I have a plug-in which creates a checkbox on the comments of particular threads, in an attempt to create self-enforcing “feminists only” or “anti-racists only” threads. You can see what it looks like here (scroll to the bottom).

I wouldn’t call us “big bloggers”, but we made the infamous linkfluence “top 30″ list, and tigtog and I are both over 40.

I began my experience in the feminist blogosphere with The Happy Feminist blog (now dormant). She had unending patience answering Feminism 101 questions and comments, which I didn’t even notice until I’d been reading her for a while and then expanded my reading to other areas of the feminist blogosphere.

I like the idea of “big” or well known feminist blogs being places where people with less understanding or experience can go to begin to deepen their understanding of and engagement with feminism. I think there is also value in having venues that explicitly say – this is not what we do (such as Twisty’s term “experienced blamers”).

The added dimension that I guess we are also talking about here is what about the people who are perhaps “experienced blamers” in terms of Feminism concepts but not at all experienced in the fundamental concepts of anti-racism. This is harder for me to think through, but I guess the more important topic for Feministe.

It seems to come up in two potential contexts – one, a post intended to produce, or that actually produces a constructive, complex, moderately “advanced” discussion of racism in which 101 type questions threaten to de-rail the thread; and two, a post that leads to a complex, moderately advanced discussion of a (not explicitly race related) feminsm topic in which a commenter’s comment is problematic in a way that can only really be addressed by identifying it as problematic and doing some racism 101 analysis to explay why it’s problematic.

I think so far we’ve been talking about the first scenario, and not so much the second, but the second issue is also one that contributes to how “safe” an environment Feministe is for people of color and how “white” or “not white” of a space it is perceived to be.

Personally I think that I perceive a space as “white” or “white dominated” or “white accomodating” if I expect people who make perhaps unthinkingly racists comments to either not be confronted about it, or to be confronted about it in an very polite and accommodating way (with a willingness to qualify criticism with – I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, or to me, this comment sounds a little prejudiced, or whatever). When I visit or participate in WOC lead blogs/spaces, I expect similar comments will be confronted forcefully and perhaps even in a way that could be perceived as angry, flippant or mean (which I don’t mean as a criticism – I think it is the difference between being sort of “coddled” and being directly and forcefully confronted).

As someone with a bad habit of doing this, I think this is a brilliant idea! And will redouble my efforts to stay out of the 101 crap unless I want to go do it at a 101 blog.

It operates mostly on the good faith of the participants. The volume on this blog is pretty heavy, but I think it would work in most cases to simply moderate on an as-needed basis — specific comments or commenters, not whole threads. That said, I held a key for a couple weeks; I’m not the one in a position to know how well that would work. And a plugin that allows you to auto-moderate specific threads would be handy for those exception threads that are particularly sensitive subjects or what have you.

Obviously this wouldn’t be every post, or even a majority of posts. But when the author feels like they want the conversation to get pushed a little further, maybe…

I’m mostly just throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks, here. Just some idears to play around with. I definitely don’t think perma-moderation, even only for certain posts, would be workable, or productive, at this particular blog.

These days generally I’m not all that interested in having long drawn out “but what is truth, really?” conversations with a stranger in the middle of my work day while totally sober. I don’t know that we necessarily disagree on anything, I just am not particularly interested in the conversation you want to have. Which is my right, and I’m starting to be a bit skeeved that you can’t just take “sorry, the paying job calls” for an answer.

Yeah… it would be nice to have it as an option, but honestly, I cannot imagine the logistical nightmare of moderating every single comment on every single post.

As a person who moderates just about every single comment on every single post, no you do not want that headache. Though, from what I can recall about helping to mod comments over the summer, it’s only slightly heavier than Racialicious. Y’all just get more explosion periods. You also have a lot more opposition people trying to engage.

Heavy moderation, unfortunately, seems like the only way to have a productive conversation about race. However, that intentionally limits your participants which seems counter to your aims. And as Lauren said above, the assumptions about racism 101 can encompass a variety of things and it is hard to establish a baseline awareness.

Does racism 101 mean we’re still talking about if racism is a problem in society or is that already assumed?

What is the definition of racism? Can whites be the victims of racism? Is the proper definition racism = power + prejudice or is that definition too simple? or too advanced?

What role does the comfort of white participants play in the conversations you conduct?

All of these questions have to be taken into consideration when conducts a meaningful conversation about race. And that – to me, anyway – is just the basics.

(Incidentally, Opoponax, you wouldn’t be willing to discuss this because it’s “racism 101?” Sigh. Don’t confuse disagreement with lack of comprehension, or I will have to start referring you to Logic 101 or Philosophy 101 sites.)

Watching the language used against feminists (strident, angry, man-hating, jealous) shift to women of color who critiqued other feminists (angry, woman-hating, jealous) was eye opening to me in how a lot of the underpinnings for these systemic biases are really an “us vs. them” mindset, and that both the mindset and that WOC bloggers weren’t part of the “us” of women and feminists was the problem, not one or the other, and that these two things bolster privilege.