Leigh Anne Tuohy, Racism, and the White Saviour Complex- from belljar.ca

Leigh Anne Tuohy, Racism, and the White Saviour Complex

15DEC

From: 

http://bellejar.ca/2014/12/15/leigh-anne-tuohy-racism-and-the-white-saviour-complex/

Leigh Anne “That Nice Woman Sandra Bullock Played In The Blind Side” Tuohy recently posted the following picture and caption on her Facebook and Instagram accounts:

“We see what we want! It’s the gospel truth! These two were literally huddled over in a corner table nose to nose and the person with me said “I bet they are up to no good” well you know me… I walked over, told them to scoot over. After 10 seconds of dead silence I said so whats happening at this table? I get nothing.. I then explained it was my store and they should spill it… They showed me their phones and they were texting friends trying to scrape up $3.00 each for the high school basketball game! Well they left with smiles, money for popcorn and bus fare. We have to STOP judging people and assuming and pigeon holing people! Don’t judge a book by its cover or however you’d like to express the sentiment! Accept others and stoping seeing what you want to see!!!“

The comments on both posts are full of people praising her – telling her how awesome she is, how open-minded, how kind. Reading these responses is completely baffling – like, did these people and I all read the same words?

Let’s break down what happened here:

1. Two teenagers were sitting alone and completely minding their own business.

2. A white woman decides that based on the fact that they are “huddled” in corner “nose to nose,” they must be “up to no good.” Because obviously whenever Black people (especially Black men) gather in public, it’s bad news for the rest of us!

3. Another white woman, one Leigh Anne “I Adopted A Black Boy So I Can’t Possibly Be Racist” Tuohy, decides that White Lady #1 is wrong. Which is actually the correct assumption for Ms. Tuohy to make, so I guess this is where some people are getting confused because we see that her intent is good, and that makes us want to believe that the action that follows will also be good. She’s at a crossroad here – two roads diverged, etc. Had she taken the road less travelled, Ms. Tuohy might have said to her friend, “Wow, you’re being really racist right now! I’m not comfortable with how this conversation is going.” Instead, she decided to confront the teenagers who, as a reminder, have done absolutely nothing wrong.

4. Leigh Anne Tuohy walks over to the two boys and sits there in silence. I’m sure that wasn’t scary for two Black teenagers at all, especially given recent events.

5. After what was certainly the most awkward ten seconds of those boys’ lives, Ms. Tuohy asks what’s “happening” at the table. Like, other than two teenagers sitting there talking like anyone sitting at a table might do? Some kids are hanging out and chatting. That is what’s happening.

Unsure of the correct answer to this question – other than “we are two friends sitting together and not causing any trouble,” which probably seemed too obvious for them to point out – the boys remain silent.

6. Leigh Anne tells them that this is her store and they need to “spill.” Again, these kids have done nothing except be in public and be Black.

7. After being interrogated by this woman, and probably afraid that at the very least she’s about the call the cops, the boys show her their phones. This part just breaks my brain, like, these two kids had to show this woman evidence that they are doing exactly what they seem to be doing: sitting at a table and having a conversation.

8. Apparently satisfied with the evidence the boys have presented her with, Leigh Anne Tuohy gives them bus fare and money for popcorn, but not before she has White Lady #1 take her picture with them.

9. Ms. Tuohy then posts this picture to social media and receives thousands of responses lauding her for being such a good person.

Leigh Anne Tuohy profiled two Black kids, invaded their privacy and interrogated them, but somehow people are behaving as if this is some kind of wonderful social justice moment. No. Not even a little. This is some fucked up racial profiling combined with white saviourism, and it is racist as hell. Assuming that those kids were doing something bad was racist. Assuming that she could take up space at their table was racist. Insisting that they talk to her was disrespectful and racist. Wanting evidence that they weren’t up to no good was racist. Treating those boys as props to make her look good and then posting this picture publicly (and honestly, I wonder if the boys consented to that) is incredibly racist.

Also, can we talk about how problematic using the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is when it comes to talking about race? First of all, it begins with the assumption that the “cover” (or in this case, skin) tells you something unappealing about the contents of the book or person. It also infers that there is something unattractive or bad about the “cover” (or, again, skin). I can’t believe that I have to say this, but: there is nothing wrong or bad about Black skin. Black skin is not unpleasant or ugly, and to imply that dark skin might devalue someone is really, really fucked up.

Black people aren’t things. They don’t exist just so that white people can make a point about themselves. These are two real kids who not only had to endure this woman’s microaggressions but have now had their image splashed all over social media – the Facebook picture alone has 150,000 likes and over 12,000 shares. Step away for a hot second from this white woman’s narrative, and think about how those teenagers must feel – having their privacy invaded, having assumptions made about them based on their race, and now having a white woman use their images to get praise for herself.

Now tell me again about how Leigh Anne Tuohy did a good thing.

Twitter Sparks A Serious Discussion About Race And Feminism, NPR

Twitter Sparks A Serious Discussion About Race And Feminism

by NPR Staff

August 23, 201310:48 AM

The hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen became an unlikely trending topic on Twitter.

iStockphoto.com

Twitter isn't always the best place for big, thorny philosophical conversations. But it's a great forum for catharsis and taking the temperature of a popular sentiment. Sometimes, rarely, it's actually both.
If you were on Twitter last week, you may have seen a lot of rallying around the satirical but serious hashtag # (which itself spawned another trending hashtag ). It was an unlikely trending topic, but it served as a high-profile digital example of one of feminism's most enduring internecine tensions — how or whether to make space in the world of feminism for people who aren't white (or upper middle class or straight or able-bodied).

