result has been no more BFP, a lot of people think Amanda did something wrong in writing her column instead of just occasionally being ungracious in discussion threads where people were straight-up accusing her of plagiarism, and I’ve seen a lot of big feminist blogs make promises that they may or may not fulfill (I don’t mean you here Hugo and I’m really glad to see people with big readerships acknowledge the power they have but honestly I am skeptical.)
Oh, please, Susana.
You paraphrase George Will - or George Stephanapoulous - or George Soros for that matter - without attribution, and try to publish in Newsweek, and see how far that gets you.
Please stop with your patronizing insinuations that no one except you, and people who think like you, knows the difference.
Why is no one mad at Dave Sirota who wrote the first white progressive article about immigration, also at Alternet? I was the only mad as you can see in the first comment where I said progressives just figured out the connection between immmigration and NAFTA??!! I wrote that for years! Shouldn’t all the POC who wrote about immigration be mad at him? It seems they were relieved.
Hugo,
I had a point. It’s sexist to be mad at a woman for doing what a man also did.
You definitely should have gone Hugo.
But I’m glad to see you include something that makes you uncomfortable in your classes. While it may make you less “authority” and more “contemporary” in some students eyes, they will also learn more.
Donna, I’m not sure, but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Amanda was actually at WAM! (albeit in a different room) when BFP gave her speech.
Personally, I don’t know if any of the speech was appropriated because I can’t find a copy of BFP’s speech for comparison. The reaction from the white feminist blogosphere–circling the wagons, very hostile to BFP, etc.–is more what bothers me. I’m sure that, as someone pointed out in a previous thread, a lot of my ideas could be traced to other people–and their ideas traced to other people, and their ideas traced to other people… Ideas tend to be socially constructed, not individually constructed. That’s why ideas, as such, can’t be copyrighted. That’s why the academic tradition, which places extra emphasis on tracing the sources of ideas and crediting those sources, is so important.
But if BFP had just covered the same ground in a high-profile speech, the pro-WOC thing to do would have been to at least use publicity from the article as a way of highlighting WOC contributions to this topic, even if only on her blog. And not even necessarily BFP’s. Amanda can still do that now, by the way. Nobody’s stopping her.
I’m a white guy. I’ll occasionally be sitting at an otherwise all-black table and hear someone remark about how no whites would do X and no whites would do Y when I am in fact doing X and Y. And I keep my mouth shut because I realize that it doesn’t really matter. It’s not about me. It’s about the bigger problem of inadequate white participation on certain issues.
BFP was much more explicit than most in pointing out that she was referring to a GENERAL problem. She even erased Amanda’s name in her posts. But the response of the white feminist blogosphere has been to plug ears and sing “la la la” when WOC are talking about the bigger problem of rendering the contributions of WOC invisible, and focusing instead on making it all about a perceived attack on Amanda. But for most bloggers, this wasn’t mainly ABOUT Amanda. Not by my reading. If it weren’t Amanda, it would be, as you point out, Dave Sirota. Or maybe Tom Head. But the problem is still very real.
Certainly the only thing that matters is that something is DONE.
Amen. Or rather a series of somethings. In my case, the whole controversy over Amanda has made me more conscious of the need to link to the work of WOC whenever I have a good excuse to do so.
And my feeling is that Amanda really should post a blog entry, ASAP, highlighting WOC who cover immigration issues on a more regular basis than she does.
I would be so much happier if this whole thing were framed in terms of what can be done pro-WOC rather than what can be done pro- or anti-Amanda, primarily because while what Amanda Marcotte does is up to Amanda Marcotte, I can actually control what Tom Head does. And Tom Head is probably just as likely to unintentionally appropriate the contributions of WOC as Amanda Marcotte. Maybe more so.
Folks, let’s make sure that this isn’t a further discussion of the original controversy, but rather focused on the subject of this particular post: what is to be done now?
As for the WOC panel, I ought to have mentioned that I was torn for other reasons — I very much wanted to attend Ann Friedman’s session on breaking through the Old Boys Network, which ran at the same time. So my concern that my presence would not be well-received was truly only half the reason.
For the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time:
Mainstream feminists should insist that the white author who wrote an article without crediting/acknowledging her original “inspirational” feminist sources of color — to which she has admitted — do so.
Because when the “mainstream” community says, “Cultural appropriation is wrong!” but won’t come down on a prominent white feminist author that just pulled a textbook example of the exact same crap, it makes the “mainstream” handwringing look more than a touch hypocritical.
