TUMBLR, and THE DAYS OF JIM CROW

Signal Fire:

TUMBLR is supporting Racism, Racist Language, Death Threats, Rape Threats, & Harrassment. They are doing so, by telling PoC, in particularly, PoC Women, that maybe they just shouldn't have caught 'Massa's Eye'. That maybe they just should have covered up more. That 'these good white people' have filed a complaint against them and now, THESE COMPLAINTS, by THESE GOOD WHITE PEOPLE, MUST be responded to, and the victims of vicious, callous, racist acts and harassment, need to STOP DEFENDING THEMSELVES.

People are speaking up about it and doing so here and here and here.

I keep a track of certain tumblrs, even though the system irritates me, and I could not grok it enough to start one myself; because it's filled with Conversations I Want To Track. There are conversations about white washing, white privilege, white f*menism's denial of WoC's humanity and more. And these conversations have drawn ire from many, many, many white people. Ire and abuse for which I've never seen a post saying 'Tumblr Support is on it' or 'Tumblr Support is investigating that'.

The conversations on Tumblr happen Daily. Daily! I can still remember what it was like to go through shit at that level of intensity for a good portion of the year back in 2009. And this is DAILY. Multiple conversations. And thus multiple attacks.

And TUMBLR SUPPORT does NOTHING. NOTHING, but come up to 'rescue' white people who complain about THEIR FEE FEES, even while they're telling other people to go kill themselves, hang themselves and the like.

I think TUMBLR; their support staff, their developers, their whole company needs to understand the racism they're perpetuating and supporting. Once upon a time in the Americas, a black person couldn't look at a white person 'wrong'. For THEIR standards of wrong. It could lead to brutality and death. It was a terrorist state. And now TUMBLR is perpetuating that. White people can call you ANYTHING. Harass you ANYHOW. But if you RAISE your voice against them, if you cuss at them, if you defend yourself, then YOU, are the bad guy and we will shut you down. Cause such is our power.

If anyone still reads me, and keeps wondering what they might do, what small action they might take towards making the world a better place? See if you can CONTACT TUMBLR SUPPORT; and/or CONTACT TUMBLR POLICY; contact them and let them know you disapprove of their actions.

Or maybe the path to take is via their investors:

Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, The Chernin Group and Richard Branson, Betaworks, John Borthwick, Fred Seibert, Albert Wenger, Martín Varsavsky.

Maybe you'd like to ask these groups and peoples why they're supporting racism and racist harassment of Poc and racist and sexual harassment of WoC.

Or at the very least, spread the word, light another signal fire, past the Public Service Announcement about what TUMBLR's doing, about who and what TUMBLR IS!

ETA: Policy@tumblr.com

Ahem, Ms Bear?

Truepenny@Livejournal:

I think it's more accurate to say that Emma, and several other people in this discussion, are trying to talk about the book on a literary/analytic level whereas you got short-circuited before you could reach that kind of discussion by a personal/political reaction. Part of what's going on here, as medievalist and matociquala have also noticed, is that we've got two very different discussions jostling each other for space. (See point II above, particularly that first paragraph where I'm unable to stop myself explaining why your reading is wrong. Also tsubaki_ny below about approaching everything analytically.) This is not about dissing people of color; it's about having a learned, but deeply ingrained, protocol for talking about books. (Given that the readers of this blog--and Bear's blog, for that matter--are writers and readers and all around text-geeks, it's neither surprising nor blame-worthy that these are our instincts and that they cut across lines drawn by class, race, and sex. It's what we do--and I fully include myself in that.)

Now, one must be interpolated into the dominant culture in order to have this ingrained protocol. One also must be taught how to do it. It isn't inherent, but a learned skill set. So it is, inevitably, itself an artifact of race/class/sex privilege. [ETA: And in one's education, one has to have chosen to take a number of English classes--that's not necessarily about privilege at all.] Happily, it can also be turned against the dominant culture, as any number of feminist, Marxist, and post-colonial literary scholars have demonstrated. (This is the thing [info]medievalist is wishing for.) So it is not, in and of itself, destructive. It's also not an approach that inherently denies racism or classism or sexism. It puts text first, personal experience second (and that's an improvement over the days when it was text only), instead of experience first, as a political approach does.

[ETA: End paragraph of pedantry here.]

Neither approach is "wrong." But it's hard--as these comment threads are demonstrating--for the two sides to understand each other.

