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Why Race Is More Important Than Ryan Gosling: A Story About Accountability (An Open letter to Lips, Its Editors & Its Followers, and Whoever Else Will Listen)

Over the past 24 hours, and no I’m not kidding, I have been trying to piece together my emotions and thoughts about an “incident” that happened in the public forum of the internet over the past 2 days on a Tumblr blog of a local Richmond feminist zine called LIPS (http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com).

According to the website LIPS is:

“…a fun and sexy alternative to popular magazines that objectify bodies and fail to speak honestly about sex. The pages are filled with artwork, doodles, poems, stories and essays about gender identity and sex submitted by women and sexual minorities living in the South.

When we encourage sexual expression, we begin to paint a more complete picture of sex and love. We hope readers will learn from others, and use this information to work towards achieving acceptance of self and others as well as healthy relationships based on mutual understanding and pleasure.”

Sounds pretty amazing right???

Well, if you have visited the blog as of late, I am sure that you have seen the string of posts that don’t exactly include “artwork, doodles, and poems” that promote healthy sexuality. What you will find is the following and more:

http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com/post/14173058865/i-was-really-excited-about-lips-i-really-was-and-now

http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com/post/14218520642/oh-hell-naw

http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com/post/14186915583/i-love-lips-but-i-feel-like-if-appearances-are-going

http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com/post/14183334799/attn-about-the-ryan-gosling-ish

So, “what the heck is going on,” you say?

These linked posts are all in response to what I will continue to call “the incident.”

The “incident” occurred after one of the many popular images of Ryan Gosling saying something feminist was posted on the blog. After the post, a LIPS member who is a person of color, who found the image to not be particularly attractive, commented on the post with their thoughts. Shortly after that an undisclosed number of LIPS “followers” complained that the comment was not body-positive and that it was hateful. Subsequently, the comment and the post were removed. The string of links above show the aftermath.

Now, I was exactly sure what to say or now to say it or whether or not I should say anything at all, but then I read the following post:

http://lips-richmond.tumblr.com/post/14229550267/i-wish-i-never-met-ryan-gosling

And after reading that I didn’t have any choice BUT to say something, because BY NOW MY BLOOD IS NEARLY BOILING, and let me tell you it’s not because I give a rat’s ass about Ryan Gosling.

Do you know why my blood is boiling?

Because WHITE people in Lips, a feminist organization that claims to stand to represent healthy expressions of sexuality are refusing to acknowledge that they did and continue to do racist things that have and do harm people.

The worst part about this whole thing is that people of color have to constantly be holding white folks to the fire about their privilege. That WE have to be the ones to make sure this conversation keeps happening, that it doesn’t get swept under the rug, that we don’t get silenced.

We do it because we KNOW from our lived experiences that our silence will not protect us. And THAT is what Audre Lorde meant when she was talking about how the master’s tools are used to hold us back. I am SO tired, sick, and exhausted from white folks tellin’ us about our legendary fighters, quotin’ to us passages that are supposed to prove that they know all about the plight of their sisters.

Hello, do y’all remember the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s? Or do you think because you’ve sat through a course or two, a workshop, and read some bell hooks that you don’t have to keep checkin’ your shit?

For folks of color WE DON’T GET THE LUXURY of sitting this one out, of shutting up, of letting you get back to your nice neutral tumblr posts, to pretending that this didn’t happen, to succumbing to what you have waved in our faces as “experience”, to think that maybe it wasn’t racist after all, to letting white people tell us what they think racism is, to believe that this was just one time, to dream that the American feminist movement includes us, to forget our pain and remember yours, to “phrase things differently,” to worry if you think our criticism is constructive enough, to only think about the positive, to keep things ‘simple,’ to not ruffle feathers, to not cause controversy for the sake of keeping things the same.

But I’ll get off my rant, because, quite frankly, I’ve had to do it one too many times and it doesn’t get me nowhere but on a road to pain and I love myself more than that. What I will do is tell you why this conversation about race matters and why Ryan Gosling isn’t the real problem here.

If you hear nothing else, hear this.

OPPRESSION HURTS.
OPPRESSION IS PERSONAL.
OPPRESSION IS TRAUMA
AND THAT’S WHY ACCOUNTABILITY MATTERS

Stuff like this happens too many times to count. It happens every day. It has happened every day. It will keep happening every day. And why does it matter? It matters because this is not just about ONE post that ONE person made that ONE person deleted. This is about how the actions of Lips members have not just silenced one of their members of color but how they have sent a message loud and clear to queer, xicana, working class, femme, feminists like me: Your voice is not welcome here. Your experience is not welcome here. Your story is not welcome here.

Racism hurts all of us. So own up y’all. Recognize where you’ve made mistakes. Look at the ground that you just fell onto from atop that high horse and think about what you’ve got to do before you get back up, because it’s our trust that’s at stake, and in a world run by violence and capitalism, trust is all we’ve got.

Hermelinda

5 months ago 48 notes View comments

Tagged with: #Ryan Gosling #LIPS #White Privilege #POC #Race #Feminism