Live and learn. I try to do both.
Jay! Tomlinson of Best of the Left reached out to me yesterday with a very nice email, explaining that he experienced similar problems a few years ago when he ventured into the topics he had previously not concerned himself with like race, gender or any of the myriad of subjects I talk about on a daily basis here.
He allowed himself to be educated. Apparently, I’m not willing to do the same.
I invited Jay on my show this morning with a very open mind and willingness to hear everything he had to say. And I did. And there was a lot of common ground.
I consider other people’s feelings in everything I do. I’m very sensitive to feelings, and would hope that others would be sensitive to mine.
But I invited Jay on my show this morning with only good intentions, while his Best of the Left partner, Katie Klabusich, live tweeted it. (No, I wasn’t told that was happening in advance.) Katie has been on my show twice. She told me she loved doing my show, and was happy to come back any time. So, I was a bit surprised by this today.
And then there was her admission that this whole thing was all a set-up.
When I introduced Jay!, I read some of the kind, understanding email he sent me yesterday. But thanks to Ms. Klabusich, I’ve been enlightened as to its real purpose:
If you heard Sandler’s intro, stick around. I promise that was just Jay!’s lead in to build a bridge & get her to talk. -kk
— Best of the Left (@BestOfTheLeft) February 26, 2015
If you’ve heard any of Jay!’s commentary over 900+ @BestOfTheLeft episodes, you’ll recognize the style he uses w/conservatives, etc. — Best of the Left (@BestOfTheLeft) February 26, 2015
The style he uses with conservatives. Good to know. I tried to explain the genesis of the disagreement between myself and Elon; it began during my show on Monday as Julianna Forlano was on with me and we were talking about the Oscars. While on the topic of Patricia Arquette’s statement, I saw a Tweet from him decrying her statement, and invoking the term “erased intersection”. After asking him what that was, his response was
I committed the ultimate sin of asking him what he was talking about, adding after that I was surprised at his reaction (oh that went over well, or not). How dare I ask him what “erased intersection” meant? And when Julianna decided to try to get clarification, she was told to “ask White Women.”
Yeah, that’s helpful. What I didn’t understand was that it’s not PoC’s job to inform us white people. No, it’s not anyone’s job. But if someone asks me about something I’m actively talking about (or tweeting about) and I know that person is asking an honest question, I’ll at least point them in the right direction, not chastise them for admitting they didn’t know about it already. But oops, that makes me defensive.
I learned after the show ended that Elon apparently attempted to call in this morning. I won’t fault him for not knowing that I don’t usually take calls and that when I do say I’ll try to set aside some time for calls, I don’t always get there. In his book, that makes me a liar.
Hey. Apparently she’s not taking phones calls today. She literally lied JUST THIS MORNING but I guess fixing that isn’t a priority. — Elon James White (@elonjames) February 26, 2015
Yes, a fun, informative morning all around. I did speak with Jay! but, sadly, I didn’t learn my lessons to their satisfaction. Judge for yourself. There’s plenty of judgement going on about me so feel free to join in.
In the second hour, it was our bi-weekly gathering of the Gliberal Goddesses®, when GottaLaff, She’s History‘s Amy Simon and I usually have fun. There wasn’t much glibness today, but instead I asked Amy to put on her cultural herstorian hat and give us a bit of background into the history of the abolition, suffragist and feminist movements in America. And to that, we got this
Oh. My. God. Sandler and her guest are celebrating privileged white women and their contributions to abolishing slavery. — Katie Klabusich (@Katie_Speak) February 26, 2015
But that came after this
I am almost positive I just heard Sandler say “If I had a black friend….” So there’s that.
— Katie Klabusich (@Katie_Speak) February 26, 2015
Well, you heard wrong, you sanctimonious bitch. (That’s the plain English I’m talking about. No gray area regarding what it means, and I don’t have to tell anyone to ask a “white woman” to explain it to you.) Keep coming at me. Don’t start holding back now.
Oops, sorry, there I go, getting all defensive again.
Not everything yesterday was all negative. TBogg at Raw Story actually wrote a post coming from a point of view similar to mine, entitled “Patricia Arquette gave activists a gift horse and they promptly shot it in the face.” Please click the link and read it.