When I say "it's not about dissing people of color," I am not saying that as a white woman dismissing POC experience yet again. I'm saying it as an academic with many colleagues who are POCs and who use these dominant culture tools with breath-taking grace and clarity. (See, for one example, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook by Gananath Obeyeskere.) It's a different circle on the Venn diagram.

---

I see. I'm not a writer, a reader or an all around text geek. I'm an emotional person who is not interrogating your text from the right perspective.

Perhaps you did not mean to turn me off further discussion, but you have. You are telling me with one side of your mouth that the rules of discussion among this particular group of people is text first, experience second. You are privileging that mode of analysis, not saying it's better outloud, oh no, but privileging it all the same. And I don't think you get to tell me whether or not your words as stated, without codicils of wink-wink, nudge-nudge, let's all be friends here, are somehow not dismissive.

Privileging the text, privileging it by calling it the dominant mode and academic mode, as if dominance in a conversation about institutional racism is a good thing, and academic as if as a reader I'm meant to step back and cold heartedly think about something that's hurt me - are more important than what I naturally bring to a reading; my emotions and experiences.

You are privileging this way of interacting with the text while admitting that it is faulty when it comes to letting academic white women (and men) understand what they're missing and dismissing and discarding when it comes to the narrative as seen through the point of view of not just a person of colour, but a hurt person of colour; one who feels slyly attacked by tropes that dismiss who she is as a person and part of a people who are NOT WHITE.

Your learned, deeply ingrained way of relating to text IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN NOT HARMING A PEOPLE. They're hell of not more important than not hurting me and others like me eager to see some semblance of self in a book and who instead end up having to discuss all over again, for the umpteenth time why YOU STEPPING ON MY FOOT HURTS! And you don't get to tell me that you're a doctor and are used to distancing yourself from pain with medical jargon and xrays and a bloody nurse.

You also don't get to fucking tell me that IF ONLY I were as learned as you in the ways of white tower reading, I would totally get where your colleagues are dialoging from. I know where the hell they're coming from - it's the land of "How dare the uppity minority feel she can analyze anything one of us says or does as if she matters."

It's coming from the place of "How dare you call me evil racist. I'm educated! I'm not taking this personally or emotionally... unlike you, you out of control PoC. Oh you people are so easily aggravated."

Your little comment/speech, truepenny is full of excuses and buffer and is all the more repugnant because you initially presented yourself as someone who was capable of seeing through the eyes of another.

But if you want one of yours to dialogue with you, I'll send one your way and see how you fare when you can't doublespeak your way around a fellow academic.

---

Elizabeth Bear, could you please tell your friends to put on some pants? Pale white buttcheeks in my face are quite unsightly. And the next time it happens, I'm going to grab a pole and shove.

I don't want white guilt. I don't want dissembling. I don't want 'But we don't know how to jump in from an emotional standpoint like you non academic beings,'. White people who keep asking me BUT WHAT CAN I DO?

Don't do this and it'll be a great start.

I am done. Finished. The end. And I've decided that 80% of the lot of you are wastes of space in this matter. I'll try with the next generation.

Wowio Says To Comic Creator "Bend Over Deeper"

Right, so Wowio owes Chris, creator/artist of webcomic Misfile, about 7k dollars. And it's over due 105 days and counting. And they've already paid out 3rd quarter orders.

I was feeling a little - "You don't give people second chances, Willow. Is that always wise?" For a while there. Since I've not gone back to cruise Wowio since...wow, since AUGUST apparently. I've just directed my attentions elsewhere.

Now I'm really glad I haven't been giving them even click per visitor money. But at the same time I'm pissed that they're adding to the fuck-ups on models of digital comics accessed/purchased online. Their failure is going to be another useless bump in the road that bigger studios/corporations will look at to say 'Digital Comics Is A Lost Cause' and that saddens and ticks me off.

I don't have a lot of money right now, but even on a budget - Blue Beetle is something I'd have paid money for if I could get a digital copy. Maybe I'm a new brand of collector. But I don't want things in boxes taking up space, needing dusting that I have to worry about evaluating for insurance for fire or flood. Give me digital comics I can have on my computer, on disk and saved online/off site. Make my comics accessible and durable in an e-reader. I would actually buy a comics e-reader even if it didn't let me read regular prose books as long as all the comics I like, from webcomic favourites to indies could be updated on it.