The hashtag was started by the blogger Mikki Kendall, but the proximate cause of the hullabaloo was the digital self-immolation of Hugo Schwyzer, a self-identified "male feminist" and one of the most polarizing figures in the feminist blogosphere.¹ (BuzzFeed has a rundown of Schwyzer's Twitter meltdown .) Several women of color have long complained that Schwyzer publicly went after them for criticizing him and his writing — — and yet despite this, he had long remained a contributor in good standing at influential feminist-inclined sites like . (Notably, most of those sites being criticized for publishing Schwyzer are run and largely frequented by white women.) A lot of people tweeting #solidarityisforwhitewomen felt that those sites and their proprietors had granted Schwyzer the platform to snipe at and undermine women of color while bestowing upon him undeserved feminist street cred. And now that Schwyzer was basically admitting that all of those complaints about him were true, they wondered why those same digital feminists who'd helped Schwyzer's ascendancy weren't denouncing him or locking arms with feminists of color. In their eyes, it was emblematic of the same myopic application of feminism.

"Admittedly, this isn't a new problem: white feminism has argued that should trump race since its inception," Kendall . "That rhetoric not only erases the experiences of women of color, but also alienates many from a movement that claims to want equality for all. This is especially clear when posts and articles about racism in feminism from five years ago involve some of the very same players."
We wanted to go longer than Twitter can allow on the issue of race in digital feminist spaces. So we asked several women who actively live, think and write in the feminist blogosphere to expound on #solidarityisforwhitewomen and what, if anything, happens next. We'll be hearing from them over the next several days. First up is the writer Roxane Gay. — Gene Demby

¹Calling Schwyzer a polarizing figure might be understating things a bit. Schwyzer, who before this episode taught women's studies at Pasadena City College, has said that he attempted to kill one of his girlfriends and used his position and profile to sleep with his students. During his Twitter meltdown, which he said was fueled by his bipolar disorder, he confessed that he didn't have the academic credentials to teach feminist theory and had basically faked the whole act of being a feminist for attention.

---

Looking For A Better Feminism
By Roxane Gay ()

We are on a perpetual quest for the elusive real feminist, the most authentic feminist, the feminist who best captures what feminism is and should be. There are many opinions about what real feminists look like, what they say, and how they act. It's a convenient fantasy.
If real feminists existed, we could create a handy checklist advising us how to be the best possible feminists. Then, perhaps, world peace would be possible. At the very least, we might avoid the inevitable friction that arises when we mistake feminism for what people do in the name of feminism, kind of like religion.
Feminism is not a possession. It is not a credential. It is not the mantle on which to build one's brand. There are liberal and conservative feminists. There are religious or spiritual and atheistic or agnostic feminists. Feminists inhabit the gender spectrum and are represented by all races and ethnicities. Breaking news! Feminists are individuals who ideally share the belief that the rights of women are as inalienable as the rights of men.

The #solidarityisforwhite women hashtag reveals fractures in American feminism. Those fractures run so damn deep it's hard to believe they can be healed. In truth, I have struggled with the conversation while recognizing its importance and necessity. Both women of color and white feminists have been discussed in sweeping generalizations as if all white feminists are racist and all feminists of color are ready to turn their backs on feminism. There are many feminists of color* active in digital feminist communities and I don't want their voices to be erased. I'm not sure there's a clear sense of what we mean when we call for solidarity. I don't know how solidarity is possible when some people refuse to listen and others act like everything is just fine and others are so busy performing their understanding they neglect to offer anything of substance to the conversation.

We have to shift from catharsis and reckoning to change. It's time to build on the important work rising out of the hashtag. We have serious problems to deal with. We have a painful, infuriating history to reconcile — one where the concerns of heterosexual, able middle-class white women have too often been privileged at the expense of everyone else. But I'm not ready to turn my back on feminism. I'm not even close. I am a fairly bad feminist, full of contradictions, but feminism is as much a part of who I am as being Haitian-American, a daughter of immigrants, and everything else that defines me.

Intersectionality is an awkward word representing an important idea. While feminism is the belief that the rights of women are as inalienable as the rights of men, feminism, at its best, is so much more. No one assumes only one identity. We cannot consider the needs of women without also accounting for race, ethnicity, gender, citizenship, class, sexuality, ability and more. Such nuanced awareness, such intersectionality, is the marrow within the bones of feminism. Without it, feminism will fracture even further.
I have a few ideas about how we can do better in bringing more diverse voices into feminism, how we might at least try.

Don't pigeonhole feminists of color as capable of only speaking to a narrow set of issues. Feminists of color contain multitudes and they should have the same opportunities as white feminists to express those multitudes.

The statement "I can't find diverse contributors" is unacceptable. It is a willful act of dismissal to do nothing to change the status quo.

We're talking about whose voices are heard and whose voices are silenced. We're talking about reach, visibility and influence. The shorthand for that is platforms, and platforms matter because they allow feminists to reach beyond their personal networks and participate in bigger conversations in front of broader audiences. Platforms allow feminists to be seen and heard.

A more diverse range of feminists needs to be able to build platforms. Some of the change needed for this to happen is systemic, but editorial and/or executive diversity is also critical. There is no excuse for the appalling homogeny among decision-makers. When you diversify the gatekeepers, you diversify who is allowed past the gates.

We have a responsibility to share the ladders we climb when reaching for success. Without those ladders, there's nowhere to grow. Building a platform takes years, regardless of who you are. It takes some talent, some luck, and the right people finding your work in the right places at the right time. There is no denying how much easier it is for the more privileged among us to put in those years and catch the lucky breaks. We need to level the playing field. Feminist communities must be more committed to formal mentorship that is intersectional in word and deed, actively supporting programs that make it possible for the voices that have so long been silenced to be heard in the right places at the right times.

Organizations with the financial means must compensate feminists of color they solicit. All too often, feminists of color are invited to share their perspective without compensation as if being given the opportunity to be heard is payment enough. Last I checked, working for free doesn't keep the lights on. It makes no sense that this exploitative practice has occurred even once.

When editing or otherwise curating work, decision-makers can ask more of themselves and the writers they work with. Is a given piece intersectional in ways that serve what the piece is trying to accomplish? If not, how can editors guide writers toward work that is intellectually rigorous and reflective of the multiple contexts that influence our lives?

