and to be clear, before anybody starts. what i said: hugo is where he is today because of white feminists. they created, nurtured, supported him. the relationship between them was mutually beneficial. this is a pattern of institutional feminism. friendship=solidarity through resource sharing.
i don’t care if it was deliberate, i don’t care if they hate us all, i don’t care if they all have mustaches that they twirl and go oooh, i will kill another WOC career today! it doesn’t matter to me. what matters is the politicization of that friendship/relationship. some of us need to “just do it ourselves.” others of us have “friends.” and that deserves to be interrogated and challenged.
#i do enjoy making everything a summit about race #this is an example of me doing just that.
^ YES
And then a few other things I’ve been thinking about, especially in relation to these tweets from last night:
You have a block button fuckin’ use it. I’m just sick of how this has turned into a bizarre teachable moment on race.
— Hugo Schwyzer (@hugoschwyzer)
Good editors got played. That has nothing to do with whiteness.
— Hugo Schwyzer (@hugoschwyzer)
This whole #solidarityisforwhitewomen thing is an abusive cudgel to be used against a lot of people who are really working at inclusivity
— Hugo Schwyzer (@hugoschwyzer)
– It IS about race in so far as race informs and permeates the administration of resources and access to said resources. Race has been at the forefront of how whiteness relates to the “Other” and the places this Other is allowed to fulfill and the narratives s/he is allowed to participate in. For many of us, race is at the center of exclusion and political maneuvering in regards to our survival. Race is about being tokenized in spaces that are coded white but attempt to offer a veneer of inclusivity while pushing ideologies that perpetuate the very same white supremacy that leaves us out of the resource distribution.
– It is also about race in so far as Hugo Schwyzer wrote stuff like this and in spite of this being public and known, Jezebel, The Atlantic and all other venues gave him a space to publish in the name of feminism:
The names of many young men — particularly young Chinese from Hong Kong — are often rather touchingly quaint. This summer, I have — these are first names, mind you — a “Fitzgerald”; a “Woodrow”; three “Benedicts” (my middle name); two “Henrys”; one “Maxwell”; and, my favorite, one “Colfax.” It sounds like a parody of the membership roster of my grandfather’s fraternity, circa 1926! And at the risk of sounding horribly classist, it strikes me as a rather naive attempt to deliberately appropriate WASP cache.
and
I mention the ethnicity of the folks involved because there seems to be such a clear cultural component to seeing jealousy as acceptable. No, I’m not trying to reinforce a stereotype of Latins or Middle Easterners as particularly “hot-blooded” and thus more prone to misogynstic fits of green-eyed rage than “calm” WASPs. But it’s clear that certain ethnic groups — in this case, Armenians and Salvadorans — are more willing than others to associate male jealousy with evidence of love and care.
– This IS about race when the white editors that published him either did not bother to do basic background research to see how he had systematically picked on non white women or, if they did the background research they decided that these women were disposable and a fair price to pay in exchange of the click bait and page views he brought.
– I’ll grant him one thing, though. This is not just about race. It’s also about corporate feminism or, the appropriation of feminist politics for corporate profits. Just like it has become a culturally ingrained practice in the corporate world where businesses have eschewed long term goals for short term profits, this corporate feminism that depends on the page clicks and visibility and immediate results has not a single care for long term reputation or integrity. It’s all about the page views NOW, not in a year or a decade. It’s not about long term political change but about instant outrage and viral page views. Hugo Schwyzer became part of this culture because his schtick is extremely effective at these short term profits. When Jessica Coen grieves for her relationship with him, she conveniently forgets to mention the page clicks and outrage and publicity he brought for the site she manages. Since the internet has more or less promoted an ahistorical and context free environment, there are no long term material consequences for the editors that enabled him. They paid a price that was not theirs to pay: the reputation and well being of every woman he trashed and bad mouthed.
– It still is about race. Because in spite of this going on for almost a decade, he still managed to weasel his way into some of the biggest publications in the English language. He still managed to use his white, cis male privilege to gain access to places that gave him a platform and insert himself in networks that are not open to just about anyone.
He would like us to believe this is not about race because he still wants to make this about him and his awesome powers to manipulate us. He would like us to conveniently forget centuries of history and the behavior of white, cis men and how said behavior has always been rewarded. Super Hugo, our very own Professor Feminism, wants us to believe that race played no role in any of this. It was all his magnificent cock getting him the stuff he needed. He doesn’t want anyone else to be held accountable because that would detract from the attention he thinks he deserves. But this is about race and it is about the white feminism that enabled him.
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