Tina Lee

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  Tina signed the petition | 2 months ago

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  Tina commented on the article | over 2 years ago

  Let's Talk About Race

  Hi everyone.

  
  

  Not sure if you caught this, but a woman of color named Rock4Justice posted this very thoughtful blog post on DailyKos about the lack of diversity at NN09: http://bit.ly/3uX9vb.

  
  

  I also wanted to mention that there was some discussion at NN09 about interpersonal racism vs. institutional racism. (I bring this up because a few of you made the point about how you personally don't see color or discriminate against anyone based on gender, race, disability, etc.)  So while overt, one-to-one racism has actually declined, institutional racism is very much still alive.  (And I'd say this goes for sexism as well.)  Too often when a racist act occurs, we immediately want to reduce it to an interpersonal level, attributing it to one small group or one individual.  The danger in doing this is that we never look at the large, pervasive social forces that created the situation in the first place.  For example, the Professor Gates incident at Harvard revealed existing racial tension stemming from a history of abuse of power and racial profiling by Boston police against African American males.  This was no isolated incident, and the Boston police department reacted according to script: they closed ranks and praised Officer Crowley's exemplary record of service, making a special point of highlighting his leadership role in training other officers on diversity and racial sensitivity issues.  So OK - let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt: he's not a racist.  But how would you explain his discriminatory behavior? An unfortunate confluence of events? A misunderstanding? Professor Gates brought this onto himself by "over-reacting?"  Even if any of these hold true, there's still no denying that racial profiling is a common practice by law enforcement.  One needs to look no further than the prison population, where African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately over-represented, to see that the racism is institutinalized.  The whole criminal justice system is rigged and we know it.

  
  

  Yet - YET - the President tried to smooth things over by inviting Professor Gates and Officer Crowley over for beers, essentially reducing the racism from an institutional level to an interpersonal one.  I understand the impulse, but I think our President and we as a nation missed an opportunity to address the bigger problem - that injustice has been built into our institutions.  But before we can dismantle it, we must first call it out, acknowledge it, talk about it and deconstruct it.  Same thing for sexism, because it's institutionalized in our laws, in government, the way we socialize our kids, to the way we dole out economic resources and opportunities.

  
  

  So yeah...let's keep talking.

  
  

  Tina

  
  

   

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  Tina commented on the article | over 2 years ago

  Let's Talk About Race

  Hey Cyn.

  
  

  Sorry about the mix-up with your name.  I'd gone to your MOMocrat page and thought the name referenced there was your real name. Apologies.

  
  

  Yeah, the whole Hillary vs. Barack thing is indeed water under the bridge now, and I'm quite happy about how things turned out.  But I can certainly see why you felt betrayed.  It was an extremely intense election with an unusually large number of salient factors to contend with: gender, race, class, generational change, nationalism vs. globalism.  Depending on life experience and identity, everyone picked up on different things and in different ways.  The choice to support Hillary over Barack in the primary was not an easy one for me, nor was it for many others.  I remember sitting in front of a few African Americans women at the California Democratic State Convention in 2007 who were just all torn up about it.  First Hillary gave a moving speech that left many in tears. Then Barack came out like a rock star and urged us to "turn the page."  Afterwards, while still on her feet clapping for Barack, one of the women turned to her friend and squealed, "Girrrllll...I don't know what I'm gonna do!"  And I was completely with her.

  
  

  Ultimately, I went with Hillary because she's a workhorse, and because she's tough and determined and knows where the levers of power are.  I thought our country was(is) in such dire straits that we couldn't afford to be too experimental.  Plus I didn't believe our country was ready or capable of building the new working majority Barack spoke of.  (Sadly, I was right about that part.)  But hey, we are where we are, so onward.

  
  

  And yes, I think you're right on about us having to move past a single-issue/single-axis of difference approach, though that transition will take some time to bore out.  (Clay Shirky says we're looking at 50 years of chaos.)  The good part is that our world is currently undergoing a major, tectonic shift, so there are many opportunities to try new ways of doing things.  Part of our work will require that we make do with what we have now -- leverage tenuous coalitions based on single-issue/axis of difference to address immediate issues (i.e., healthcare reform, immigration reform, education reform).  Another part of our work will require us to be more experimental and forward-looking -- develop new models for collaboration and social change.  In either case, the more dialogue we have with each other the better.  So kudos to Jen again for initiating this convo, to the NN09 team for convening us, and to everyone who has contributed their thoughts here in good faith.

