i think the problem is that feminism has a long tradition of feminist consciousness raising. here, women work together in women's studies classes and other venues to draw on their personal experience and use feminist analyses to understand their lives. this means that we go through the process on a regular basis. we are socialized into feminism, typically, via a process where we make "the personal political". there are entire books written about this feminist pedagogy and consciousness raising.
i don't think any less of chris, nor should anyone else.
>You're right: we can't see the oppressions without one another's
>help. It's an ongoing process which involves backsliding and
>blind-spots. What I would like to see is more forgiveness and tolerance
>for one another's errors while same errors are pointed out.
i'll bet. but you know what? if i pointed out the sexist, homophobic, racist, ablist, etc comments on this list every time they passed you'd be surprised how much of it goes on. so, as far as i'm concerned, those of us who bother to speak to these issues are restraining ourselves.
a long time ago, i said to a black women after she criticized a speaker at a special conference just honoring that speaker. she criticized him for being racist. i said something like, "geez, why can't you give people a break. much of the stuff he wrote was anti-racist. he's on your side. why do you get so sensitive?"
well, i learned a lot that day. marti taught me how my expectation was; how it was the voice of privilege speaking. the perspective of someone who didn't see all the racism. and so forth.
recently mina accused me of sexist racism. i was annoyed. i thought to myself, "give me a break, forpetesake, i'm on your side. it was a slip. why attack someone on your side?"
and then i thought, "ahh hell, she doesn't owe me forgiveness. she doesn't owe me anything. she shouldn't cut me slack be/c most of the time i don't do what she accused me of. i am not owed a pat on the back for being one of the good guys. as a lefty, i'm _supposed_ to be that way and i'm not supposed to get any breaks for it."
i didn't just come to that realization on my own. people like marti taught. feminist thinkers taught me. and i also learned it by attending women's studies classes,teaching women's studies classes, going to conferences, and being involved in various social struggles that utilized a form of fem. consciousness raising as a part of their "process".
it was also oibtained through reading feminist thought. reading women who were sick and tired of white women marginilizing them and trying to speak for them. i learned it in fem. theory classes where we'd read the above and white women would come to class and say, "well, you don't want us to speak for you, then WTF do you want?" and boy did we get an earful from the women of color in that classroom. at least, it felt like that.
you think it was easy for them to criticize us? you think they don't feel like we're going to dislike them? that they don't feel as if their speaking up is going to alienate us? every time i read marta, art, mina, yoshie on these issues, i stop and think about how hard it is for them to address these issues.
kelley