Jobs I’ve had: Baxter Street Bookstore

Not much to say about this one since I already mentioned it in one of the shitstorm-predicating class posts. I worked at Baxter Street Bookstore in Athens for about a week in, I think, May of 2001. The job paid minimum wage and no one was scheduled for more than 20 hours a week. I distinctly remember a coworker, a 21-year-old girl in a pink Lacoste shirt, talking about how she had just had laser eye surgery. All my coworkers seemed to be from another planet, and they looked at me as if I were from another planet. (They always seemed to be looking me up and down. The fucking nerve of them.) When I asked the manager if I could have more hours, she took me aside and said that this really wasn’t the job for me, if I was trying to actually support myself. I was pretty pissed off. During the interview (at least I guess I had an interview?), no one had seen fit to tell me this wasn’t a job for people who actually had bills and rent to pay, it was a way for rich kids to make some extra beer money.

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This is a follow-up to my first jobs post and my subsequent “jobs I forgot” list.

Jun 01 2009 04:16 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Just hit publish

[I started writing this several hours ago, so now the "Rusty in a meeting" part doesn't make sense. But he was in a meeting when I started it!]

While Rusty is at a meeting and I’m waiting for him at the office after hours since we carpooled to work, I should take this opportunity to blog. And there’s so much I could blog about.

Diva’s post about acceptance, sexuality, and gender identity. I don’t disagree w/ the premise. But a few parts of it felt like little barbs, because I’ve had the “acceptance” line used against me to punish me for not staying with my ex after I found out she was trans. You know: “If you REALLY loved her, you’d stay with her!” Love is about the person not the gender, etc. But what none of them seemed to understand is finding out she was trans was about more than the gender. SO much more. That was part of it, of course, and not a miniscule one; but people reduce it to that and draw this line in the sand when they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Often it came from other trans people, probably projecting their feelings of resentment toward their own exes onto me, and at the same time using pronouns I was not ready to hear. Guess what: sometimes it’s not about you. And that’s why I created the SOTS Forum web site, to talk about these things that nobody else seems to get, to have a place where we didn’t have to constantly explain ourselves and do damage control. And this morning, I was cleaning up a few things on the site, and everything felt painful. I know I’ve neglected that site for a long time, and the message board has been broken for over a year and I recreated it as a half-assed Google group… but it feels too draining to try to maintain it, a lot of the time. I don’t think it’s healthy for me. But then I feel guilty because I feel like I’m leaving other SOs hanging out to dry – people who need the support like I needed it when there was nothing there for me (and so I created the group). The good news, though, is that in the years since 2003 a few other support forums/sites have sprung up. I haven’t really taken a look at them to see what they’re like, though; but at least I know they’re there. Then I start wondering about my responsibilities to myself vs. my responsibilities to others, and what the balance is. My dad used to say I should write a book about my experience, and there isn’t a book out there like it; and indeed I’ve referred to it as the book that scares me. That book would be filling an empty space and maybe helping to make some people feel a little less alone, less like bad people for not loving their trans partner unconditionally (not that that’s really what the situation is, but I’m saying, that’s what people spin it as). But for now, at least, I don’t think writing that book would be healthy for me. And yet I feel so strongly empathic to all the suffering people out there who have nowhere to turn.

I could write about going through a depressive spate – but lately I feel hyper-aware of writing about anything like that, even though I really want to. My mom reads my blog, Twitter, etc., even though we don’t openly talk about it (which is probably fucked up in its own right but I need to focus on one thing at a time), and I’m not going to try to stop her, because it’s the internet and we’re both adults. But I do think she has some responsibility, too, to realize that we’re BOTH adults, and if I need her help or support on something, I’ll tell her. Sometimes we’ll talk on the phone and she’ll preface something with, “I know this might make you mad but…” and inevitably it’s about something she read on my blog, and she’s saying she’s worried. Which I didn’t mind terribly the first few times, but it’s getting to a point where it’s starting to feel less like concern and more like, take care of my need to think you never have ups and downs in your life by silencing yourself on the not-so-great parts. Even though those are the parts I most desperately need to write about.

Then there’s this fucking post which makes my brain want to slide out of my ear – but if I write about that at all, I think I’ll do it in a separate post.

I’ve had this post by Daisy saved in an untitled draft for two months, and the thoughts about blogging and what it means to me and how it feels have been hanging around, mostly unwritten, since that time, too (actually more like three months now). That last round of bullshit in late February changed something for me. I actually have mentioned this briefly before. But speaking of being hyper-aware, I’m now hyper-aware of writing about ANY part of my life because someone might pounce on it and attack me for my “privilege,” (never mind I spend half my time calling out ACTUAL privilege), twist my words to fit their own agenda, use me as a convenient punching bag, etc. All that kind of stuff had been in the back of my mind for years – it comes w/ the territory of being a woman blogger, particularly a feminist blogger – but somehow that last crap made it feel even more stark. I’m trying to push it down and push it away and just press on like I always have before, but it feels way harder this time. I was reading back through some of my archives recently, looking at some of the bullshit I was handed by commenters before I either banned them or they got bored and stopped coming around, and to look at it objectively I wonder how I stood it. And how can people be so awful that they think it’s okay to talk to another human being that way? But then, that’s MALE PRIVILEGE for you.

I’m getting off track here. I want to write more about class and my experiences, but I feel like there’s no good way to do it without someone using me as an example for something. I hate the feeling of being analyzed and picked apart under a microscope by people who don’t know the half of it. You don’t know my life. So who the fuck do you think you are?

