Full Frontal Racism

I haven't said much previously about the whole Valenti book fiasco; but now some pompous ass named Hugo Schwyzer, whose blog is imaginatively and humbly named "Hugo Schwyzer", has compelled me to chime in by actually using his teaching position and his young students to score gotcha points in a blog feud that he apparently feels a need to revive. (Yes, we're talking about a white male setting us all straight on the subject of racism within feminism.)

Cue up Nezua's Wite-Magik Attak glosario entry for The Appeal To Melanin because here it comes: Apparently this manipulative chump thinks that if he can get his WOC college students to agree with him that a white feminist book is like so totally cool and relatable, then he was right all along that the book is perfectly unracist and any WOC — and non-WOC — readers who articulated anti-racist arguments about the book's shortcomings were wrong, take that! With college teachers like this, who needs recreational drugs? Just follow his logic and let your mind soar weightlessly through fluffy clouds of whiteness.

There are multiple layers of racism grinding their gears here, but the one that strikes me as the most insidious is the manner in which Schwyzer positions himself as the judge of how much anti-racism is enough. Employing the rhetorical styling of Don Rumsfeld, he writes, "Can we do better? Sure. Could Jessica’s book have done better? I don’t think so. It’s pretty darned inclusive as it is." In other words, he defines the ceiling on how well "we" can do. Peripheral inclusion on a white-centered foundation, rather than full narrative and theoretical integration and recentering, becomes the upper limit of how far anti-racism can reasonably go. Good to know, Hugo, glad you shared that with "us".

Listen to Donna:

Hugo Schwyzer decided to add Full Frontal Feminism to his syllabus this semester. He enjoyed the book, thought it had some value and would be relevant to his students. He strongly disagreed with the few less than laudatory reviews especially the one written by BlackAmazon.

Now that the semester is coming to an end, Hugo asked his students what their opinions were on the book, and has a post up about their responses. There are several things problematic about the post [...].

What interested and amazed me was Jessica Valenti's response to Hugo's post:

"Don't do this, Hugo. You are pitting the women of color in your classroom against women of color in the blogosphere. It's unfair on several levels. First, there is the strawman argument you are setting up, none of the women of color online who critiqued the book ever said that no women of color would ever like the book. Second you are filtering the responses of your students through your own biases in favor of my book. It would have been fairer for you to send your students directly to BlackAmazon, Sylvia/M, and Petit Poussin's blogs to have a conversation with those women about their impressions of the book. Although I couldn't say it at the time, there was a prototypical young woman I wanted to address with my books, it's the sorority girl who might eventually become the Republican voting soccer mom. That is the audience who will find the book relevant and it will have limited relevance to women of color, Christian, working class, disabled, non-American women. You should also consider a few other factors, is it possible that your students will be influenced by your enthusiasm for the book, as well as the inequality in a teacher-student relationship and vulnerability the student may feel when disagreeing? They may also be reacting to a preference to conversational tone compared to the dry reading of academic texts, and many other books contain no mention of women of color at all, they may be grateful that I included them in even the limited way that Full Frontal Feminism does."

Yeah, right. Did you really think she would ever say anything like that?

Listen to Sylvia/M:

It’s always good to remember that for some people, my existence and my experiences are as real to them as academic theories and the vagary known as “criticism.”  Black Amazon, Petit Poussin and I were Criticism after we made statements saying, “No, we did not like this book; here is why.”  Two black women and one white woman, all under the age of 30 (and two barely over 20).

And we were savaged and maligned by every person the blogging feminist org could find.  We were old evil brown spinsters, jealous that the Book Gods dared to look down upon Jessica Valenti, ignorant of the art of subversion, stupid when it came to the value of white feminists having girl crushes on women of color scholars!  Even though at the time, The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum was hauling in a decent 200-300 hits a day for non-Full-of-it Fronting Fucked-up reasons, Miss Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon (who admitted in the same conversation she did not know me from Adam, had not read me, knew despite all this that I was not a young woman, and did not want to read me) told me that I only wanted to drive up hits to my blog and put my pointy stick through the pale torso of Jessica Valenti.

Listen to Blackamazon:

So really I am annoyed that SIX FUCKING MONTHS LATER I HAVE TO COME BACK TO THIS  SHIT.

FFF

Aka. the book that made me cry till I  vomited [...]

If a group of [young women of color] want to say what i speak resonates with them fine , but I will not accept someone else trying to put me there.

Why?

CAUSE THEN YOU GET THE EXTRA SPECIAL SHIT LIKE THIS!

