There’s a process I’ve seen played out in the blogosphere (and IRL, but it becomes more pronounced in the blogosphere, in my experience) on feminist blogs, political blogs, POC’s blogs… and, now, interestingly, in the current local dust-up re: “these blogs are a-okay and the rest of ‘em are shit.”
In general, it goes something like this:
1) Someone in a relative position of power writes or does something.
2) People being written/spoken about (in a direct or tangential way) take offense at a shortcoming in what was written or said, and point it out.
3) Legitimate criticism silenced by third parties coming in and saying, for whatever mysterious reason, “You’re just jealous.”
3a) People who see a sort of middle-ground (or just plain different) perspective also silenced - and often demonized as part of the “you’re just jealous” crowd.
4) Original speaker/writer, or someone on their behalf, does not address legitimate complaint and instead says, “You’re being unfair.” Focus is put on intent, not impact.
5) Outside observers, typically identifying w/ the person/people in a relative position of power, off-handedly remark about how “amusing” the whole thing is, thereby further trivializing the legitimate criticisms.
It boils down to a problem of not listening. And those of us who have been not listened to time after time are all too familiar with this pattern, and it has gotten really, really old.
The timing of the CL thing is particularly interesting given that the FFF thing hasn’t yet completely blown over.
In the case of FFF, I am in the ‘3a’ position. That is, as I’ve said before: I agree that there are some problems w/ the book. I do not think the problems w/ the book are major, debilitating flaws, especially because no book can be all things to all people. And Valenti strikes me as someone who is willing to engage and listen. I also agree that WOC have legitimate grievances w/ the larger feminist and political blogosphere, but I feel like the fallout of many past incidents got unfairly aimed at Valenti. Therefore, it really irritated me to be categorized as someone who was dismissively saying “You’re just jealous” to WOC, when that is not what I was doing at all. My legitimate criticisms, both of the book and of the behavior of others in the blogosphere, were drowned out by people unwilling to listen.
In the case of the CL story, I am in the ‘2′ position. I have already repeated myself more times than I can count in various places throughout the local blogosphere; that is, my complaint w/ the story is not based on who was and was not included. I’ve said repeatedly, the five bloggers profiled were excellent choices who deserve this recognition and much more. My complaint rests solely w/ the divisive, snobbish language that casts the Atlanta blogosphere in general as worthless, making no attempt to acknowledge the vibrant community that is thriving here.
Now, perhaps it was unfair of me, Rusty, and Grayson to lump the CL story and the SMC event together (as I did a few posts down, in my round-up). It could be seen as analogous to bloggers taking out other, past offenses on Valenti’s book. I can see that argument. However, I do think that this case is a bit different, because there isn’t one individual who is receiving the entire brunt of the accumulated anger. I also think it is fair, and necessary, to speak of the two events not as isolated, random incidents; because, they are both representative of a larger problem. (Not that I’m equating this whole thing w/ racism, but it does remind me of the meme where anti-racists have to point out to privileged folks who refuse to acknowledge their privilege that racism is not individual acts of meanness, but a larger, systemic issue.)
As always, I can speak for no one but myself, and take responsibility for no one’s words or actions but my own. I feel that I’ve made my position abundantly clear. People can choose to listen and engage, or not. I think Grayson’s position is somewhat more complicated than mine, given that she has a hell of lot more experience and history w/ the local media community than I do. Again, people can choose to listen and engage with her or not. I may not agree w/ some of how she chose to express her anger, but again, that’s her choice, and it comes from a different (though related) place than mine.
Anyway, I wanted to write this to try to spell out, step by step, what I see happening over and over again. There’s no easy solution, because this is a massive, pervasive, society-wide problem, tied in w/ all sorts of complicated issues like race, gender, class, and other, more specific “status” markers (e.g., Edelstein and Nouraee are in relative positions of power here as editor and writer of a MSM publication). I think we could all use a good dose of Communication 101.
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