I think maybe part of it, for some people (the ones I’m at least willing to give the benefit of the doubt – a list which, admittedly, is getting shorter), is that they have a hard time understanding differences in blogs. This is a similar thing to what I mentioned when Toby interviewed me, and I’ve experienced it plenty from that direction too – where people who use social media for business/marketing purposes simply can’t conceive of the fact that there are bloggers out there who have different goals, non-business-focused goals, and that those goals are just as valid as theirs. Likewise, people who use blogging primarily for activism/advocacy can have a hard time differentiating the personal and the political. Yes, sometimes they mesh, and yes, sometimes I write posts of that nature. But my blog has never had one “theme” for me to feel boxed into (I started blogging before there was much of a concept of themed blogs) and sometimes my posts are just PERSONAL. As in, there is nothing here to debate or question. This is my truth. It is not a political statement aside from the fact that I think any woman speaking her truth is an act of personal revolution. But when I talk about my experiences with class growing up, I’m not talking about CLASS in the big-picture, societal, analytical way. I’m sharing something with you, the readers, and if you get something out of it, that’s awesome. I do hope that sometimes my personal posts will help someone out there feel less alone, or whatever. But if you don’t get anything out of it, or you want to project all over it? Just leave it alone, because it’s not that kind of post. Some things are not up for debate.

This is the same kind of thing I mean when I said, for example, reproductive justice is not an “issue” to “debate.” This is MY LIFE. You don’t get to “debate” about it, and fuck you for thinking of it as a dehumanized issue; THAT is one of the hallmarks of privilege.

But back to blogging and how I feel about it… Basically there’s a lot of goddamn drama in the feminist blogosphere and I’m sick of it. I barely read any feminist blogs anymore because I don’t have the energy for all the bullshit. We talked about this a little at Sex 2.0 during the Naked on the Internet panel… Dacia said something like, “I think we’ve all been in the position of getting righteous in a comment thread on Feministing and then saying, ‘Oh, fuck this!‘”

But I will always call myself a feminist. I know that the drama and bullshit is with the feminist blogosphere (and really just part of it – a loud part, but not the whole), not feminism itself. I am continually baffled by people who conflate the two, and I really don’t have much patience for it.

I don’t have a lot of patience in general (except when I do – but that’s another tangent) and I’m fucking DONE trying to explain privilege, feminism, class, etc. I should also be done w/ trying to appease people who are going to complain about what I say no matter what I say. But I just hate that w/ some topics there doesn’t seem to be a good way to write about it that doesn’t make me sound like someone whose views I disagree w/ equally.

I know what I really need to do is what I’m constantly telling myself: write like no one is reading. That is what blogging is about, for me. But it’s not always easy. And of course I always keep in mind issues of where my life intersects w/ other people’s lives, and that even though there are things I might want to talk about, they might not want their life made public in that same way. But that’s a whole other can of worms and not what I’m rambling about here. That can of worms, I actually feel pretty equipped to deal with and I can happily discuss the ins and outs of it all day long!

I guess in a way this very post is indicative of me trying to take back my own blog… half of it doesn’t make sense, I’m talking in circles, making sense to no one but myself, and it’s fucking LONG. Yay!

I had a few other things on my “could write about” list but they’ve flown out of my head at the moment. So I suppose I’ll do what I thought I’d be doing a few hours ago: just hit publish!

May 28 2009 10:35 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Sharing your life… all or nothing(?)

I was wondering how long it would take! A drive-by commenter (totally not anonymous, mind you) has swooped in to tell me that I shan’t identify my background as working-class; that’s “bullshit.” This commenter knows my life better than I do.

And now this commenter has me defending myself.

I shouldn’t bother, I know. But it raises some points that I don’t mind addressing, again.

Really a lot of her comment proved the point I was trying (laboriously and probably unsuccessfully) to make in my first post about privilege and class: that a piece of information in isolation tells you effectively nothing. So, for example: yes, I went to NYU for three semesters. This doesn’t tell you a whole lot. To draw conclusions about my entire life (present, past, and future) based on that alone is pretty ignorant.

It’s really not much different from the point I make whenever the issue of “feminist choices” comes up. You can’t tell, from looking at an act alone, whether or not it’s a feminist choice. Because to know that for sure, you have to know the person’s motivation. And the things that drive motivation are messy and complicated and multi-layered.

Or, as I’ve mentioned, my frustration with the conflation of “income” and “wealth.” So, someone makes [x] amount of dollars on paper, and you think, gee, that’s a good income, they must be doing pretty well. But what’s the rest of the story? I’ll just quote myself from here:

Plus – and this is kind of a tangent – too many people seem to jump to all kinds of conclusions based on how much money someone makes, or how much money they think the person makes. A person’s salary doesn’t tell you much at all. There’s a mountain of information you don’t know. Are they raising children? Do they have student loans to pay off? Are they caring for an ailing parent or relative? Do they have a special needs child that requires expensive medical treatments and care? Are they a single parent who spends much of their income on daycare? Do they write checks to local charities every month? Do they get health insurance through their employer or do they have to find their own – and if so, do they have a “pre-existing condition” that makes them uninsurable? And of course, if they are self-employed or work in any job that doesn’t come with a reliable paycheck every two weeks where they know what the amount will be, the uncertainties are even higher.

I came to identify my experiences growing up as fitting most closely with “working class,” after learning more about what that means. I said before, I had associated working class with specific types of jobs – factory workers, auto mechanics, garbage collectors, that sort of thing. But when I started reading Bitch|Lab and others she linked (can’t remember names now; there was one guy whose name started w/ a D, he was very influential) I realized that it’s not about jobs at all. For the first time I was reading about the gradations of class experience that I had struggled to put into words for a long time. And I felt weird about claiming “working class,” as if I was appropriating. But, from whom? And why? Because, after all, it fit.

We all make assumptions. It’s not a cardinal sin; it’s part of being human. But hopefully most of us also have the human capacity to recognize when our assumptions don’t match up with first-hand accounts of people’s lived experiences.

So: I went to private school for the last two years of high school. I went to NYU.

Verdict? Not working class! Privileged asshole!

It’s this kind of identity policing that gets me so fed up w/ a lot of activists I’ve worked with – and bloggers I’ve read. I am passionate about social justice activism, and yet, too often it devolves into policing one another, instead of focusing resources and energy on the goal of social justice. (SPARK doesn’t fall into this trap; yet another reason I love them.)

Of course, it’s no surprise that this policing and shaming seems to be applied especially strongly to women. How dare you bust your ass and accomplish something you’re proud of? Maybe get yourself a little financial stability? How dare you get into a place to support yourself and give back to the community?

My mom always told me: it’s VERY IMPORTANT for a woman to be able to support herself financially. I think she said it as a wish for herself as much as for me.