All feminists should demand more of themselves and their communities. We should educate ourselves on how to move from intersectional theory into practice. We should abandon the relentless affirmation of online culture in favor of substantive discourse. We should recognize that intellectual diversity is as important as other kinds of diversity.

Make small but significant gestures. The smallest ideas can create the greatest change. What if men stopped contributing to publications that have an appalling lack of gender balance? What if white writers stopped contributing to publications that lacked diversity or intersectional awareness? What if feminists declined to publish in magazines or serve on panels only privileging certain voices? Sometimes, change requires an ultimatum. Sometimes, change demands difficult choices.

Science-fiction writer John Scalzi instituted a in July 2013. He announced on his blog that his policy was a hard requirement for his participation in any convention. His policy asks convention organizers to have a harassment policy in place that is enforced during the convention. He also asks that harassment policies should be publicly visible both online and throughout the convention. If conventions don't adhere to these conditions, he simply won't attend. Since he announced the policy, hundreds, if not more, have Scalzi's declaration including writers, editors, publishers, convention organizers and fans. Small gesture. Significant gesture.

No one tactic will heal the fractures in feminism. Creating long-lasting and necessary change requires committed and sustained effort on many fronts. Until we put our ideas into practice, that change cannot begin.

Roxane Gay lives and writes in the Midwest. Her novel, An Untamed State (Grove/Atlantic), and essay collection Bad Feminist (Harper) will be released in 2014.

* These women include Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Anna Holmes, Daisy Hernandez, Rinku Sen, Latoya Peterson, Carmen Van Kerckhove, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Mia McKenzie and many others.

When racism becomes a white person's issue- by Ruby Hamad in Daily Life Australia

When racism becomes a white person's issue

May 16, 2013 - 5:19PM

 

 http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/when-racism-becomes-a-white-persons-issue-20130516-2jo01.html

• 47 comments

Ruby Hamad

WriterView more articles from Ruby Hamad

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Recently, I wrote an article on Daily Life about race representation in fashion, using it as a launching pad to delve into a discussion of how Western society regards the bodies of people of colour. Fashion, like other forms of pop culture, may well be regarded as somewhat silly and shallow, but it is there that our values are reflected right back at us.

To my surprise, my article drew strong criticism on Twitter from some prominent white feminists who were incensed that I would waste time and space writing about fashion when there were More Important Issues to deal with.

Race representation in popular culture may not be a blip on the radar of middle class white feminists - because it does not affect them - but for Women of Colour (WoC) who rarely see themselves reflected in magazines, it matters. A lot. Failing to consider this makes feminism dangerously irrelevant to many WoC. So much so, in fact, that many black women in the US have given up on the label altogether, preferring the term “womanist”.

In the early '90s, Elizabeth Spelman published Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, in which she argued that feminism was marginalising WoC due to its tendency to ignore how race, class and ethnicity react with sexism to affect non-white women.

Spelman wrote that for feminism to be inclusive, it had to acknowledge the unique experiences of WoC and allow them space to give their own accounts of their lives. She argued that feminism confuses “the condition of one group of women with the condition of all”. In other words it is extremely marginalising for white feminists, who occupy a position of relative privilege, to lecture WoC on which issues should be important to them.

There seems to be a prevailing view that a step forward for one is a step for all. The furor over Girls, Lena Dunham's breakthrough TV show, demonstrates how WoC are expected to “take one for the team”, even as they are excluded from the benefits of a supposed feminist victory.

Dunham's extraordinary success has been rightly hailed but, as criticism of the show's lack of characters from non-white, non-privileged backgrounds shows, it is a victory for some women only.
Although Dunham has tried to address this criticism, many white feminists seized on Dunham's words that she was simply writing about “people she knows”. But would feminists accept this as a valid excuse from men who leave women out of films? Is it ever OK for privileged men to only “write what they know"?
Caitlin Moran, when asked if she planned to discuss Girls' lack of racial diversity in an interview with Dunham responded, “Nope. I literally couldn't give a shit about it.”

Moran, one of feminism's major voices, and one which informed us  How to be a Woman , literally couldn't give a shit about the ongoing exclusion of non-white women in the public space. Clearly, Moran is unfamiliar with the words of African-American feminist Barbara Smith: “Feminism is the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women: women of colour, working-class women, poor women, disabled women, Jewish women, lesbians, old women – as well as white, economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandisement.”
As a woman of Arab-Muslim background I cannot divorce my experiences of being female from that of my race and religious background. While I am certainly pleased for Dunham at her success, I am also painfully aware that as a WoC - and a Muslim to boot - I cannot benefit in any meaningful way from it because it is a limited success that still actively excludes women like me.

As a writer I am fortunate to be given a public platform to express my views. Nonetheless, I find that whenever I write on issues of race and religion, I face such a strong backlash; it leaves me wondering if my work would attract the same hostility had a white woman penned it.

In one article, I criticised Israel's treatment of black Ethiopian Jews, only to have readers dismiss me as “biased” and “pushing another agenda” on the basis of my surname. As if an Arab is intrinsically incapable of objective, critical thought.

When I wrote about the blatant, and much-criticised , whitewashing in the film The Impossible, I was accused of “playing the race card” and having “an ulterior motive”.

Most recently, I lamented the direction of excessively patriotic Anzac Day commemorations, and was beset by furious readers who informed me that as a “foreigner” I had no right to talk about the Anzacs. Many wanted to know why I “even came here”. For what it's worth, I was two when my parents fled the Lebanese Civil War. I am now in my 30s and have been a citizen since the age of seven. I have never considered myself a foreigner in this my country.

It seems to me there will always be a portion of the population that will regard me with suspicion. To them, I will always be the "other". In this I am reminded of the powerful words of black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde: “I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.”

