Regarding Appropriation, Brownfemipower and Amanda Marcotte
| April 10th, 2008I like and respect both BFP and Amanda Marcotte. This shit just sucks.
1) I feel horrible for the stress and shit Brownfemipower’s being put through.
I don’t think there’s any blogger whose writing is better than Brownfemipower’s. (There are a few I find as good, but no one better. No one.) It’s wrenching that she’s taken her blog down, it’s wrenching that she’s going through a shitty time.
I hope she’s just taking a break, and that she’ll be back. But only BFP can say what’s the right thing for her to do. As a reader, I mourn the loss of one of my favorite blogs; but I support BFP’s decision, whatever she decides.
2) I also feel horrible for the stress and shit Amanda’s being put through.
Some people have accused Amanda of stealing, and of plagiarism. (I’m not linking, because that way lies blogwars, and I don’t want to start or participate in blogwars anymore). I don’t think that’s fair, or true. And that Amanda is now being criticized on “stop making it all about you” grounds is, I think, especially unfair. It’s not all about Amanda, but it’s hard to see the bigger picture when you’re being attacked.
3) There is a much bigger issue here. Appropriating ideas is, in a neutral context, fine. We all do it, all the time. No one is an island, etc..
But our lives aren’t lived in a neutral context; we live in a racist context. And in that context, when white progressives take up issues that POC activists have been leading on for years, we should credit, cite and acknowlege the work of POC. Otherwise, we’re contributing to a racist pattern that’s been going on for decades, in all forms of writing and art.
What I care about is that when white feminists undertake to write about the issues of women of color — such as immigration, which is clearly a massively race-infused issue — they should do so in solidarity with women of color. In ways that give political voice to women of color, to immigrants, to those whose voice is generally not heard as loudly.
When any of us have a soapbox, an opportunity to get up and talk, we must continue to stand by those who aren’t called on. If you want to consider yourself an anti-racist or a white ally to people of color — if you want anyone else to consider you those things — then it behooves you to swim against the current. If everyone did, perhaps the tides would turn, even if it was just in our corner of the blogosphere. And sometimes all you have to do is simply call out the hard work of another woman who went before you, who has paved the path that you’re walking down with research and ideas and words and strong feelings. All you have to do is cover your bases, pay your respects, and make sure you can’t be read as trying to take sole credit.
I totally agree. (Although I’m sure I’ve screwed up on that account many times myself.)
MODERATING NOTE: Anything that strikes me as a personal attack on either BFP or on Amanda may be deleted without warning.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Thanks for a sensible, coherent, thoughtful, and brief attempt to strike an even-handed note. I particularly appreciate, Amp, this:
and that Amanda is now being criticized on “stop making it all about you” grounds is, I think, especially unfair.
And fair enough, too, on the issue of doing a better job of crediting.
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April 10th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
sorry amp, but you can’t be even-handed on a moving train. I like Amanda too, but those of us who grade papers for a living can tell the difference between failing to source as an oversight and stealing shit off the internet.
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April 10th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
My question at another site was why another woman of color who was mentioned as a source of information for Marcotte’s analysis of immigration was not cited either. I wasn’t the first to ask nor was the only one to do so.
I know bfp’s work by now and when I was reading her article, I really thought that I’d see a citation for bfp like was done in an article written and posted at feministe by a Jessica Hoffman. I had a really strange feeling of deja vu when reading the article and I can’t shake it. And it does bother me that the one woman of color who was admitted as a source of research for said analysis of this issue by name wasn’t cited in the article. Was she the only one? That’s what I wonder too.
From what’s been blogged about for a while now, this isn’t an isolated situation where bloggers who are women of color have their constructs, words and workproduct reappropriated by White feminists. I had read bfp’s article on this before she took down her site and she was refering to notes she took on a speech given by a professor who’s a friend of mine (and who also has discussed this for women of color in academia). So it’s not just women of color who blog, if other writers including scholars experience the same.
I think it’s like you said, about it not neutral context. And about what Holly and others have said too, about the words and hard work of women of color who’ve been active in analysis, investigation and work on these issues long before White feminists “discovered” them are just for the taking, as if that’s another form of entitlement. It happens in other contexts as well. My personal favorite is when women of color raise a concern, say lack of racial diversity on a body and are chided by White men and women that the body picks only the most qualified people and that there weren’t qualified candidates (even when there’s no way they’d know this). After the scolding, the chair of the commission who’s White and male gives a public report at a civic meeting and mentions these very same issues as “concerns” as if it’s a conclusion they raised.
It’s not the same thing as this case but I think in a sense, these types of interactions that happen and this kind of reappropriation is a building point for more of the same in other arenas.
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April 10th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Well put, Amp.
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April 11th, 2008 at 12:36 am
How can it not be stealing when everything bar a few words (insignificant words at that) can be directly linked back to Bfp’s posts? (Or could when her blog was up). I have no link to either party in this issue, either online or in real life, but even I can see when someone has used someone else’s work and not bothered to cite it. And that is bad form. For a first year uni student it is bad form, for someone in Amanda’s position it is just … well… I am lost for words as to how bad it is…
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April 11th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Bri, I saw that post before BFP’s posts were taken down, and I wasn’t persuaded that there was anything in common but the ideas. There were no word-for-word takes or even paraphrases that I saw.
Look, by those standards, I could prove that virtually every feminist post written about Mary Koss in the last few months — and there have been dozens — was “stolen” from my previous work. This is because I’ve simply written more about the Koss controversy than anyone else in the blogosphere (that I know of); it’s frankly unlikely that any feminist writing about the controversy would say anything I haven’t already said.
But I don’t think that all those people swiped from me (although I do think I had an influence on many of them, directly or indirectly); I think that when people with broadly similar politics write on the same topic, they’re likely to put forward similar ideas.
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April 11th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Hi Amp, It wasn’t one of Bfp’s posts I was referring to, it was one someone else had done and was able to link practically everything in A’s article to posts of Bfp’s. ( can’t recall which blog I saw that on though). I get where you are coming from though.