I know simple answers are appealing. But they usually aren’t realistic. (Except when they are! -Hey, if there’s one thing I do well, it’s acknowledging contradictions all the way down the rabbit hole!)

Ahem. In discussions of class and such, though? Simple answers do not apply.

God forbid I talk about my life – bits and pieces, a broken narrative – on my blog. Remember when that’s what blogs used to be, de facto? Before people strategically positioned them as part of leveraging social media? Yeah, I guess part of my head is still stuck in 2002.

And good lord, I better remember from now on – DO NOT FORGET the little divider lines in blog posts about multiple topics! Because if they’re not there? It MUST be all connected.

Carry on. Time to go make the donuts, as Griftdrift would say! Sorry for the drama, all.

Feb 23 2009 03:18 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , | 24 Comments »

Private school and diversity in snark quotes

I’ve had a post perpetually in draft mode for several days now, about this, but at this point I just do not feel motivated. I’m over it. Here are a bunch of links to response posts:

There are more here.

A big disclaimer goes here about how if I sound like any of the asshole white male “liberal” bloggers, just, good god, remember I’m not, and we all share a mutual loathing of them and their put-upon white man’s burden routine. Tiny violin, sad trombone.

All I will say is this. Yep, I called some of the WOC bloggers drama queens on Octo’s blog. No, I’m not naming names, because even though I agree w/ Aunt B, I also don’t really give a shit, because this is my blog and I’ll name names when I want and I won’t when I don’t want. If I were writing something that was trying to be more “formal” or was a public calling-out, yeah, I’d name names; but not in this case.

I just wonder what the hell they want – what would the solution be? There never seems to be a solution proposed. And then, oh, it’s not up to them to propose solutions, the white feminists expect them to do all the work… bullshit. I’m sick of it. And have I ever said they’re “just jealous?” Nope. However, I suspect some of them are jealous, but not “just” jealous, so it’s neither here nor there. And does them being drama queens mean they don’t have some legit critiques? Also nope. But it’s damn hard to get to through all the drama.

And once again I’m reminded how glad I am that I’m not using my blog as a way to try to make money or promote my career. I don’t need that kind of stress. And it means I don’t have to think about all the questions of representation and if people were to treat me the way they treated Courtney, I’d say kindly fuck off and be done with it. I love this post by Lauren at Feministe but I don’t think she should have to explain anything. See, most feminist blogs that are now “big blogs” started as just someone’s blog, and then they got attention, and then they grew, and it was very organic. I couldn’t believe how ignorant Mandy and Brittany appeared to be about the way the blogosphere works.

I had a note in the perpetually-in-draft-mode post about Pam Spaulding, a lesbian WOC, being one of the longest-standing and most well-known feminist bloggers. I don’t remember where I was going to go with that. Anyway: Pam is awesome. I met her briefly at ConvergeSouth 2006 and got all fan-girl about it.

Update, 2.24.09: THE DIVIDER LINE GOES HERE! OMG!!! —-> ~*~

What I am motivated to write about is… ME! Because I’m so selfish, you see? But here’s a few things I wanted to add after the last post about class consciousness.

After starting at private school, I encountered for the first time people whose mothers were stay at home moms, housewives, homemakers, whatever you want to call it. I was really surprised by this. I was like, “Oh; women still do that? Really?” Everyone I knew prior to that, their mothers had jobs. I honestly thought the woman staying at home while the man worked was a thing of the past.

Most of the kids at Augusta Prep had been to something called “social” when they were in 7th or 8th grade. I had never heard of it, but apparently it’s just what you do when you’re a kid from an upper-class family in Augusta. It was this whole other world I had no clue about. Apparently they teach you how to ballroom dance and other etiquette stuff. I still find the concept very weird.

I mentioned in the last post that my friend Kate, in Kansas, lived in a huge house. But the other thing about her house was, it was a total mess. They had a maid but I guess there was only so much the maid could do! (She seemed to concentrate mainly on things like laundry anyway.) And they had these incontinent dogs that would piss and shit all over the carpet. They had these absorbent sheets of paper laid on some areas of the carpet in case the dogs pissed there (of course, the dogs pissed anywhere but there). I thought it was disgusting. And I found myself feeling angry. Although I couldn’t articulate it, I was offended that someone who had such a big, nice house would treat it so poorly. It seemed to me like they were taking the place for granted, not appreciating what they had and how fortunate they were. Even though our house was comparably much smaller (though not tiny; it’s the same size as the house Rusty and I just bought, within 2 square feet!), it was always neat and clean. My childhood wasn’t perfect (not by a longshot), but my parents got some stuff right, and I was brought up to understand that you respect the place you call home and don’t trash it.

As for diversity. A criticism I’ve heard people spout about private school more times than I can count is that it doesn’t have enough diversity, and public school teaches kids about “the real world.” Fuck that. Now, I know there are plenty of private schools that really are just a bunch of super-rich white kids who have no clue how people outside their charmed circle live. And, maybe, there are public schools where kids from all different racial, economic, religious, etc. backgrounds mingle and learn from each other in “We Are The World”-esque harmony.

But I wish the people who talk about public school being so great would pull their heads out of their asses. I didn’t learn a damn thing in public school after elementary school (with the exception of Mrs. Cody’s class!). That “lowest common denominator” thing? It’s true. And Isabel, this is why Harrison Bergeron scares the shit about of me. Of course, even if I had been challenged and intellectually stimulated? I wouldn’t have had time to focus on it because I’d be too busy trying to avoid projectiles in the lunchroom or getting my head slammed into a locker door. Public school brings out the most anti-social, awful human tendencies, I’m convinced. Or at least mine did.

The reason I said I started to suspect that when people said “diversity” they meant “black people” was that my private school was very diverse, although we had comparably fewer black students than my public school. A major segment of Augusta’s Jewish population went to school there. There were also a lot of Indian students, some Muslim and some Hindu, students of other Asian descent, and students of Middle Eastern descent. There were exchange students from Germany, Lithuania, and Belarus. There were quite a few openly gay students – no small feat in Augusta! And yes, most (not all) of the students came from upper-class or upper-middle-class families; but so what? Overall I found them to be much more tolerant of differences than at public school. Or at least, if anyone did have a problem with anything, they never raised a stink about it or slammed your head into a locker. None of the gay kids ended up with broken noses (as happened to an openly gay student at my public high school).

