feminist blogs

all the cool kids have wordpress blogs, and after a few days of pulling out my hair trying to figure out how i could have one too (the famous 5 minute install--yeah right!) i have officially moved this blog to blackademic.com



if you were already accessing my blog through blackademic.com, great! you get a head start, and i love you just a little bit more :-)



if you were accessing it through blackademic.blogspot.com, then damn you, although i still love you.



change your links please. i'm excited to take the leap for a faster blog, better plug-ins and nifty widgets.



cheers for wordpress

jeers for blogger.





p.s. this weekend i officially become a rent paying chicagoan. so i'll be back after i move. if any of you chicago folks wanna throw me a housewarming party, that would be excellent!



peace

-nubian



edit: for some reason, blackademic.com is encountering a server error all of a sudden. maybe a jeers for wordpress?

classic. the only funny thing from the "lost episodes." yeah, i know i shouldn't have watched it. but i can't help it. the power of tv compelled me....

if you haven't noticed, my blogging has come down to, maybe, one post a week.

lately, i feel that all i write about and do is in defense of my name, my blog, and my politics. it's almost as if, everywhere i turn, people are popping up to write postings that criticize me and that scrutinize every damn word that i say. the really fucked up thing about it, is that my words are misinterpreted and maniuplated.



i am not the voice of all women of color, of all black women, or of all lesbians. there are a number of women who are writing, speaking, and yelling about the same damn things, yet i have become the target for the anti-white agenda. i don't mind taking the heat for all of us, but everytime i log onto my computer, someone has written a post, trying to prove how racists and fucked up women of color are, by using me as an example. "blackademic this, blackademic that......"

"blackademic makes me uncomfortable"

"blackademic is wrong in her viewpoints because all women need to work together..." (btw, the name of my blog is blac(k)ademic. i am not the blac(k)ademic, or black academic, or bla(c)kademic...or any other vartiation you can think of. please address me as nubian. thanks)



you can continue writing those silly little postings, but i won't continue to respond to them. i have allowed you to take over my blog, i have allowed my blog to become an unsafe space for my readers and for myself. i despise logging on to check comments or even write a posting, in fear of the next link to my post which negates my experiences, my life as a black lesbian, my intelligence, my hopes and my dreams.



i am more powerful than you can even imagine, too bad you don't recognize it. too bad your blogging thrives on pointing out the "racisms" of "black academic" and other women of color. too bad your goals in blogging are to hunt down the people who challenge you because you feel threatened. your whole way of thinking is challenged because of a blog posting some girl in the midwest wrote one fine morning.



i do appreciate the emails and comments and support from those who decide to back me up in what i say, even if, i had not asked for it. those people, are the reasons i keep writing. those people are the reasons why i do come back and i don't just delete this whole damn blog out of anger. i respect them and what they have to say. we might not all agree with one another, but we also RESPECT one another and our opinions and experiences.



i'll come back to this mess i call the blogosphere when i am good and ready. this has become a battleground where i am taking bullets for my people, but i can't keep getting back up only to be shot again...and again...and again.



peace

nubian

not "the blac(k)ademic"

gosh. i seem to upset white folks on the daily.



this is from nio's blog:

blac (k) academic’s post was on her deliberate exclusion of some. And this is the exact problem of the feminist movement and why not much has been done over the last decade. Why we’ve lost rights once gained. Every group, it seems, wants to self-isolate, to hear only the voices of those with the same economic background, same musical tastes, same religion, same skin color, same sexual orientation. Groups don’t want voices different from them because the said persyn is immediatly looked upon with suspicion. ‘She’s here to take over!” is the cry. And someone gets up and is rude to said persyn.



