The Personal and Political
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Thanks to Box who sent this article. I had seen it a few days before, but I had pushed it aside because I was working on other stuff.
The article is the front page story of the New York Times Magazine this week. It’s an autobiographical story written by a former blogger at Gawker.com. Gawker is one of those huge gossip blogs, where they have paid professional bloggers around the clock who drop in and comment on events and celebrity gossip around the world and in the big cities. The Times Magazine story is about how this young woman blogged about her personal life and made herself into a celebrity, and how her world came crashing down because of the public scrutiny, which inhibited the woman’s own attempts to find her own authenticity.
I often wonder how blogging can hurt a person’s reputation. Even in our forum, we see how seemingly trivial points of conversation can suddenly balloon into something that destroys a person’s online reputation, and some of these online events could become disastrous had they been public events with people using their real names. As a blogger, this story resonated with me because one always has to somehow keep one’s life and reputation safe. I know how hard some of us try to protect our reputations with secrecy, and I think it’s usually a good move. Once you put something online, it’s there forever. It never goes away.
As someone who blogs on an Asian American political and intellectual blog, an idea came to me while reading this, especially in light of D’s article on narcissism and Jade’s article on feminism. On the 44’s, because we have such a strong focus on logic and rational thought, we’re shielded from a lot of the other problems that other Asian American activists have. Because we’re rational, there’s no need for us to share all that much detailed info about our personal lives. Rationality is the key, and it should (in theory) be readily understandable to anyone who follows the logic. But most activists don’t follow this code.
Take, for example, the typical Asian American feminist. Now I don’t want to stereotype, but from my own experiences, almost every conversation with a self-avowed non-44’s Asian American feminist uses eventually ends up with a discussion of IR, followed by a defense of why she is dating or married to a white guy (and no, I’ve never met a self-avowed non-44 Asian American feminist married to or dating an Asian guy. Yuri Kochiyama was married to Bill Kochiyama, but she didn’t adopt AA feminism until years later when the AA feminists asked her to.). These conversations usually end up with, “I’m an Asian American feminist, my body is mine, my boyfriend is white, and I’ll do whatever I want. You don’t own me…footbinder!”
What usually follows is nothing short of bedlam. The angry MM-types jump in and start making sexist personal comments against the AA feminist, which most of us would deem unacceptable and rude. This brings more Asian American feminists (with their white husbands) into the fold, and they usually react by making racist comments about Asian men, even though it was only a small number of militants who were participating in the personal attacks. The Asian feminists with their white boyfriends grab the higher terrain by virtue of their post-colonialist privilege, and the militant Asian men fight back. Pretty soon, no one is listening to anyone. Upon even just a little bit of thought, a neutral third party could see that this whole debacle would not have started had the first feminist not used her personal life as a political crutch.
Contrast that to our method over here. Every so often someone will share some personal info, but hardly ever does anyone use their personal life as a political attack tool. In other words, there’s never any, “I’m married to a white guy, and you’d better not criticize me, or else I’ll call you ’sexist.’ In fact, I’ve faced so much prejudice from my IR that you’d better recognize me because we’re taking over.”
Everything here is relatively detached. We don’t question people’s choices, nor do we advertise our own choices in order to make a political point criticizing someone else.
This is the way discussion should be. This way, we’re only talking about ideas. I would think this would (relatively, anyway) protect us from the personal scrutiny which the Times author describes.
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TheMac
9:59 pm | May 26, 2008I will admit to being a casual poster at Gawker, and a general participant in the “Gawker Empire” sites (specifically GM’s former-DC-cousin Wonkette). I have alot of issues with Gawker Media, and I completely agree with Emily’s assessment of the kind of writers that were courted for large blogs (personality-and-age-wise), the smug meanness of big-blog posters, and the fact that submersing yourself in blog-culture is overall unhealthy.
That said, she made the decisions she made. Since she honestly seemed like a young woman who was ‘looking for something’ to give her life meaning, it is likely that she would’ve found a way to damage her personal relationships even if the mean internet wasn’t involved. New York City itself can easily be an isolating place (I say this as a lifelong native), and that’s not hard to believe that she felt that way. However, I think it’s important to take responsibility for the decisions one makes, and it seems like she’s done that…to an extent.
Emily’s life changed because of a number of selfish and egotistical decisions. Frankly, deciding to include her personal life in a blog- especially her ‘work’ blog- was a decision she made for, seemingly, her own desire for positive feedback. This is one thing to do on a private blog, but I find it very suspicious to do on a blog about celebrities and Manhattan. Either way, common sense would say that its unethical to expose the business of others (aka, those you’re involved with) without their permission. Honestly, these are things I did on my xanga when I was 17. It really doesn’t take a psychologist to get that looking for fulfillment through blog-responses is…not healthy.
Jaehwan, I am familiar enough with A/AA cultures to know where you’re coming from in terms of how feminism issues within the community often become gender-combative. It’s unfortunate that so much of what we perceive to be ‘feminist freedom’ often boils down to what we do with out private parts. At the same time, I find it suspicious when someone proclaims to love their own culture and people, and yet would never consider anyone from that culture as a romantic option. I date white people on occasion; I date all ethnicities. But, at the end of the day, I would like to ideally settle with someone who looks like me. If I fall for someone who doesn’t, that’s fine. But the intent, even if it isn’t necessarily fair, means alot to be.
I think a big part of this discussion boils down to- what is feminist? Is it feminist to date within your culture? To the exclusion of others (especially those who are perceived as holding social or sexual power)? Is it feminist to proudly proclaim you personal exploits on a popular blog? What is owning your identity? When we figure that out, I think everything else will fall into place.
jaehwan
2:23 am | May 27, 2008TheMac,
Thanks for your comments. This feminism thing has been on my mind for the past two weeks. I see how modern Asian Americans define feminism, and I see how it’s usually defined in terms of how bad Asian men are, rather than how good Asian women are or could be. Something is wrong with that mindset. It’s another case of Pin the tail on the Asian male. Something tells me that that mindset is wrong.
We’ve had a few blog posts on the topic of real feminism recently from Asian women. Hopefully they’ll continue to post, and I’ll continue to learn.