Yes, there were your garden-variety white Christian kids; but there wasn’t one-tenth of the proselytizing that there had been at my public school. It was at public school that the health teacher showed us a video called “The Jesus Factor,” and Jenny and I marched to the principal’s office to complain about separation of church and state, knowing even before we got there that no one would give a shit. They had Meet You At The Pole at public school, not private school. There were the kids that met the stereotype – like the two rich white kids, a steady couple, who got drunk and drove an SUV onto the middle of a golf course and passed out – but they were seen as entertainment at best and caricatures at worst, and they didn’t work hard in school so they were kind of looked down on, rather than reified as they would’ve been at public school.

Interestingly, all the people who yammered about “diversity” in a way that made me suspect they meant “black people” were white – and so that concern fell particularly flat because if you know anything about Augusta, you know they have a lot of WEIRD issues with race.

To be fair re: the issue of being challenged in public school, I should say that according to Jenny, Niki, and Dipika, it did get better in 11th grade, when they were able to start taking AP classes. But that’s when I skipped out. For me, Evans High was much better hearing their amusing stories of their AP teachers from afar. And the school separation didn’t stop us from speaking Swahili in Niki’s jeep. :)

Feb 22 2009 11:04 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 60 Comments »

Class consciousness: all I can do is write my own story

Instead of constantly writing from a place of “what if” and “what does it mean” and trying to find the right words when talking about class and privilege (yes, the two are different and distinct), I thought I’d write down some memories that shaped my class consciousness, as you might call it. Some of the comments on this post by Hugo Schwyzer inspired me to go ahead w/ this. And, yeah, I agree: if your parents can pay your way for seven years of college and grad school, that’s not “comfortable,” that’s rich. And I say this as someone who has problems w/ the word “rich” and the reductive way in which it’s often applied. But it bugs me when people try to act like they’re not as well-off as they really are. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. Here are the notes I wrote down when reading the comment thread there:

What does it mean to be rich

When you *are* rich, do you try to deny it to “fit in” or “get cred”
And is your perspective skewed?

Or is everyone’s perspective skewed w/ their own experience at the center? (other than the VERY poor and VERY wealthy)
Back to why I was so uncomfortable at the financial planner’s office

Was I poor? Working class? Middle class?
I’ve come to identify as working class bc all the descriptions I’ve read, that one seems to “fit” best with the way it felt

But idk

“As for teaching, I have to admit that the maxim “If you do what you love, the money will follow” is intensely dangerous and irresponsible if not qualified with supplemental information.”

Yes, this quote has ALWAYS bothered me
It has always reeked of so much privilege it’s painfully obvious

My own experience mirrors this, somewhat
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2009/02/12/the-thoughts-of-six-hundred-pounders-professional-feminism-class-privilege-and-the-responsibility-to-teach-wisely-and-well/#comment-498164 (except UGA was actually a *good* school, not second-rate; I felt the quality of my education there was excellent)

So, memories:
(more…)

Feb 21 2009 12:22 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments »

Freewriting on privilege, class, inaccurate words, and frustration

Still so much I want to say about class and privilege and the feminist blogosphere… but no idea where to jump in or how to structure my thoughts.

Here’s a great post from the Feministing community area, by someone called Okra, that really illustrates the trap that the thread about Courtney was falling into. All Courtney’s critics were calling out her “privilege” but really what they meant was not privilege as we, activists, understand it. And we should know better, and be much better at avoiding falling into this trap. But apparently we’re not, because I see it all the time.

Privilege isn’t a personal failing. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not something you can renounce. It’s something granted to you by society. You don’t choose it. The term “unearned privilege,” which is used so much in these recent threads, is nonsensical, because privilege by definition is unearned. If we’re talking about something that was earned, then it’s not privilege.

Privilege is something you have to be aware of. Someone pointing it out is not a personal attack. It doesn’t make sense to take it personally when someone points out privilege.

We are all largely blind to our privilege; that’s the point. What we can do is work at becoming less blind to it. We don’t think there’s anything there at all because we don’t have to know what life is like in its absence! Example of privilege in action: a few years ago, a woman at work said, “I was dating someone [blah blah blah]…” and I replied with a question, “Did he [whatever else I said]…?” And the woman corrected me: “She.”

I wanted to kick myself – and I apologized. That was heteronormativity in action, straight privilege. Straight until proven gay… opposite sex as the assumed default partner.

I could’ve gotten bent out of shape and fallen all over myself to say I didn’t mean it… but who gives a shit? That would make me an asshole. Because it’s not about me. And intent doesn’t matter.

This is why I am consistently gobsmacked – though not really surprised, because it happens so often and is so damn predictable – when people have a conniption fit when someone says, “Hey, that was a racist remark” or “that was sexist” or “that was ableist” or whatever. And if anyone uses the P-word, they assume… well, what Okra said:

Do we have a better word than privilege? All words have multiple layers, but the potential for misunderstanding seems especially pernicious with “privilege,” which prompts a hearty “Not me!” from many members of the population. The idea of social privilege is far more subtle than its more popular meaning of pampered Rockefeller-type.

You acknowledge your privilege. You strive to be more mindful of it, and of the fact that not everyone is like you. You recognize that you’ll probably fuck up again, but you work to try not to. Because, of course, apologies are worthless if your behavior never changes.

But what’s been going down w/ Courtney isn’t, for the most part, people “pointing out privilege.” No, instead a lot of people are using that word because they know it’s loaded, they know how much of a hot button it is in the feminist blogosphere, and they probably surmise that it can be a way to say all kinds of assholish things and not be called out for being an asshole. Because, hey, they’re just calling out privilege. (Incidentally, it’s exactly this sort of thing that got me ousted from the walled garden a little over a year ago. Woe, I say!)

What’s tough is that we don’t have (or at least I don’t know of) clear language to talk about class that doesn’t at some point co-opt the word “privilege” and turn it into meaning “living a life of relative economic luxury.” There is such a thing as class privilege but I think many of us – myself definitely included – have gotten too lazy with that term, throwing it around when we can’t think of anything more appropriate.