It's effing lonely on the digital frontier and then an idiot in assless chaps (Wowio) walks in, smelling of stale air and ego and expects me to be grateful.

Got the name.

Beyond The Cat Fight Fantasy

http://pandagon.net/2006/09/16/but-theres-titties-in-that-picture/#more-3762

So a group of conservatives are sexually harassing a young feminist blogger; making rude comments about her breasts and claiming she's some sort of kiss-ass, suck-up slut. All this based on a picture where she's standing next to Bill Clinton and has straight posture. The two main women involved are picking on and trying to pull down another woman and using sex to do it. They're encouraging men to make crude statements and to objectify this young lady; ; she's a whore, she's trading on her looks, no man'd ever be interested in her brains.

The hubbub got me thinking about the cat-fights in comics and whether or not they make sense. Not that cat-fights ever make any general sense. But are they internally consistent in a realistic way? Do do these heroic women ever turn to the man involved and go 'What are you doing'? No. A lot of the times they look at the other woman and go 'You Hussy!' and out come the claws. There's seldom a pause to think a deeper game might be playing.

Now, aside from the fact that men seem to like being fought over, what else does the cat-fight bring to the story? Really, what does it bring outside of wish fulfillment? Why should two powerful women fight over a man? Is he a pawn? Is he a prize?

• Emma vs Jean over Scott; In Ring One.



• Rogue vs A Cast of Women over Remy: In Ring Two



• Talia and Selina Over Batman: In Ring Three

I'm sure there are people who can think of more. Or perhaps the reverse, for example, Reed Richards vs Namor over Sue Storm. Sue's an object there and the men are fighting like neanderthals determined to disseminate their seed. But that's not quite the point I'm making.

In an industry that's so heavily dominated by men, what does it say when they have strong female characters ripping apart friends or even respected enemies, not over principles, but over a man? What does it say when one woman is jealous of another's looks and not her physical prowness and ability to do the job? Why isn't there an acceptance of talent and capability? Why is another woman on the scene a threat instead of a professional challenge?

Do the males in the industry think that our objections, to what we see as the unnecessary oversexualization of these female characters, really stem from some sort of jealousy? Are they so used to the concept of the cat-fight and its fantasy basis they can't hear the true objections?

Because I for one don't want large breasts, mine are bigger than I'd like actually. And while I wouldn't mind a couple extra inches in height, I don't want my feet to get any bigger. I would however appreciate an ass. I don't have one. It's a mystery - a painful mystery. But I wouldn't want to have to arch my back and push that butt out in some weird exotic pose in order to keep it. And I wouldn't want to wear a bathing suit when I headed into battle (Thank God in Reg Rucka's run, WW actually changed to varied battle dress when confronting Foes).

What I want is a woman I can want to emulate; one who can kick butt, save lives, take names and smile because she's done a good job. Isn't that the same thing the men who read want to feel about the male characters they like? Why is that so hard to believe, accept and understand?

Thank You James Meeley

This summer I read and read various comics blogs. I was impressed with the women involved in comics blogging. I was inspired to start my own. The posts that most inspired me, however, I've just realized and discovered weren't talking about a generic misogynist or a generic male privilege jackass. They were all talking about James Meeley. All of them. Every single one.

Unknowingly I stumbled across these posts as I surfed and random clicked and blogroll clicked. I nodded along as I read or skimmed various points and rebuttals. But at the time I wasn't paying attention to particular names or even blog addresses. I was just enjoying the meta and commentary.

But as things have now blown up and reached Fandom_Wank, all the link backs to familiar articles make me laugh. Because "Thank you, James Meely", without you and the hubbub you caused and the eloquent and impassioned entries written about you, I wouldn't be part of the comics blogsphere at all.

Is this irony? Do I even care? Nope. Not one bit.

It's All Been Said Before / Same Old, Same Old

There's something to be said for reading a thing yourself versus reading other people's essays and only seeing a couple of scans of a particular comic or comic arc. This past weekend, while having phoneline and connection problems I went out to the bookstore and the library and I had a chance to read Superman/Batman: Supergirl and I believe Volume of Supergirl.

And I have so many thoughts, about Kara and Karen and how I feel like Powergirl's story is being appropriated; about the mess of Kara Zor-El assasin, and Kara's pain and alienation and feelings of isolation and where she might go next. But the first thing I need to talk about is the cheesecake factor.