Because many people don’t read comments, I wanted to bring one of them to your attention, not only because the writer comes to my defense (there’s that defensive thing again, damn it), but because she says what I’ve been trying to say, only much more eloquently.
I’ll be back tomorrow, talking about a victory for our side (yeah us!) on Net Neutrality with the always awesome and non-judgmental Tim Karr of FreePress.net, who should be out celebrating tonight!
And I will open the phones tomorrow. And if you guys don’t want to call, we’ll soothe the savage beast with a Flashback Friday musical blast from the past, radio or not….
I’m a new contributor to Radio or Not, likely because of all the crap that’s going on this week!
First, I got to say that, although I’m not rich by any means, I am debt-free, so my family is living better than the vast majority I see around me these days. Point being that I understand I have a responsibility to kick in financially to the kind of media that I want to load on my Ipod.
And the crux of the matter is that, I have found Jay Tomlinson’s BOTL getting weaker and less relevant to me as the weeks and months pass by, but never understood exactly why. Now I am seeing with all of this “intersectionality” crapola that some of the voices on the “left” are capital L capitalists who just want to smooth out some of the bumps in the present system. While those of us who are on the Real left understand that our capitalist economic system itself is leading us to destruction…environmental, nuclear etc.. as well as entrenching and exacerbating all of the inequalities among common people.
So, if I could go to my big issue: when Jay starts a show on global warming, it begins with the dire warnings of disaster…that somehow evaporate by the 2nd half of the show when the happy talk kicks in about green initiatives like building windmills and electric cars. Those who have taken the time to really learn about how serious the crisis is, are not soothed by happy talk, when we understand that stopping a pipeline or building a solar panel is going to do diddlysquat to stop the accelerating rate of carbon increases to the atmosphere! We need a system that works within the constraints that the environment we all depend on are understood and NOT exceeded. The green capitalists and big green movements like 350.org and the corporate partners, have nothing of substance to offer for solutions, because they are still part of the problem by supporting a liberal version of the present economic system! So for me, the BOTL episode on climate change is weak sauce and I’m fastforwarding to the next podcast and deleting the podcast off my player as soon as I do my updates. And I’m finding the same thing happening with most of his other theme episodes.
On this issue of the progressive coalition, a black capitalist (media creator) like Elon and some of his friends, seem to think that poor whites have privilege that they don’t have. Well maybe in some cities, a low income white may have the privilege of being less likely to be shot by a cop, but there are many privileges the wealthier class black has over someone who’s white and has no money. And Elon and Jay carrying water for this blanket application of white privilege have burned any bridges they may have had with low income whites…who are already likely to see middle class blacks as a threat and having advantages they don’t have. No wonder I can’t stand BOTL most of the time. I’m not sure why I am bothering to load it on my player anymore.
I could get into the issue of harassment and discrimination against women, but I would probably go on too long with this post. So, I’ll just say that, as a man in my late 50’s working in a shop that was formerly all-male and started hiring female employees less than 20 years ago, I learned a lot I didn’t know before about thinking/before acting, when it comes to dealing with new female employees. I also noticed that the women have all sorts of different experiences and ideas in how they see problems like harassment in particular. In brief, a couple of women who I noticed are larger and stronger than average don’t seem to see a problem at work, while a few female employees have gone on leave or quit because of problems they were having dealing with guys at work. In most cases it was just the guys being clods and not considering how what they say and the way they say it might be interpreted by others. But the takeaway for me is that you can’t just concoct some college term like “intersectionality” and “erased intersectionality” as a one-size-fits-all term to apply to everyone in whatever targeted group we’re talking about.
And I better leave it there. I work night shifts, but I hope I can get up a little earlier than usual sometimes and take part in the chat.
I can say this much– learning these types of lessons is painful and embarrassing. The most difficult thing to do is to genuinely be wrong about something. I know this first hand. Which is why emerging from this wiser and stronger would make @nicolesandler:disqus untouchable — but that has to be her decision and her process and in her own time. I’m pulling for you Nicole cause I’m pulling for progressives.
Totalitarianism is easy– just forget about your uniqueness and conform. Being allies with true diversity is hard as hell.