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April 11th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Bri,
I followed that link while it was still working and read quite a few of the bfp posts. While I understand that people may have very different opinions on this, my own take was that that there was a lot of similarity on the ideas, but not on the text itself. Which runs into the issue that Amp raised, about Mary Koss and similarity of politics. I am not defending Amanda nor saying the accusations are completely out of line; I am just not so sure it is 100% obvious that (1) all the writing in Amanda’s article came from someone else, and (2) that the someone else was, for every single idea, bfp in particular.
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April 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I think the article Bri’s referring to is this one by Sylvia/M.
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April 11th, 2008 at 9:28 am
[…] threads here. You want to rail against individual instances of recent tumult? Wander over to Barry’s and have a non-personally-insulting […]
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April 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I quite literally don’t know enough about this particular controversy to have an opinion on who is right or wrong. However, I’ve seen two responses to it that bother me quite a bit:
Response 1: “Feminists” are a bunch of dumb white women who aren’t interested in the problems of women of color. I’m not going to call myself a feminist anymore.
Response 2: You can’t be a progressive if you aren’t a feminist.
I hate both these responses because they split the progressive movement in ways that I think are unproductive at best, self-destructive at worst. Because prejudice doesn’t usually stop at one characteristic, it spills over. I’ve never met (in person or on the web) a racist who wasn’t also a sexist and only very rarely met a sexist who wasn’t also an overt racist. Racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-religious prejudice, etc are all just manifestations of the same unfortunate and universal human tendency to categorize people as “my type” and “other.” To really fight against one type of prejudice, one must be aware of and fight the other as well. Even if we sometimes find those prejudices in ourselves. Especially if we sometimes find those prejudices in ourselves.
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I’ve noticed on several of the blogs written by feminists of colour that not being cited or linked to by white bloggers who come by then incorporate ideas has been a pretty bit irritant for a long time now. So it’s not surprising that this stuff has finally boiled over.
Every time we have another one of these episodes, feminists of colour are just more and more disgusted and alienated by us. I do have a lot of respect for many of Amanda’s ideas, but when an entire group are repeatedly telling us that we’re fucking up, and we know damn well that we’re the privileged ones, we really need to stop worrying about our images and reputations and just be humble enough to listen for a change.
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Has it even occurred to not just you but others that these splits as you call them exist before the people who talk about them are labeled the ones fostering those divisions? That’s what I think at least some women get tired of hearing. You merely point out the obvious and you’re the one that’s labeled, the cause of division. I hear that much more in conservatives including politicians who don’t want to think about race and racism, gendrer and sexism. They themselves contribute to those divisions and then chide those who point them out as causing them. It’s very good at getting the focus off of them and on the messengers. I see a bit of that on the feministe thread, among Marcotte and her defenders.
Things as basic as why do you have to label people as Black or Latino or Asian-American or White. We’re all people, what you’re doing is dividing people and that hurts progress. Or more complicated because like you say, there’s overlap.
Feminists often do this too and that’s disappointing.
That’s an overly simplistic and someone inaccurate way of looking exactly at why many women don’t identify as feminists or decide not to. It’s a little more complicated than having a temper tantrum and stomping off as well. Maybe if you sit down and talk to more women as to why they feel this why, you’ll learn that it’s more than just pique. And that’s not so much at you, but at anyone who thinks it’s that easy either to do or to define.
Feminists (as also in the case of women who work hard for and with women on issues ) do come in all races and nationalities besides White and American, for example, but when you often look at the structure of its organization including its roots (and this situation which led to this thread is one example), there’s many ways where it mirrors a White supremacist patriarchy. Precisely because we bring a lot of what society has built upon, as women and as feminists. It makes it much harder, but it seems the hard part is getting to the point of really acknowleging that racism, classism and other structural elements of society are within feminism as well. There’s still a hell of a lot of denial about that and yeah, when you try to look at privileges that some women have over others b/c that’s what society’s given them, it so quicly turns around to be about White women having been called dumb. Until we’re as skillfull and as committed to discussing privileges as we are oppressions, feminism will have difficulty growing.
Does this just happen with White women and Whites? No. Sexism and homophobia remain struggles in communities of color for example and there’s people including activists and organizations that work hard addressing these issues, which doesn’t get a lot of attention in mainstream media either.
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:29 am
That’s an overly simplistic and someone inaccurate way of looking exactly at why many women don’t identify as feminists or decide not to. It’s a little more complicated than having a temper tantrum and stomping off as well. Maybe if you sit down and talk to more women as to why they feel this why, you’ll learn that it’s more than just pique.
I’m not saying that it’s done in a fit of pique or even that it’s not justified. Sorry if I sounded like I was. Just that it’s a bad idea, IMHO. Feminism isn’t and never has been just something that white women do.
…when you often look at the structure of its organization including its roots (and this situation which led to this thread is one example), there’s many ways where it mirrors a White supremacist patriarchy. Precisely because we bring a lot of what society has built upon, as women and as feminists.
Agreed. And the civil rights movement and other anti-racism movements sometimes take on sexist, patriarchal overtones. This is a problem. But I think that it would be better to call people out when they do this than to desert the whole concept. I imagine that people withdraw when they get tired of pounding their heads against this particular brick wall–we are all products of our upbringing and we’re not going to rid ourselves of those prejudices quickly or easily–but I do hope that there might be some way to gradually come together and find ways to reduce the partriarchal, racist tendencies in progressive and even conservative movements rather than fragmenting.
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April 11th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
You might make a better argument if you would stop assuming that 1)anyone who disagrees with you must be a white feminist and that 2)all white feminists are the same person with one monolithic belief, response, and answer. It’s beyond ridiculous to take an argument with one person from a completely different arena and use it against a completely different person in a completely different arena, as though the 2nd person had ever made that argument.
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April 11th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Thanks Dianne for your clarification. I think you made some good points. Thanks for responding.