But this goes back to what I said the other day; I’m getting more adept at it little by little, and finding Bitch|Lab a few years back was an epiphany; but I still largely lack the words to talk about my experiences with class. I firmly believe this is due in large part to Americans wanting to believe, with all our heart, that we live in a classless society, and doing whatever possible to uphold that fantasy – to the point where we can’t even talk about the reality because, well, how would we start? What are the words?

Basically, I’m sick of a lot of this shit. I’m sick of the hypocritical self-identified progressives, who cloak their own insecurities and fears in “calling out privilege” and “anti-oppression work.” I know how abusers manipulate and this looks all too familiar. I know that might seem over-the-top, but keep in mind I’m not equating stupid online drama with abuse, but saying, well, the patterns of behavior are damn familiar.

People make themselves look like idiots when they say things like, Jessica Valenti lives in a ritzy NYC apartment. What planet are they on?? Seriously, I wish somebody would explain to me on what planet freelance writers are living a life of ease and luxury, reclining on a daybed eating grapes and perhaps enjoying a mid-day mimosa. Yeah, having no health insurance is real glamourous. Having to constantly shop yourself around for one-off jobs that pay peanuts is real glamourous. Not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from or if you’ll make rent that month… the height of glamour.

I wish people would pull their heads out of their asses!

I’m sick of the constant policing of each other (which I refuse to partake in, but I’m talking about what I see others doing), of who gets to speak and who doesn’t, the hierarchy of who’s the most oppressed; yes, the Oppression Olympics. Just look how stupid it got on this thread. I have to be at work by 8:30! Oh yeah, I have to be there by 8:00! I make $15,000 a year – how low is YOUR salary, so I can make a judgment about how hard you do or don’t work??!! I bust my ass!! Oh yeah??

But I sure as hell can’t go in the other direction, because shit like this keeps happening, and if I have to read bullshit like “I don’t think I’ve ever found myself prejudiced against someone based on the colour of their skin, and I would certainly never put prejudicial thoughts into action” one more time I’m going to bang my head against a wall. It’s why I can’t read mainstream political blogs. Forget trying to call out sexism… it’s rampant… and no one does a damn thing, and if you say something, you’re a shrill militant ball-busting feminazi. Yeah, no thanks. How often have I been among mainstream political advocacy groups and felt beyond uncomfortable… where my brain was repeating, “Get out, get out, get out” because the moment you dare to present a different perspective, center gender, race, anything but white male straight cisgendered middle-class status quo, you’re ATTACKED. And issues such as sex workers’ rights and reproductive justice are certainly not discussed, because they’re not the IMPORTANT issues, like the war in Iraq and illegal wire-tapping. That’s what MATTERS, now shut up, little lady! Oh, and to the non-upper-middle-class among us: get a job, hippie!

Fuck THAT, too!

But I’m a capitalist, and as such, a lot of “activists” irritate me and I feel alienated. Certainly they are under no obligation to include me; I’m simply stating my experience. But the constant tearing down of anyone who happens to have a moment of success is getting real old. The feminist blogosphere in particular seems so intent on self-flagellating at every turn (as Apostate mentioned a while back), and including anything and everything so that we’ve diluted what truly is a feminist issue, and I just have no patience for it. Plus there are a lot of people talking out of their asses about shit they don’t know enough about, and everyone’s supposed to listen because they’re “not privileged” – even though we ALL are, in different ways, because privilege is a matrix, not a linear quantitative measuring system.

This post was just the latest last straw (yes, yes, I know!) and I’m so irritated I don’t know what to say about it specifically. Maybe I’ll come back to it later and try to make some sense. In the meantime, Octogalore has a good post.

But I know this: there’s a hell of a lot of conflation of “class” and “privilege” and “your life isn’t like mine and even though I don’t know shit about it, I’m assuming it must be way better” going on. I’ll never forget what Bitch|Lab said a while back: Class is not a sweater you take on and off. And I think that’s another thing people forget. You might be “middle class” now, in terms of income and net worth, but your background will forever color your perceptions of the world. You will understand things that people from comparatively comfortable backgrounds will not. It doesn’t make you automatically right about everything; but it means you have a way of approaching things that can’t be separated from what you know. Daisy called it class consciousness and I guess that’s it; and guess what else? Everyone’s interpretation of it will vary, too.

But some people seem to twist “class consciousness” into a persecution complex, and that, I have no time for.

Feb 17 2009 03:56 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 43 Comments »

Give me a break!

First of all, I just have to say that Courtney has far more patience than I do. She has handled this shitstorm with way more grace and diplomacy than I’d be able to muster. Jesus!

Look at this, from a commenter called Whit, on Courtney’s follow-up post wherein she doesn’t even get angry at people feeling free to make a ridiculous caricature out of her.

I can’t bear to read most of the other comments, so I apologize if someone has said it before or better than I can, but much like male feminists, those with class/race/etc. privilege need to remember to center people who are less privileged at the heart of their work if they’re trying to be an ally.

That means, among other things, 1. resisting the temptation to try to ‘lead’ the discussion, work, committee, etc. Necessarily implied is 2. Listening to the voices of people who you are trying to ally with, and giving them more weight than those who share your privilege. 3. Try to emulate Courtney’s introspective thoughtfulness about your own privilege whenever you’re called on it.

The original ‘day in the life of’ post failed at #s 1, and to a lesser extent 2, in a big way. Perhaps it would have been better if you had just asked for different day in the life comments before posting your own. Oh well, c’est la vie. It’s certainly opened up a great conversation about privilege that we all need to have.

Are you fucking kidding me?? Her original post “fails” in 1 and 2? Well, hello, maybe that’s because it was a post about A DAY OF HER LIFE. How in the hell is anyone supposed to “center” other people when they’re writing about THEIR OWN LIFE?? It doesn’t make sense!

