Cry me a river

I think it's tough being a writer, period. And I think that those of us who write about "marginal" issues--like, when did race, gender, and class get to be marginal?--anyway, there's a constant tension between the writer parts of ourselves, which can thrive on the ego of getting lots of readers, and the writer part of ourselves that just has to tell the truth that is rumbling around in there. Ultimately, for me, the latter writer self wins. I can't not write. I can't not blog.

Liza, I'm beyond grateful to be part of this community. This is my home. I have so much respect for all that you do. You've earned the right to rant. So rant on, MacDuff. I'll follow you.

I'll follow you and Lorraine. And what I see as a reaching out on your part to Black Academic. I'm beginning to get a picture, just beginning, of what this is all about here at culturekitchen. I am deeply grateful to get to join this. Thanks!

href="http://blog.pulpculture.org">Bitch |
Lab

Duh. thought I was logged in!

Hey Liza,

I interpreted Nubian (kortney) much differently.

1. they have been building a radical woman of color community.

2. they started a Radical WoC Carnival

3. As they gained more attention from the WoC Carnival, the found nothing but silence for the most part.

--silence in terms of few people staying on the topic in the threads that were generated at big blogs, if they were generated at all.

-- lots of people visiting a blog, once a large feminist blogger lnked to it, but no one joining the conversation (I cut people a lot of slack for this. Studies show that only about 5% of internet users participatr on email lists. The rest lurk. You can see just from looking at open sitemeter traffic that that's a healthy percentage for a blog. Most, I'd say, get 2-3% of visitors discussing anything in comments.

-- in general, a lack of orientation to the issues that this particular group of radical women of color feel are important. (e.g., I devoted a lot of space to criticizing Ariel Levy's book recently which, on a superficial look, does appear to be a very 'white' concern. Thus, my own blog, which while I don't make it a big point of patting myself on the back about it, is what's called "ally work." without making it explicit how I saw my critiques of levy as connected to critiques of racism and classism and gender essentialism, then it was easily misinterpreted as white girl fluff.

Anyway, there are some points to be made and I've made them a bit in comments at blackademic.blogspot.com. However, I have to agree that there is a bit of myopia that can't be attributed solely to lack of time etc. when it comes to very large feminist blogs such as pandagon, alas, and feministe.

I understand what you are doing and I support it wholeheartedly. I think the only way to fight the artificial construction of scarcity, as well as the very real scarcities of time and resources, is building community -- which is what you are doing.

And, I hope you'll take this in the spirit it's offered, constructive (I hope) feedback:

1. It's rather difficult to figure out what culture kitchen is about. I'm a member or contributor or something, but I find navigating the site rather a pain. I'm a skilled web designer and I've even skinned drupal sites. I swim on the internet like a fish in the ocean, test software, and write about linux packages. If I'm finding the site difficult, imagine what it's like for a blogger, some of whom (as one woman wrote recently), dont' even know how to run Blogger software.

Please understand that as someone with the same economic struggles as you have and total lack of time (I read you, I know the time constraints you're under), I don't personally blame you. I know you'd do whatever you hd to in 2 seconds flat to make sure that people could join this community.

This may be why folks didn't really know you were around, what to make of the site, and how to navigate it. Hell, I couldn't figure out how to post a comment for a while and, like I said, I ain't no dummy about technology.

2. The site doesn't have the look and feel of a blog that's political which was what folks were looking for.

Now, I know from reading you, you want to redefine what political means in the first place.

But, you can see how someone would see the name and see the design and think -- not really radical, etc?

That's just an offhand thought.

BUT, you make a good point when you say that you're already building a community with the tools right here.

Why didn't anyone in the discussion know about you? Why, of course, because the internet is HUGE. Who has time to learn where everyone is and what everyone's doing and really dig into their site and read.

It's what I've kind of been railing on too: there's a structured inequality built in the place, just on the basis of our lack of time and resources.

And, here I am taking up more of your time.

Big hugs. I hope we can all work this out. I think constructive criticism is great. Assertiveness is a great thing. Nothing like the *cringing* and tippy toeing around that people so often do to shut a conversation down. But I kind of worry that nubian, blogging with the assumption that only those already in the know were reading, just left out important context because, well, everyone knew what she was talking about, which really wasn't about her writer's desire to have her ego fed.

Not at all.

you still missed my point. it's ok though. we obviously have different goals in blogging.

peace