by the way, it’s BINT ALSHAMSA. Get it straight or don’t bother directing any comments at me that you seriously want responded to. Ugh!

“I didn’t realize that reading posts in comms I’ve read for years was stalking.”

What you realize has absolutely nothing to do with me nor does it affect the fact that, for quite a while now, women in marginalized communities have been saying that Feministe is not a place where they feel safe speaking out. You may not care about how this post contributes to that, but I do.

(Trackback not working for me for some reason, so.)

In that comment I was speaking only from my own specific and lived experience, only speaking about and for myself. The bolded comments are from my worries about how bad it is to say these things in public. But — if it is so bad to say these things in public, I should not have said them. Period. Not say them with disclaimers or whatever. I was wrong, purely and simply wrong, to post that comment.

I have been reading and responding to this whole thing through my own specific and lived experience, which is selfish and wrong of me, especially when I make public what I am thinking about all of this.

What I did wrong is posted a long irrelevant harmful comment in a discussion about something else. The wrongness underneath is that I respond to these kinds of things through my own lens given my own lived experience, often when it is not actually about that in the slightest.

My comment has nothing to do with this actual situation here. My comment is completely wrong as part of this discussion and it causes harm.

It enables abusive behavior that plenty of nonwhite, noncis people in this thread have expressed a desire to see stop, abusive behavior I’d like to think voz is capable of overcoming.

Ilyka are you yourself not white and/or not cis? I thought you were white and cis, but the way you are writing, I must be incorrect about that and apologies for thinking what isn’t true about you.

But if you are not in fact speaking on your own behalf, then that’s another serious wrongness in what I did — providing you with the opportunity to respond from that space (I can see how my comment was like giving an engraved invitation for such a thing, if that is what happened).

I’m pretty certain by now that it’s actually (2) you angling for the crown of thorns and the title of Best Ally Ever

My observation of my own actions and their effects is this: I am no “ally” and never have been, ever, in actual practice.

I function as a harmful presence if I do participate in these kinds of discussions. This just how I actually function in actual practice and I need to take that much more seriously than I have been.

I am not an ally. I have not been at all clear on this, not at all. I hope that people know this from how I actually function in such discussions, but also it is my responsibility to be bluntly upfront on this point.

I am absolutely not an ally, never have been and never will be. Nor, for that matter, have I ever been interested in any other form of oppression but what I myself experience. Only when there are real or imagined (by me) intersections or similarities do I get involved, and always for selfish reasons based directly on my lived experience.

I have been engaging for some time in the wrong and destructive practice of seeking intersections and similarities where there are none. Thank you for commenting in a way that shows that in sharp relief, Ilyka. I don’t like you at all, and never have. And your comment was way off in its content, but that’s because of my choice to post complete freaking destructive irrelevance in this thread. Even so, your comment illuminates the wrongness in what I did in commenting and for that, thank you.

She deleted her livejournal, and while I don’t presume to know the reason, i can’t help but think this post contributed to her feeling unsafe (ON THE FUCKING INTERNET–try and wrap your mind around that). another trans woman of color’s voice silenced–no big deal. it certainly doesn’t affect our cis, white lives.

bang up job!

Oh WHATEVER, Jesus.

Goddam, I’ve missed you, Ilyka.

Again, I don’t advocate my choice for anyone else. It’s horrible. Seeing anyone else but myself do it would break my heart and make me sick to my stomach.

Oh WHATEVER, Jesus.

Look: Lard that up with all the boldfaced disclaimers you want to, but you posting that here fits one of only two scenarios: (1) You want everyone else up on that cross with you, which I doubt, because having seen you in action before, I’m pretty certain by now that it’s actually (2) you angling for the crown of thorns and the title of Best Ally Ever. I believe you when you say it would make you sick to your stomach if anyone else did it; indeed, where would your sense of self-worth be then?

