black amazon wrote a post saying what she wanted in light of the Hugo situation (and believe me, BOY did I feel it when she said that the “what do you want” question is often used as a weapon—how many times have i gotten some impatient “well, why don’t you stop complaining and tell me what you want????” followed up with a “well, if you want it, start WORKING FOR IT (do it yourself) along with tons and tons of links giving me “advice” on how to do it myself, cuz all it really takes is to google links and structural injustice no longer exists, didn’t you know???) and it got me thinking.
what do i want?
well, first of all, it’s near impossible to answer that question, because what i want—a *movement* (and not the faux bullshit we got people calling in and signing petitions “movement” but a real transformative resilient justice centered movement—and oops, i shouldn’t say all those words, cuz god knows how they will be taken and used to give the faux US “online feminist movement” credibility) is not going to happen. at least not through *F*eminism. it’s just not. there’s not even the room in *F*eminist space to say—ok, YOU show up on cnn to make work WE’RE doing on the streets visible. because the work going on on the streets DEPENDS on CNN and wouldn’t exist without it (see: nobody is going to show up for “feminist march” type comments). and more to the point, because liberal reformism doesn’t require a “movement.” it, in fact, actively needs there NOT to be a movement.
SO—having said that. what do i want?
* I want a place where I can self-publish without being pretty certain it’s being mined for content.
* i want people to stop acting like it’s way too fucking hard to press a button and write an ask asking for permission to use my words. because what has happened is that instead of asking me for permission, they just go, oh, that’s too hard, i won’t even include her in this discussion! so—everything that happened, happened to “The WOCs” NOT to brownfemipower and black amazon and flavia and aura bogado.
we all have names. we all have histories. pretending like it’s too hard to ask for permission to use my words and turning us all into a generalized “WOC” makes it seem like the main problem was with hugo and the main problem hugo had was his racism. nope. the main problem was *F*eminism and the main problem with *F*eminism was it’s tacit approval of white solidarity.
* i want people to recognize what it means to turn yourself into a brand. the main thing i can point to here is this. this tumblr was specifically created to take control of my “brand” after several situations happened where i felt like others were using my name to ask for things i never would or they were misrepresenting my history. i have stayed “on brand” while on this blog, only talking about stuff relating to the “brand” brownfemipower—which was branded by *F*eminism as a vicious destroyer, a duplicitous monster, a weak lazy freeloader.
but i’ve struggled very hard—i made the committment to myself that this tumblr would only be used to address “the brand”—but i’ve found how limiting it is in several areas. first—i, the person behind brownfemipower, am NOT a vicious destroyer of everything that is good, AND i have a strenuous chicana centered critique of “lazy freeloader” and “do it yourself” attitudes being weilded against chicanas specifically.
SO what do I do with that?
Also—since all this happened, i have learned lessons, dedicated myself in an extremely committed way to practicing buddhism, seen my state and very important cities in my state assaulted through legislature, gotten surgery…become a different person. i look back on some of the decisions i made and the stuff i said in my past blogging life, and I regret them. like—REALLY in the core of my heart, regret them. can i admit as a brand how much i deeply regret those decisions? can i admit as a brand that i really REALLY don’t enjoy centering white women, when people come to “brownfemipower” as a brand to hear about white women? can i admit that i HATE being angry all the time? can i say frankly, that the thing i want most is a place where i can talk about how much i need big fat titties all up in my face, cuz i just had a hard ass fucking day?
in other words—what does it MEAN to have a “brand” and what does it MEAN that *F*eminism is working to “stay on brand” and what does it MEAN that so many of the “brands” that are running around are being paid to say how much they hate republicans and get everybody mad and create clicking outrage that results in payment for the brand and lots and lots of money for the website?
what does any of this mean? can ‘brands’ make movements? can “brands” sustain movements? if a “brand” always has to stay on point, can it be anything but a blow horn and a day of marching? can a “brand” ever admit they’re wrong? can a “brand” ever express regret?
it’s not generally a big surprise what a thing is when it’s been screaming at you since 2005 what it is (a brand)—can we have a conversation about what that means? and what it means when a brand applies for foundation money? why is it a surprise that Brand Amanda or Brand Jezebel has not (and will not) EVER apologize, much less change?
* i want people to recognize and respect the fact that i have a history. that Chicanas have a history. that we have a history online. people who work to shape that history—i want you to engage with us in doing so.
* i also want so called allies to be aware of needing to ask critical questions before engaging in particular situations. if i see one more woman of color ask in confusion “can somebody point me to the back ground situation around #femfuture???” after they uncritically came out in support of it, it will be one time too many. as black amazon said, THAT is what hurts the most.
* i want the white women like La Lubu, Cara, Jessica Hoffman, Jessica Nathanson, Le Colonel Chabert, Sheezlebub, Kactus, Emily, (and others) who have offered love, community, friendship, and true solidarity to be recognized as the leaders that they are. because they demonstrate that there WAS and IS a different choice.
* i want all violence against all women of color and their communities to end forever.
* i want everything that black amazon said she wanted to be handed to her on the biggest shiniest silver platter.
* i want people to understand that I never named what happened to me as ‘theft’ or even as “appropriation.” i want people to put actual work into understanding why and where they got the idea that what happened to me was “theft” or “appropriation.”
* maybe someday, i’ll tell you how i define what happened to me.
* or, maybe the brand brownfemipower will just let you go on thinking that you know best.
* i want people to understand the difference between hustling and being an asshole. i want to be paid to write, just like everybody else. i want to be rich, just like everybody else. i want to be JKRowling rich. If i thought i could write a story that would make millions about a white boy wizard named hugo schwyzer who, with his best wizarding friend amanda, took down evil hordes of destroying all that is good WOCs? I would write that bastard in about three minutes. I’ve been poor all my life. I don’t want to be poor anymore. I don’t want to have to beg on the internet for money to feed my kids or pay for gas. I want to be rich. filthy stinking rich. and i’ll sell my skills for that money. that makes me a hustler.
what i wont do is tell everybody that i am writing a book about boy wizard hugo schwyzer so that they will have better lives. i will not say i’m starting a movement to make it so that everybody can write about boy wizards and then stomp everybody’s faces. i will not use watch dogs to make sure that nobody else can get paid to write about boy wizards all while saying i’m a leader in making sure that everybody gets to write about boy wizards. that would make me an asshole.
when i write my book and become a rich ass bitch? please know that i am doing it to be rich. that i am playing the system. using my “one chance” eminem gave me. i am SO not “inventing online feminism” and i am SO not being a “professional feminist” and I am SO only wearing fishnets so that all my boy toy fan club will be happy.
* that is all.
* for now.
amen.
BFP’s response to the “what do you want” question.
And, I am taking this opportunity to also mention something that has been systematically left out of the conversations, mostly because the man in question did not mention this woman in his twitter fauxpologies: Aura Bogado was also a victim. When she resisted his ideas and wrote about them in a critical way, he threatened to sue her. He insisted that her criticism was “slander”. He went out of his way to silence her with threats of costly legal actions. It should also be noted, that Aura is yet, another Woman of Color. And, as BFP says, not “the WoC” but an individual woman who has done some extremely important work writing about immigration, gender and politics and who was pressured to stop her critique through means that would take an incredible amount of financial, time, etc resources to counteract. Aura was (and still is, thankfully), challenging certain hegemonies. She was attacked for doing so.
As I said before, historical records matter. This is another one of those.
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