Urban v's the Commentariat
- Thread starter Belushi
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Theisticle
Well-Known Member
Theisticle
Well-Known Member
The ego to co-opt a story where the biggest victims were black feminists.
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-posing-online-feminists-leftists?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-posing-online-feminists-leftists?CMP=twt_gu
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
co-authored with a black feminst tbf.
Theisticle
Well-Known Member
No mention of the #yourslipisshowing hashtag which was a grassroots movement by black feminists to the expose the troll accounts, big lapse.
Ouch:
Ouch:
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Are you seriously suggesting that Penny can't write about a story involving black women (and presumably white men doing the trolling) because she is white?
Or are you objecting to something particular that she said?
Theisticle
Well-Known Member
More the fact that she's excluded other black voices who suffered and went on to expose the abusers. Shoddy. She's entitled to write about it, she just did a shitty job.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
What does "she's excluded other black voices who suffered" mean in this context? That she can write about a story involving black women (and white men) but only if she devotes it to a roll call of black women who suffered, with little quotes from each so their "voices" aren't "excluded"?
Have you been spending too much time on twitter recently?
Penny's article is, as so often, trivial and glib, although as it's about a nasty 4chan stunt that's oddly appropriate in this case. But this line of criticism is a particularly silly form of solipsistic twitter intersectionalism - if she doesn't write about this kind of thing she is a typical "white feminist" (boo! the worthless worms!), only interested in white women. If she does write about it, she is "erasing" or talking over black women's voices. If she co-writes an article about it with a black woman, well that's tokenism and she's deciding which black voices get a platform (and of course excluding others"). She can't win that game.
Now I don't have too much sympathy for her - she chooses to play that game, she knows the rules, and she will respond by abasing herself suitably. But this particular line of criticism is a pile of horseshit.
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Rural
Active Member
If those were the criticisms aimed at LP I would think them simplistic & self-defeating. I think the problem is more concerned with LP's history of trivialising struggles while centring them on herself & missing their point. It's her touristy way that I find objectionable. To state you are an activist, anarchist, anti-racist, etc rabble-rouser & then make the same mistakes again & again when writing about issues of oppression, despite a history of apologising & promising to learn from past criticisms, suggests a fake-naivety & lack of self-(or any) awareness that is surprising given her age, education & past experiences. It's almost as if she welcomes the chance to call Black women bullies, safe in the knowledge that her boss & the leftwing white media have her back. I've cringed my way through many LP articles & feel she has been harshly treated at times, but I see a pattern here. And it's one of her own making.
Btw this is my first post, never felt brave enough to write anything on here before, but I have tried to keep up with this thread for a while!
Btw this is my first post, never felt brave enough to write anything on here before, but I have tried to keep up with this thread for a while!
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
Rural
Active Member
ThanksWelcome to the thread Rural
It takes a while to feel brave enough to post in the politics forum, took me a good few years of being on urban before I felt brave enough.
I think she does make the pattern of behaviour, and her articles often make me cringe too.
Ive tried in the past to make excuses for her cos she gets SO much horrible crap, but thats just patronising after a while. Also some of my irl pals are/used to be friends with her. Plus i always think of her as really young, but i think that's possibly due to her writing! She may mean well (the road to hell...) but imo she's becoming more disingenuous, eg by always promising to listen & learn, then doing the same thing. I was cringing when she started to use the fact she had had fun co-writing with a Black woman in her defence...it just goes on
Ive
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Welcome to P&P
. If you've been following I guess you can see it gets a bit feisty sometimes so I recommend being a bit meh about any apparently aggressive replies or comments - it happens to everyone.Theisticle
Well-Known Member
You've articulated my original criticism better, Penny found out about the story a day before that article was published. She sent out a few tweets and did some basic research. It's her way of inserting herself into the story without listening to the many valid criticisms people had about her writing about this.
E.g. engaging the trolls and not the actual black women who were exposing it.
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Rural
Active Member
If you're going to write an article knowing full well who the main players are, don't seem that worried if they have doubts about talking to you, write the article anyway (having done all this b4 with uncomfortable results), can you really b surprised when you face the same criticisms (again answered by eg, but one of my friends is Black!, please don't b mean to me, I have good intent, oh you've already made your minds up). The best I can say to LP is Good luck in your career. IMO trying to have a career as an activist is going to make ppl distrust you, cos when it comes down to it, you are on the side of the status quo.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Welcome to the board.