And really, just what kind of hairshirt is Courtney supposed to wear before everyone will be satisfied that she’s done sufficient penance for her “privilege?” (most of which isn’t “privilege” in the true sense of the word – again, falling into that old trap of not being clear on the definition – but a bunch of people projecting their own shit)

I agree w/ commenter Rachel:

I think this has sparked a useful conversation and debate on privilege, but I’m unsure as to why it began. Courtney simply posted a glimpse into a day in her life for people who are curious as to what how one of the Feministing blog authors and noted author spends her work day. She then invited others to do the same, thus giving others an opportunity to share their lives and struggles and demonstrate the ways in which privilege works for or against them, and instead, she was criticized for it. Courtney’s initial post reminded me of a quote by Muriel Rukeyeser… “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” The world didn’t split open, but it sure seems as if Feministing’s readers are divided.

…

I think that Courtney has always been frank of the ways in which she is privileged and, in turn, has used those privileges in a way that benefits all women, privileged and underprivileged. I guess I don’t understand what is expected of her here. She’s already cognizant of the ways in which privilege manifests itself and writes useful conversations about it and other issues that affect women’s lives. Should she quit her job? Choose Ramen Noodles over fruit? Give up her yoga class? And, is the fact that Courtney is privileged in some aspects make details of her life or her voice any less legitimate, interesting or valuable?

What if she did choose Ramen Noodles over fruit? Then she’d be a poser, which is really worse. And that’s exactly what Amanda said on Lauren’s first thread the other day. People pretending to be less fortunate than they are is pretty insulting – and yet too many of these Feministing (and elsewhere) commenters seem to be setting up a situation where there’s no other solution. Or, disturbingly, that the only thing that will satisfy them is for certain women (oh yes, there’s a list, because they know everything, based on superficial observations) not to write about our lives. And that FUCKING SCARES ME.

I think we’ve all met the kind of people who interpret everything as a personal attack. And I think we can all agree those people have ISSUES, and WE are not responsible for THEIR lack of boundaries. Courtney choosing fruit = “hey, that reminds me of ME!” Guess what? Not Courtney’s problem.

If any time a friend vented to you about something bad that happened to them, your response was, “Oh yeah? Well, you have privilege, so suck it up!” you’d be shitty friend. Offering a dose of perspective now and then is important, but so is knowing when that’s not appropriate or even irrelevant.

Feb 16 2009 03:27 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Classy

Here’s the progression of how things went. Apparently Courtney wrote a post at Feministing talking about what a typical day for her looks like. Lauren at Faux Real wrote a post in response, saying she’s tired of hearing about people having too much email and how it’s soooo hard for them, when people in her community are struggling to keep their jobs, if they haven’t been laid off already. She then wrote another post, which expanded on some of the stuff in the first post. Aunt B wrote a post linking to Lauren’s second post, and Daisy linked to Aunt B in her post about WAM being elitist, which I took issue with.

I didn’t see any of the posts until I read Daisy’s, and then I went in reverse-chronological order trying to catch up (and was still left wondering what WAM had to do with any of it – I guess Daisy just wanted to try to tie it in).

I agree w/ this comment Amanda left at Lauren’s:

There’s kind of no way to write about your life if you’re lucky in any way without becoming a lightening rod for envy on the blogs, though. I can see your point, but I also worry about the way women have been socialized to compete with each other on whose life sucks the most. It’s a lot like the, “You’re not fat, I’m fat!” game. Women aren’t permitted to be happy with themselves, and so writing something that insinuates that you are pretty happy with yourself automatically generates bad reactions. I can see how Courtney is trying to fight against that.

Predictably, another commenter (someone called evil fizz) comes along and says:

But is is possible to write about your own successes and privilege without being bone-crushingly oblivious to the fact that not everyone enjoys such things. It’s not necessarily about envy as much as it is awareness that one’s corner of the universe is not the quintessential experience.

Well, I really wish someone would tell me what that way is, because I’m getting the feeling there really isn’t such a way, unless you devote nine-tenths of every post to self-flagellation. Because that wouldn’t become tedious to read, oh no.

As Lisa said recently…

I’m tired of writing disclaimers of my privilege. I’m tired of apologizing. Even as I write that, I’m sure it reads RESISTANCE to acknowledging my privilege. But it’s like, no matter what I write about, no matter how much I paint the elephant a traffic cone orange color and acknowledge it, point at it, sit next to it, and then I write my thoughts – someone, somewhere (usually “anonymous”) comes in and reminds me, “don’t forget – you’re a privileged person of color. You don’t have that much experience in oppression.” Here’s the thing: I don’t know how to acknowledge it any more than I already have. And if I stop acknowledging it, I’m sure someone will call me a “leftoid cunt” again. I don’t want to spend my life writing about privilege. That would be a sardonic tragedy all on its own.

EXACTLY.

I mean, how many times do you have to spell it out to people? At a certain point, you just can’t be responsible for other people projecting their own drama and hangups onto your writing about your life. And on a blog, especially! Evil fizz goes on to say that (s)he doesn’t care about Courtney’s day. Well, then don’t read about it. Get on with your life and find something you do care about to occupy your time. Does every blogger exist simply to satisfy what you personally want to read about?

I get that on a large group blog like Feministing, the lines are less clear – and indeed, this is what people spend entire social media conferences talking about. Know your audience, write stuff they’ll be interested in, etc. But I just keep coming back to the fact that blogs started as people writing about their own lives, and guess what, an audience showed up, eventually.

In Lauren’s “Context” post, she says:

And I wonder too if those making feminism their career change her message to remain marketable? Does the new Professional Feminist have to set aside some of her feminist beliefs to keep the paycheck rolling in? Will she self-censor?

This is always a problem. The difference is, feminist bloggers did not START with the goal of being ‘professional feminists’ – they were just writing, doing their own thing, and they got recognized for who they are. (A modicum of success; say it ain’t so!) Now, if they’re expected to change… -but this is the same thing as all bloggers. At social media conferences bloggers are so concerned w/ their “image” and how to be “professional” and present themselves online. But they forget that the first bloggers who are now relatively famous – Scoble, etc. – took risks, and that’s why they were noticed. Yes, a lot of ‘em are assholes, but this isn’t about the characteristics of their individual personalities; the point is that they weren’t sanitizing everything they said. They were writing in their own voice – sometimes even writing as if no one was reading.