When Alice Walker and other Black women feminists challenged White women feminists in 70s/80s, it was advocating for “intersectionality” in the form of Womanism. Why is it so hard to hear voices of other women say you got this wrong? Having friends from minority groups is not enough to lay claim to an understanding. Selectively grabbing tweets, and filling in your commentary is lazy, unprofessional, and insulting to everyone involved. How about we just selectively use your name calling of Kate and Elon? You’re just digging deeper and deeper into pity and ignorance, and it’s sad.
Nicole, I’ve listened to you for years and though I don’t know you personally you have become a major staple in my daily life. But the way you have handled this has been very disheartening to me. I feel, and this is just my opinion, if you would approach this with humility and a desire to understand, you’d get it. At first I did feel you deserved more grace than you were given, but your actions – the way you’ve talked at people on the show, belittled others points and gone after Elon professionally via netroots – keep reinforcing what others are saying about you. You are coming across as someone operating purely off of feelings and self-preservation – like many right wing pundits that turn me off – and not someone open to expanding their understanding of a topic that’s been important to many for many years. I’m sharing this because I care about you. I hope you’ll take this feedback with the tone in which it was intended and not as an attack.
I second alot of these feelings Nicole, though I’ll add some. I listen to you every day at work, and I have to say that this has just gone too damn far. At the very least you have to walk away from this, because you aren’t going to win. I say this in no way trying to mean it as an insult, but the people you are in a fight with are far more aware of how to use social media than you are, and they also (whether they would admit it or not) would take quite a bit of delight in seeing you destroyed professionally.
I say this because alot of your listeners know your story, and care about you and your family, and I’m urging you for your own sake to drop this whole thing and not even address it any longer. At this point a straight up apology won’t work any longer, the bridges have been napalmed. Just walk away.
I care about your story and your family too. I’ve had financial and professional struggles so I haven’t been able to donate like I should. Over the years and your show has gotten me through good times and bad. I’ve also listened to TWIB for just as long and learned so much. Sometimes it takes just walking away and listening until I get it.
A genuine apology would actually mean something. It would imply she actually learned something after literally slandering me for days.
I don’t actually think you should accept an apology. I don’t think it would do any good. I just think this has been played out long enough. This whole thing started being about important issues, and it’s turned into a flame war that is centered on personalities. You are both in the media business and this has undoubtedly been great listening. I understand how controversy works, it’s the most interested I’ve been in either of your shows in quite some time, and I listen almost every day. But it’s now damaging real people, and not just ideas, on both sides.
Again, I don’t thrive on flame wars. My show never has. Whether she would mean her apology or not is one thing. But if you listen to my show then I think you know I believe this to be important because this isn’t just about Nicole’s screw ups. Her screw ups are not just hers, but a part of a mindset on the left. We’ve had these conversations about the left before but at this point Nicole is literally acting out what we critique. If Nicole DIDNT lie on me all while claiming victimhood and mocking white privilege and intersectionality I wouldn’t have a reason to mention her at all.
Look, I’m learning alot too. You are right in what you have said. This IS a great example of what you have often talked about, and when Imani was being interviewed by Nicole, I heard it play out in real time at work. And believe me, I was hoping against hope she would change course halfway through that interview. I was shocked she felt this way. It has really made me question alot of assumptions that I have held about this mindset on the left that I had heard of but didn’t have any personal experience with. Imani managed to snap me out of that bubble over the course of 20 minutes.
And your comment right here? Is the only way I’ve been able to not feel absolutely shitty all week about what’s been happening. I’ve been clinging to the comments and notes sent to me saying “I didn’t get it before. Now I do.” This may sound hilarious coming from me but I don’t enjoy confrontation. I suffer from anxiety and I’m not exactly a social person. But I have a weird thing about letting obvious bullshit go. That’s when I’ll keep talking and talking even as I’m uncomfortable. I think the left needs to look in the mirror and see this type of shit is a problem. If we want a coalition we’re gonna have to learn how to deal.
I would imagine we might hold the same type of anxiety problem, as even listening to this whole thing has made me cringe. I probably just assumed all media figures are a little cynical and enjoy this type of attention. But what the actual truth is that you and Nicole are actually BOTH not cynical.