Incidentally, do you know how many people have told me they find the behavior you describe above extremely creepy, patronizing, and controlling? And no wonder: It’s classic rescuing behavior, straight out of the Karpman Drama Triangle. The people you want to rescue, your “victims,” sense how that triangle works, even if they don’t have a name for it, and they know that eventually, given enough time and enough strain, you’re going to move to the Persecutor corner–and they’ve got enough persecution to deal with in a day as it is, so thanks, but no.

What you advocate, even if only for yourself, isn’t healthy, isn’t sustainable, and isn’t going to do sweet fuck-all to end anyone’s oppression. Bonus points for it also being creepy as hell and, more often than I think you realize, unwanted by those on whom you foist it.

Voz is a full-fledged human being, and if I go by the testimonies of her friends in this thread, not a half-bad one, either. Well, let her be human. Let her own her behavior. Let her grow and flourish in her time, in her way, without you rushing in to play human shield and reduce her to naught but her burdens. Let her be more than the victim role you’ve cast her in and let her BE, period. Because what you’re doing actively obstructs that process. It enables abusive behavior that plenty of nonwhite, noncis people in this thread have expressed a desire to see stop, abusive behavior I’d like to think voz is capable of overcoming.

Speaking of rescuing and enabling, it’s past time I quit trying to do both with this thread. Good God.

its probably more like a US invasion. There was a grudge to be settled but unlike the mob, Feministe had to wait for Voz to cross the line so they could dress it up in moral high ground.

When the US gov’t decides to bomb someone the first step is to justify to themselves before anyone else. I’m sure it was the same process here

I’ve been lurking on this thread for reasons of my own. I could very well be misreading these words and if that is the case, I apologize. But if not, I feel that Estrobutch’s comment has named not only what could easily be happening here, but also something that resonates hard with my own experiences.

I absolutely don’t speak for anyone but myself. I am cis, but am reading this from another place where I am a target of unrelenting socially acceptable/polite violence and hatred.

My experience in/with this society is that there are two types of violence:

1. The kind that can be done with politeness, and seeming benevolence (including the moral high ground – this type is violence that is culturally plausible as something other than violence).

2. The kind that has none of the protections that the first type has.

In the cultural landscape, it’s the second type that shows up as unambiguously wrong, while the first type just sort of swirls around causing pain and harm but not obviously except to its targets.

Screaming in pain (out loud or not out loud) from the “acceptable” masked violence, what are the options of its targets? I can speak from my own current choice.

After seeing the full range of what I am capable of when I try to resist (a range that includes me doing the second type of violence – raw, overt, unmistakable), I have recently decided to take in and accept the masked polite violence and hatred that is directed at me. I have decided to accept it, to agree with it, to internalize it.

I force myself to not fight back, I absorb and do not respond, I discipline myself that I deserve it. I welcome the violence into me. And this process doesn’t look violent at all from the outside. If I don’t fight back, I’m finding, it’s all very quiet in what others can see.

I do not advocate what I am doing for anyone else. It requires me to consent to a kind of spiritual suicide. But it doesn’t give anyone any excuses. I am learning to be passive, quiet, taking all the violence into myself and protecting the source of the polite acceptable violence from having to deal with someone who will fight back. Because I can’t handle the range of what I can do when I respond externally to this violence. And because I know what is and is not defined as violence and harm in the larger context I am in.

So I have decided that I would rather kill my own spirit than deal with the range of what I am capable of when I choose to fight back.

This is not me being a good person or a martyr and don’t anyone take it that way. This has become the easier thing for me to do given the options I have available to me. And my range of options is different from other people’s range of options, so this is not comprehensive at all.

Again, I don’t advocate my choice for anyone else. It’s horrible. Seeing anyone else but myself do it would break my heart and make me sick to my stomach.

I don’t know if this is actually relevant to this discussion or if I am projecting and reading into it from my own selfish perspective. I’ll post it but be warned, it could be irrelevant. Again, I only speak for myself.