And it is precisely this that leads me to write about issues such as race representation in fashion and the erasing of people of colour in film. Because it is this marginalisation that allows criticism of me based on nothing but my skin colour and my last name to flourish. Is it so surprising people don't trust Arabs given that, on those rare occasions when we do make it to the screen, it is overwhelmingly as terrorists or religious fanatics?

Without an understanding of how various forms of oppression intersect, feminism is meaningless. Success for some women is not a success for feminism because if feminism benefits only some women, some of the time, then that feminism is no feminism at all.

Ruby Hamad is a contributing author to the anthology 'Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism, Animals, and The Sexual Politics of Meat', which she will be launching 7pm Monday May 20th at The Surry Hills Community Centre.

"Does Feminism Have a Race Problem?" by Bridget Todd of Policy Mic

Does Feminism Have a Race Problem? 

 http://www.policymic.com/articles/39919/does-feminism-have-a-race-problem

• Bridget Todd for Policy Mic

 

 

Does Feminism Have a Race Problem 

From Anarchist to Third Wave, there are plenty of different brands of feminism out there. But with a slew of labels, comes difficult choices. It can be difficult to feel fully represented by any one "type" of feminism. In an effort to solve this dilemma, some have turned to creating their own brands of feminist ideology that reflect their goals and needs.

If you're familiar with discussions regarding feminism, you might be aware that one major critique of feminism is the lack of spaces for diversity and intersectionality. Women of color often report feeling that their issues are compartmentalized and their presence is not fully respected in feminist spaces.

Blogger the New Black Woman recalls splitting with feminism altogether after continually feeling unrepresented in feminist spaces, "I've grown disappointed at the rejection, appropriation, elimination and arrogance exhibited by traditional feminist spaces with regards to women of color, our opinions and life experiences." The struggle for women of color to feel represented in feminist spaces eventually led to author Alice Walker's formation of womanism, an offshoot of feminism that revolves around women of color.

In that same vein, writer and Smith College Activist in Residence Loretta J. Ross describes feeling dissatisfied with most feminist subcategories, opting instead to consider herself a "justice feminist."
Ross struggled to fit her feminist work into narrowly defined feminist labels. She points out, "I have never subscribed to the neat categories of feminism that scholars have erected as theoretical silos to explain our movement: liberal, radical, socialist, gyno-centric, Third Wave, and so on." Her work takes on many categories and she yearns for a feminist ideology that will allow her to "flow smoothly between these boundaries." Justice feminism, as she sees it, will decompartmentalize her varied work.

So what exactly is a justice feminist?

According to Ross, justice feminism does not center on achieving gender equality because, "who says what men have is what women want or need?" Instead, justice feminism tries to achieve justice and rights for both men and women. Rather than try to achieve what men have in society, Ross argues that feminists should be trying to "change the rules of the game rather than seeking our own equal opportunity to oppress."
The ultimate end goal of justice feminism, Ross maintains, is lasting justice. "I'm seeking and hoping to build a movement against oppression in which every human being is included, and equality – important as it is – is just one milestone in the process," she writes.

Even while critics might point out that justice feminism could very well become just another of the many subcategories of feminism, the idea of feminists rethinking, restructuring and re-imagining feminist ideology to better reflect their needs is powerful. It is through this kind of restructuring that feminism can truly be the kind of intersectional, diverse, and effective space that we want it to be.

"Why not just wear a burqa": Experiences of ethnic minority women writing online

Five ethnic minority writers share their experiences with Asiya Islam.

By Asiya Islam Published 27 March 2013 13:14

Women in Pakistan taking computer classes. Photograph: Getty Images

The figure that only five per cent of national newspaper editors are women, from the recently released report ‘Sex and Power’, has been doing the rounds. What we haven’t heard so much is that of those five per cent, all are white women and indeed, of the 95 per cent men, all are white men. There are no ethnic minority national newspaper editors, at all - it’s a shocking, but probably not a surprising, figure that reflects the picture in the rest of the media. It’s a figure that also indicates how small the chances are of an ethnic minority woman expressing her opinion in mainstream media. The term “minority within a minority” comes to mind. But what happens when she does?

When I started writing online, any exhilaration I felt at seeing my name on the screen died with the many put downs I received in comments. Though I was aware of the extent of online misogyny, I still wasn’t prepared to be personally (and often quite randomly) attacked. Most women writing online will easily be able to recount rape and murder threats, sexist comments on their appearance and, to use that horrible term, “sexual capital”, and disdain for their “womanly” (probably hysterical, illogical etc) opinion. I was told to “calm down”, asked what I was wearing, and informed that men would enjoy it if I dressed like a slut, but there was also a racist undertone (sometimes not so much of an undertone as blatant racism) to most comments I received.

First, there was the general sense that I shouldn’t be talking about the UK since I don’t really belong here and that my opinion stems from my “back home” experience, mentality and relatives and that’s where I should keep it. And then there was the very loaded suggestion, with so many possible meanings that I wouldn’t be able to go into here, that I should wear a burqa – a suggestion, I understand, entirely based on the assumption derived from my name that I’m Muslim, since I’ve never specifically mentioned my religion (or the lack of it) or written on religious issues. It’s also worth stating that these examples have been picked up from comments on a moderated forum.

This got me thinking about the specific ways ethnic minority women are shut up in mainstream media. So, I put out a call for ethnic minority women writing online to learn of their experiences and the responses told the story I suspected all along. Interestingly, many of them felt, and I agree, that being ignored was the commonest and probably the strongest form of online racism. This contrasts with the often very graphic misogynistic threats women receive, but indicates the way experiences of ethnic minority women writing online are specific and “exclusive”.
From being likened to a boy in Patak’s curry advert, told that they’ll “hang high”, and questioned over their faith/religion to being completely ignored, ethnic minority women are silenced in mainstream media in many ways. Five ethnic minority women writers/bloggers share their experiences.