Nicole has taken things far, far too personally and resorted to some ridiculous comebacks. Turns out she really is as fiery and emotional as she comes across, and she is self-immolating. And stuff like this really does eat away at you, which is a good thing, it’s just rare to see real emotion in any form of media.
This has gotten way out of hand. Imani was right about almost all her points in the interview the other day. But there is also no doubt in my mind anymore that the people on the opposite side of Nicole are at this point purposefully pushing this to create more drama. And I AGREE with almost all of their points.
Elon could have let this die after yesterday’s show and called it a solid win. I agree Nicole came off badly in the interview and to a certain extent in the emails, but they have ceded the high ground they originally had by purposefully fanning the flames. What the fuck is this even about?? If two days ago it was about actual issues it has now become nothing but a personal vendetta.
I just saw Imani tweet that “sometimes you just have to wash your hands of people”. Well, that honestly sounds like a good idea. Seriously, just walk away from this. Nicole can’t get over the personal attacks, and it seems like her opponents aren’t going to be satisfied until they destroy her life. Good lord, this is the most childish fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
The reason why I haven’t let it die JS is because every day this week Nicole has lied on me and continued to paint me as some sort of aggressive racist. EVERY DAY. If perhaps she didn’t keep insisting I yelled at her “ask White women” when she just asked a question. Literally ON THIS POST she showed that I didn’t respond to with ask White Women. I responded to Julianna BUT the second half of the response she completely ignored http://twib.me/followup. Why should I let this die when she half ass apologizes on a list serv yet continues to lie on me? This isn’t “pushing to create more drama.” This is a refusal to allow bullshit to ride.
I was too strong in my remarks about you personally. I am going to apologize sincerely for that, I shouldn’t have written that not knowing your true intentions.
You should understand though, that YOU have had the moral high ground here, and you have won the fight. Nicole looks absolutely terrible coming out of this. Not only that, but as I’ve mentioned, you are FAR more media aware than she is.
If your goal is to bury her, you can do that. She will probably oblige you and dig her own grave, she has let her emotions take over. But if you decide to wash your hands of her and walk away, I believe it would reflect very highly on you. And I personally will continue to urge Nicole to calm the fuck down and try to look at this from the perspective it deserves, because YOU are right on almost all these issues. But this has got to end somehow.
If she doesn’t continue with this behavior I wouldn’t call out the behavior. This is like if there was something on fire. As long as its on fire, I’m going to yell “FIRE!” If there is no fire then I’d look silly doing that.
I just don’t know what the end game is here. I hope Nicole reads some of these comments from her listeners. I’m seriously trying to help her and stop her from pouring any more gasoline on this fire.
I actually hope she reads the comments here as well. I can tell you “MY” end game. I want our space to not see critique as attack. I want learning to not be considered elitist. I want the left to stop worrying about coming off as “academic” and instead just give a shit about folks and their experiences. I will call bullshit as long as necessary in order for that to happen and accept whatever labeling that leaves me with.
The comments in this thread are priceless. For that reason, this week was worth it. But, @jonathanstraka:disqus is so right in the need for someone to take the moral high ground and heal the wounds.
I emailed that to Nicole and tweeted that sentiment to Elon. But, truthfully, we can’t place our expectations on you guys during this process.
I just know that the moral high ground at this point would be politically, emotionally, and socially rewarding.
I find it interesting that you posted that comment from Raw Story with the idea that she said it more eloquently than you did. The problem is that she’s just as wrong as you are. She clearly doesn’t get the issue either. She’s just as blind to the intersectionality thing and she also has the distinct talent of also not listening and being completely as ignorant of her privilege as you are. I’m not surprised you’d hold up that comment as a “shining example” while still completely missing the point. Many people have tried to explain the issue to you, and at the end of it all, you still go right back to digging your heels in, not getting what we’re saying and making yourself the victim if some imaginary vicious attack. The best thing anyone can do for you at this point is to stop trying.
