Greetings of Peace,

Today is day 1 of The Feminist Wire <http://thefeministwire.com>'s (TFW) 10-day
*Forum on Race, Racism and Anti-Racism Within Feminism*.

Over the next ten days TFW will publish essays and love notes as a
beginning (or continuation) of a decades (in fact, centuries) long very
difficult and yet, extremely necessary dialogue.

On behalf of TFW, I hope you will join and support our efforts to
centralize the margins within the margins of feminism by visiting TFW's
site daily through the Forum and also by spreading the word about the Forum.

*http://thefeministwire.com*

Following is an in-depth excerpt from the Introduction to the Forum:
<http://thefeministwire.com/2013/04/across-difference-toward-liberation-an-introduction-to-tfws-forum-on-race-racism-and-anti-racism-within-feminism/>

*Across Difference, Toward Liberation: An Introduction to TFW's Forum on
Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism within Feminism
<http://thefeministwire.com/2013/04/across-difference-toward-liberation-an-introduction-to-tfws-forum-on-race-racism-and-anti-racism-within-feminism/>
*

by Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Heather Laine Talley
[image: Photo credit: Todd Williamson/Invision for Fox
Searchlight/AP]<http://thefeministwire.com/?attachment_id=12248>

Photo credit: Todd Williamson/Invision for Fox Searchlight/AP

Perhaps in this twenty-four hour news cycle culture, the horrid sexist and
racist sexualization of nine-year old QuvenzhanéWallis both at the Academy
Awards<http://www.racialicious.com/2013/02/25/apparently-people-have-beef-with-quvenzhane-wallis/>andin
Twittersphere<http://www.afrobella.com/2013/02/25/quvenzhane-wallis-deserves-better-oscars-onion-controversy/>is
now old news. And maybe for her sake, it should be.

White feminists’ silence in the face of racism is old news too, but
feminism’s troubled relationship with race and racism is something to keep
talking about. It was the reaction to Tressie McMillan’s
analysis<http://tressiemc.com/2013/02/28/did-white-feminists-ignore-attacks-on-quvenzhane-wallis-thats-an-empirical-question/>of
white feminists’ response to the attacks on Quvenzhané Wallis that
ignited our interest in hosting this Forum on Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism
within Feminism<http://thefeministwire.com/2013/03/urgent-call-for-submissions-for-forum-on-race-racism-and-anti-racism-within-feminisms/>.
To be sure, *The Feminist Wire* has been engaged in these conversations
since our founding, but what McMillan’s piece noted was the yawning vacuum
of public response to misogyny directed at a Black girlchild.

Many white feminists jettisoned the opportunity to think about silence as
racism. Instead, they cited examples of white women’s response to defend
against the critique of white silence. While it is true that some white
feminists publicly responded, the very impulse to deny a pattern of silence
sidesteps critical feminist and anti-racist work. The legacy of feminism
has taught us to ask: in what ways am I oppressed and marginalized? In
thinking about race, racism, and anti-racism within feminism, an equally
important question is: in what ways do *I* oppress and marginalize?

We come to this introduction as Collective members, but we have divergent
relationships to the very topics we’re exploring in this Forum. We are a
Black feminist lesbian and a white, anti-racist, queer feminist who are
committed to a vision of feminism that is fundamentally intersectional. We
resist the pull to participate in the “oppression olympics” (as coined by
Native American feminist scholar-activist Andrea
Smith<http://www.southendpress.org/authors/258>)
because we firmly believe that none of us are free until all of us are free.

Given white feminists’ palpable silences in response both to individual
acts of racism and to an enduring pattern of white supremacy, our
investment in this project is shaped by a specific ethic–we  reject the
idea that white women can “opt out” of this conversation or instinctively
fall back on defensiveness. If our feminism aims for liberation, the
discomfort of doing the work cannot function in the service of
side-stepping this difficult dialogue, avoiding self-reflection, or putting
either off until later. Later is now.

Here, we want to make *TFW*’s position abundantly clear:  *Silence in the
face of racism is never justified.  In fact, silence in the face of any
form of oppression or marginalization is never justified.*

*...*This is an attempt to reexamine race and racism from multiple feminist
perspectives. To be sure, this is not a Black-white dialogue. This is not a
cisgender dialogue. It is not exclusively academic in nature nor entirely
activist in spirit. It is multi-voiced, even as it is not representative.
It is a conversation that pre-dates all of us, even as it is a dialogue
that is no less important now than in previous iterations of feminism, from
the suffragettes exclusion of African-American women to the whiteness of
the sex wars, to white feminism’s response to and engagement with
transnational feminism.

... This Forum is certainly not meant to be the definitive statement on
race, racism, and anti-racism within feminism. *TFW* is committed to
cultivating an ongoing dialogue, and so even as we start this Forum, we
know that this is only the start of a long-term and potentially difficult
conversation, part of which we will continue to publish... "

*You may read the introduction in its entirety by clicking on this link:
http://bit.ly/ZD0Z9J *


In Peace,

Aishah


-- 
http://NOtheRapeDocumentary.org
<http://NOtheRapeDocumentary.org>http://youtube.com/afrolez
http://AfroLez.Tumblr.com
<http://AfroLez.Tumblr.com>http://LiberationfromWithin.Tumblr.com
http://facebook.com/AfroLezCulturalWorker
Twitter: @Afrolez
            @InnerLiberation
--------------------------------------------------------
"Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?... I like to caution
folks, that's all... No sense us wasting each other's time, sweetheart... A
lot of weight when you're well. Now, you just hold that thought..." - The
Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

"(We are) caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single
garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly..." Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963 Birmingham, Alabama
campaign)

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain" -- Carl Gustav Jung

"Develop the mind of equilibrium. You will always be getting praise and
blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the
calmness, the absence of pride." -- Sutta Nipata

"By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom. By defending our faults, we
betray an unsound mind." --The Sutra of Hui Neng

############################

To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
https://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1