I'd certainly agree that Penny can write about any issue in a manner that's both superficial and self-involved. But what are these "mistakes" she makes "again and again" when "writing about issues of oppression", which she then must "apologise" for, precisely? Apologies aren't being demanded over and over again because her writing is self-involved - or if they are, some of her critics are outrageous hypocrites.
As an aside the line about "almost" welcoming the "chance to call black women bullies" is itself pure twitter: anointing a small number of individual black women involved in any particular row as representatives a large demographic, allowing white women and men on the same side of the same rows to wrap themselves in vicarious blackness, while also "almost" but not quite accusing someone of racism on the flimsiest of grounds.
You are right about the contradictions between "activism" and professional journalism. Lots of journalists have had to navigate those waters over the years, but it's particularly hard for Penny to do because so much of her, ahem, professional brand is bound up with her activist image.
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Rural
Active Member
I'll try to make myself more clear. I don't think LP has to apologise for anything, imo constantly apologising while making no effort to change is pointless. Some ppl (not saying LP, idk) enjoy indulging in guilt, hand-wringing, etc which I find useless & not a good substitute for action. the mistakes LP is said to have made again & again can b summed up by her eagerness to jump on bandwagons, ie, sex work, matters of Black identity, anti-racism, in her column in NS, all these subjects being concerned with power, resistance, identity, abuse, erasure,etc. Unfortunately, given her rather large platform compared to many activists (which she claims to be) LP tackles these subjects in a clumsy, gauche & yes, ppoffensive manner. Eg if you are going to write about Black women being attacked, doxed, threatened & how several Black women discovered this plan, it would surely be important to talk to at least one or two of these women (I think there were only 2 or 3 who were involved in the exposure & I found them within seconds on twitter, it's not hard). However LP grabbed a Black English woman (all the actual Black women targeted were in USA) wrote an article for the guardian, never actually mentioning the women targeted, how they found out, or any of the pertinent details. i wonder why she bothered to write the article at all. Oh yes, to make money out of the situation.
Yes I am accusing her of racism. She may mean well, I'm sure she does, but if u have a platform like she does & profess to b anti-racist, u should at the very least not write erasing articles with yourself as the main point if reference
Yes I am accusing her of racism. She may mean well, I'm sure she does, but if u have a platform like she does & profess to b anti-racist, u should at the very least not write erasing articles with yourself as the main point if reference
Ever shagged a camel? If not can you in all conscience call yourself rural?
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Zero Books:
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
looks like a psychogeography/social journey type thing. They have their place if not done wank
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Exactly! Is is about working, shopping or shoplifting in an actual supermarket or... What?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
possibly because I have been reading Kathleen Jaime's Findings I can sort of get the idea. It's obviously meant to be a journey, a described journey. Significant moments will be produced. Think it wants to be a bit street n all. I'd give it a go, it sounds a bit wank but then these sorts of thing often are- not always. But often.
rekil
to menny cranks
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
This course is for you if...
You want to be able to completely ignore the history of the party, group or organisation that you shill for.
You want to learn how to write article after article as if you are suddenly astonished that a neoliberal party is behaving like a neoliberal party.
Your party, group or organisation is being attacked from the left and you want to give your followers the vaguest bit of hope of change.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
I'm perfectly capable of writing a compelling column by myself cheers Owen. Can you help me get it from a little blog that a few hundred people see to a well-paid regular column in a national newspaper? No? I have to have been to Oxbridge for that? Right, I think I'll just keep my 40 quid then ta.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
How much does the oxbridge cost?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Owen is monetising his Oxbridge education.
Probably best, as his "hotness" would only appeal to those who like teenage boys.
rekil
to menny cranks
There's probably a clause in his guardian contract making this kind of nonsense mandatory. He's only following orders. The 2nd comment was a bit beneath you. I am going to get PD fan stavvers to call you out m8.
Meanwhile, Rachel Rosenfelt (lest we forget, new Ink-wirry co-founder and chum of Occupy chancer Malcolm Harris) is off to Gawker to be something called 'an Executive Producer.'
As mentioned previously, her da is John Hagel III who puts out books with go-getter titles like The Power Of Pull.
I'm guessing this waffle is essentially about getting people to work for nothing.
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