When did it become ok to be rude and hurtful? When did it become ok to deliberatley exclude someone based on their race, sexual orientation, class, or educational level?

nio, my dear, have you been living under a rock for the past, i don't know, 5, 10, maybe 15 years? are you too blind with white privilege to understand that not every movement is based on the inclusion of whites? or did you forget, that hey, this whole damn world is controlled by your peoplewhite men and women and they exclude US on a daily basis--jobs, healthcare, civil rights, food, clothing, shelter; i could go on and on and on.



obviously, you do not realize that white feminists control the idea of feminism and it is VERY important for those of us who are not white, to create our OWN spaces absent of white women. why does this bother you so much? how is it being rude? what is rude, is when white feminists, such as yourself, take offense to the ideas of any feminism that doesn't support your white upper-middle class values and your fight against, The Patriarchy™. what is rude, is when white feminists think they are the voice of authority and everything they say or do is the act of a "true" feminist and what WE say or do, isn't really feminist because we didn't focus on the experiences of white women. what is rude is when white women feel the need to include themselves in spaces designed specifically for women of color because they think that no true liberation can occur without some melanin-free bodies in the mix.

I would’ve like to have gone to the conference blac(k) academic attended. But I can see by her post that I would have been vilified for caring, for wanting to change the world for better, for going in the first place. It’s too bad she and I will never be able to work together as she won’t allow me too access her knowledge and connections. The equality movement, and us as individuals, will be the ones who suffer. Now both of us will be doing the same work twice, reinventing the wheel each time instead of working cooperately. And with an undercurrent of hate and shame, of which she seems proud.

nio, how can you make such claims about my character, when you have obviously misinterpreted everything i have written about in my blog? that woman who asked how do we not exclude whites from people of color spaces, deserved to be called out and deserved to be told that her statement was offensive. we are sick and tired and have been for years, by white women playing the race card--yeah, i said it. white women playing the damn race card when it comes to issues that reflect the experiences of us in the margins, due to skin color or sexual preference. we don't need you to speak for us or try to include us in your ideas of a feminist utopia, where race is transcended and we will all hold hands under the rainbow in the sky.



nio, please understand this because i will only state it once, i really don't care to work with you or any other person who defines my perspectives as hateful and shameful and offensive to poor, defenseless white women like yourself. as i have stated before, i am used to white women feeling hurt and upset that i call myself a black feminist and not just a feminist. i am used to white women who feel excluded because i refuse to write about giving head, abortions, or if wondering whether or not to wear miniskirts is indeed, feminism. you and others like you, are the reason why the so-called feminist movement is in the toilet. if you were willing to step back, assess your privilege and understand the reasons why the universal feminist movement you are striving for has its barriers, then maybe that movement you envision could possibly work. until then, you will continue to feel neglected and you will continue to see women of color politics as hateful and shameful.



the really upsetting part about this, is that the posting by nio was linked in the (white) carnival of feminists. it is but a mere representation of the idea of feminism that permeates the blogosphere that i try so hard to stay far, far away from.

fuck?





i don't even know what to say about this.





EDIT:

and no, just because the black woman is dominating the white woman, does not make it any less of an offensive ad. this brings up a whole bunch of nasty stereotypes of black women that i won't even get into. i also noticed that in the second image, the white woman seems to fight off the black woman, while in the first image, the black woman just "takes it."



this is just wrong. plain and simple.





from joystiq





contact sony:

CORPORATE OFFICES

Sony Computer Entertainment America

PO Box 5888

San Mateo, CA 94402-0888

800-345-7669 (800-345-SONY)

M-SAT 6:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. PST

Sunday 7:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m

sorry for the lack of blog postings. i have been so busy with my (exciting!) life outside of the internet. anyways, i have a quick question/thought/idea.



i haven't been following the start jones reynolds fiasco in regards to her and the view. what i have caught through snippets of celebrity news and other folks blogs, is one of the reasons she was fired from her job, was because she was not too honest about her weight loss and that upset the viewers. hmmm....so i thought about that.



i don't watch the view because watching four women bicker about nothing doesn't seem appealing to me. but i wonder, why is it, they would hire rosie o'donnell who was not too honest about her sexuality for YEARS, as she hid behind her fake love for tom cruise while claming that she did indeed LOVE men.



is it ok then, for an overweight white woman to lie leave some things personal? but an overweight black woman (who actually did something about it--even if she didn't reveal her secret) doesn't have that privilege?