It wasn’t so much you. It’s just that this assumption’s made a lot. Maybe that’s not feminisms intention in terms of how it’s defined and that’s in part by who or what the media focuses on. But it certainly appears that way when activism of women of color either as feminists or not only seems to become relevent or even legitimate when White women catch onto it. This case is one example. And what makes it worse is when White feminists themselves either don’t respond to this, aren’t aware of this or don’t care. Maybe if the infrastructure
Because feminism isn’t monolithic but some of its behaviors within it and its dynamics frankly mirror elements of the White Supremacist patriarchy which it purports to be fighting or changing. That’s a large part of why it feels monolithic to many women. This is an issue that’s discussed in groups of women working together in issues when the discussion turns to inviting or contacting groups that identify themselves as feminist organizations like NOW chapters. And when you work with groups on issues where there’s barely or nary a White woman to be found (and even those usually don’t self-identify as feminists) that’s another reason why it might be seen as belonging to someone else.
The interesting thing is that there’s flip-flopping going on inverting behaviors as if we’re dealing with an equal system. For one thing, I dare say based on what I read online and my conversations with women, that women of color often know more about White women’s issues or the issues they focus on than vice versa. That’s another problem.
What feels monolithic is this thread of racial privilege which is why you have arguments taking place on this issue over and over and over again as they have been. As they’ve taken place among White women when they feel their work has been appropriated by White men. Or women by men. The responses by those are often the same.
That’s true. I’ve seen sexist overtones in civil rights movements locally as well. The thing is with feminism is that while it might be better to call out rather than check out, most often women check out after they’ve called out, called out, called out and called out and they’ve been dismissed, ignored, insulted, condescended to, told they lied or were called liars, told they didn’t know about feminism (often by those who if they’re enjoying racial privilege for example would probably by its nature not be among the first to realize it). That’s when they often check out. It’s not like they wake up, first notice something’s wrong, first feel excluded, misunderstand, misappropriated, reappropriated and drop feminism like they might shed a bad outfit.
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April 11th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
No it’s not. It won’t be the next time it happens either. Because there were quite a few last times. It’s a damn shame that as Amp said, one of the best writers on the internet feels she can’t keep her blog up anymore. Wonder who it will be next time.
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April 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Wait a minute. Of course it bloody does.
Feminism and antiracism and anticapitalism can’t possibly be the work of a moment. They’re about sustained analysis of ideas and institutions, and of course they’re going to be a matter of steadily working out of the snares we’re all tied up in. Of course that task is going to be virtually endless.
I’m beginning to think there’s a problem with an entire implicit model of social reworking which is based around metaphors of struggle and fighting. I think it discourages self-analysis; I think it drives people to voice justifiable criticism in a way that’s neither reasonable nor helpful nor ethical (reading Holly’s thread at Feministe made me feel the way I felt when I was at a demonstration against arms traders and someone started shouting ‘You should have been aborted!’ at them as they passed); I think it is the origin of ideas that feminism is for women and antiracism is for nonwhite people and that anticapitalism is for people who have never had economic privilege, because you “shouldn’t try to fight other people’s battles for them”.
It’s not about sides. It’s about remaking ourselves and our world. We need to be able to take responsibility for all the effects of everything we do, which are always far beyond what’s visible to us at any one moment, and help others to take goddamn responsibility for theirs without calling them names or making personal slurs. And I’m particularly saddened by recent events because bfp was particularly good at doing that.
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April 11th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
It occurred to me that I should probably make it explicit that it’s the very real demonstration of that kind of commitment at this blog that keeps me reading it (and even commenting from time to time).
P.S. And also that I should clarify that it was the comments at Holly’s thread, not her post, which I found depressing.
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April 11th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Reading through that train wreck at Feministe, and I have just one question:
Why will Amanda take the time to reply to white women she dislikes (Ilyka, Belledame) and yet STILL won’t take the time to reply to serious posts from Blackamazon, Little Light, Vanessa or Sylvia that are on topic and trying to lay out the facts?
Throughout the thread, the only WOC she deigned to talk to is Holly, and that’s because she MUST since Holly started the thread.
And do you think I am the only one who notices this?
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April 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
To be fair, Daisy, I was embroiled in Teh Mean. It literally took an e-mail from BFP herself telling me she was okay and happy and generally cool to lower my blood pressure. Which did nothing for my anger. But to get to the point of this post:
In all honesty, it’s not even that simple. Crediting, citing, acknowledging are all great starts, yes; but when will POC get engagement without self-righteous defensiveness? When will POC get people fighting for saving their lives and not just credit for the stories about losing their lives? Writing and art and credit and citing kinda makes the whole discussion specious when it concerns the lives of real people trying to survive.
In other words, there are certain contexts where the importance of crediting and citing and acknowledging goes to broadening the debate and channeling more coordinated activism to fighting oppression, and there are contexts where it only serves to make white people feel better about themselves because by including that POC voice, that disabled voice, that LGBT voice, or a blend of all three, they have boosted their authenticity and their ally cred by 2. And when it’s viewed through the latter lens, it’s no wonder why the more ambitious white liberal can feel free to ignore the impulse to credit anyone and work alone on merit, not taking into account they’re invisibilizing a whole lot of folks and work in the process.
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April 11th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I don’t think so Daisy though thanks for saying it. Even though it’s not easy to follow trains of conversations going on there, but isn’t that usually the way it plays out? It’s usually the White women who speak out during these incidents who are responded to, whether negatively (as in namecalling for example) or positively. Women of color are usually invisible, not any more worth responding to than they are to cite or to give appropriation to.
It’s like that in many arenas though besides blogging. And of all the blogs that Marcotte did respond to, it wasn’t any of these women of color bloggers either.
And it kind of is like showing what is going on whether than talking about it. A continuation of what’s been going on.
This plays out over and over and over and over again. I know, in large part because I’ve been one of those White women responded to. It took a while to where I got to the point where I’d say, if you’re not going to talk to other women who raise these concerns, don’t talk to me. It didn’t take as long as it could have, but longer than I now wish. It’s been pointed out in these discussions before too, but it hasn’t changed.
Yes, the comments were depressing, acheman, but it’s the pattern and practice that played itself again involving how women of color’s work is appropriated
Maybe if that changed, we wouldn’t have to deal with so many depressing comment threads. But short of taking part feminism and rebuilding it so it’s truly a separate entity of the patriarch as it’s called and not a more feminine version, not really hopeful about that.
