It’s snowing, I think, or perhaps raining, or maybe both, but either way it is making for terrible conditions. It seems like everyone took the warnings seriously, though, and outside it’s largely quiet.
A very cozy day.
I didn’t really feel an absence from the #ThursdayTen yesterday, perhaps because a man calling Rep. Crockett “articulate” and “shrill” became, as they like to say in Kdramas, the main character for the day. From that erupted an outpouring of stories all starting with “You may be a woman if…”
As an aside, if you don’t know why describing a Black woman as “articulate” is a problem, Google is your friend. Go find out, this post will still be here when you get back.
And the thing about Spoutible is we all had room to say what we wanted to say, not a single man talking over us, shouting at us, changing the subject, “not all men-ing,” becoming the victim. Well except for the original guy.
He left Spoutible altogether, deleting his tweets like a child taking his ball and going home.
There was so much truth and honesty; so many of us have similar experiences in such a range of contexts. And some of us have entirely different ones, with one transwoman unsure if she also fit, if her stories belonged.
Well they do, and they did, because there is no single way to be a woman in this world, and anyone who tells you differently wants to put you in a cage with see-through bars.
There is no other open-to-the-public shared space like this where that conversation could take place. Only Spoutible.
Sharing itself generates energy, because it often feels like we are the only ones. Men deliberately cut off the communication between us, telling us it’s just us, we should feel embarrassed, we’re at fault, it didn’t happen that way. Our reactions are wrong, we are being difficult, or my new favorite aimed at me, “prickly.”
And when yesterday’s incidental main character “apologized” in that fake way meant to end a conversation, Black women could say, without retribution, without interruption, “I do not accept and white women cannot accept on my behalf.”
The novelty of that, the power of that, when not one person can use hatred, to invoke white supremacist patriarchy to try to snatch that away.
It is revolutionary. And that’s not hyperbole.
There is an unsinkability in the words appearing right there for everyone to see, so when the claims come that they were “attacked” for innocuous comments, it’s easy to say, “that is not true.” We can anchor the truth.
Never underestimate the value of a screenshot.
Anyway, that’s it for me this week, I hope you have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend. And if you’re also getting awful weather, please be careful and take it seriously.
A Bit to Read 
Leave a comment