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>Not true. While men might still outnumber women here, there are a number
>of women who post here regularly. Now, look around you and count the
>number of black posters who participate here often. Besides Charles and
>Art (who seldom ever posts), who else is here?
angela, rakesh, enrique, alessandro, yoshie, miles. aside from that, your point is untenable. blacks constitute 15% of the population in the US, Latino/as 8% and Asian Americans 3 or 4 as i recall. women constitute over half the population. if 30 ppl regularly post, then women are clearly underrepresented. but such silliness as measuring the "diversity and integration" of a list according to numbers is not only a bit of identity politics that i'm surprised you engage, it's quite plainly not the issue. and why, by the way, is race and gender the marker of integration -- why not poor and the working poor, eh?
furthermore you completely MISS my point. it's not about who posts or how often, it's about how people respond to race and gender analyses. it's difficult to have discussions of gender because it is so easily attributed to autonomous personal preferences, biology and genes such that structural analyses are often challenged on those bases. it is unacceptable *in leftist circles* to attribute race disparities to naturalized phenomena; structural analyses are already common currency and are assumed to be the right way to discuss those issues.
numbers of posts and posters are quite plainly not the issue because being a person of color or a white woman does not necessarily mean you will think the same way about everything. and furthermore, you seem to fail to recognize that it matters whether you're a white woman or a woman of color.
in turn, it matters whether you are a man or woman of color. sharing an identity--that of, say, woman-ness--doesn't mean diddlysquat. that we are having a debate over strategy is evidence of that. so the problem is qualitative, not quantitative: *how* are these issues raised and responded to?
i contend that neither situation is good. in both instances, whether race or gender, the responses can be problematic and i'm not happy with either situation. as a woman and as a feminist, i do not want the conversational dynamics to be grounded in men's acquiesence to feminist analyses because it's the right thing to do. i cannot see the good reasons behind the claim that a man should shut up in the face of a woman speaking or identified feminist speaking. i refuse to claim authority on that basis and i don't think anyone else should. it is quite simply wrong to assume someone has the edge on the argument because of their identity and clearly, since there are many feminisms, one can't claim to have the "right" analysis simply by donning the mantle of feminism.
race is just as difficult to bring up. i'm not denying that. i am arguing that there are differences as to what the difficulties are.
as ken said, that there are differences and that it is often easy for people to dismiss feminist arguments with individualizing explanations with regard to hardwired or personal somehow asocial preferences in a way that it is unacceptable to do wrt race, is the result of political struggle. it is the result of the fact that blacks did NOT shut up. i know that any consciousness i have about these issues at all is because i read or listened to someone piping up. i know that it is because they possessed the infinite patience to pipe up, to educate, to go through the humiliations involved in doing so. and each and every time i type or think about the issues, i think of that person and silently thank them for doing so. sometimes, i even send out an email to let them know that their efforts weren't in vain. as an example, my friend fu long's tireless rants about how chinese men are treated by white americans enabled me to understand how henry's sense of his masculinity played into these debates here. in turn, fu long's understanding of gender oppression was expanded because of my interventions and criticisms.
so i'm not prepared to say that any one should shut up here.
kelley
What about Latino/as?
>Asians? Native Americans? Many leftist outfits are not well integrated
>racially. And what's the cause of this absence? In my view, this racial
>imbalance skews our discussion greatly, whether you notice it or not.
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>>>One doesn't want to be stuck in rehearsing Feminism 101 for
>>>ever. Leave it to feminist guys to deal with non-feminist guys; it's their
>>>responsibility.
>>
>>whatever. i suppose you will tell charles next time he starts educating
>>whites to let the anti racist whites educate the racist whites, is that it?
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>Yes. I think Charles is often wasting his precious time. Why bother?
>Folks don't listen to him and generally behave badly in any "discussion"
>with him. I don't know why he is so patient. I strongly advise him
>especially not to waste time on the most idiotic. Let Michael H., Carrol,
>Doug, and others do it. Racism is a white problem, and it's the
>responsibility of white leftists to shoulder the main burden of battling
>against it, _especially in educating other white leftists_ when they fall
>short of expected anti-racist behaviors.
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>Yoshie
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