And maybe when change gets a little easier, you’ll stop hearing the use of words, like “struggle” and “fighting”?
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April 11th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
[…] blogs about the controversy surrounding Amanda Marcotte and Brownfemipower shutting down her site: I like […]
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April 11th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
[…] blogs about the controversy surrounding Amanda Marcotte and Brownfemipower shutting down her site: I like […]
This comment was written by Brownfemipower and Appropriation « The Mustard Seed.Report this comment to the moderators
April 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
[…] those who aren’t aware, you can read the story here and here and here and here: long story short, Amanda Marcotte recently published an article referencing a ton of stuff that […]
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I gotta say, Amp, while I agree with this:
And in that context, when white progressives take up issues that POC activists have been leading on for years, we should credit, cite and acknowledge the work of POC. Otherwise, we’re contributing to a racist pattern that’s been going on for decades, in all forms of writing and art.
I fundamentally disagree that folks are being too hard on her/anybody should feel guilty for calling her on this shit. It’s just not cool, and this perpetuates the kind of racist feminism that has existed for years. Whether she just didn’t know or just had “similar ideas” to BFP doesn’t matter; BFP has focused on these issues for a long while now, and no doubt schooled Marcotte on a lot of the stuff she wrote about. Maybe she genuinely didn’t know or had a “whoops” moment, but that’s not an excuse; that’s just more of the same.
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April 12th, 2008 at 2:01 am
You aren’t the only one who’s noticed. Obviously the women being ignored notice, and I can’t help but notice, and RadFem noticed.
I can’t answer “why Amanda” specifically without, I think, going against the comment guidelines here; nor do I think that would be beneficial to do.
I can answer why me, because I’ve ignored women of color in favor of responding to white people, even white people I disliked, and I doubt any of my justifications were unique:
“No sense feeding the trolls/fueling martyr complexes/rewarding negative behavior like this.”
“I don’t even read these people. Who cares what they think?”
“Okay, that POC has a point–but this white person over here agreeing with them is just being a self-righteous, holier-than-thou ass-kisser. That kind of slavish agreement, that’s the real racism. You shouldn’t have to coddle people like this.”
There was certainly more, but that’s off the top of my head. And just as I’m sure those justifications for my behavior aren’t unique, so am I sure they aren’t universal, either. Amanda’s reasons likely differ. They may have nothing in common with mine at all.
The assumption underlying most of my justifications, though, was that people of color were not people as I had traditionally understood the word “people” to mean. People of color were people, but not people I was used to, not people I felt safe around, and not people I could distinguish easily among. Not white people (though I tried never to let my thoughts go that far, because only a racist would think such a thing).
I noticed this above from Bean:
But see, somehow it didn’t bother me too badly to see people of color as “the same person with one monolithic belief, response, and answer,” and I think you saw that going on with some participants in the Feministe thread. If all participating people of color are labeled by a defensive white person as equally oversensitive, equally irrational, equally jealous, equally meanspirited, etc., then what’s the use of dealing with any of them individually? They’re all the same and they’re all crazy anyhow. May as well respond to another white person; maybe s/he’ll be able to see what a swell person I am and appreciate what incisive arguments I make.
She responded at BFP’s, to be fair.
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April 12th, 2008 at 5:37 am
The thing is with feminism is that while it might be better to call out rather than check out, most often women check out after they’ve called out, called out, called out and called out and they’ve been dismissed, ignored, insulted, condescended to, told they lied or were called liars, told they didn’t know about feminism (often by those who if they’re enjoying racial privilege for example would probably by its nature not be among the first to realize it).
This is so exactly it, which is why it’s so especially infuriating to hear white feminists going on about “how do we engage feminists of colour?” when feminists of colour are already fucking here and we’re doing our damnedest to drive them away.
If anyone feels they need an in-depth illustration of Radfem’s explanation, just have a look at the comments in the Holly’s Feministe post that’s linked in Mandolin’s post here.
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April 12th, 2008 at 6:40 am
…and re the others; Yes, very good point about always talking about engaging women of colour…while largely ignoring the ones that are already there.
How hard is it to just Pay Attention instead of merely drawing attention. I’m saying, put that ear to the ground and listen. Whether it be reading other community’s newspaper again to learn about the issues, or employing one’s googlefu; search for issues important to coloured women, and you will find their blogs. Though some due have the misfortune of disappearing. Like, I just checked Made In Korea (mudeng.wordpress.com), a blog of an adult Korean women who was adopted by white parents as a child, in spite of her living mother who was pressured into it…and it’s private now.
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April 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Perhaps it’s because I still don’t have a good idea of what happened, but one thing that I don’t understand is why the owner of the BFP site decided to take it down. Was there a threat of legal action against the site or something? Or was it more of a personal decision? In which case, what was it supposed to achieve? Some of the comments on various blogs make it sound as if she didn’t have much of a choice, but it didn’t seem that way.
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April 12th, 2008 at 10:08 am
White men and women do this. They do read community newspapers and many do support them with subscriptions and advertising. Do they make up a large portion of readership, in that sense? No, but at least in my experience working for one. Though you do get Whites who complain there’s no columnists writing from the “White” perspective. All you can do is point them to the local daily’s Op-Ed section, news section, entertainment section, sports section and so forth.
I understand this. I think many of us are works in progress. The important thing is to keep challenging ourselves. I wasn’t born enlightened and even though from the time I was young, I had friends of different races but what a lot of White people don’t understand is that by itself that doesn’t mean much in terms of not being racist. And often that’s our defense when called on our racism is oh, I have Black friends and then we use those friendships as they were to defend our positions, often when those friends aren’t present when they’re being used that way. I also didn’t speak up on racial slurs and jokes at nearly as young as I should have. When I saw them venture out of conversations among Whites and out of the abstract to see how they impacted the targets was when I started figuring out that this was bad and what took me so long. Part of racial privilege is being able to live for years in a sea of racism and not *see* any of it. But then if you finally do, you might ask yourself, how could I have missed it?