Bidisha

Bidisha is a writer, author and broadcaster
While the vast and overwhelming amount of hate mail I receive is openly and viciously misogynistic (rape threats, gendered and objectified personal abuse, abuse of feminism generally and what I call medieval misogyny: accusations of madness, badness, hysteria, shrillness, lying, troublemaking and so on whenever I whistleblow) there is always an undertow, although in the minority, of racism. Oddly enough I am often called a race traitor (no idea why) and the open-access sites, like the now-defunct Don't Start Me Off, were openly racist: idiotic comments about whether I looked like the boy from the Patak's curry advert and so forth.

The strongest racism, which I experience both in mainstream culture and in the trolling non-culture of the internet, is simply to ignore non-white people and their voices, ideas, opinions, work and experiences, except when these voices corroborate existing stereotypes. This is perpetrated not only by anonymous insulters but the broader culture - which is why, even in this diverse and globalised world, you will watch your way through this year's Oscar nominated films and struggle to see a non-white character who is not a maid, a slave, a comic stereotype or a criminal stereotype.

But if you've made woman-haters angry then you're doing something right. They are angry because they have been challenged, their privilege questioned and their cover blown. It makes me laugh because I write about how much women are hated in society and all the trolls very accommodatingly, and with absolute transparency and no self-awareness, prove it. Trolls certainly have not, cannot and will not silence me.

Soraya Chemaly

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist media critic and activist
I write frequently about this topic (most recently The Digital Safety Divide). However, your recent post [the call I out for ethnic minority women to share their experiences] intrigued me  because commenters will often make assumptions about me based, as is always the case, on how I look and what my name is. So, in addition to the egregious threats and truly hateful messages, I occasionally get the "go back to Africa" or "go back to Arabia or wherever you are from." The first threat I ever got was one that said I would "hang high" which I wasn't sure whether to take as an actual suggestion of lynching.

I think that being told to "go back" to wherever I came from, "Africa or Arabia" might fit the description of sexist racism. The implication, of course, being that a) women of colour do not belong here (the US) or b) feminists (regardless of hue) cannot be "real Americans".

However, it hasn’t impeded me. It just makes me angry because it’s bullying, pure and simple.

Huma Qureshi

Huma Qureshi is a freelance journalist. She writes frequently for the Guardian
The only time I get the abuse, so to speak, is when I write Islam-related pieces, because then it puts me in the spotlight as Muslim, whereas I don't think people pick up on that on any of the other more newsy features I might do. The worst of what I've received has been when I've been emailed abuse, so it arrives in my inbox, rather than them saying it below the line in front of people to see. I've mentioned that in this discussion on online Islamophobia.

I've become a lot more careful about what I choose to write about. It's not because I'm afraid, it's just because sometimes you have to weigh up whether it's worth it. I have to consider how much I reveal about myself, I guess. But, it's not all bad. The last piece I wrote that drew attention to my Asian background (as well as Muslim background) was about my experience of Christmas and how much I love it.

I was expecting to get slaughtered in the comments, but they were mostly really nice, although there were as usual those who think I'm way too liberal...

Huma Yusuf

Huma Yusuf is a commentator on Pakistani politics and society for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and the International Herald Tribune

Like other women writers I’ve had people respond to my articles with misogynistic comments – rape threats, flirtatious comments, comments about my photographs online (either good or bad), marriage proposals, or questions about my marital status and sex life as a way to intimidate me. This happens about 5-10% of the time (the comments on my articles for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper and the Latitude blog on the New York Times are moderated, so I don’t know what’s being censored out there, this percentage reflects the emails I receive directly). But this is more generic to being a woman online, rather than an Asian woman.

Because I write about Pakistan and its politics and society, I face online feedback about my Islamic credentials. On Twitter, in blog comments, and in email, I’m frequently asked whether I’m  Muslim, what sect of Islam I’m from, whether I’m God-fearing, whether I’m a true believer who has lost her way, whether I realise that my godlessness reflects poorly on my parents etc. I’m also told that the woman’s place is in the home and that I shouldn’t be writing. This is usually in response to articles about Pakistan’s blasphemy laws or articles about the mistreatment of religious minorities within Pakistan.

Sam Ambreen

Sam Ambreen is a former advocate working with survivors of domestic abuse, now an activist seeking to empower and protect the rights of women
My experience of writing/tweeting online is possibly more positive than most BME (black and minority ethnic) women in that I have a network who support me if I do ever run into trolls and the like. I have had people accuse me of using the race card before I've even opened my mouth which immediately reveals them for the bigots they are. Men seem to think it ok, or they used to before I told them to back off, to praise me or remark on my intelligence or politics as if they've never experienced anything like it before; it's patronising and again, an early warning bell for a pre-emptive block.

I wrote a piece called ‘White Feminists: Now will you listen?’ and it received a lot of attention. I was stunned to be confronted by a white woman who was offended by the title and said she often fought for the rights of 'other' women but felt she ought not bother if that is what we thought of them. She actually wanted gratitude. And some of the feminists I knew actually defended her. Apparently she was a nice person and it was all a big misunderstanding. Also many people make the assumption I'm younger than I am or at least, it feels like they're talking down to me. She repeatedly used the word girl to refer to me; I'm a 30 year old woman for the record. They think of us as those poor women suffering those savages from that strange place over there. They fail to understand that oppression is the same everywhere, only the methods differ.

In a Twitter conversation about rape, a man randomly jumped into it and, defending another man, said “Before you accuse him of racism, he’s right.” The implication here obviously was that, being an ethnic minority person, I was bound to bring up the ‘race card’ to defend myself. I was not expecting it all and was completely unprovoked.

I am lucky to be part of an intersectional crowd on Twitter. If anything offends, I deal with it by linking to it and discussing among people I trust. They also provide back up if I do get into an argument. My advice to BME women or in fact anyone other than white middle class is to seek out intersectional feminists and build networks.