as a black woman, i truely believe that this event and the way that is was handled was prompted, at least somewhat, by star's race. i'm not claiming that is is defacto racist, but, it is strange that star, has been chastised for receiving free gifts from coportate sponsors for her wedding, when all i see if i turn on the tele, is a number of WHITE celebrities getting free diamonds, clothing, trips, etc. just for getting married only to divorce six months later. isn't that what being a celebrity is about--free shit? what about the number of WHITE celebrities who undergo face-altering plastic surgeries and never, ever tell their audience that they had work--including mrs. walters, who refuses to tell her age and it is obvious that she has had extensive work done on her face to keep her looking, at least, 55. babs can barely smile anymore without looking like her face will rip in half.



clearly, there is a double standard going on in this situation. i am not a big fan of star, however, i am upset with the way that the media has positioned her as a vindictive, manipulative and angry black woman. i do appreciate the way star has handeled it, as she has shown herself as a respectable and intelligent woman. babs, rosie, abc, and the rest of the view clique, comes out of this situation looking like the bitter old women that they truely are.





Technorati Tags: star+jones, the+view, black+women+media, rosie+o'donnell

dear dr. mcwhorter,



i turned on my television yesterday and came across your two hour talk on cnn, where you were promoting your new book, "winning the race." i never watch cnn, but i have read a few of your articles lambasting black america, so i was intrigued to see how much hate you could possibly spew in your two hour allotment. i was especially curious to see if your audience would challenge your theories. what i saw upset me so much, that i had nightmares. i was absolutely in shock to see such a brilliant black man, on national television, claim that the black condition is a produt of our own victimology and pathology. you said that we have an "attitudinal problem," that our demographic doesn't seem to get that racism is over, and that we keep having kids because we don't have jobs, so what else is there to do but fuck? you and bill cosby will make such good friends.



you started off your speech referencing slavery and its relationship to contemporary black america. you argued that slavery happened so long ago, that we need to stop relying on that tired narrative as an excuse for the black condition. like you, i realize that slavery happened a few centuries ago, and that shouldn't be an excuse for failure. but unlike you, i realize that like a wound, slavery has left scars on the collective memory of this country. us descendants of slaves, are left with a legacy of pain and inferiority and the descendants of those who owned slaves, were left with a belief that they are superior and more powerful than us dirty blacks. those are the same people who benefit from contemporary institutions that were strengthened by legally denying blacks our right of political and economic power. thus, to ignore how slavery has aided in sustaining white supremacy and black inferiority, only takes away from your lazy critque. we do need to move beyond blaming slavery for everything, but we cannot move forward if we don't realize that it did, indeed, leave its legacy within all of us.



you then went went on to claim that black children perform worse in school than any other racial group. you claim that it is because we view education as a "white thing," therefore, to stay "cool" we don't do the work or try hard enough to learn. what you left out, however, is that the majority of black children are attending schools with little to no resources and that the schools themselves are not conducive to fostering learning. for the first half of my education, i went to schools in which teachers didn't care whether i did the homework or not. the books were outdated and missing pages. there were no art or music classes and physical education was running around the dirt track in the back of the school, because there was no sport equipment available. the schools were more like prisons, rather than a healthy learning environment. in my opinion, schools like that are designed for the students to fail--no matter how bright and studious the kids are. with no help or resources, how can anyone succeed? indeed, there are some of us black children who were able to succeed in the face of failure, but you seem to never mention that group of children, as you continued to claim that all black children are not interested in education. you also failed to mention that in the face of a eurocentric curriculum, black children might possibly feel that what they learn, only supports the idea that they are inferior. maybe if you expanded your criticism to include curriculum reform, or even looked at specialized schools that utilize an afrocentric standpoint, in which black students performance far exceeds even the best private white schools, you would think differently about blaming the children for their academic laziness.