Because suddenly the whiteness critiques aren't specific or grounded but sarcastically quotation ed. And by being located out into some imagined ether rather than the words of specific individuals ( this time me but in other contexts other women) they can be manipulated and responded to anonymously without ACTUAL INTERACTION by the presented views instead only presented by the suddenly impartial proxy.

Suddenly their color and his whiteness are assets to challenge these " responses" mind you HE CHOSE ME as typical " criticism"

Notice the passage he chose in his gathering in May WAS A DEFINITION OF MYSELF. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT. A WHITE MALE said that my self definition was UNWARRANTED CRITICISM. [...]

see here:

I think there’s plenty of time, Jeff, for us to bring up the past shortcomings of white feminists in reaching out to young women of color. But Valenti’s book is radically relevant to their lives right now, irrespective of class and ethnicity. Read in a vacuum, it would be problematic in a women’s studies course — read in conjunction with a variety of other texts, it’s superb.

I mean there is plenty of time I mean these criticisms have only been around since IDA B WELLS FOR FUCKS sake .

WE HAVE ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME IN THE WORLD FOR ANOTHER generation of WOC to go on to meet our foremothers while the white folk get around to it.

so you see I CRITIQUED A FUCKING BOOK

and because folks decided I was suddenly the WOMAN OF COLOR it became okay to dismiss discount and ERASE a whole host of other women by rendering me "unreasonable" and then making me THE VOICE.

and i know it's HARD for some of our more power  hungry friends to understand but no that's not how it works.

Listen to Brownfemipower:

Why does Huge consistently point to alllll his women of color friends/students/allies that “love” the book? Why does he feel this need to point out that not all women of color are like those women of color bloggers?

Would a white person’s critique of a book only count unless every single white person in the world agreed with that person? Why on earth should it make a fuck of a difference if there’s fifty or a hundred or a thousand women of color who disagree with any woman of color blogger? Is it possible that disagreement between community members is a part of any fully fledged self-actualized community?

It’s also important to ask, out of all the enthusiastic women’s studies professors who are dedicated to teaching this book in this class (Hugo is not the only one that I read declaring he will/has taught the book)–how many of those professors have in any way referenced any of the women of color bloggers criticisms of the book? Or do those professors just introduce the book without any context and then take notes on their responses?

Do any of those professors, as people in positions of power within the classroom, feel it’s warranted to let their students know that they are observing responses so that they might use “real” woc responses to discredit and silence other women of color? [...]

One of the biggest surprises of my life came when I found out that Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells were contemporaries. Up until the point that I figured that out, Ida B Wells had been an add on to women’s studies classes. It was as if she existed in her own separate reality–which of course, overrode the fact that she had very real interactions and critiques of the women’s movement that Susan B. Anthony helped to create–and she very pointedly STATED those critiques in open forums that Ms. Anthony attended. Ida B Wells critique of white feminism was as much a part of her life as her ongoing struggles against lynching–and yet most women’s studies majors are never taught the two side by side. Even as Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and sex positive feminists and radfems and Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan are all taught as coming into who they are as a result of the direct interactions they had with each other, white women interacting with racialized women is not only not taught, but actively denied through syllabus layouts and the quarantining of race to “ethnic studies”.

Native women were alive and fighting when Cady Staton organized the Senneca falls meeting. Latina women were organizing labor movements when Emma Goldman was around. Black women were creating some of the most profound sociological studies of U.S. communities even as white women were insisting lynching was not a feminist issue. And yet, today, each generation of feminists that I have interacted will insist to me that racism in feminism is something of the past–something that never existed in *their* wave–it always came before them.

Listen to Miss Crip Chick.

But don't listen to pedantically self-congratulatory white liberals who presume to assert on behalf of all others how much and what kind of inclusion is enough, and who use their students as fodder for Wite-Magik Attax.

Comments

[Sudy]

I mean, seriously, this post says and sums it all up.

I want (SO badly) to write a post about this, but I'm so f'ing furious that I can't blog straight.

A million thanks for this, Kai.

Seriously, a million.

Sudy

[michelle]

With college teachers like this, who needs recreational drugs? Just follow his logic and let your mind soar weightlessly through fluffy clouds of whiteness.

LOL! Truly.

Thank you.

[Kai]

Sudy, Michelle, you're most welcome! Yeah the situation pissed me off but hell I just decided to have some fun laying down a few zingers, hehe, I'm glad it worked for you. Thanks for stopping by.

[misscripchick]

"Yes, we're talking about a white male setting us all straight on the subject of racism within feminism".

hands down, you win my favorite blogger of the week award.

