I suggest you re-read the comments.

“There was only one line in BA’s post that referred to Seal Press – and Seal Press came on down and threw a hissy fit over it.”

The one line was “Fuck Seal press” and the folks from Seal did not throw a fit over it at all. Their response was polite, reasoned and reasonable. Much more so than the abuse being tossed their way deserved.

We can agree on one thing, they shouldn’t have commented at all. they should have known better than to bother when the hatred was already in full force.

How? Honestly. How is it even possible to marginalize you in the blogosphere as a whole? Sure, you can be marginalized at specific places… but overall? it’s impossible for anyone to keep you down.

There are no gatekeepers, no editors to shut you down and no one censoring your words. The web and blogging is the single most level playing field in the history of human communication.

It is possible for you to be on the margins if your message doesn’t find or keep an audience, but thats your doing and not the result of a conspiracy. Personally i think so many activists are so used to blaming their lack of impact on some vast conspiracy that even when it is clearly silly to make the accusation they can’t help themselves.

“The fact that you can state that no one in the real world has heard of Brownfemipower or the many many other women of color bloggers who are constantly putting out an analysis of our very real experiences, just goes to show how happily insulated you are.”

While obviously a slight exaggeration the simply reality is that I could pick 100 people of the street in the center of Manhattan and the odds are almost none of them would be blog readers of any type. Of those almost no one would care or know who Bfp is.

To think that even the largest bloggers (with the exception of a very, very few) are even a tiny blip in the “real world” is delusional.

Seal Press made the mistake of going to website “othering” the already “othered” (ie “you all”) without asking for context, without listening, rather just defending and assuming that what was being asked was for inclusion, when rather clearly, Seal Press had already been written off. Not a very professional stance to take from so called professionals.

Int he case of sex workers the issue is usually that one group is trying to tell you how your life is. They are ignoring your views on how you are feeling and thinking and what your reality is. I did not at all see seal press telling anyone at all how their reality is. I only say them standing up when their attackers tried to paint THEM as racists (and that is what they were doing).

I simply don’t see a problem with saying “no, I am not a racist” when someone tries to tell me what I am thinking / feeling.

It is of course possible I am way off of course, it has happened before and I am sure it will happen again. I don’t see anything here (especially given how many folks have continued to revel in their righteous indignation) that indicates that.

Thanks for the comment though, I do appreciate it. I’ll look at it again when I have a chance with an eye on having missed something. Your analysis is usually pretty good… so it’s worth a double check on my end.

I also suggest you get a clue.

Thanks for the link on “flouncing”