#chaitliberalism

I'm going to do a full smackdown on something bizarre that just occurred, but will give a bit of insight now. Over the summer I joined a PRIVATE group of professional female writers called Binders. A conversation on multiple threads AT LEAST three days long (and I mean three full days and nights as it was a group of near 30k women at the time) broke out about race, in which white professional writers kept invalidating the experience of women of color and insisted that they could hold onto this privileged position, that the WOC were making them feel uncomfortable in trying to address pervasive institutionalized racism that persists in the worlds of writing. It wasn't pretty. I was of a minority of white woman writers who were vocal in our defense of the WOC, and as time wore on (and wore everyone thin) we became blunt. Today, I was informed that Jonathan Chait wrote a piece in New York magazine shaming language that is "too PC" identifying myself as a white writer and a prime example of PC GIRLS GONE WILD! in which he cut and pasted a comment of mine which was: “JESUS FUCK, LIKE SERIOUSLY FUCK, I SEE MORE WHITE BINDERS POLICING WOC AND DEMANDING TO BE EDUCATED/UNEDUCATED AS IF IT’S A FUCKING NOBLE MISSION RATHER THAN I DUNNO SPEND TIME SHUTTING DOWN AND SHITTING ON RACIST DOUCHE CANOE* BEHAVIOUR; WHAT ARE YOU GAINING BY THIS? WHAT ARE YOU DETRACTING? YOU NEED SCREENCAPS OF BURNING CROSSES TO BELIEVE RACIST SHIT IS HAPPENING? THIS THREAD IS PAINFUL. HUGS TO ALL THE WOC DURING THIS THREAD” This was completely out of context of at least three days of conversations previous to this single thread, out of context of the racist and privilege statements that provoked the reaction, out of context that I wrote in the group in ALL CAPS to identify myself as a SHOUTY, a sub binder of this forum that speaks only in all caps, and out of context that the worlds of writing in the western context IS pervasive with institutionalized racism. Also out of context that I start many a statements with JESUS FUCK... I am simply identified as a white woman from Toronto. Not a writer, not a professional with credits. And I'd like to point out for the first time in my life my whiteness was an identifying marker. In the moment of defending brilliant women writers of color. None of the "female writers" who felt our conversation was "militant" and forwarded Chait screencaps of the conversation have their race identified... things that make you go hmmm. Anyways here is Ijeoma's tear down of the article. She is a must person to follow and was part of the original conversations as well. https://medium.com/@IjeomaOluo/what-its-like-to-read-jonathan-chaits-latest-shitshow-f4a857458d31 And here is a storify of my tweet reactions to the piece and to Jonathan Chait himself, who I find it particularly hilarious he quotes someone that starts a sentence with JESUS FUCK and uses words like DOUCHE CANOE and not expect an epic reaction from said writer. https://storify.com/kulturvulturz/my-reaction-to-nymag-quoting-me#publicize Props to Michelle Campbell who originally coined the phrase "Douche Canoe". Follow her @Voixdemichele on twitter. ETA: follow #chaitliberalism on Twitter  Also read Anne Thériault's take down here: http://bellejar.ca/2015/01/27/jonathan-chaits-not-a-very-p-c-thing-to-say-in-a-nutshell/