brown black and queer

There’s a lot of whiteness running around the blogosphere right now that’s being commented on. Here’s my input on “Stuff White People Like” and “Dear White Feminists, quit goddamn fucking up.”

WordPress.com so nicely shows me the top blogs they host even when I didn’t ask them to. Guess what’s been at the top? Stuff White People Like Now I must admit that I didn’t quite know what to think at first. This blog is straight-forward. The blogger, Clander, writes posts about common interests of white people, like New Balance Shoes, Having Gay Friends, Bottles of Water, Standing at Concerts, Vegan/Vegetarianism and Non-Profit Organizations, among many others (right now there are 96 on the list). I think that many people are talking about this blog because it seems that these ring so true for so many people. Fans seems to be white people who agree and identify with these things, but also people of color who attribute these things, maybe critically, to white people.

Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if you like SWPL or not; it is a very interesting way of analyzing whiteness. I had a class last semester with Lisa Duggan at NYU (Intersections: Race, Gender and Sexuality in U.S. History) where were talked about Brandon Teena (aka Teena Brandon by those who don’t accept his gender self-expression). We had talked about the murders of Brandon, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine, and how sexuality, sex and gender played a role in all this. Professor Duggan asked the class, “Where do you see race here?” Everyone pointed out that one of the people that were killed in the incident was a black man (DeVine) who was visiting the house where Brandon had been living. “Where else?” The class was essentially speechless. We couldn’t find any other instance of race being played out or made an issue or even existing as a mere description of a person. Finally, she explained to us that race was all over, that race was more than “blackness,” but “whiteness” just as much. We had neglected to mark the unmarked, and so whiteness was invisible, normalized to us. Think: you never have to come out as straight, only gay/queer/bi/trans/Other.

Anna Barsan posted Pondersome on this blog about the list made by the Christian Examiners on controversial classes. One that makes the list: “Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism” is Mount Holyoke College’s attempt to analyze race. The class seeks to spark thought on: “What is whiteness?” “How is it related to racism?” “What are the legal frameworks of whiteness?” “How is whiteness enacted in everyday practice?” And how does whiteness impact the “lives of whites and people of color?” This class actually causes huss and fuss, because it’s focusing on this other “side” that usually goes under the radar.

To go back to Stuff White People Like, if the site were Stuff Black People Like there would be a whole different buzz about it.. actually there probably wouldn’t be a buzz, because it’d be seen as separate from the “mainstream” blogosphere (sound like BET?) and definitely not equal, or it would be completely produced by white people as a commodification and appropriation of “blackness,” whatever that means.

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Now, somebody’s going to get angry about this, but I need to say it. Recently, there has been a whole lot of drama in the blogosphere about Seal Press, women of color bloggers, safety, white Feminism and racism. (Links are at the bottom if you want to know more. It’s really interesting and there are many people blogging about it.) I want to make just one point. A new blogger came out recently and started a site called “Dear White Feminists, Quit Goddamn Fucking Up.” She, herself, is a self-proclaimed white feminist, and as this she had written an open letter to white feminists who are racist. I actually really appreciate the post, and it needed to happen. What I did notice is that I must have been one of the very first people to come across her blog. I believe it was even the first day she put the site up. I commented on it first, thanking her for the letter, but I hesitated in saying what I really wanted to say. Why is it that her blog came up as the top listing under a WordPress search for feminism?  Many people had been blogging about feminism and used feminism in their tags, but also addressed issues of race (among others) and their sites get less hits, or only hits within the same group of bloggers. What I’m trying to point out is that white feminism IS Feminism, and women of color are written out time and again, even if the way that people click on links. Why read a blog about sexism AND racism, when you’re only trying to solve problems for women. Racism is that whole OTHER issue (You know that capital-”O” Othering we always talk about in these circles? Well race is the Other when we’re talking about sex/gender, the “them” to our “us” and instead of of analyzing the intersectionality of it all, we choose and divide them.)

Just the fact that feminism automatically means white feminism, and if feminism is to mention race, it’s suddenly black feminism, or women of color feminism, or third world feminism, meaning it’s a whole new game of feminism that’s not quite Feminism, because it’s outside the scope of mainstream feminism. But this is a problem. Aren’t we capable women (and people)? Can’t we expand naturally our limited ideas? We should never settle for “beyond the scope.” It’s difficult to keep asking for more and more, but it’s difficult to live oppressed too.

So no, it’s not straight up racist to choose one blog that’s at the top of the Google list, but it is important to be conscious of how these systems are not unbiased and do favor those sites that match people’s own internalized, normalized ideas of relevancy and authoritativeness. Whiteness is not clear or transparent. It, too, is based in certain ideologies that exclude and we must analyze how it functions.

Other points of interest, maybe for future posts: democratization (or not) of the internet, digital divide, and internet accessibility.

Links: Dear White Feminists, Angry Black Woman, brownfemipower.com (there’s nothing there)