Now *I* am ignorant of my privilege? Jesus fucking Christ, you have no notion of my life, no idea whatsoever about where I’ve lived, what I’ve seen. I am more aware of what the goddamned word “privilege” means than anyone, of any–pardon me–“intersectionality”, who’s fortunate enough to have lived his or her life in this incredibly wealthy country, the United States. I am well aware that simply by being born to parents who could afford to feed me, I am far more privileged than some of the human beings I saw suffering in unimaginable poverty when we lived in Honduras, one of the poorest and most violent countries on earth. To name just one place I consider myself blessed to have lived while growing up.
Blessed, because, now and forever, I appreciate things *you* probably take for granted: having running water. Having a supermarket within an hour’s drive that doesn’t inexplicably run out of staples. Being able to walk in town and on most days feel relatively certain I won’t be smelling teargas and have to run into a shopfront and hope the owner has a working phone so I can call my family. Being able to sleep at night, some nights anyway, reasonably sure the noise I heard was a car backfiring and not someone being shot in the street. Knowing my kids’ school will be open this week, and the week after that, and when I turn on the tv, I see normal programming, not soldiers marching in the street on every fucking channel.
How dare you. I am well aware of my “privilege” and I do all I can to advocate for others. I see no need to prostrate myself before self-important, buzzword-obsessed strangers on the Internet; I’m only interested in helping oppressed people–people who couldn’t give a rat’s ass what social theory terms are being bandied about by pretentious scolds. You should become aware, yourself: aware of your ignorance and rudeness. Good day.
How dare I? I dare because it’s my right to state my opinion on your incredibly pretentious, self-righteous, tone deaf post. You cared enough to type out that essay to me as if it makes any difference whatsoever. I stand by my words. The fact that you only addressed your class/economic privilege and not your white privilege, (which was what I was referring to) just proves my point entirely. Go work on your white privilege and learn some of these so-called “buzz words” that really aren’t that hard to understand if you just read.
The problem people may have (who AGREE with you by the way on the substance of the issue) is that you arrive on the scene DEMANDING that people listen to what you are saying and immediately accept it on the spot, and nothing else will suffice.
I am behind you 110% on the issue of white privilege and practically everything else that has been discussed the last few days. Nicole and millions of other people could benefit from learning a hell of a lot more about them. But you are going to get absolutely NOWHERE trying to convince anyone outside the circle of people who already agree with you by showing up on Twitter and message boards with a flamethrower and demanding that everyone who has the slightest disagreement with you to “go learn” and “read up”. You can try to do things that way, but you’ll convert not one soul. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even need converting to your arguments.
First of all, I nor anyone else showed up DEMANDING anything. If you forget, Nicole was the one jumping into Elons mentions demanding that he educate her and thats where this whole thing snowballed. As for my reply above, I responded to her the way she came at me. Don’t come at me raging and then expect me to be kind and patient in response. Not how this works. And I’m not here trying to convince anyone of anything at this point. I’ve seen how that goes and I’ve seen what her followers have said in the chat. I simply came here to state my opinion and I’ve done so. I really don’t care whether anyone “comes over to my side” or not.
I told a personal story about growing up within a culture wherein the people are not only Not-White, but also Not-American, Not-Free, and Not-Safe. And STILL I get accused of having “white privilege”.
The Honduran people are about as oppressed a group as it gets: Politically oppressed (the father of one of my friends, when he arrived at the airport flying home, was stopped and searched, whereupon the soldiers doing the searching “found” a gun in his suitcase. It was planted, of course. He was arrested, and imprisoned. He was permitted to see my friend’s Mom once before he was disappeared forever).
Racially oppressed (the divide between the landowners and the indigenous people is harsh and turns violent on a regular basis).
And of course, Hondureños are economically oppressed like there is no tomorrow.
We had drills, my brother and I (my sister was still a baby). We were taught how to hide in the basement if soldiers came to the door. How to hit the deck if we heard a gunshot. But we were fortunate, and we knew it, even at a young age: we had food in the cupboard and a roof over our heads, plus passports and visas that would enable us to leave and enough money to have a life elsewhere, which is what my family eventually did.
You really think any young person with a heart and a brain could come away from all that unaware of her privilege? Only a coddled American who was himself incredibly privileged could think that way.
People on the attack here are behaving like clueless, ignorant, self-important twits who are more interested in extracting metaphorical trophies than helping the oppressed. You are hurting a good woman who, like every other bloody person on the planet, is imperfect. But Nicole is an ally. You say you don’t need us middle-aged white women on your side? That’s fine–we have plenty of work to do and we’ll keep on doing it, whether or not a handful of strangers on the Internet deigns to approve.