In my line of work, I see, hear a lot and talk to people who are called racial slurs in a variety of places, have them written on their homes, businesses and cars. And the jokes especially in schools and the workplace. And see Whites can move along in our lives and not even know this is going on in our country which is why when I see comments including but not exclusively White feminists about how racism including “overt” (as opposed to “more subtle”) but sexism’s not, I think that these individuals don’t see what’s going on as I do when I hear sexism as being more acceptable than racism when sometimes they may just be expressed differently. Neither racism nor sexism is subtle in this country in its expression though it can be, it’s not necessarily so.
When I see White people who act like they were yet they stumble and make mistakes including putting their feet in their mouth in the ways that I did earlier in my journey or still do (because being in work in progress is like that), it’s hard to believe that what they’re proud of is nothing more than another form of color blindness.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2008 at 10:20 am
As far as noticing that Marcotte responded to White commenters at feministe, I think I did because of the context. I think of that behavior as a continuem of the appropriation issue and actually, it wasn’t a behavior which did Marcotte any favors in defending her position. Appropriation of the work, often the life’s work on issues by women of color, by White women didn’t appear in this case to be a concrete, stand alone action. The conversation by Marcotte and her supporters (who I think hurt her position more than helped it) seemed part and parcel of not just what the individuals brought to it but the larger issues that have been raised or have been attemped to be raised in these various postings.
If we don’t think enough of women of color to acknowlege them for their work product, then why would we treat them as anything less than invisible. Why would be respond to them when they try to engage us when this happens? Why wouldn’t be treat them as invisible in the dialogue? Both behaviors naturally go together as they are part and parcel of the same problem. And that might be very true in other situations as well.
I’m very glad that Daisy brought it up here.
I didn’t know Marcotte had responded to bfp in her blog. It was down before I was able to read very much.
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April 12th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Bri, I saw that post before BFP’s posts were taken down, and I wasn’t persuaded that there was anything in common but the ideas. There were no word-for-word takes or even paraphrases that I saw.
Amp - I have taught writing and research for the last ten years or so. Paraphrasing and quoting verbatim without crediting the author are examples of plagiarism, but so is borrowing ideas without crediting the author. Now, you may not agree with that definition of plagiarism, but that is, in fact, what plagiarism is. If you present an idea as if it is yours, and it is not, regardless of whether or not you do this intentionally, it is plagiarism (though some, like these folks, distinguish based on intent, and call unintentional acts “misuse of sources,” which works for me).
I’ve been careful until today not to use the word “plagiarism” in reference to this whole thing, but is seems that folks are coming up with all kinds of definitions of what plagiarism is or isn’t, and that many of them have nothing to do with the literal meaning.
“The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. “
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April 12th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Plainsfeminist, I agree with you in general. I didn’t say, and didn’t mean to suggest, that only direct stealing of words is plagerism.
However, that doesn’t mean that anytime someone expresses an idea that others have also expressed, it’s plagerism, which is what you seem to be suggesting here.
And I maintain that it’s unfair to say Amanda is a plagerist, or a thief. (Not that you’ve said that.)
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April 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
However, that doesn’t mean that anytime someone expresses an idea that others have also expressed, it’s plagerism, which is what you seem to be suggesting here.
But it’s not about what I say or what any of us think about what constitutes plagiarism. It’s about what plagiarism actually is. When you express an idea that others have also expressed and you don’t give credit to those others, and you pass it off as your own, that is plagiarism.
It’s kind of like, if one person says, “well, the fact that I had sex with her while she was passed out doesn’t make it rape because she’s my girlfriend and we have sex all the time.” Legally, that would still be rape.
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April 12th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
[Stupid comment by Amp, deleted by Amp.]
In my original post, I wrote:
That’s certainly not my original idea. It’s an idea that I’ve seen many people put forward; it reflects hundreds of books, articles, posts, speeches, broadcasts, and conversations I’ve had over multiple decades. How can I possibly give a citation for that? But it’s not my idea, and I didn’t credit a source; does that make me a plagerist?
Finally, I’m not at all certain that progressives should accept and go along with mainstream ideas about copyright and intellectual property, many of which have regressive effects.
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April 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Sylvia, I largely agree with what you said (comment 21), but it’s hard to know how to apply it a lot of the time. (At least, it’s hard for me.) I don’t think that allies should be seeking “cred” as in “credit,” and you’re right, that happens way too much (not just for white with anti-racism activists, but also for men with feminists). Probably I’ve done this myself, although I try to avoid it.
At the same time, we ally-types should want “cred” as in “credibility.” For instance, I sometimes draw anti-racist cartoons; but if none of my cartoons ever seemed credible to any anti-racist activists, then that would be a sign that I’m screwing up.
I don’t think the defensiveness will disappear while we live in a white-centric society, to be honest. As long as racism is a problem, white people will be defensive when called on it. For whites, it’s a very difficult impulse to resist.
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April 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Does it even matter whether it was literally plagiarism? And, though I admit I wasn’t paying attention when this all blew up, but the way I understand it, wasn’t it actually the Marcotte camp who first used the word “plagiarism” in the first place? I was under the impression that what pissed BFP off was the question of appropriation and lack of recognition.
The point is that Amanda had been reading BFP for a couple years, as I believe she herself said. So if her ideas on a topic that doesn’t really touch her world come out sounding a hell of a lot like BFP’s, who has a demonstrable history dealing with that topic, then dammit come on: Amanda was influenced by BFP’s ideas.
It may very well not have occurred to her that she was just regurgitating what BFP had already said. But, as has been pointed out, once she was made aware of the fact, the only proper response was to say, “Whoops, you’re right, my bad” and give credit where credit was due.
I think that trying to determine if it was plagiarism by some some sort of officially-recognised standard is completely beside the point. The point is that once again, feminists of colour have been let down by a white feminist. And once again, a shockingly large segment of the white feminist community have rushed to her aid, circling the wagons to defend her from the attacks by the non-white hordes.
What I don’t get about those people defending Amanda or too reluctant to actually criticise her is this: if you are truly someone’s friend, don’t you tell them when they’re fucking up? And if you don’t, what the hell use are you as a friend?