  
  

  Tina

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  Tina commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

  Let's Talk About Race

  I just want to thanks Jen again for starting this conversation, as well as thank everyone who contributed something to the discussion.  Let's keep this going!

  
  

  And Jane (aka Cynematic), I wish I'd the chance to meet you, too!  Where were you hiding?  I completely agree with your take on intersectional analysis, though your analysis on HRC stung a bit.  I'm still a down-ass Hillary lover.  Having been in corporate America where I saw women get passed up, passed over and shut out, I honestly believe she was just trying to win, and that she'd do the right thing once she got in there.  Like Eleanore Roosevelt on steriods type of stuff.  Maybe I'm jaded, but I gave up on purity a long time ago, and, since politics is still a boys game for the most part, I get why Hillary "went there."  Your critiques of her are valid, of course, but when I saw her campaign falling apart, I couldn't help but fly down to Houston for a week during the primary to help turn out votes in the API community for her.  My husband will tell you: it was about more than Hillary; it was about standing up for another woman. And after she lost, I went to battle in Nevada for Barack because he was going to be our first-ever black president and he was AWESOME (50% of which was because he was Michelle's husband).
  

  
  

  So I guess there's the rub: I'm a hardcore feminist and I luuurve flying that flag, but I'm also a person of color...and a first-generation American, and a poor kid from Chinatown, and an urban dweller, and short, and childless, and etc., etc.  All those things are always in the mix.  At at the end of the day, I guess what holds me together - and what I hope holds us "progressives" together - is the belief that the world should be just, which to me means we should all have equal access to opportunities that enable us to be safe, happy, healthy, and fulfilled.

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  Tina commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

  Let's Talk About Race

  
  

  Hi Jen.

  
  

   

  
  

  It was a pleasure meeting you at NN09, and I want to thank you for initiating this conversation.  As a woman of color who did attend the convention – and decidedly chose to attend the panel “Mixtapes to MySpace: How Hip Hop Builds Movement” that was being held at the same time in lieu of yours – I thought I’d chime in with a few thoughts.  No doubt, this conversation about why women of color are missing from the feminist movement is a difficult one to have, and, like someone mentioned, an “old and unresolved” issue.  And for fear of making gross generalizations about all Asian Americans, people of color, women of color, etc., I shall limit the scope of my comments to pertain only to my own experience at this particular convening of Netroots Nation.

  
  

   

  
  

  First off, NN09 was my first convention and I had a great time.  Save for a few awkward moments with some even more awkward people, which were to be expected at such a nerd-fest, I found almost everyone amiable and open.  I thought the NN team did a fantastic job of running things, and that there was a genuine and concerted effort made to include women and people of color on the program as speakers and panelists.  Furthermore, as someone who serves as an advisory board member to Netroots Nation and claim as friends Raven Brooks and Mary Rickles – their Executive Director and Director of Communications and Media, respectively – I can personally attest to the NN leadership’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

  
  

   

  
  

  However, let’s face it: NN09 was a convening for the digital elite.  And by “elite” I mean predominantly white, who earn good incomes (at least relatively), and – in most cases – male. Given that NN09 represented a microcosm of America’s digital elite, albeit one with progressive values, I was not at all surprised about the demographic and psychographic break-down of convention participants – attendees and panelists alike.  Furthermore, because the feminist movement has always been comprised of mainly white women – women who bring with them the cultural framework and assumptions of a dominant white society – neither was I surprised about the lack of racial diversity on your panel, especially since most of the women of color at the convention who would have been qualified to speak on it was convening in the other room where I was, having a discussion about how mixtapes, MySpace and hip hip can help build movements and learning from an all-star panel that was all non-white.

  
  

   

  
  

  Thus, I don’t think the lack of racial diversity on your panel was any individual’s fault per se.  Rather, the structural barriers arising from institutionalized racism and sexism are what precluded women of color from participating as panelists in the first place. Meaning, because convention participants were given the opportunity to submit ideas for panels at the convention, each submission not only included the proposed topic of discussion but also a proposed panel of speakers – a panel that was probably drawn from each submitter’s personal network.  (Like someone else said, who wants to make a cold call?)