But I’m not afraid to tell you to cut it the fuck out. Take your nastiness, along with all the energy tangled up in that willful ignorance as to who is privileged and who isn’t, and put it toward fighting the real enemies who are destroying public education, trying to roll back race relations and women’s rights to the 1950s, and endeavoring to keep the prisons full. A lot harder to do than verbally beat up on women, isn’t it?
“I told a personal story about growing up within a culture wherein the
people are not only Not-White, but also Not-American, Not-Free, and
Not-Safe. And STILL I get accused of having “white privilege”.”
Saying you have white privilege is not an accusation, it’s a FACT. You have and benefit from white privilege. That’s the problem. You think that saying you have white privilege is somehow a dirty insult and you react defensively to it and don’t want to acknowledge it. I suggest you do some research and see what it is and actually means, so that you understand the discussion. Everything else you said is irrelevant to the discussion. Your comments about “verbally beating up on women” is just another way to try and make yourself a victim.No one is “beating up on you.” Stop re framing the issue to make this about you and your feelings. You’re doing the exact same thing Nicole has been doing, hence my original comment. I’m a woman too BTW.
What part of my comment do you not get? Of course I am aware of my privilege. I have been since I was a first-grader seeing the nuns mete out twice the amount of corporal punishment to my black classmates than they did to us white girls, who were in the minority because this was a Catholic convent in the West Indies. YOU are so intent on framing older white feminists as not being aware of our privilege and thus not getting where people of color are coming from (or worse, not listening or caring), YOU are missing the overarching point here, which is that you are hurting a good woman. And to what end? To make a point? To get the last word? It’s wrong. It’s divisive. And yes, it *is* bullying, and it would be bullying no matter the gender, ethnicity, or age of the bully. I didn’t think dividing ourselves up into segments or intersections or whateverthefuck was what any of us wanted. I don’t want it.
” I didn’t think dividing ourselves up into segments or intersections or
whateverthefuck was what any of us wanted. I don’t want it.”
And THAT right there is the crux of your problem. It’s not what YOU want and therefore you presume to speak for what “any of us” wanted. That is the problem with White Feminism. You think that YOU get to decide that YOU make the rules, and that you control the space and therefore PoC are just being “divisive” when we speak up and say, “wait a minute…” I have news for you. You’re wrong. Intersections exist whether you want them to or not. Intersections matter whether you want them to or not. If you don’t want to accept it then that’s on you. But the discussion will continue with or without you. There are PLENTY of white feminists who understand this and are willing to learn. You and Nicole just happen to not be one of them. The fact that you want to YES, “erase intersections” because it’s not what YOU want is…can you guess? PRIVILEGE! Wanting to erase a womans race, sexual orientation etc. from the discussion because you don’t want to talk about it is nothing but pure, egotistical privilege. Thank you for this discussion. You’ve been a perfect example of everything that this whole argument has been about.
Wanting to erase a womans race, sexual orientation etc. from the discussion because you don’t want to talk about it is nothing but pure, egotistical privilege.
Where did I say that? Seriously, where? You are putting words in my mouth in order to make me fit the cutout-character of the loathed White Feminist that you have in your mind. And for what–for the sake of being nasty? So you can dislike me and not feel bad about that? I’m not interested in “erasing a woman’s race, sexual orientation, etc.”–why on earth would I be? You have absolutely no notion of what goes on in my life, nor do I expect you to, but for Christ’s sake, don’t assume I’m straight or gay or that beloved people in my life are not gay or people of color or disabled or anything else. They are.
I hear what you’re saying, I really do. But I’m not guilty of erasing people’s identities, origins, and struggles. I’m guilty of not wanting to engage in phraseology that I consider divisive.