One thing that has really been bothering me over the past year or so is the cult of stardom that has taken over certain sections of the feminist community. It seems that certain people, because they’re getting media attention, have suddenly become beyond reproach. They don’t have communities willing to engage in debate anymore, they have fanclubs. And those fans are becoming so sycophantic and uncritical that their idols can be blatantly hypocritical and they won’t make a peep. And just look what happens whenever someone does speak out: the fanclubs go berserk, slinging accusations along the lines of “you’re just jealous of Famous Feminist’s fame/book deal/cuteness/popularity”. I mean, what the bloody fuck? Firstly, are we all 12? And secondly, aren’t we supposed to be feminists? Since when is “yr jus jellus” an acceptable response to a woman raising an issue that’s important to her?
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April 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Actually, you seem to be leaving out the part where the supposed plagiarizer actually GETS the stuff from someone else.
E.g. if you think of it on your own, and you don’t get it from someone else, it’s not plagiarism, whether or not someone else thought of it first. It may be a failure on the speaker’s part to know enough about the subject area, and it won’t get you published in an academic journal, but you’re not a plagiarizer.
Just because A and B write/think/say the same thing doesn’t mean one of them is a plagiarizer.
Similarly, influence is not plagiarism. And a good thing, too: It’s complicated enough to allow people to “own” very distinct ideas and to deal with plagiarism of those ideas. there’s no reason to allow (and to realistic way to enforce) the concept of ownership of, not only your specific ideas, but the entire conceptual structure that surrounds your ideas. The concept that someone (bfp or anyone else) owns the specific content of their posts makes sense, at least in some ways. But the concept that someone owns the entire idea of “immigration is a feminist issue,” or any other issue, is ridiculous.
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April 12th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Amp - You don’t have to cite if the ideas you are discussing are commonly known. In your example, the ideas are pretty common ideas, so you would not need to cite them.
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April 12th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
E.g. if you think of it on your own, and you don’t get it from someone else, it’s not plagiarism, whether or not someone else thought of it first. It may be a failure on the speaker’s part to know enough about the subject area, and it won’t get you published in an academic journal, but you’re not a plagiarizer.
As I understand it, the rule is this: if you didn’t get there first, and you were challenged, you would then have to prove that you didn’t know that someone else had already made that intellectual claim in order not to be found guilty of having plagiarized.
Michael Bolton, I believe, claimed that he had never heard the Isley Brothers’ “Love is a Wonderful Thing.” As it turned out (if I remember correctly), there was evidence that proved that he not only had heard it, but that he had purposefully used it. I don’t know that he thought he was plagiarizing, but anyway, there’s an example.
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April 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I was under the impression that what pissed BFP off was the question of appropriation and lack of recognition.
And also, that the ideas were being presented out of their historical context. But yes, you’re right.
I’ve been posting about what plagiarism is just because it’s a topic I deal with a lot, but I haven’t meant (in *this* thread, anyway) to be talking about whether or not Amanda did or didn’t. I was just trying to clarify what plagiarism actually is.
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April 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Perhaps it’s because I still don’t have a good idea of what happened, but one thing that I don’t understand is why the owner of the BFP site decided to take it down. Was there a threat of legal action against the site or something? Or was it more of a personal decision? In which case, what was it supposed to achieve? Some of the comments on various blogs make it sound as if she didn’t have much of a choice, but it didn’t seem that way.
I don’t have any knowledge of BFP’s motivations for taking down her site, but there are many reasons (reasonable ones, IMO) she might have done so. If on a good day, a WOC blogger gets quite a bit of racist hate mail (and also the occasional hacker messing with their site), you might imagine that would be exponentially worse during a debate/firestorm like this — all while still being denied credit for writing and thoughts and having swarms of new readers show up to pick at your work. A single writer managing a blog under that sort of pressure would have to abandon job and family to keep up anyway. And to what end?
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April 12th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
plainsfeminist Writes:
April 12th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
As I understand it, the rule is this: if you didn’t get there first, and you were challenged, you would then have to prove that you didn’t know that someone else had already made that intellectual claim in order not to be found guilty of having plagiarized.
I don’t think that’s exactly the rule, and i would note that the rule as you put it requires proving an absence of knowledge in response to an accusation, which is essentially impossible to do. (If i name a random song, can you prove you’ve never, ever, heard it? If I name a widely distributed book, can you prove that you have never, ever, read or heard or been exposed to a particular passage, idea, or quote? It’s hard to do…) As with most things, i think that the accuser bears the burden of proof, at least initially.
Mind you, I think we’re largely in agreement here and are mainly talking about the exact location of the border.
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April 12th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I believe bfp took down her blog, as she’s done before more or less under similar having-reached-the-breaking-point circumstances, as a way to preserve her own peace of mind and withdraw from the maelstrom. I really wish she hadn’t, for a number of reasons, but it’s her prerogative, ultimately.
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April 12th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
The justification of what’s going on — as someone who has written on IP for the Senate, forgive me for twisting my mouth in some derision if I didn’t think the “white feminist” blogosphere would be calling for BFP’s head if the principal players’ positions in the situation were reversed — is just staggering.
Staggering.
http://problemchylde.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/dont-hate-appropriate/#comments
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April 12th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Littlem, I can tell you with absolute certainty that if the positions were reversed, I would not be calling for BFP’s head.
I do think that Amanda should have referred to the work of some of the WOC who have been working for years on these issues, as I said in my post. I don’t think what she did rises to the level of theft or plagerism, and I don’t think that “calling for her head” (as you put it) is justified. If you think that means I’m justifying what’s going on, then that’s what you think.
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April 12th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I don’t know what’s going on here, though it doesn’t look good. I will say, the claim that “When you express an idea that others have also expressed and you don’t give credit to those others, and you pass it off as your own, that is plagiarism,” seems flatly untrue.