Words With Girls: A Female Show? A Black Show? A Queer Show? Let's Just Call It a Comedy by Brittani Nichols

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Brittani Nichols

Writer and producer, 'Words With Girls'; contributing editor, Autostraddle.com; blogger, B Is Hilarious

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Words With Girls: A Female Show? A Black Show? A Queer Show? Let's Just Call It a Comedy

Posted: 02/05/2013 8:22 pm

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As a queer black woman with a creative gender presentation, putting myself and my words out into the ether of the Internet has always made me weary, though I've learned to police myself less and less since I found that I could hold my own against critics. Still, I can't help but wonder whether those of us in gay media have learned to police our own voices before anyone else gets the chance. Gradually I've stopped worrying about what people might find problematic and have started to say what I think, without self-censorship. YouTube has presented me with the opportunity to carve a space for myself and people like me in ways that traditional media have not, through a comedic Web series I began in March 2012.

When I decided to create Words With Girls, I was determined not to cater to one demographic. I didn't want a Web series about exploring the Los Angeles gay scene or a coming-out story or a rocky but loving lesbian relationship. I just wanted the show to be funny. The series is meant to subvert the premise of acceptable dialogue for women by having queer ladies talk about their lives in a way that everyone finds relatable. The world in the series is populated by outsiders, including me, and still I strived to make everyone feel included. Unfortunately, this effort at inclusiveness is a courtesy that the mainstream rarely engages in.

When people ask me what the show is about, my answer is usually, "Umm.... nothing?" I've taken to describing it as lesbian Seinfield, partly because it's true and partly because I like to see the look on people's faces when I compare a show by a black lesbian to the storied sitcom. It seems that funny shows about straight white guys are considered "comedies" while everything else is considered "niche," so a lot of folks feel that I should describe it as Girls with black people, or as a gayAwkward Black Girl, or as The L Word but funnier.

In a world where every aspect of my identity is itself a defining factor, I chose to embrace them all. It's clear from the title that I don't take issue with the series being known for its female leads, yet others will always define it by its queerness. And still, the fact that the show is written by me, created by me, and stars me isn't enough to make it a black comedy. For some shows it's the subject matter, and for others it's the cast, but at the end of the day, they will never be just a comedy. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there aren't times when appealing to these communities isn't a bad thing. It's just unfortunate that sometimes it prevents you from being taken seriously by people outside them.

While Web series like Broad City are accused of sneak-attack feminism, it'd be pretty hard to pull off sneak-attack lesbianism (or people-of-color-ism?). Part of the reason the Words With Girlscharacters are presented as fictionalized versions of the actresses who play them is that we are what's lacking in (and sometimes altogether missing from) the fray of online and traditional media. These aspects of their identities are merely the vessel through which the same insecurities we all have make themselves evident.

The token black/queer/female character stops being a token character when she gets to have a voice that isn't focused on her own identity. I'm not saying that the problems that accompany being a person of color or a woman or queer should be ignored, but shouldn't we get to have a few white-girl problems every now and then? I'm not one of those people who think that characters that happen to belong to marginalized groups should only be written by people of the corresponding demographic in the real world. I just wish that people would do a better job in portraying characters from marginalized groups, and that people form marginalized groups would also get a chance to tell their stories themselves. It's not that only we feel comfortable telling our own stories or that we think we should be the only ones to do it. It's just that the stories that currently populate television's landscape tend not to confront stereotypes or dismantle them. I try to do both.

I'm not a comedy writer because we need more queer black female comedy writers. I'm a comedy writer because that's what I want to do with my life. I'm a comedy writer because who's going to tell me not to? I'm a comedy writer because I'm hilarious. If I've learned anything from writers, it's that if you want people to think you're a writer, keep writing. And if I've learned anything from straight white male comedians, it's that if you want people to think you're a comedian, just keep saying it. In their case, eventually people will believe them even when they're not funny. So. My show is on Youtube. It's black, and it's female-centric, and it's queer. But hopefully the first thing you notice is that it's funny.

Watch the first episode of Words With Girls:

Feminist transphobia: the ivory tower by Harriet Smith Hughes

Feminist transphobia: the ivory tower.

Harriet Smith Hughes argues that Julie Burchill's transphobic rant highlights some of the broader problems facing modern feminism.

Harriet Smith Hughes on Tuesday 15th January 2013

Photograph: Becky Nye

“To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don't know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan.”

This is how Julie Burchill chose to characterise transsexual inequality in Sunday’s Observer. The piece was a follow-up to a fight between her long-standing friend and fellow journo, Suzanne Moore, and the “transsexual lobby”. In its deceptively plain and respectable typeface, the piece exemplifies the problem of populist feminist debate: introspective, self-referential, and happily couched within the gentility of leftist Comment sections, feminism is defined in the public consciousness by a small set of loudly proclaimed representatives. The debate is small and insular, and founded on the preservation of small and insular groups of interest. It’s reflective of a political sphere in which black women have their own distinct and separate niche, as though middle-ground feminism is effectively synonymous with a middleclass, white majority.

The recent history of feminism goes some way to explaining this state of affairs. Women in the media have, in the past few decades, admirably and doggedly kept women’s issues in the spotlight, and in referring to themselves as feminists, forwarded the idea of feminism as an integral element of daily politics. Yet as a result, the evolution of feminism as a public entity has been shaped largely in the discussions of a narrow media elite. The vast majority of the public aren’t interested enough, committed enough, or possessed of enough time to explore the happenings of global feminist activism, or youth feminist blogging, or intellectual feminist criticism. They get their feminism from the media, to the effect that the “ivory-tower” accusations so often levelled at leftist media come to colour the image of feminism; and feminism has plenty of that, without the Observer’s help. When “the issues” are referred to – rape conviction rates, the gender pay gap, or similar – the term “feminism” does not feature. It is used, instead, in pieces like Burchill’s, debating the internal politics of a self-defined world. As a result, feminism becomes easily separated from the issues, to the detriment of that great mass of activists who do their incredible and essential work under the unhappy banner of “feminism”.