I actually need to talk about it. It's almost a physical need. I'm so incredulous at what I saw. It only got worse when I got home and a day or so later I got Greg Rucka's WonderWoman graphic novels. Because there was Diana, powerful, sleek, muscled, athletic and beautiful. She was a wonder woman; noble, self sacrificing, loving, stern, determined. And then there was WonderWoman as I'd seen her drawn in Superman/Batman: Supergirl. And that WW looked like Brigitte Nielsen in Red Sonja. I love that movie almost as much as I love LadyHawke, but at no time did I ever delude myself into thinking that there wasn't significant set up for T&A and that a lot of the scenes played on the fact that the woman in charge didn't look as if she could handle herself. To me WonderWoman should always look like she can handle herself. She's the Queen of the Amazons.

I got back into comics almost without realizing, about a year to 18 months ago, possible a bit longer than that. But I had started by catching up. This is the first time I've looked long and hard at what's current (relatively speaking). And I don't know what to think. I was inspired by the comic blogs of so many eloquent women online. But I don't think I'd ever really seen what inspired them to speak. And now I have. Now it's hit me personally and viserally. And if it seems like I'm about to start harping on 'the clothes' like any other 'comic book femminist'; If it is easy to ignore my points because I'm just another girl talking about T&A and how much she doesn't like it; I suggest you move on, because you'll likely never see my point of view. And I point you now to Dictionary.com so you can look up the words in the phrase; 'Consistent Internal Continuity'.

In Superman/Batman, Clark is being overprotective of Kara. There's something in him that sees in her a precious connection to the past and the future. She's like a daughter to him. She's an innocent. A child. All the power in the world wouldn't change the fact that she's a miracle to him. Those wonderfully corny lines when he thinks she's dead, wherein he talks about her smile, and laughter and her first dance and falling in love are all things a Father would wish for his little girl. Moreover, it shows how lonely Clark is; the unique lonliness of the ex-patriot or the exile. It shows beautifully that he longs to have someone else to check in with about human rituals and talk about how they came to mean anything to him or even if they really do mean anything to him at all. Does kissing really do anything, or is it because he's a male Kryptonian with different erogneous zones, or is he some how stranger and more alien than he thought; just for example.

Everything he wants to show her, and teach her and share with her, is akin to parent to child; this world is now your oyster, let me show you the wonders. They make it clear from the beginning before things even get to the point where she's in danger, that he sees 'A little, lost, Kryptonian girl'. That he doesn't in fact give her up and over to Martha to look after says a lot in how much he wants to be in her life and be there for her and share first hand with her. Perhaps he even regrets (in that way that guilt makes no sense) not being able to be there, right from the beginning, for Kon. And it also shows, I think, that as wonderful as he thinks his parents were, he doesn't think Martha will 'get' Kara, without years of human indoctrination happening first.

And yet, despite all this, it doesn't occur to Superman, the Father, to be overprotective of the gazes Kara might draw, when she's walking around like a hootchie-momma?! I'm supposed to believe he doesn't think about how she's blonde and young and you can see her underwear outside and over her jeans and if some jackass tries something, Kara's still too untested to check her strength and she might hurt a human?! Are you telling me that Clark is too stupid to live and that Batman really has reason to think this girl is bio-chemically engineered to mess with Clark's mind, because Clark didn't take one look at all that skin on the girl he thinks of as an innocent child and go 'Kara, I think you still have a problem with human clothes. Maybe I should pick out your outfits.'

Was the point maybe to show that she's not yet accustomed to Earth ways and Earth clothes? If so, wouldn't it have been more recognizable in point for her to have one black shoe and one red shoe? Wouldn't it have been easier to show her putting the bra on the outside of the clothes? And even then, Kara isn't five. You can let the five year old get away with wearing the Fairy Princess dress night and day for a week. Kara's a teenager who needs to start learning how to blend and fit in. Is the only way for that to happen, is to have her be, unconsciously, an over-sexualized teenager? Is the only way for Kara Zor-El to fit into Earth, and among Earth women, is for her to a Virgin/Whore?