What I’m protesting here, quite simply, is the nasty treatment of two fellow white middle-aged feminists–one famous, and one rather less-so, but whom I know, and know to be an amazing Mom and human being–that befell them because they failed to say things the way some people would prefer they say them. Phraseology, in other words. Phraseology that a not-small number of people find divisive. If you can’t see that being called-out nastily, aggressively, and harshly by not one, not ten, but many, many people–and publicly–isn’t hurtful, bullying, and traumatizing, so much so that Nicole deleted her Twitter account and is avoiding her own damned blog because she’s physically ill and not able to sleep, then you’re the one who isn’t listening. I’ve seen some of the gleeful tweets, people celebrating how sad she sounds; people thrilled to learn she left Twitter; people taking joy in her distress.
I’m not saying you caused this. I am saying this level of vitriol is inevitable in today’s social media climate–people are so quick to get ridiculously nasty when they can toss out digital insults so quickly and easily, absent the civilizing effect of having to look someone in the eye. What starts as critique–perhaps even well-meaning and well-deserved critique–when it takes place in a public forum, quickly turns hideous and out-of-proportion. Honest dialogue and learning on all of these issues should continue to take place, but I submit that given the above-described tendency of public online “debate”, it should probably do so in private: email, phone calls, or even–here’s a radical idea–sitting down, where possible, and talking over coffee.
“I hear what you’re saying, I really do. But I’m not guilty of erasing
people’s identities, origins, and struggles. I’m guilty of not wanting
to engage in phraseology that I consider divisive.”
That’s exactly what you’re doing when you say this:
” I didn’t think dividing ourselves up into segments or intersections or
whateverthefuck was what any of us wanted. I don’t want it.”
That’s exactly what intersectionality means. When you say you don’t want to “divide us up into segments or intersections” you are ERASING INTERSECTIONALITY. Because whether you want to divide us up or not, we are divided into those groups (race, gender, sexual orientation etc.) and some of us belong to more than one group. Our places in those groups affects us socially and politically, some of us more than others, and that has to be acknowledged. The fact that you see that phrase as being divisive is the crux of the problem.
If the term fits. I have no need to prove my “feminist bona fixes” to you or anyone else. I’m sick of being the punching bag for all of the holier-than-thou assholes who can’t take an apology or let up when enough is enough. Now kindly go fuck yourself.
And calling a Katie Klaubisch a “sanctimonious bitch” is going to prove your feminist bona fides? Really?
If the term fits. I have no need to prove my “feminist bona fixes” to you or anyone else. I’m sick of being the punching bag for all of the holier-than-thou assholes who can’t take an apology or let up when enough is enough. Now kindly go away.
What is with those people? (Yes, “those people”–meaning the insufferably nitpicky people going on the attack against Nicole about words, words, never-the-right words.) This is the most hilariously awful “war” I’ve ever witnessed.
Jesus–don’t even try anymore, Nicole. “Sanctimonious” fits them perfectly. Sniff, sniff, you didn’t give due deference. Flog yourself with a thorny switch. Cover yourself in sackcloth and ashes. Never, ever forgive yourself! How DARE you!
Wait, what was it you did again? Oh, right. Nothing. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.
What miserable, narrow lives they must lead. I’ve honestly never seen anything like this, and I thought I had seen it all. You will never make this right in their eyes, mainly because they’re enjoying this way too much. Forget them. Move on. Your good work defines you. They don’t.
Look, they have their points, most of which I agree with (not Arquette but certainly on white privilege). But I also have very little doubt that Elon is enjoying the hell out of this for his own show, and it would be disingenuous at best for him to claim that he isn’t.
Again. Incorrect. I’ve been broadcasting for years. I have had this type of beef once and that was with Rev. James Manning. Some how I find ways to entertain and inform. Do you think that I like my name being dragged through progressive circles? Do you think I want to be seen as a racist agitator? Why would i prefer this?
Look, you’re right, I don’t know your motive, I don’t know if you enjoy it or not. I know it made for compelling and thought-provoking podcasts on both sides or I wouldn’t be here talking about.
I personally don’t see you as anything close to a racist agitator, and, to be honest with you, your show has a HELL of a lot more influence than Nicole’s does. It isn’t even close. And if she is dragging your name through the mud in professional circles (which I didn’t know about) then that shit needs to stop right now. It all needs to stop.
I agree.
Is it possible for you to empathize with a community that is consistently painted in a negative light in media or completely ignored, who may want to make sure so-called “allies” do not reinforce incorrect labels?