further on into your speech, i was waiting for you to blame hip-hop on something, and eventually you did. you argued that jay-z and snoop are the reasons why so many young black men adopt a thug image that employers stray far way from because it has been proven by employers that "those kinds" of people are bad employees. but i ask, why did you leave out the large number of white kids who wear the baggy jeans, the hats twisted to the side, and call eachother nigga because it's cool and urban chique? if we are calling out hip-hop, then, we have to take into account it's universal appeal where nowadays, i see more white kids than black, rocking (ooops, slang. i bet you don't like that, huh?) that particular type of image and romanticizing ghetto life. maybe you didn't do such good reasearch, but i'll let that go since you already have the Ph.D., and i am not your dissertation advisor. my point is, those same white kids STILL get hired for jobs that those nasty black men you mentioned, will never have the opportunity to even interview for, let alone acquire the necessary skills needed for the job. it's not because they wear their pants low, it's because the image of a white boy wearing hip-hop gear is not as frightening and scary as a young black man wearing the same thing. is that racism? probably and probably not. but it is a form of racial profiling which is directly tied to pre-conceived negative stereotypes of black men that are rooted in racist imagery.



dr. mcwhorter, i agree that corporate rap glorifies violence and some black kids emulate what they see on the tele, but to argue that hip-hop is a reason why black men are grossly unemployed is comical at best. i thought that maybe you had a deeper analysis of black unemployment, but you so easily avoided structural problems to blame it all on jay-z. which is funny, considering jay-z is a millionaire black executive and much of his music reminds us of that. therefore, if we were to follow your logic, young black men would strive to emulate jay-z and his executive status and attend business schools in droves, securing MBA's to head the next black multimillion dollar empire--but they don't. so to deny that there are structural barriers that prohibit the success of black men that differ from young white, asian, and latino men, positions your critique as weak and leaves you pointing the finger at the wrong people. jay-z is indeed problematic, but if more black kids were trying to be business execs, would you then find something else to demonstrate black pathology?



dr. mcwhorter, i appreciate that you are a member of the black population that has "made it." i look up to your tenacity and your ability to challenge the status-quo that deems black men as the degenerates that you claim they all are. however, there is no excuse for you to abuse your power by helping to ease white guilt. your white conservative audience, appreciates you more than i do, because they believe that since it comes out the mouth of a highly educated black man, then it must be true. and if it's true, then as whites, they don't have to do anything about it--those blacks are genetically inferior--god made it that way and we can't disrupt the natural order.



i know how hard it is to perform as "the" black intellectual, i do. i am a graduate student and scholar-to-be. i do the dance, i speak the language, i enunciate, i monitor my use of slang, i do all of that to make sure that i am taken seriously by those who hold my future in the palm of their hand--i have to, unfortunately. i work extremely hard to maintain this cultural capital, but i also understand that racism is still alive. yeah, maybe i'm not picking cotton in the fields under the white hand that guides the whip, but i would be a fool not to realize that those slaveowners still exist, and they pay your salary and mine. so, dr. mcwhorter, you must realize (maybe you do and this is just your own hustle) that you are nothing more than a pawn of the recent boom of black scholarship that the white academy seeks out in order to make themselves feel better about their part in abating institutionalized racism. you are the flava of the month for the white pallete. your success is measured by how much you can slander your own people and one day, all of this just might backfire. when that day comes, i truely hope your "black consciousness" kicks in and maybe you and i can be friends who use our love of education to promote a healthier more wholistic image of blackness that the white academy continues to overshadow.



you say racism is over, i say that it isn't over--it has just changed hands.



sincerely,

nubian



p.s., stay black, son. (ha!)





Technorati Tags: race, racism, john+mcwhorter, winning+the+race, black+sell+out

the allied media conference re-opened my eyes to the possibilites of alternative media, made by folks of color and aimed at educating folks of color.



i did have a few troubling experiences, where some well-meaning white folks took it upon themselves to dominate and derail the discussions that were centered on the experiences of people of color---such as how we see happening on my blog in particular--which from this day forward i will not allow to happen anymore.