  
  

   

  
  

  While the Netroots are ostensibly more democratic in that theoretically anyone with a broadband connection can participate, the reality is that 37% of adult Americans still do not have broadband access from home.  Furthermore, compared to the 73% of White (non-Hispanic) Americans that do have access, only 8% of African Americans and 13% of English-speaking Hispanic Americans do.  Income and educational attainment (i.e., class) also preclude broadband adoption, which is why only 18% of those with household incomes of less than $30K and only 34% of people with a high-school diploma or less have broadband access. (These numbers were pulled from the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s Home Broadband Adoption 2009 report, by the way, which based its findings on data gathered from phone interviews conducted between March 26 to April 19, 2009, among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older.)

  
  

   

  
  

  I provide these numbers not to depress you or bore you, but to illustrate how small the digital elite universe actually is.  And of the people of color who do have broadband access, let’s segment out those who are also political activists, social media enthusiasts, and unabashedly progressive – folks that would essentially make up the “colored” part of the Netroots.  Then, from that group, let’s parse out the women-of-color.  And since this year NN09 took place in Pittsburgh, PA, let’s only consider those women with the means and the time to travel there for a 3-day convention, where the registration fee alone was $275, not to mention food, hotel and transportation costs.  Gender wage gap and disposable income aside, good luck to ya if you’re a mother with young children.  So behold, what’s left is your pool of potential women-of-color NN09 attendees.  Now how many of these women would the feminist faction of the Netroots know personally or deem “panel worthy?”

  
  

   

  
  

  And of course there were logistical issues.  Of course it’s not easy to find an expert to speak about a specific issue that would complement the panel.  Yet that didn’t seem to stop the organizers of “The Myth of Post-Racial America” panel, the “Women and Minorities In Mobile” panel, the “Stepping it up: Creating Multiracial Alliances with Bloggers” panel, the “Si Se Puede 2.0” panel, and, of course, the “Mixtapes to MySpace: How Hip Hop Builds Movements” panel that was scheduled at the same time as your “Building a Conversation Across Generations of Progressive Women” panel.  Yes, there is a lack of women of color in technology and politics. But of those that are involved, we’re creating a vibrant community, coalescing around pressing issues that impact our communities the most: poverty, green jobs, education, immigration, healthcare, the 2010 Census.  And while reproductive freedom, global warming, sexual discrimination, and domestic violence are equally important to me, the adverse impact to communities of color if we don’t act swiftly on the former will be tremendous.

  
  

   

  
  

  So at the end of the day, my decision to forgo your panel came down to a simple calculation of opportunity cost.  Despite my identifying deeply as being a feminist, I made that choice because I didn’t think I was going to learn or hear anything new, even though that may not have been the case.  No offense, but having attended a women’s college, worked in corporate America in male-dominated fields, and been actively engaged in politics for a number of years, I feel I’m quite familiar with the culture and issues associated with the feminist movement.  Yet that’s a kind of familiarity that hasn’t necessarily bred comfort.  Because every time I engage I bring all of my “racial baggage” with me:  I am an American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, raised by a grandmother who didn’t speak English and worked in a sweatshop.  I was the first in my family to attend and graduate from college.  I toiled away for years in corporate America, navigating social and political landmines – daily, constantly on guard and questioning every situation while trying not to be too obvious about it.  I feel I’ve already had too many polite conversations about diversity with those who don’t recognize their privilege, and I just didn’t want to have to do it at NN09, too.

  
  

   

  
  

  Don’t get me wrong: it can’t be easy for anyone of privilege to own up to benefits that are conferred to them – automatically and systematically – because of their race or gender.  But if white progressives want to work with communities of color to build a strong, long-lasting movement for change, owning up to white privilege will go a long way in moving us toward a peaceful, socially just, economically prosperous, and post-racial America.  And if my white feminists sisters want to find me, I’ll be down the hall with those fighting for economic and environmental justice, education equity and immigrant rights, healthcare and fair labor practices. For in these spaces where folks still struggle for basic human rights, my feminist values are inherently embedded into the fabric of the movement.