I was disappointed also. I know it wasn’t a deal w/ Seal Press, but their role in this didn’t help.

Thanks, though, for shedding a little light on this. I felt like I was missing something in all of this all along.

I was excited to be listed w/ writers like yourself on that contributor list, and I really hope it works out in the future.

Plus, I really feel like Adele (in addition to being in my home state!) is an important contact for me now. I am so sorry that her project isn’t going through as planned, not only b/c of the writers I know who contributed, and not just for my own reasons, but b/c now knowing this extra information, I am frustrated for Adele.

*sigh*

And, I agree, hopefully this will give me a chance to improve what I submitted originally and make it more relevant to me.

You might not be disappointed but I certainly am! I’d love to see more anthologies discussing these issues. Hopefully, Adele will have an opportunity to revisit this project in the future.

Theologian,

Shorter, have empathy. :) Too many people forget that the only thing that separates us from those who are marginalized is most often just the accident of birth.

Or, similarly (but with more pragmatism and less existentialism), in my husband’s words “Don’t expect someone to give a shit about you if you don’t give a shit about them.”

I’m not disappointed with Feminism right now, I’m disappointed with individual feminists who might not have yet learned how to apply their consciousness raising skills in terms of sexism and patriarchy to race/ethnicity and most importantly, privilege.

There was a really cool exercise I learned in an ethics class that I think might help those who are interested in becoming allies, do so. Essentially, it shapes your imagination in terms of what do you see. Imagine yourself on a metro/public transport–you, in your present social situation (let’s say, we are primarily women here, perhaps white, perhaps not). Now, the train is packed, there are a few people standing, but all of the seats are taken. A pregnant woman gets on, she’s about seven months along and she has a small child with her and her groceries. Now, I got on earlier and so did the man next to me–my thought when I see her, “gosh, she should get a seat–she looks tired and its hard to hold the bar, the kid’s hand, and the groceries and have your center of gravity off with the pregnancy…gee, why hasn’t a man offered her a seat, shouldn’t a man do that? Well, I guess I better give up my seat.” So then I do. Now, the man next to me has never been pregnant, but is he paying attention to the conditions of others in the train? No, well, who was more morally obligated to give up the seat, chivalry tells us he should, but as a person who either has a notion of what its like to be pregnant or a direct experience of it, and sees the woman is more ethically obligated to give up her seat. Now, part of the exercise is to further imagine other circumstances in which by mentally imagining or simply paying attention in everyday life to how people experience the world, we then become more and more morally obligated to do something when we see an injustice or a need that can be addressed by us as individuals. Anyway, so by paying attention–hey, why are those black boys on bikes being spoken to by a cop? Was I stopped by a cop when playing in my neighborhood at 11? By paying attention, I increase my moral obligation to both try to understand how “all those little things” of systematic racism (just like “all those little things of sexism”) adds up to a HUGE DEFICIT in social justice. Its not about speaking for people of color, its for trying to get it. Now, this doesn’t mean that one can’t speak up–but one should especially speak up about racism when one is surrounded by all white people, you know, in those close quarters where some biases are less examined or censored. I’m doing a sermon this summer on exposing whiteness, its going to be good, but I am nervous because at my mixed church/pre-dominately white, whiteness is still a weird concept; I think I might use this exercise or adapt it into a mediation. Anyway, sorry for the long post, I’ll probably try to flesh it out later at my new blog :)

Weird.

I have been trying to figure out exactly what the Seal thing is all about. I’m still blown away by Amanda’s actions and the uneven lack of condemnation for it…

Like you Cara, I am just so disappointed in feminism right now. After everything that’s happened with the election and now this, I want to throw up my hands.