in one session of a panel of 4 women of color activists (moderated by a white male interestingly enough), a woman raised her hand to ask the question of how do people of color work to not exclude whites from their activism. eyes began to roll on the panel as brownfemipower diplomatically answered the question. luckily, i wasn't on the panel, therefore, i didn't have to perform some false diplomacy. so, i raised my hand to let said white woman know that as a group of people existing within the fringes of a white supremacist society, what we say will inevitibly make whites feel marginalized. and, we don't give a fuck if some white folks feel hurt because they feel excluded. it is NOT our place to appease white guilt and to make them feel comfortable with what we do and how we do it. i, for one, do not mold my work, research, blogging to make whites feel a little bit better about their anti-racist work--shit don't work like that. i expressed to her that her comment reeked of white privilege, since, she felt it important to attend a panel focused on issues regarding folks of color, ignore what the panelists were saying, and turn around and ask a question about not excluding whites. (of course, i think i hurt said woman's feelings by calling her out in a room full of people, but i did walk away from the panel morbidly excited that i did so)--is that so wrong?



i think there needs to be a point where well-meaning white people have to understand that everything doesn't revolve around them. that we need our own spaces, our own conversations, our own revolution without them trying to infiltrate, co-opt, appropriate and take over.



in another session about abolisionists art (dominated by a white audience, but still interesting), when it came time for question and answer, one guy raised his hand and claimed that animal rights activists are the abolitionists of today. both vegankid and i looked at one another, and basically asked "what the fuck is that all about?" first, if any of you readers believe that animal rights activists are "the abolitionists of today," i'd have to say i feel very sorry for you. yet again, i had to raise my hand to call a well-meaning white person out in a room full of people, since everyone else in the room seemed to agree with said white dude's statement. i mentioned, that i think that we should be very, very careful of comparing the enslavement of human beings for centuries to the animal rights movement--not that animal rights activism isn't important or that it isn't needed; of course it is. however, once you claim that animal rights activists are the abolitionists of today, it downplays the severity of slavery and implies that the enslaved africans were in fact, animals themselves. second, it disregards the fact that human beings are still enslaved all over the world, and yet, we seem to think that since the enslavement of blacks has suppossedly ended, that animal rights seems the best logical next plan of action. (i think by the end of the conference, i took on the role of that angry black woman who is going to have to open her damn mouth all of the damn time--damn her!)



during the women of color blogging caucus (which was exceptional!), one white dude looked into the room with the intentions of entering into our space. we came to find out, he thought it was interesting that the room was full of women who weren't white, therefore, he wanted to know what we were talking about. we all joked that obvisouly, he needed to be the voice of rationality and reason, or that there was no way we all could understand eachother, since, we probably didn't even speak english--well except for the "african american" women who probably spoke some broken form of ghettoized slang in which the asian women couldn't "get down with, homie." but, in the meeting, we did discuss our problems with blogging in general, most of which was centered on the hostility of white bloggers, time constraints, and the fear of not having anything important to say. it was more of a therapy session than a strategizing meeting. it was wonderful just to hear from other women about how they navigate in the blogosphere and to be able to put a face to a web address. i love women of color, i do.



aside from the caucus and panels, i met a number of inspiring young people doing all types of art, performance, and media-making that re-energized me and my reasons for blogging. i was also taken aback by people who actually read my blog and appreciated what i had to say. lately, i have felt that the audience in which i desire was absent--but come to find out, they are there! they read, they digest, they appreciate. one woman even came up to me and said that my blog was one of the first women of color blogs that she read and that she was grateful for it. grateful?!? for what i had to say--wow. i was in awe.



with that said, i am inspired to continue writing about race, racism, sexism, homophobia, classism--all of course seen through the lense of a young, queer, black woman. my voice is important, even if well-meaning whites feel excluded.

we just held the women of color blogging caucus and it went perfectly. we all had so much to say, that we actually went over our allotted time. there were bloggers (brownfemipower, skyscraper, nubian), vloggers, zinesters, journalists, and artists--i have to say, i left the meeting even more inspired from the unspoken and spoken support of the women of color who attended.





the rest of the conference is interesting at best. i will explain more about this later in the evening, as i am in a meeting right now about hurricane katrina.