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Update: I have added a link to Brownfemipower's final post. This looks like a temporary page so I have no idea how long the link will be active.
I've written before about blogger exhaustion - which for me, and what seems to be pretty common among some of my fellow bloggers - is when we start to question the legitimacy or social relevance of what we are preparing to write about before we start composing when previously, it was a spontaneous, effortless pastime.
But recently, there have been a couple of popular bloggers who have decided to take a hiatus due to more insidious reasons. They have poured significant hours, personal and emotional time and energy into crafting their entries, entries that over the years that have been admired by many. Their writings are not only thought provoking and well-written, but throughly researched. Not only writing to expel the first thought that came to their heads, they wrote because what they had to say was needed. Desperately, in some cases. But because of large amounts of negative comments and the initial quest to try to provide information that provided an educational resource, they needed to take a break. The online world, supposedly an level playing field where everyone has the right to share their views - whether good or bad - started to display the same segregationary tactics, overt racism and ignorance as the real world.
Hiding behind the computer in your darkened bedroom no longer seemsto be a buffer. As the blogosphere has provided a forum where relatively unknown writers have the opportunity to gain attention because of their blogs, the selection of book deals and media attention is still based on race and class, rather than the actual content of the journal entries and page hits.
I was saddened to read last week that one of the first WOC bloggers that I started to read on a daily basis, had shut down her blog. Brownfemipower was known as one of, if not the most, prolific feminist activists on the Web. She not only talked about issues that affected the North American population, but also wrote eloquently on women's issues, immigration,civil rights and national and international political issues. I, like many others, hope that she will decide to blog again.
So what happened? Well, according to numerous reports, it was something that unfortunately, is a pretty timely subject, most notably because of the furor over the writer of the popular satirical site Stuff White People Like ( which I like and plus, writer Christian Lander is a Canuck!) who was just granted a $350,000 book deal that will be in part, a collection of his posts and some original writings. The argument is that black satirical bloggers- and there are many, BTW - are ignored. BUT I do believe that in this case, Lander's popularity and marketability landed him his book deal, but because of the subject matter, it is essentially the same 'ol thing - cultural appropriation, which in this case, is when a white writer will make money off writing about issues that center around the dynamics between whites and people of color when POC's who do the same thing are not economically viable enough to warrant the same attention.
In Brownfemipower's(BFP) situation, it was centered around an article that was written by another popular feminist blogger, Amanda Marcotte where apparently she heavily 'borrowed' from BFP's work and did not acknowledge and / or credit her in her article. (Please note that every link embedded in Marcotte's article leads directly to a post in which BFP had originally covered the subject). While BFP did not directly say that this was the reason why she shut down her site, it is generally assumed that this was the catalyst. Here is a portion from the above linked post:
That’s the same as what’s happened in this situation. No one backpedaled on the accusation of appropriation. My post, which I was careful to compose, does not link point for point where Amanda “stole” things word-for-word from BFP. Rather, it makes BFP’s work — who is just one of the bloggers who have been tying feminism with immigration before the article Amanda quoted hit the “zeitgeist” — visible. And it questions why Amanda took upon her shoulders the claim of authenticity on critical issues on immigration and feminism, immigration and dehumanizing language, and immigration and sexual abuse without giving some indication of the longstanding body of work from multiple people of
