I've been on hiatus from not only my blog, but everyone else's, and I finally started catching up today, only to find that one of the most inspiring and influential activists/writers/theorists I've been introduced to has discontinued her blog.  (Feministe has links to background and further reflections.)

Essentially, BfP called out a white feminist blogger with a larger audience and more mainstream success for writing an online article about immigration as gendered violence that failed to link to the people of color bloggers who have advanced analyses of immigration in recent years.  BfP is one of those bloggers, and the writer she called out is known to be a long-standing reader and participant at BfP's blog.  As someone who struggled throughout postgrad to write essays in which every sentence wasn't footnoted because I was so zealous about attribution to the scholars who influenced my work, I can't understand this at all.  Why would you not acknowledge your influences, both to be intellectually ethical, and to allow your own readers to explore those influences themselves?  Why would you not use your platform to advance the work of people you read who others might not yet know about?

BfP pointed out the injustice of this situation and how it contributes to the marginalization of the work of people who are already pushed to the edges of the academy, the blogosphere, society.  She was attacked by men and women who identify as feminist, called names, and told she was divisive, a troublemaker, a traitor to the cause.  I am appalled, I am outraged, I am sadly not surprised.  And yet again, I wonder whether the identifier "feminist," which I've used for more than half my life, is one I want to continue to claim when it rolls me in with people who refuse to learn, who refuse to reflect, who refuse to treat others with dignity.  Do I want to include myself with people whose words and actions were intended to hurt someone I admire, and contributed to the loss of a space where not only one but many amazing writers and thinkers and activists came together and supported and challenged and advanced each other? 

Sudy speaks much truth: 

Read me clearly: there is no point to feminism if it does not actively address its racism with its agenda. There is no point to feminism if it does not address its racist history, racist matriarchy, racist icons, racist literature, racist imagery, racist publications, racist presence. To claim we're all female and unite under one cause of gender does. not. work. History never lies. This model has left more marginalized women in the road than we can count.