[Donna]

A new wite majik attak has been spotted! Hugo has a new post up, and is going to "teach the controversy" next semester. Anyway, the latest comment says:

"Hugo,

The main objective to keep in mind in all of this is to bear in mind that, whether the criticisms of you are valid or not, you will never please the three self-proclaimed spokespersons for the WOC community because they need targets. Since you’re a white male who writes about feminism, you are a target. If you do better on one thing, you’ll just get criticized about another thing. If any of these three women actually wanted you to do better, they would have contacted you one-on-one rather than using you as fodder for the hateblog of the day."

We all recognize the insatiable martyr, no?

[Joan Kelly]

Kai - love the hell out of you, dude, seriously.

The women you linked to - love the motherfucking HELL out of them.

I haven't gone to that site and read it, I have just read the sites you linked to, Kai, where it's being discussed. Sometimes I feel like, well, maybe I am being a jerk not to go read things that I feel wholly entitled to express anger about elsewhere...but sometimes not! The above comment you posted, Donna, is as clear a commentary on that guy and what he's doing as everything written by people who actually make sense. Thanks, insatiable martyr, for amplifying the obvious!

[Kai]

Misscripchick, aw shucks all these kind words are making me blush...but thanks!

Donna, well to begin with that dimwit commenter's gonna have to learn to count past 3 before I waste time trying to make sense of his drool patterns. Thanks for the word though, and for your awesome self! That trickery there with the imaginary Valenti passage is gonna go down as classic.

Joan Kelly, eh you don't need to read anything else to get what's goin on here and in most of these flare-ups, honestly. Plus you're a quick study and an always-fun read, just skip the bullshit and let the wit bombs fly! So say we all. ;-)

[ZC]

Yeah, Donna, you had me with that imaginary passage. Reading it was like a breath of fresh air and my reaction was: "finally-- somebody with some sense!" Honestly, as a white Gen-X feminist the book was a complete turnoff from the beginning. And now that I've listened to such intelligent and vehement reactions from WOC bloggers, I'm glad to know that TRUE feminism is not dead.

As always, thanks for the post, Kai.

[M]

Every time I read this post it makes me grin like a fool. I love it.

[Elayne Riggs]

Not having any desire nor time to read Jessica's book, I really can't speak to anyone's reactions to it, but I just wanted to say that I've read Hugo's blog for awhile and have never found him to be a "pompous ass."

[Kai]

ZC, yeah the book obviously isn't gonna work for a lot of people, as this whole debate amply demonstrates. I see nothing wrong or even unusual about that. What's wrong is the way the book's author and admirers have used all manner of Wite-Magik Attax in order to try to negate valuable anti-racist critique, which is just lame and, yes, racist. Thanks for the good word!

M, grin away, problem chylde, grin away! :-D

Elayne, yeah you're right, I realize that Schwyzer's a real lovely dude, but I wrote "pompous ass" (oh and also "manipulative chump" which I think might be worse) strictly in response to what he tried to pull off here, holding up his young students as proof-positive that the anti-racist critique was invalid. No matter how polite you are while engaging in a maneuver like that, I'm gonna call you something, well, impolite, if ya know what I mean. Anyway thanks for stoppin in, good to see you round!

[nezua]

kickin' ass and takin' names, as you do so well, bro.

what a load. man! what a sneery, sleazy load to pull and i LOVE your imaginary response from valenti. ja! i believed it. i'm so naive, trusting in people to wake up sometimes. i was like "wow, that's really respectable..." jeje

[Kai]

Nez, yeah that was a really respectable response, right? Except that it was us POC imagining it, not the actual author! Hehe, Donna really got us all with that one. And yes, "sneery, sleazy" kinda sums up my feelings on what went down here. Thanks for dropping by, bro.

[R. Mildred]

Not having any desire nor time to read Jessica's book, I really can't speak to anyone's reactions to it, but I just wanted to say that I've read Hugo's blog for awhile and have never found him to be a "pompous ass."

Actually last year he told me and a few other (white) female (and a few male) feminists to stfu because he knew better about feminism than we did. No really, I'm not making this up. It should be somewhere in the punkass archives if you're really interested.

He has a pompous and smarmy gear certainly, and he's driving around in it with hte clutch popped to the max atm, so in a transient descriptive it's easily fitting.

[michelle]

About Ego, I mean Hugo and Pompousness and Ass:

IMO that guy's goal is control and domination of the terms. Which is typical for white people. And as is typical also, his tactics for that goal may change -- I hate to say it but I contributed to his latest approach in which he is "teachable" and all that shit. But IMO the core remains the same.

My prediction is that if this guy does actually "change" his practice in relation to attention to racism, the end result will be another white person who has discovered the Benefits of a White Anti-Racist identity.

[Katie]

Damn, michelle, that site is hilarious.