The nakedness out of the capsule-ship is logically required in the story. It is connected to plot in that Kara had exposure to yellow sunlight during her trip and stasis so she arrived on Earth with powers. Showing her hip bones however, is not a plot point. And in fact, there is no way I can believe that Lois-Independent-Femminist-PutsClarkInHisPlace-Lane bought those clothes for her; a high cut leotard with low riding jeans; french cut thongs showing over her jeans!

I realize that a lot of young girls and women do wear thongs and you seen the line of the thong sticking up past their pants. But the women are grown and making their own choices about their appearance. And most of those girls, even if they do think they're making a femmnist stance or any stance at all about their bodies, have more life on Earth experience than Kara and practically are very likely sneaking those clothes out of the house, or don't have anyone at home to tell them better(different).

In a perfect society it'd be instantly recognized that an idiot who hit on a woman when it was unwanted was harrassing her. In a perfect society how a woman dresses wouldn't factor into whether or not a man thought he had the right to touch her without permission or force himself on her. DCverse is not a perfect society. In fact there's a long list of just how many DC heroines have been raped or sexually assualted. DCverse is ripe with powerplays of a sexual and violating nature.

Am I to believe that in a society like that, that Lois Lane would give an innocent and ignorant girl clothes that said 'Come and get it' when said girl hasn't got a clue what the clothes say? Because I don't believe it. And I also don't believe that Martha Kent, who thought about aerodyanmics when she made Clark's costume and being a practical farming woman would put a young girl who's going to be zipping through the air in a skirt. And not just a skirt, but a ruffle of a mini. Not a ruffle attached to a leotard for a bit of girly whimsy but a sash with delusions of grandeur matched with a cropped top. Martha Kent; who knows the kind of enemies her Clark has faced, who knows the kind of enemies her granson Kon has faced, puts one of her baby boy's relatives in that outfit?

No. I don't believe it.


What I do believe is that the artist and author wanted her in those clothes for their own reasons. That this was what they wanted to see. And maybe that explains why WonderWoman, Queen of the Amazons was wearing a star spangled thong. Because what every warrior woman needs in the heat of battle is a wedgie and to have her bare ass cheeks available for scoring.

And if this is what every warrior woman wants, it also explains why Artemis had a bodysuit on that had one leg clothed and one leg bare. Because Artimis as the premier fighter among the Amazons, under the Queen, is just the sort of hard core warrior that needs the rage that comes from having an unplanned wedgie caught up in the crack of her vagina and ass. And if this is what every warrior woman wants, then it explains why Darkseid, a being who has as his personal guard the Furies, would put Kara in long pants, but add 'fuck me now' platform heels like something out of 'When Porn Stars Attack!'. Because Darkseid would definitely want his honor guards pissed off and ready to lop heads and even if Kara can fly and as the girl of steel can't twist her ankle, the unecessary frustration of balancing on those heels, with easy access scarves on her arms so her enemies can pull her closer is just the thing to keep her anger on the surface and her darker nature out and free.

Are any of the men writing and drawing this shit fathers?! Are they uncles? Older cousins? Older brothers?!

There's a time and place for cheesecake. There's a time and place to say that this is a young, fresh, nubile, young woman with no body issues. The time and place, however, is not downtown Metropolis on a young, alien, superpowered, girl's very first shopping trip. The time and place is not on Apokolips in its fight or die atmosphere. The time and place is definitely not while fighting Lex Luthor in his green and purple exo-skeleton, and his various kryptonite jewels while a teeny ass skirt swishes, sways and reveals at every movement. Lex Luther isn't the villian to be stopped by a glimpse of underage poontang.

I've got nothing else to say except to wonder if the artists had never heard of skorts, or hadn't thought of Supergirl in spankypants like WonderWoman or if they really wanted that 'distract them with the bare midrift' look, tights, just like her cousin. These artists are artists, right? They've earned that title? They could flip through a couple of online sites for fashion houses and see design? Or a magazine? Or something, right?

Do they realize what they're saying when they draw/ describe women like this? I'm curious now. I think of 'Eyes of the Gorgan' and 'Land of the Dead' and I wonder. Aphrodite walks around in nothing but whisps of fog and ribbon, there's ample opportunity to be risque and yet the sight of her doesn't make me feel as if someone is trying to disempower me as a woman (or disempower my heroes).

Can someone point me to where Greg Rucka has disrespected women some how? Cause I'd rather find out now than later, after purchasing a very low, very accessible pedastal.

NEXT: (or eventually) Supergirl, Powergirl; A Story Redux.