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April 12th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I do agree that it would be far better to give credit where credit is due. But I also have to wonder how far that goes. It seems that it should be common knowledge that to discuss immigration as a feminist issue, one should credit BFP. But, I’ve been studying and working on and writing about immigration as a feminist issue since grad school (when I presented a paper at a conference on oral histories of immigrant and refugee women and did my internship in a DV program at an immigrant and refugee organization). And I don’t think anyone should have to credit me, and not just because most of the people in this argument have probably never even heard of me or read what I’ve written, but because what I learned came from the women who were working directly in this field. Hell, Amanda did a whole paragraph on IMBRA without crediting me, and I started writing about IMBRA when it was first introduced into Congress by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Rick Larsen (D-WA), long before it was even passed into law. Of course, I wasn’t the only one writing about it (although I was one of the few to do so in the blogosphere), and I’m not the only one to come up with the same ideas. (And, if I have not made it clear enough yet, I’m not asking to be credited — as I said, I came up with my own thoughts on these issues, but, I too got them from the women I learned from)
I’m not saying BFP shouldn’t have been credited, or that others shouldn’t have been credited, or at least acknowledged. Of course they should have. I’m just saying, it’s easy to start assuming who it is that should be credited, when I’m not so sure there is just one person that should get credited. And, fwiw, some of the women studying, writing about, and actually doing the hand-dirtying work in the fields aren’t women of color, but are the immigrant and refugee women from Russia and the former Soviet countries. Yes, women of color are an integral part of this movement, and they should be included and acknowledged. But, we shouldn’t be going to so far to include and acknowledge them that we’re willing to ignore “white” refugee and immigrant women doing just as important work and who are just as affected.
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April 13th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Amp, I don’t recall saying that you were the entire “white feminist blogosphere”.
But funny that you should mention that.
I wrote a comment at Shakes that I think is quite germane, and I’d like to post a bit of it here:
I would submit
1) that the textbook definition of “infringement” under no less than Title 17 U.S.C. is NOT “word for word copying”, to paraphrase other commenters here. It is comprised of “access” and “substantial similarity” to the work(s) in question. (The arguments that go on for days are what actually does constitute said access and similarity — whether intentional/deliberate or negligent and/or unconscious.)
2) that Amanda’s point blank — and continued — refusal to acknowledge that the “sources of her inspiration” for her work currently at issue are the work of more than one WOC blogger is at the dead center of the need for discussion of the larger collective issue.
If she’s acknowledged, by Shakesville and others, to be one of the most powerful and prominent white feminist writers in the blogosphere, why would others just as prominent not be concerned that her continued LACK of action be perceived as representative, symbolic, even, of the type of conduct to be expected of the “mainstream” feminist blogosphere??
Or is it all just a bunch of placating BS by said “mainstream” to get WOCs to hush up, sit down, be quiet, and “know their place”???
Because here’s the thing — not only is she continuing to refuse to acknowledge these “sources of intellectual inspiration” in her bibliography, but no one else — not Shakesville, not Feministing, not Lindsay, not Professor Hugo , and not you, Amp — is encouraging her to, either.
And in the absence of actual action, petitions and letters and words (e.g., “Oh, next time we promise to Do the Right Thing”) — no matter how pretty, warm, and fuzzy — still ring just a touch hollow.
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April 13th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Full disclosure: I’ve always perceived Amanda to be somewhat dismissive about racial issues less graphically representative than an actual lynching.
The “LeBron=Kong” debate (minor unless you’re well versed in semiotics), — she “didn’t see” the problem; the Rush Limbagh calling Congresswoman McKinney a “pickaninny” flap (more significant, IMO, warranting at least a public call for censure) she dismissed as a “First Amendment” issue.
So if, as a writer, you don’t acknowledge people or their concerns as important, you’re less likely to acknowledge — in any way, which is how this seems to be playing out — any contribution of their unique perspective to your frame of an issue that you’re writing about.
In that context, I’d like to look at what part of bean said above:
There was more than one person. That’s part of the point. Daisy Bond goes into that on the Feministe thread Go visit here at comment 137:
*The “this” in question was this quote from Amanda:
Tellingly, Ms. Perales’ intellectual contributions are not acknowledged in Amanda’s article either. Which I believe reinforces the original point — if a woman of color framed the argument before she did, she’s not going to acknowledge that previous frame in her writing, no matter how impressive, original, or “authentic” (e.g., familial involvement, or whatever way that author/speaker is “closer” to the issue than Amanda because Amanda’s privilege removes her from it) that author/speaker’s original frame might be.
bean:
I believe that the point here is the specific, unique line of argument about the relationships between rape, feminism, immigration, and abusive language. There are thousands of arguments in any given body of work and issues; it seems — without attempting to paraphrase anyone — that the issue here is the distinct similarities between Ms. Perales’, BFP’s, and Amanda’s lines of argument on this particular issue.
No one is arguing that former Soviet and other refugee women have not contributed enormous amounts to other lines of argument on this issue, or to any other issues. People are talking about one line of argument on one specific issue.
To extrapolate from that, however, they (we) are talking about a pattern of activity of which Amanda’s behavior is explicitly representative.
And before anyone asks, “Well, why call one person out if you’ve seen more than one person do it?” The simplest response I have is that if you’re a prominent white feminist who has had it brought to your attention more than once that you and your peers are continuing the disenfranchisement of WOCs in the larger feminist movement right on into the third wave just on GP?? Please do your best to at least acknowledge it if WOC have contributed to your feminist thesis on … whatever your “topic of the day” might be.
And if you go so far as to casually acknowledge that they contributed to your analysis but refuse to acknowledge them bibliographically as a source in your written work, when you as an author and a scholar know that credit goes directly to the issue of credibility in the public sphere? And you’ve used their work to raise your own profile?? Well …
Further — for anyone wondering why cultural appropriation — and its attendant relationship to infringement, whether intentional or “just” negligent or unconscious — is “suuuuucch a big deeeaaal”, this woman — who is *gasp* white! — breaks it down pretty succinctly:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/04/borrowing-and-appropriating_09.htm
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April 13th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Plainsfeminist (quoting plagiarism.org):
This is not correct. A better statement would be that the original expression of ideas is protected by copyright. Copyright protects the expression; the underlying ideas are not protectable. So for example, the idea of a superhero is not protectable. The original expression of that idea which is Superman is.