It makes the “mainstream good intentions” look ridiculous, and hollow, and it blows an enormous hole in the center of your credibility on the issue.
I’m not sure why so many “mainstream” feminists are being so obtuse about this.
What Dr. Free-Ride says on Ilyka’s post:
http://physioprof.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/intellectual-appropriation-attribution-of-credit-privilege/#comment-717
I haven’t seen Amanda admit to anything. But the last time I saw her post anything on this anywhere was last Wednesday or Tuesday, so perhaps something happened in some corner while I wasn’t looking.
If Amanda has admitted to plagiarism, without an apology, than yeah, that’s complete bullshit. But I’ve been reading Pandagon since the days of Jesse and Ezra, and that simply doesn’t sound like Amanda. If you’d like to point to the comment where Amanda admits to plagiarism, then I’ll agree: she should apologise.
In the meantime, I’m inclined to agree with Holly at Feministe: The collective resolve to do better in the future (including, of course, following through on this resolve) is much more important than any one individual mea culpa. As I’ve said here at least three times, it’s the general pattern of appropriation and the resulting lack of trust that’s the real problem.
Here’s what I’d suggest my fellow white feminists do:
1. Diversify your daily reading list, if you haven’t already.
2. Make a deliberate effort to link to the RWOC you’re reading and bookmark/save especially interesting posts for future reference.
3. Avoid writing (blog posts and other pieces) about `general trends’ or ideas from `the Zeitgeist’. Ideas don’t just magically pop into existence and float around waiting for you to write them down. They’re the product of other people’s hard work.
4. The other side of 3: Make a deliberate effort to connect what you write to the work of others. (Check that folder of interesting posts!)
And for everyone:
5. There aren’t two sides here. There aren’t even lots of different sides. We’re all feminists. We’re all on the same side.
littlem, okay, I’ll bite. I insist that Amanda should reference the work of WOC who preceded her. Especially, I am increasingly coming to believe, Andrea Smith. And she should call attention to the by all accounts excellent speech that BFP delivered at WAM! on the same topic as her Alternet op-ed.
That insistence is pretty much worthless, though, because I’m reasonably sure Amanda is not sitting at home wondering what Tom Head thinks.
So here’s what I’m doing:
- Reading Conquest cover to cover. I have a tendency to read books of sequence and need to see the whole narrative, soup to nuts. I’m about halfway through it now. Frankly, it’s more like a kick to the gut when I read it that way, but maybe I need a good kick to the gut.
- Revising my About.com feminist blogs list by next week so that no more than 4 out of 10 featured sites are exclusively white-run. Right now, if my math is right, 7 or 8 are.
- I’ve already blogged and linked to ABW and written a piece full of ideas on how to react if one is white and “steps in it” when talking about race. Doesn’t address the Alternet situation specifically, but then none of these other solutions do.
- While revising my civil liberties book for Oneworld UK, pay special attention to what I’m saying–and not saying–about the contributions of WOC to the ideas I’m discussing.
- Go on and write that About.com SisterSong profile I’ve been meaning to write, and profile Incite! while I’m at it.
- Take care that my upcoming piece on prison abolition acknowledges not only the contributions of Angela Davis, but also the other folks in Critical Resistance and allied groups who are doing hard work in this area.
There are also some less public steps I’m taking with regard to my local activism that nobody really needs to know about here, but I could make a bullet list of 15 things I’m doing differently after reading this stuff.
So this has been educational as hell. I, personally, benefitted from all this discussion about appropriation–mainly I have come to further realize how little concern most “mainstream” (i.e., white) social justice traditions have for honoring the contributions of WOC.
Whether anyone approves of me more or less after it’s done is irrelevant, both from a cosmic and a personal POV–I try not to do things just to get approval, not even from my favorite bloggers, and likewise whether Tom Head is well-liked is insignificant from a social justice perspective–but I’ve seen some opportunities to fine-tune my work and I’m taking those opportunities. I think any white feminist who doesn’t learn something from all this, and is still posting in these threads, is probably wasting time.
“books of sequence” –> “books out of sequence”
Hugo, Why have you declared yourself facilitator? Why host this discussion here instead of participate in it elsewhere, like on the blogs of women of color?
I don’t think you can be fair. You obviously have a certain bias in favor of Amanda. I am the opposite and I strongly dislike Amanda, so it would be unfair of me to discuss this situation on my blog. I can comment on it there and elsewhere, but I can’t honestly host a discussion about any more than you can.
If you’re truly interested in a discussion about appropriation and how to stop it, just write about that, no need to reference the Amanda/ BFP controversy.