The bloggers' civility code: a good idea that's turning into self-serving mush.
I'd rather have seen this same kind of outcry when some of my favorite women of color bloggers were driven into hiding by threats on their blogs, months ago.
The people who make these threats are usually white men. They see nothing wrong with systematically silencing women, especially women of color, who dare to have an opinion about things and speak their minds on the Internet. These same people, when criticized and moderated, cry "freedom of speech."
I am not exaggerating about this, I am not "in hysterics," I am not being oversensitive. This is one example of how the structures of oppression in the real world are bleeding onto the Internet, which used to be hailed as the great equalizer. And here still we see that when women of color are being harmed, most of the world is silent; when a white woman is harmed, more people speak up.
Please do not think I mean to trivialize Kathy Sierra's experiences, or claim that it has been easy for her to move people to listen; she hasn't had an easy time of it by any means. But it is possible for the general public to hear about her outside her immediate blogging circles in a way that it wasn't possible for non-blog-readers to hear about many women bloggers of color who faced the same kind of harassment and threats, only magnified by racism.
Link: The guardian reports on bloggers talking about comments about bloggers, and I blogged about it. Is it a record yet?
I'd rather have seen this same kind of outcry when some of my favorite women of color bloggers were driven into hiding by threats on their blogs, months ago.
The people who make these threats are usually white men. They see nothing wrong with systematically silencing women, especially women of color, who dare to have an opinion about things and speak their minds on the Internet. These same people, when criticized and moderated, cry "freedom of speech."
I am not exaggerating about this, I am not "in hysterics," I am not being oversensitive. This is one example of how the structures of oppression in the real world are bleeding onto the Internet, which used to be hailed as the great equalizer. And here still we see that when women of color are being harmed, most of the world is silent; when a white woman is harmed, more people speak up.
Please do not think I mean to trivialize Kathy Sierra's experiences, or claim that it has been easy for her to move people to listen; she hasn't had an easy time of it by any means. But it is possible for the general public to hear about her outside her immediate blogging circles in a way that it wasn't possible for non-blog-readers to hear about many women bloggers of color who faced the same kind of harassment and threats, only magnified by racism.
Link: The guardian reports on bloggers talking about comments about bloggers, and I blogged about it. Is it a record yet?
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