unsolicited advice for activists whose egos get in the way
This complete failure of a letter by Jaclyn Friedman and blackamazon & milkeemountainmama’s dead-on excoriations thereof brought up a thing I think about a lot and have posted about before: the fact that I have watched a lot of Activists/Feminists trip over their egos (as someone who does an activist job and floats in these circles sometimes and blogs about these things sometimes it’s always on my radar) and it’s something I check myself on all the time because I think that is essential to anything I say actually having meaning. I have this Tumblr for my thoughts, sure, like a lot of people do, but man, the day that I ever start thinking of myself as an Important Activist Who Banks On Her Name And Whose Opinions Are Worth More Than Other People’s is the day I need to fucking quit this shit forever.
(Privilege is never far from the scene, of course, because like … again, part and parcel of privilege is thinking that your opinion matters more than others’. Which is why, I think, a lot of mainstream white middle-class Activists/Feminists are prone to this problem.)
Just because you have written something of import to someone else does not give you carte blanche to go around being like ME ME ME CHECK ME OUT LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE TO SAY MEEEEEE at the expense of other people.
I know how seductive it is when people start giving you praise for what you write! Seriously, I know! I am talking to MYSELF when I say ‘check yourself constantly’ as much as I am to anyone else.