Part of the problem is the nature of “feminism” as a political entity: neither disparate nor united; unsupported by a concrete agenda, or even common policies. The term means something different in every instance of its use. If a word is, in operation, defined largely by the way in which it is understood as opposed to the meaning intended, then “feminism” is almost always lost in reception. It’s paradoxical, then, that feminism has got a reputation for exclusivity partly because it is so diverse and universal. It’s impossible to find cohesion in an ideology that encompasses the interests of half the world’s population.

The answer is not to try. Cohesion isn’t necessary in feminism, any more than it is possible. Unity, community, must be maintained though, even where agreement is not. So often the “core principles” of feminism come down to debates between essentially compatible camps; which not only perpetuates a detrimental public image and detracts from the important interests of the warring parties, but also obfuscates the ideology of the movement as a whole.

Julie Burchill has made the feminist debate about herself and her cohort, pitting a false, generalised “us” against a false, generalised “them”. But the interests and opinions of transsexuals as individuals within a movement differ no more widely to the “average” feminist, than “average” feminist’s opinions differ to one another. A broad church must respect the individuality of its followers, and help unite the inevitable groupings it contains. Burchill, in attacking any interest that chooses to group beneath feminism’s banner, is guilty of defaming the larger, already embittered, company.

Feminism is founded on an immoveable principle of equality. If any element within the whole is seen to hold preference or primacy, or if any element is set below the rest, then the entire ideology is undermined.

Julie Burchill, transphobia and hostility towards the victims of oppression

The recent media furore over an article by Julie Burchill has brought to light prejudice against transgender individuals among people who should know better. But this tendency to demonise the victims of unfair treatment is a well established phenomenon

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Lipstick: Safe for any and all genders to use. Photograph: Rui Faria/Guardian

There was a bit of outrage flying around online recently. You may not know about it, and I wasn't involved, but if you have any interest in online media it was impossible to miss, in the same way that any ships travelling near Bikini Atoll would struggle to not notice when the military were running a few little tests there. It culminated in a Julie Burchill piece for the Observer (which is a different publication to the Guardian … I've been blogging for them for months and I only found that out this weekend). Burchill's article was supposedly a defence of her friend Suzanne Moore and her recent dealings with trans people, but seems to be an all-out attack on trans people in general (which I won't be linking to here because the online version has been withdrawn and, even if it hadn't been, it has already had enough traffic thank-you very much).

I wouldn't dare to assume that I was qualified to comment on the issues and hardships facing trans people, or feminists for that matter. It is such a sensitive subject that odds are I've accidentally said a number of offensive things in that last paragraph alone and will continue to do so in the remainder of this piece. Sorry about that in advance, I promise it's not intentional, and feel free to point out my mistakes to me.

But leaving the political, sociological and ideological factors aside, I was amazed to discover the degree of hostility there is to trans people, particularly from those who are supposedly opposed to oppression and prejudice. Why would members of society who are persistently victimised in the worst possible ways still be vilified so?

Could it be the Just World Hypothesis? This dates back to research byMelvin Lerner which showed that subjects asked to evaluate someone undergoing painful electric shocks (they were fake, don't worry) tended to rate the victim far less favourably if they were told their suffering would continue. If they were told they'd be rewarded in the end, people rated the victim far more favourably. The worse the victim apparently suffered, the worse the subject's opinion of them was.

What's going on there? The Just World Hypothesis states that people have an inherent belief that the world is fair and just and that people's actions and behaviour is eventually met with the appropriate consequences, i.e. "you get what you deserve." When faced with evidence that suggests that this is bollocks, most people's first response is to rationalise it in a way that allows the illusion to continue. The most obvious example of this is victim blaming.

People see someone suffering, and think "either the world is a cruel and essentially random place where people can suffer for no reason, or this person is suffering because of something they did, so they deserve it."

Rarely is there any evidence for the latter conclusion, but it's the one people go for as it offers some form of psychological protection. "It happened to them because of something they did. I didn't do whatever they did, so it won't happen to me", that sort of thing. It's not nice, but it's the sort of logic that probably stops many people from constantly collapsing into a weeping heap.

People can go to extremes to find reasons to blame victims. That's how Japan can suffer a catastrophic natural disaster and some people can conclude it's because of Pearl Harbour.

This tendency to victim blame is everywhere and often exploited.Demonising the disabled? "Scroungers v strivers"? It is present even when it comes to official crime prevention, especially when it comes toanti-rape campaigns. Trans people are constantly victimised, so would likely be more prone to be on the receiving end of this just-world false rationalisation that they are in some way to blame. It is a cruel irony that an ingrained belief that the world is a fair place makes people behave in ways that ensure it isn't.

There's obviously more to it than that, though. Most people are hopefully intelligent enough to think beyond knee-jerk reactions in this way. And if anyone should be aware that the world isn't intrinsically fair, it's feminists and similar campaigners/activists, who wouldn't need to exist if it was. I don't know the ideologies nearly well enough to know if this is a valid statement, but it seems logical to me.

There's also the defensive attribution hypothesis, which is related. Simply put, people will interpret situations and behaviours that result in victimisation or unfortunate events in a way that protects their self-esteem, and makes it seem like they won't suffer similarly. If they see someone who is similar to them in some way suffer, they will instinctively focus on how they're actually different, ergo a similar fate won't befall them. This could and would inevitably lead to the demonising of trans people.

It can't be just that, though. Trans people and any similar groups must be victimised in the first place for any of the above to be applicable. There must be something about them that makes people more prone to behave negatively toward them (to put it mildly).

Some people may disagree with what other people do to their bodies, but as long as they're not forcing you to do it too, what's the issue? It's their body, what could be more theirs to do with as they please? A lot of people don't see it that way though, as we know. If what you do or want to do to yourself ends up involving some form of government funding, a lot of people feel entitled to a say in your life.

