the eyes go *roll* and the brain goes *splat*

I feel like a shitty little sister-friend because I keep trying to make a post to support Black Amazon and to figure out why this post on Tiny Cat Pants irks me so much, and every time I either come up with long “Why I Hate Law School” screeds (hint: it ends with “finals”) or get teary-eyed watching black jazz legends do beautiful things with sound and rhythm.

So I’m going to riff on what’s making me upset and if I feel uncomfortable about anything I’ve written here, I can edit it later.  Oh internet, your mutability reassures.

First of all, I’m still irritated that “Hugo Schwyzer” continues to refer to myself and other bloggers as “women of color.”  It “bothers” me to no end.  So I am going to make a “political correction” now.  When a group of people willingly identify themselves under a certain appellation or term of art, and they invite others to use that term to refer to them, it is completely and utterly disrespectful to put “quotes” around it as if to suggest their chosen “designation” for their “existence” is a “farce” or a “ruse” or a “disguise” or something to be called into “question.”

And it’s not limited to “Mr.” Schwyzer, either.  It happens whenever someone speaks of a loving family being separated or of a mother being unable to breastfeed her child or a victim of a violent crime being referred to as an “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” or some other way of not affirming that person’s identity when they’ve allowed some way of recognizing them as a person.

It’s damned relevant when you’re assigning anyone acts and purposes that are misguided, especially when you’re attempting to ascribe motives for their actions.  Which brings me to Aunt B. and my need to be careful with what I’m writing because I am angry.  But I’m not angry at Aunt B.

My horoscope told me today not to lose my temper because really bad things could happen and people would think I’m a wild, irrational being and stay away.  I’ve seen this happen before in non-astrological contexts, so I’m gonna try to be as polite as I can.

I am angry because no matter what I write now, it has to be written in a defense.  I’m sick of defending who I am.  I’m sick of defending why I write, I’m sick of rehashing what I write because people can’t be bothered to try to see what I’ve done (and I understand blowing up my last blog kind of negates this point for me, but I’ve seen it with other bloggers too and they probably feel the same way), and I’m sick of being angry and sick from doing something I enjoy.

I am sad that all the work I used to do has now dissolved down to people thinking I want the attention of the white feminist blogosphere.  I am sad that because I got that attention from the white feminist blogosphere, and because I didn’t get attention or barely a decent dose of credit from people I really wanted to help (almost too enthusiastically), I deleted a blog I worked so hard on for almost a year.  A blog that had more non-white feminist concerned entries, a blog that had petitions and my thoughts on so many things that I cared about politically and morally, a blog that had a lot more attention than it probably deserved and than I could handle.

That blog was my saving grace, my sanity, and all I needed.  It was my book deal.  And when I felt like things reached a point I couldn’t control, I deleted it because I felt like there was nothing left for me to do.  I got utterly caught up in one cause that I felt morally responsible for, and then I felt myself neglecting other causes I knew I should speak on, and then I began trying to outsource some things I cared about so that people who read my blog would do something because I couldn’t handle talking about them…  I felt later that when everything I worked so hard on took off to such great heights, it did so because I deleted its connections to me and withdrew.

I write so virulently about being infuriated when people erase other people’s identities and dreams and experiences and wishes from the world, and now I’m forced to face up to the fact that when I felt that happening to me, I took the initiative and erased myself.   Because I honestly wondered, what was the point?  I felt so drained and lonely.  And I talked to my blogging sister-friend, Black Amazon.

I’d written before how we handled pain, even though that entry and many others…they’re gone.  She doesn’t understate the fact that we are intelligent, we’re beautiful, we’re young, and we’re living full lives that require our attentions — yet we blog.  Because it’s true.  Sometimes I think we shoulder too much.  I can’t tell her whether she does or not, but I know that a lot of times I think I shoulder too much responsibility for what other people do onto myself.  Lately, I feel like I shoulder too little — I can’t even look at a political cause to link without fear, nausea, and crying.  Because I think of what I lost.  And it’s not regret for doing it; it’s a growing sense of fear that getting rid of something that meant so much to me was the only option I had at that time to continue living.

At the same time, I feel like sitting around and crying about a blog is probably the simplest and most trivial pain to have.  It makes me grateful for Brown Femi Power because she withstands so much shit every day to let people know that there are people doing back-breaking work so you can eat, people wandering homeless while you stay in your stockpiles.  It makes me grateful for Vox calling attention to police violence and clashes with racism in the so-called “higher” echelons of life and social interaction.  It makes me grateful for Sudy’s beautiful writing about what it means to be a woman first and how to be a woman.  It makes me grateful for Shannon’s links and how she finds the most interesting communications and engagements around the blogosphere and LiveJournal and Etsy.  It makes me grateful for Serena and Lex for their incredible support and encouragement of all women to share their stories and to reach out to each other for strength.

I should probably stop because I could go on like this forever about way too many women, but I’m sure they know who they are and that I appreciate them too.

So when I read Aunt B.’s posts and the resulting thread, I reacted cynically.  Hence the title of this entry.  My eyes rolled and my brain exploded and oozed out through my ears.  I kept hearing the voice of a close friend describing why they hated the internet and people on it, and I started nodding.

And it hurts me when all of these women and all of their efforts on this space are reduced to what I saw in Aunt B.’s entry.  Is that all you see us doing?  Really?  Is that what you thought we wanted or needed?  I hate looking at things like those because I feel myself spiralling back to the beginning of the game board, and I feel myself unwilling to stare at the brick wall with “RACISM 101″ spraypainted on it.  Or “SEXISM 101.”  Or “ALL THINGS OPPRESSION 101.”  If you’re born into a system of oppression, you’ve already passed 101, but people always wind up dragging you back to that place of fundamentals.

I don’t like how my scorn validates some people’s ignorance.  I understand that people look only for the the things you do for them.  I understand that when they think you’re doing less for them, they mistakenly believe you’re also doing less for you.  I don’t understand how they don’t try to correct their mistake and then prescribe what you should do to do more for yourself.  I don’t understand how they try to deny they made a mistake in the first place or that your failure is somehow inevitable when tied to their success.  I don’t understand why the same patterns keep repeating themselves through time and why no one recognizes this historical deja vu beyond a cursory glance of recognition.

I hate the fact I feel so defensive right now.  I hate the fact that I feel more comfortable writing about these things and utterly fucking horrified at trying to write about something that matters.  Because this post…it’s all wasted words on something that can easily be erased.  As I know too well.

But the erasure…it makes sense when the same question keeps playing in my fucking head.

Is that all you see us doing?

If it is, I’d rather you not see me at all.