But stepping away from bloggers specifically, let’s get back to the larger issue of class in more general terms. I agree w/ much of what Lauren says here. I share her frustration w/ “get ahead” solutions that are aimed at people who are beyond the access point of many people looking for advice. I’ve been there. Suggestions to buy less Starbucks and refinance your home ring hollow to someone who doesn’t go to Starbucks at all and rents instead of owns. It pisses me off that this passes for “solutions” in some people’s eyes, and I wonder how they can be so blind to others’ reality. Do they REALLY think everyone owns a home, has a 401k, can afford a new car or even has a car at all?

I agree that the NY Times piece about not being able to live on $500k in NYC is insulting. It’s the same thing I was talking about in this post from October 2006, where I criticize a Creative Loafing article that purports to explain why the younger generation is having a hard time economically. People who behave like Mr. Whitey McPrivilege (as I lovingly dubbed him) make the rest of us look bad. It’s an irresponsible piece of journalism because it falls into the old trope of casting as irresponsible anyone who isn’t middle class, so we can all attribute their situation to personal failings, wipe our hands and be done w/ it, rather than have to examine underlying, systemic issues. This goes back to the points raised in Stephanie Coontz’s book The Way We Never Were.

And yet… I do take issue w/ the rest of the stuff referenced here and here.

Putting aside the fact that I become very skeptical of anyone who uses the term “the intelligentsia” with any degree of seriousness, I’m frustrated that “the intelligentsia” is cast as upper class – always is and always has been upper class. Whereas the poor cannot be well-read (even tho Lauren’s friend mentions her mother, we’re to understand that she’s a curious outlier). Yes, it’s more likely, but it strikes as a dichotomy, that there’s one right “way” to be poor, and it strikes as insulting to those from poor backgrounds who are interested in “intellectual” things.

I guess I am annoyed because (going back to Lauren’s post) I have seen both sides of it, so I GET IT. Also – I have a distrust for people who have never experienced what it’s like to *not* have a safety net. I think they don’t get it, don’t really appreciate the double bind the working class and poor are often in. That’s why their solution is always the offensively simplistic “get a job,” and it’s so much BS.

Now, to respond to a few comments.

Aunt B’s comment on Lauren’s “Context” post:

And it pisses me off-it seems so “let them eat cake”-ish-to read feminists talking about a feminist day that is basically “La la la, here’s my wonderful life.”

Yeah, I get where she’s coming from, but this also reads to me a bit like: Shut up. It’s too similar for my comfort to what Ren hears all the damn time. It feels like a game of oneupsmanship: who’s the most oppressed, who gets to speak.

Yes, it’s helpful to have perspective. Some people are just self-centered, non-self-aware assholes who really do seem to think their email problem is the worst problem in the world. And they complain all the freaking time. (I think we’ve all had the misfortune of knowing at least one person like this.) They need to be smacked upside the head with some reality, reminded, “Hey, at least you HAVE A JOB, and this is a luxury thing to worry about for many people.”

I mean, just yesterday, there was a guy at work complaining about how high his HOA fees are, but at least they pay for the tennis courts. Obnoxious!

But most of the people in question here do not lack that perspective. They simply write about their lives, and if their life includes the frustration of a lot of email, then maybe they write about that. I don’t see any of them saying this is THE WORST THING EVER. But do they have to repeat that at every other sentence for people not to assume it?

Like Aunt B in her 2nd comment on Laurent’s “Context” post, I don’t know quite how to talk about my experiences, either. It wasn’t until I started reading Bitch|Lab that I had any of the words necessary to begin trying to describe class-related experiences – and I’m still not very good at it at all.

In the past couple of years I feel like I’ve been slowly entering a new world – one that was always there, going on right under my nose, but I never knew about. Is this the *real* middle class? It seems “upper class” to me, but I have a feeling upper class involves even more. What do people MEAN when they say “middle class?”

It’s why I felt so uncomfortable when that shitty financial planner asked, “When you retire, how much money would you like to have to live off of each month?” What is the right answer? X amount of dollars… is that too much? Too little? I have no frame of reference.

And from the other end, I was embarrassed when I bought my car last January, and I handed the salesperson the paperwork and upon seeing my salary, she said, “Wow, that’s a good job! I wish I had that job!” How am I supposed to respond to that?

But I’m not ashamed. I’ve worked too damn hard to allow somebody to lay a guilt trip on me out of what often seems like – and this will not win me any friends, but I’m calling it like I see it – good old-fashioned jealousy. Hell, at least Aunt B comes out and admits that she is jealous – but that still doesn’t excuse her nasty finger-pointing and line-drawing, deciding who’s the real feminist and who’s not, who’s sufficiently guilty about their success and who’s not. Shit like this props up a nasty system of shaming women out of economic achievement. Oh, you can do it, but only if you FEEL REALLY BAD about it!

Back to comments. Daisy comments and says:

You are talking Class Consciousness 101, and according to THAT, the people on top will never be nice to those of us on the bottom, because they are too busy congratulating themselves that they are not us. Why would they listen to people that they believe are inferior?

Personally? I feel uncomfortable with “the people on the top” AND “the people on the bottom.” I have problems in both directions. Both seem so blind in their own ways.

Sometimes I think we need to remember, being poor doesn’t give you some special insight into How The World Works. But neither does being rich, of course.

Commenter arvind says:

I don’t think there is anything wrong in telling privileged people to be more aware of their privilege when they speak.

This sets up a dichotomy, as if there are two kinds of people: privileged and not privileged. It also, once again, casts privilege in solely economic terms, which is why a lot of people not versed in the academic language of privilege get defensive and misunderstand it – e.g., I’m white and poor, how do I have “white privilege?” We need to do much better at avoiding falling into this trap.

Commenter Casey says:

There’s always been an “introduction to intersectional feminism for comfortable college students” feel to the blog, which is probably due, at least in part, to the fact that it is a blog, and, as such, is very much bound up in the lives of the people who write there (almost all of whom seem to come from very comfortable backgrounds, have MAs, and are getting their names out as a way of getting their books published).

The key word here? SEEM. Yep, it happened again. Why assume??