Gender is itself a far more complex concept than the simple binary system we typically adhere to. Those who go around challenging societal norms just by being there rarely get an easy ride. And the binary concept of gender is so entrenched in our collective psyche that anyone who deviates from it is likely to provoke strong and usually negative reactions, even from people like doctors, who logically should be the last people to behave in such ways.

But If I was going to try and explain all possible reasons for this animosity toward trans people, this blogpost would run into the terabytes. There are so many social, psychological and countless other factors in play, it would be like trying to untangle a ball of Christmas tree lights the size of the moon. I just offer the above rationalisations as possible explanations for illogical transphobia. Of course, some people are just bastards, let's not forget that.

I don't have any ideological or personal involvement with the whole debacle that occurred recently, and I'm certainly not making any expert pronouncements on what's happening. I'm a behavioural neuroscientist who works in mental health, and I just saw supposedly intelligent people behaving in ways that seemed illogical, even hypocritical, and I thought I'd offer a possible explanation as to why. But obviously things are a lot more complex.

I'm also a Guardian blogger though, and not even a serious one (I usually write about boobs or moustaches). But given that it was Burchill's article that caused so much offence, and the Guardian's perceived poor track record in this area, I felt it was necessary to have at least one piece published under the Guardian banner that presented transphobia as illogical and irrational, which it definitely is.

It may not be a just world, but that doesn't mean we can't at least make an effort to change that.

Dean Burnett is on Twitter (for now) @garwboy

Here is Julie Burchill's censored Observer article

By Toby Young Politics Last updated: January 14th, 2013

808 Comments Comment on this article

Julie Burchill has given me permission to reprint the article the Observer has seen fit to unpublish. This is the full text.

The brilliant writer Suzanne Moore and I go back a long way. I first met her when she was a young single mother living in a council flat; she took me out to interview me about my novel Ambition (re-published by Corvus Books this spring, since you ask) for dear dead City Limits magazine. "I’ve got an entertaining budget of £12.50!" she said proudly. "Sod that, we’re having lobster and champagne at Frederick’s, and I’m paying," I told her. Half a bottle of Bolly later, she looked at me with faraway eyes: "Ooo, I could get to like this…’ And so she did.

I have observed her rise to the forefront of this country’s great polemicists with a whole lot of pride – and just a tiny bit of envy. I am godmother to her three brilliant, beautiful daughters. Though we differ on certain issues we will have each others backs till the sacred cows come home.

With this in mind, I was incredulous to read that my friend was being monstered on Twitter, to the extent that she had quit it, for supposedly picking on a minority – transsexuals. Though I imagine it to be something akin to being savaged by a dead sheep, as Denis Healey had it of Geoffrey Howe, I nevertheless felt indignant that a woman of such style and substance should be driven from her chosen mode of time-wasting by a bunch of dicks in chick’s clothing.

To my mind – I have given cool-headed consideration to the matter – a gaggle of transsexuals telling Suzanne Moore how to write looks a lot like how I’d imagine the Black & White Minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run would look. That rude and ridic.

Here’s what happened. In a book of essays called Red: The Waterstones Anthology, Suzanne contributed a piece about women’s anger. She wrote that, amongst other things, women were angry about "not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual". Rather than join her in decrying the idea that every broad should aim to look like an oven-ready porn star, the very vociferous transsexual lobby and their grim groupies picked on the messenger instead.

I must say that my only experience of the trans lobby thus far was hearing about the vile way they have persecuted another of my friends, the veteran women’s rights and anti-domestic violence activist Julie Bindel, picketing events where she is speaking about such minor issues as the rape of children and the trafficking of women just because she refuses to accept that their relationship with their phantom limb is the most pressing problem that women – real and imagined – are facing right now.

Similarly, Suzanne’s original piece was about the real horror of the bigger picture – how the savagery of a few old Etonians is having real, ruinous effects on the lives of the weakest members of our society, many of whom happen to be women. The reaction of the trans lobby reminded me very much of those wretched inner-city kids who shoot another inner-city kid dead in a fast-food shop for not showing him enough ‘respect’. Ignore the real enemy – they’re strong and will need real effort and organization to fight. How much easier to lash out at those who are conveniently close to hand!

But they’d rather argue over semantics. To be fair, after having one’s nuts taken off (see what I did there?)) by endless decades in academia, it’s all most of them are fit to do. Educated beyond all common sense and honesty, it was a hoot to see the screaming-mimis accuse Suze of white feminist privilege; it may have been this which made her finally respond in the subsequent salty language she employed to answer her Twitter critics: "People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good for them."

She, the other JB and I are part of the tiny minority of women of working-class origin to make it in what used to be called Fleet Street and I think this partly contributes to the stand-off with the trannies. (I know that’s a wrong word, but having recently discovered that their lot describe born women as ‘Cis’ – sounds like syph, cyst, cistern; all nasty stuff – they’re lucky I’m not calling them shemales. Or shims.) We know that everything we have, we got for ourselves. We have no family money, no safety net. And we are damned if we are going to be accused of being privileged by a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs.

It’s been noted before that cyberspace, though supposedly all new and shiny, is plagued by the age old boredom of men telling women not to talk, and threatening them will all kinds of nastiness if they persist in saying what they feel.

The trans lobby are now saying that it wasn’t so much the initial piece as Suzanne’s refusal to apologise when told to that "made" them drive her from Twitter. Presumably she is meant to do this in the name of solidarity and the "struggle" – though I find it very hard to imagine this mob struggling with anything apart from the English language and the concept of free speech.

To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don’t know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan.

Shims, shemales, whatever you’re calling yourselves these days – don'tthreaten or bully we lowly natural-born women, I warn you. We may not have as many lovely big swinging Phds as you, but we’ve experienced a lifetime of PMT and sexual harassment, and many of us are now staring HRT and the menopause straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me,  you ain’t seen nothing yet. You really won’t like us when we’re angry.