"There is difference and there is power. And who holds the power decides the meaning of the difference." --June Jordan

Saturday, April 21, 2007

In the scheme of things, I'm brand new to the blogging community. I started this blog as a way to find and share resources, organize my always-developing thoughts and ideas on feminism and feminist issues, and to hopefully find some sort of community among feminists or other progressive proponents for social justice. In the short time that I've been doing this, I've been completely inspired by all of the amazing thinkers out there, offering up their views and voices on just about everything for public consumption. I love participating in comment threads that teach me new things about people and the word we live in. But I've also noticed some things that are troubling. Like marginalization and co-opting of racial and ethnic issues among privileged folks who masquerade as progressive (something everyone tries to make you think has been solved by the "enlightened" Third Wave of feminism). And the tendency for people's dissent to turn to harassment and intimidation.

This breaks my heart.


There is something very wrong when people need to fear for their safety just for speaking their minds. Especially when their harassers drape their threats in racist, sexist hate speech.

Unless I read it incorrectly, nowhere in this blogger's Comments Policy does it say, "feel free to reduce me to a stereotype or "use racial slurs and misogynistic comments to insult me and threaten me" or "attempt to silence me by asserting power over me" and "while you're at it, figure out my personal information and post it to allow others the chance to do harm to me and my family".