THIS is the kind of shit that pisses me off. You don’t know shit about their backgrounds. Yes, I know humans make assumptions to fill in the blanks about the things we don’t know. To an extent that’s human nature. But then at a certain point, stereotypes take over. The woman Daisy mentioned assumed there were no feminists in the welfare office; Casey assumes the Feministing bloggers have always had an easy-peasy life.

And for the love of god, can someone tell me WHY so many people think writers live a life of luxury??

For another example, just recently I got into it with Renee in a thread at her blog (link forthcoming when I dig it up), where I called her out for being judgmental and making assumptions about people who shop at Wal-Mart. You want to talk about privilege? There’s a hell of a lot of unexamined privilege going on in those types of judgments. She tried to tell me that the poor have more opportunity to “produce within the home”… give me a fucking break. I was incensed at that point and asked her how, exactly, when my mom was working from dawn to dusk and simultaneously trying to care for her dying, uninsured husband, she was supposed to “produce within the home?” I reminded her that for people with schedules like that, who don’t live in metropolitan areas, Wal-Mart is often the only place that’s open when they are able to go shopping! Not to mention the prices. “Going green” is a luxury for many, many people. Oh and if you live in a more rural area, Wal-Mart if often the only store around, period!

Bottom line: You don’t know someone’s situation.

On a completely different note, Catherine’s comment captures exactly the problem I have with ATACC (or is it just ATAC now?)…

I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to members of my peace group gripe about it being all white. (and, I have to say, majority middle class and above). why aren’t black people in our group? Why aren’t poor people in our group? Umm, maybe they have other, more pressing things to worry about? Maybe they are wondering, how come we aren’t at the protest of the latest cop-killing of an unarmed black male youth. Maybe, black people in particular are wondering why they, who were already against the iraq war long before most white people caught on, should be marching to stop that, when very few if any white people, are marchign to stop something that is much more insidiously destructive to many black communuties; the drug war, and instituionalized and racist sentencing disparties.

Finally, on another unrelated note – and to end on a more positive note – I really enjoyed this post by BFP. I don’t often read her, but I’m glad I clicked over to her blog, because that post was a jewel.

Feb 14 2009 10:29 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments »

Class and Oppression Olympics

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a kind of Oppression Olympics with class-related stuff. For one thing, when you start talking about class, this is what most people associate with the word “privilege.” And I feel like discussions involving class sometimes descend into a kind of oneupsmanship.”Our lights were always getting turned off because we could only afford rent or bills, not both!” “Oh yeah? We lived off of food stamps when I was growing up!” And so on and so forth.

I get annoyed by class discussions for reasons at both ends of the spectrum. This bit from a recent comment at Anji’s blog really rubbed me the wrong way:

However, your own photo you posted to this entry (and the other flickr photos) shows the pro-sex work protesters to be white, and visually middle class.

“Visually middle class?” What the hell does that mean? That’s just supporting the idea that you can tell what a person’s current financial/economic situation is, as well as their background and personal history, just by looking at them. And frankly I find that extremely condescending. There isn’t one way to be middle class, working class, poor, whatever. Thinking you can clock someone based on a set of external markers is reductive at best and downright offensive at worst.

I’ve mentioned before that for all the talk of the definition of privilege as not referring simply to economic advantage and/or being a personal fault, it seems like an awful lot of bloggers who should know better fall into this trap. This was particularly evident to me with that “class privilege” meme that was going around a while ago. Talk about annoying. No, class is not something you can determine by ticking a few boxes on a form. An empirical fact such as “when you were growing up you had a lot of books in the house” carries, by itself, not much information. It’s all the backstory, the complex stuff that can’t be represented by a tick-mark, that contains the real information.

I also keep coming back to what Queer Dewd said: “Class is not a sweater that you take on and off.” I hate the way some bloggers have been guilty of pointing to a person’s current perceived (because let’s be honest, for the most part they don’t know much about anyone else’s personal situation) economic status as if it exists in a vacuum. There is also a conflation of income and wealth which I find very frustrating and, again, reductive. (We’ve discussed this at some length at Octogalore’s blog, but I can’t find the thread now.)

On the other hand I’m also annoyed from the other side, when people try to act like economic privilege doesn’t exist, or minimize its importance. Sometimes I wonder if I’m slipping into the Oppression Olympics game, but I really do feel it’s worthwhile to talk about the differences in perspective from people who have never really known what it felt like to not “have enough” as opposed to people who have felt the very real effects of the lack of a safety net. To pretend these differences don’t matter, or to minimize their effect, is foolish.

Hugo wrote a post yesterday about college graduates who end up having an existential crisis after graduation and I just can’t get too worked up about feeling sorry for them. Yes, I know I went to college; but these are the kinds of people who annoyed me in college. They didn’t seem to have any sense of perspective. They never had to worry about paying the rent or paying their tuition or anything like that, because mom and dad were taking care of it. Or like on the Suze Orman show the other night, this couple was asking whether they should focus on saving for retirement or saving for their child’s college education. To me the idea of saving for a kid’s education is so foreign. I wonder what it would feel like to be someone who had a college fund or whose parents paid their tuition. Personally I think college students should pay for their own education, take out loans, get jobs, figure out how to make ends meet, because otherwise you get this protracted adolescence and a lack of understanding of the real world. Or maybe I just think that because I’ve always been so independent, by nature. I wouldn’t have wanted to be supported by my parents even if it had been financially possible. I was an adult and I wanted to live accordingly – which is why I used to get so annoyed by people talking about college students as if they weren’t adults. I probably even wrote about it on this blog back in 2002.

The above, about paying for college, might sound draconian. You might ask, why shouldn’t someone’s parents pay for their college, if they can afford it? And, yeah, I get that. It’s not like I’m advocating making a law or something. :P I’m just saying I think being able to fend for yourself is an important skill that should come sooner rather than later. And it’s a skill many people don’t have the luxury of foregoing.

So is it Oppression Olympics, to say that? Or just fact?

Dec 09 2008 10:36 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , | 13 Comments »

Summaries in lieu of completion

Executive summary of a few posts that have been in draft mode entirely too long. Bold part is the current title of the draft.

Aug 25 2008 11:41 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , | 6 Comments »
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