Original inventions can be protected by patent, not by copyright. Though copyright could protect the specific design of, say, a vehicle, it could not be protect the idea of a vehicle.
Plagiarism is distinguishable from copyright infringement in that the former is use without credit, while the latter is use without permission.
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April 13th, 2008 at 2:22 am
LittleM,
1) I assumed you considered me part of the “entire” white feminist blogosphere. Sorry to have misunderstood you.
2) Assuming Amanda has read my post, she knows my opinion. What else should I do publicly, in your view? (My private communications with Amanda are between Amanda and I.)
I guess I could roundly condemn her, because that’s been just mega-effective so far.
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April 13th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Daran, this isn’t a criticism of your post in this thread, which was polite and broke no rules.
But I don’t think, given your loathing of feminism, that having you participate in a discussion about a serious fight between feminists is likely to be helpful. So with all due respect, please don’t post on this thread again. Thanks.
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April 13th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I did say that you were part of it. I didn’t say that you were ALL of it.
In response to your direct question:
1) Contact AlterNet and ask them whether the editors are sure that the most recent article has been properly attributed and credited.
2) Write a post – not a comment, not a note, not a parenthetical statement tucked away somewhere, a FORMAL POST – that requests that, as a prominent member of the white feminist blogosphere, Amanda mention, in a re-edited version of a resubmitted article (or failing that, an addendum), that her unique theory was inspired in part by Nina Perales’ work on the subject.
3) Include in the post a request that Amanda also note – with citations she has read, and if she claims she hasn’t read any, then she can call for submissions (I’m sure something will turn up) that other feminists of color have been writing about the subject for at least two previous years.
(Ideally, she’d also acknowledge that she likely doesn’t have the ethnic background to have done the complete intersectional analysis from scratch, but I fully realize that’s pie-in-the-sky territory.)
4) Include in your post, in the context of cultural appropriation and the historical marginalization of women of color in the feminist movement, WHY this is such a significant gesture.
5) That you encourage other prominent “white” progressive bloggers with feminist interests to do the same.
Now, additionally, I’m concerned about something.
In the face of the fact that
1) you and I have already gone back and forth three times about how I’ve characterized/mischaracterized you;
2) there are numerous others in the ‘sphere who have noted that, no matter how many times a solution – frequently, the same solution – is suggested/provided when a problem is raised, majority writers/bloggers/activists keep asking “What should we do? What should we do?” like no one has said ANYTHING;
3) the sarcasm at the end of your post intensifies my concern that you haven’t even heard me at all; I’m going to post copies of the folks I’ve seen around the sphere suggesting the EXACT SAME THING.
(As a matter of fact, I’ve already done it once already — see the blockquote about Nina Perales in my last post — and you STILL asked, “What should I do?”)
Oh, yes – almost forgot.
If your immediate riposte is “Well, what if she doesn’t do it?” as a rationale for not making a public statement that she should offer attribution credit for the building blocks of her analysis, here’s the thing:
You have then made a public statement to your audience of all colors, not only that she should, but that YOU, as a prominent progressive blogger, understand why she should.
And your voice is just as important. And feminists of all colors will hear/read/acknowledge the stand you’ve made on the wider issue of attribution and erasure.
(Assuming, of course, that you DO feel that there’s a problem with lack of attribution and erasure, and that in context this is a significant reparative gesture.)
Really, it’s all the same request.
What should she do? Publicly acknowledge her sources.
What should you do? Publicly ask her to publicly acknowledge her sources in an amended article.
Reason why? So feminists of color don’t feel like their ideas have been appropriated by yet another white feminist, yet again, in another link in a pattern of documentable historical behavior. Not rocket science. Hope I’ve been clear.
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April 13th, 2008 at 4:39 am
For the sake of bringing a little levity to the topic, I have to snicker at Daran for just a moment, given that this
“The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws”
and this
“the original expression of ideas is protected by copyright”
are the exact same statement.
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April 13th, 2008 at 7:42 am
See, that’s different from what I’m advancing when I mention “ally cred.” You nailed it completely and honestly with the second statement of the last graf here.
If white bloggers take from all this discussion that the best way to avoid appropriation is to quick-link to a person of color or people of color writing about the same themes, and they fail to do any further engagement with the field or information related to those themes, that turns what would be a productive way to avoid appropriation into mere tokenism.
That’s why the whole idea of asking white bloggers to engage when they do want to reference subjects where people of color have been substantially impacted is very important. If the goal is to distribute the attribution and to give credit for the work, that’s likely the best way to accomplish it.
I doubt it will disappear; but I grew totally disheartened at this entire thing when most people insisted on defaulting to it and its legitimacy rather than raising a critical eye to how that defensiveness is being manipulated.
For example, it seems that nearly 70% of this entire discussion has dealt with the fact that plagiarism does not exist, or if it did exist, it should not be penalized. And I think at its core, that was never the issue. People have consistently brought up that factor, referencing BFP and others specifically asserting that this wasn’t the issue.
All of the people pushing back against any sort of recognition for work people of color have done with regards to issues affecting them continually insist that a person’s reputation has faced damage. That wholeheartedly has NOT been the case. And repeating it doesn’t make it so.
Plus there are these constant references to hurting appropriators by calling them appropriators. If we were talking about racism, and we said that we couldn’t fight racism because it would hurt the feelings of people doing racist things, we’d be laughing at how ludicrous it sounds. It’s not about the injury to the accused solely, for once. If it were a courtroom, it would be — but even then it’s only in a limited context. It’s about pointing out instances where people have not undertaken a course of action that would make their engagement a significantly more productive one, and asking that person to take responsibility for what they’ve done and correct the problem. This is where shaming and guilting have little impact on the situation at hand.
To put it succinctly, when one person insists on the harm done to them outweighs the harm done (e.g. rape, death, disenfranchisement, debilitating poverty) to the great amounts of people they’ve served to marginalize or render invisible, the red flags should always go up. If a rule needs to be created, perhaps that’s one to remember.