Tuesday, April 14, 2009

More Voices From the Women, Action, & the Media (WAM) Conference

A powerful and interesting perspective on the 2009 WAM conference in Boston.

h/t to BFP

From Joyce Angela Jellison

I have been stewing for two weeks - mad as hell at how I have been treated and then I am searching blogs and I find this - I feel empowered with this connection.

Basically, I was told by the WAM conference committee to get someone from the commercial publishing industry to present with me - huh? I mean what the fuck? If I had that type of connect would I be self-publishing? I actually do have some commercial connects, but not for the genre in which I write. These lovely connects declined to co-present as they did not want to undermine my message of self publishing as an empowerment tool - much respect for the consideration.

I did jump through a hoop like a dreadlocked poodle and get another sister - well known - Letta Neely to present with me -she is self-published, but the feminist elite at the Center for New Words love her - she is their magical negro and I mean that without offense to Letta - just to example how some quasi-progressives dont actually see you as equals but rather as their charges - like I dont need them to lift my ass from some plantation - I am already free so the good master treatment doesnt work for a womyn like me and it should not work for anyone.

Next thing I notice is they are ignoring me and referring to me as a moderator and Letta as the presenter - when I wrote the proposal and busted my ass trying to get a co-presenter. They invited me to lead a dicussion on women of color and the obstacles to the commercial publishing - but you know what, it is bullshit like what they tried to pull at WAM that is an obstacle. Racist love is a bitch and I have no time for it. It is basically the appearence of solidarity but it manages to silence you because you are manipulated into thinking certain parties see you as an equal when they are treating you like a special project.

Move the fuck out of my way and let me write - and if you dont publish me, fuck you. I can publish me and sell my books like pussy on a street corner. Feminism is about choice and what I pimp is purely my business…. So this feminist elite have inherited the movement from their grandmothers and mothers and like them - they exclude the brown, the black, and other groups that rival their definition of feminism.

Fuck silence and Fuck WAM - I wanted to go to the Black Women and Radical Tradition Conference at CUNY anyway

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