Letters to the Editor
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Isn't this just a flame war?
89 comments? Wake me up for the ceasefire.
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Are you kidding me? You've missed the bestest blogwar of the week, Amanda Marcotte is repressing Brownfemipower, and Brownfemipower is repressing Amanda Marcotte!!!!
Grab the popcorn girls, because this is an all out girl fight not seen since the days of roller derby. Who's right and who's wrong? Wrong question! They're both wrong!
But in the following threads you can see feminists of all sorts, white, women of color, straight, gay, transgendered talk about the evil Marcotte stealing and misappropriating their work. And you can see a bunch of white feminists say, no, not true, you are reverse racismsimsing us! You are repressing us! And it's not just teh white grrls, doing this, Hugh Schywtzer, the guy who had been married three times, the guy who admits to being an abuser in the past, and the most sensitive guy ever now, gets in on the business of defending marcotte.
And the pimp, Barry Deutsch of Amptoons, who created a feminsit blog and then sold the domain to pornographers, and who is still considered a feminist sweetheart, well he gets into defending Marcotte as well from teh evil women of color bloggers.
Bwa ha ha ha ha! You guys are a scream! You're all such victims and in the meantime all you want is society to wipe your ass while pretendign your shit don't stink.
http://nataliaantonova.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/dear-x-i-once-said-that-i-hope-you-never-change/#comment-17502
Dear X, I Once Said That I Hope You Never Change « Natalia Antonova
http://problemchylde.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/dont-hate-appropriate/
Don’t hate; reappropriate. « Problem Chylde: Nerdy but Mighty (and Still Learning)
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/10/this-has-not-been-a-good-week-for-woman-of-color-blogging/#comment-163861
Feministe » This has not been a good week for woman of color blogging
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/09/if-its-stealing-youd-better-prove-it-on-amanda-marcotte-bfp-and-alternet/
If it’s “stealing”, you’d better prove it: on Amanda Marcotte, BFP, and RH Reality Check at Hugo Schwyzer
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Unimaginative
Call it cowardly, but I won't pick a winner here; I think the tack taken by both sides has been counterproductive and yet utterly understandable.
Tracy Clark-Flory's characterization is the very definition of a tragedy — understandable, yet doomed from the start to failure.
It's not cowardly, nor does it seem (from this remove) that there really can be a "winner." But it might be unimaginative, just as Warner's attitude is unimaginative.
Yes, technically publishers expect writers to approach them. That's how the business works — in a sane world. But race in America is not a sane subject (if it is anywhere). What Warner appears not to grasp, with deepest irony, is that affirmative action is not a passive strategy of waiting to hear from a marginalized group.
Saying, "We'll publish works by women of color when women of color come to us with works to publish," is a bit like video game magnates (to reference another recent Broadsheet post) saying that they'll produce game content which represents women in less gratuitously pornographic ways when more women pony up and support their game content.
At best — at best — that kind of myopia comes from mistakenly poring over customer demographic data in lieu of doing real market research. But for many people, and Warner may be among them, it's a way of throwing up your hands and saying, "race dynamics are hard, I'm going to focus on what's easy."
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Oh come ON
Are you folks really saying that women of color can't get it together to write pitches and approach publishers? THAT seems condescending to me.
Warner treated them like equals. Adults who are responsible for their own happiness.
This is America. You want a door to open, you beat it down yourself.
The bloggers and commenters obviously have the wherewithal to be online, read, and write. We are awaiting your book. Buck up and write it!
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The amazing internet...
First, I see the NY times running a headline quoting heresay from the Huffington Post, of all the unbiased sources in the world! And now this, a blog entry on a mainstream (for the internet) news site, talking about a meaningless blog war that makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I think I need to go back to reading print media.
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Seal Press??
I'm sorry, I am but a simple visual artist. I assume this is not about the Seal Jumbo 160M drymount Press (http://www.dickblick.com/zz231/01/) I've had for 25 years?
It is, rather, a publisher with an editorial staff of two people? There've got to be a bazillion small publishers out there, and someone's having a hissy fit because this one isn't doing what they want?
From this far outside the loop, this seems utterly childish. I plead ignorance.
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Ethos Bared is just trying to stoke the flames
I did laugh at the roller derby crack however.
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I feel for the editor and Seal Press.
Saying "We don't get many proposals from WOC" is perfectly legit if that is, in fact, the case. I don't understand the "servitude" comment at all. Submitting a proposal = servitude?
I don't think many book editors beat the bushes looking for people who might want to send them a book. My impression is that they are inundated with submissions, and it takes all their time just getting through those. It strikes me as a tough job, and I think the editor was well within her rights in defending herself and her press.
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?
Why anyone would expect the publishing house to approach them about publishing their work is beyond me. How is the publisher even supposed to know that someone has work worth publishing unless the author proactively approaches her? Life isn't handed to authors on a silver platter, regardless of her race.
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No one has a right to be published in magazine x, at time y
Even the IRS expects you to submit your own work. And they have way more than 2 editors.
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Fuck Blackamazon - no, wait, bad idea...
BA strikes me as the type of shrew who only gets angrier when people try to answer any of her points - because her point isn't to discuss, it's to intimidate. Ain't no one intimidated by your sorry ass, sista. If saying "please don't hate us, please send us mauscripts - we'd love to publish them, we pay in advance and aren't looking to exploit anyone" is "rude" and "his problem" then screw you, dumbass. The only problem is with the multitude of talented and reasonable women of color who you, in your childish tantrums, are making look bad by proxy.
However, of course your poor attitude is not their fault. I hope Seal Press and they find each other anyway, and have a string of runaway hits with the resulting works. It'll be funny seeing you try to spin that.