More meta tonight. The first thing I generally do when I open Daily Kos in the morning is to read the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup. It's a good way to find out what I should continue on to as I wander further into the web, and I find that I'm interested in the articles they post at least 90% of the time. I started writing this diary Thursday morning 12/12 (I had two diaries to write for Saturday since I participated in the Newtown Anniversary blogathon, and I came up with something else in the pic-is-worth-1000-words area for that night's Top Comments). This isn't about the diary itself, it's about the first comment, in which one of our best-regarded lay (as opposed to FP) writers flogs a diary he wrote Wednesday night (12/11), titled "Perhaps it takes someone who has been poor," because it hadn't attracted enough attention. Okay. I went to the article said writer diaried, which was a VERY hard-hitting assault on something stupid Rand Paul said about unemployment insurance. Then I went to the diary, which was fine, albeit on the clinical side, and it made me wonder. Are we now at a point in this community where, when we're writing for the community as a whole, we have to think about whether we're the appropriate person to write the diary? Have we always been there?
This is something that affects the academic field I work in too, so I've been thinking about it for a while. My analysis and conclusions below the great orange turnstile.
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First, I should admit I've done this -- written about something that really was NOT in my area of specialization without thinking about what this would mean to the people who expected to write about it, because an article said "diary me" and I jumped on it. That was the article that produced my diary on Texas politics, Battleground Texas: You Have Them Worried last May. Nothing happened in the comments, but at NN13 I got an earful from one of the writers of the weekly review of the Texas recap. I had I published at 3:55 PM Pacific, which was about an hour before the Texas recap was supposed to publish, and, well, some of us write at the last minute, and here was a diary on the subject for the day, written by somebody else, climbing up the rec list. No harm, no foul as it turned out.
But that really wasn't the same thing. I think we're just talking about certain topics here --and basic political stuff like "Battleground Texas" isn't one of them. Poverty is, however. The "diary me" moment for this particular diary was in a comment thread of the Thursday morning diary when Youffraita wrote this:
I don't know why you didn't get more traffic.
Sometimes I think it's pure luck, whether a diary gets a response or not
My response to that was "I know why. It's not pure luck. You said it at the beginning of the diary, you've never been poor." I don't know, but I think we're at a point where, on a subject like this, your authority comes not from your ability as a writer but from your experience as a person. It's not just poverty. Gender and gender identity, SOME matters concerning sexual orientation, and SOME matters concerning race and ethnicity fall into this category too. I know I've written a couple of important diaries on Indian matters, but two of them I wrote as a historian, and the third,
the CERA/CERF diary, didn't see the light of day until after
Aji vetted it thoroughly (and helped me make it better than it had been). I guess that if you start your diary with a disclaimer you should really give some thought to whether you continue writing it.
The academic field? It's available through JSTOR for those of you who have access to it, but I don't know if you'll need it. The article was titled "Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History: The Discourse, Politics, and Decolonization of History" (1992) but we referred to it as "This is what my friends and I are writing about that you can't." The writer (Chicana/Latina) complained, justifiably, that the stories being told about women of color in the West by women historians who study Western history were inflected by white privilege (not an unfamiliar concept here at the GOS) and that the writer and her friends, all Chicana/Latina, are writing to combat the pernicious stereotypes generated by studies that deny women of color their subjectivity.
The structures of colonialism are the historical legacy of the United States, and, as such, inform the profession of history and the production of historical scholarship as much as they do any other human relationship and endeavor. If Western history is to be decolonized, historians must be conscious of their power and ideology within the structures of colonialism, and conscious as well of the ways in which historical scholarship has helped to sustain and reproduce those structures.
True, but the article very clearly warned the rest of us off certain subjects because we bring the wrong kind of baggage to them.
Here, and ESPECIALLY in Top Comments, we can write about anything we want. Still, I don't think I should be writing about certain specific women's issues any more than I think that even some of our best allies should be writing about certain subjects that have to do with gay men. I don't think I should be writing much about ethnicities other than my own unless I approach them as a historian (and write about issues that addressed these ethnicities in the past). I think we all proceed with caution with race and gender issues, especially if they're about issues that don't affect our own race or our own gender. But I know what I CAN write about. I've written about woman suffrage as a historian and about what we call people who oppose abortion as a student of political language, but I'm not going to write about women's issues on a regular basis unless they happen to be in the LGBT arena. And I've warned people off certain issues as well. Remember, I'm the guy who wrote Discussing homelessness and homeless people at Daily Kos when I was miffed by the tone of a diary about those issues.
Yes, when something says "diary me" I stop and think for a minute about whether I know enough about it from personal experience to diary it. I wish everyone else would do that too.
And now for the stuff that makes this Top Comments:
TOP COMMENTS, December 18, 2013: Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From belinda ridgewood:
There are many great comments in the thread of Matt Bors' cartoon Can Santa Be Black? For instance, aaraujo sets one up and then tops it. However, Damnit Janet wins the internets today with this comment.
From
cohenzee:
ActivistGuy posts a great Sarah Silverman music video that is sure to continue the "War on Christmas" in poopdogcomedy's diary about Al Franken's attempt to make Megyn Kelly's head explode.
From
Steveningen:
In jabney's touching diary I have aphasia, grover wrote one hell of a thoughtful reply.
From
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
Hunter's diaries are always a great place for finding witty comments. In today's diary about a Republican hiding Obama's image for her photo op, blue aardvarkhad a wicked suggestion.
From
your recovering diarist (yes, ALL my grades are in!):
ExpatGirl gets off a doozie of a zinger in JGibson's diary about homophobia and Duck Dynasty (whodathunkit?).
TOP MOJO, December 17, 2013 (excluding Tip Jars and first comments):
1) I am sorry you lost your friend... by SaraBeth — 208
2) This isn't a new occurrence but... by HerndonDavis — 152
3) This isn't about her by Dallasdoc — 148
4) Yes by jabney — 130
5) It took the combined might by Major Kong — 101
6) Note that cuts to the military always by Yoshimi — 97
7) I once met a man in Greece-- by WearyIdealist — 93
8) Meanwhile, Dan Rather continues to be by Jeff Y — 84
9) Welcome back by Sylv — 83
10) Your last comment was OCT 31 , by indycam — 82
11) 5.5% is so much less than the hidden costs of coal by NCJim — 80
12) What a croc! n/t by Susan G in MN — 80
13) For some with aphasia, by grover — 80
14) I too have lost family members and almost my son by lutznancy — 80
15) I'm old enough to remember the intra-party by praenomen — 80
16) A book I recommend on this topic. by aoeu — 79
17) Come to think of it... by kalspa — 78
18) Today Military Pensions, Tomorrow SS and Medicare by Gooserock — 78
19) I have more or less lost a sister over this by zitherhamster — 77
20) You shouldn't have to fill out a credit ap to get by voracious — 77
21) Great, so I can continue to not watch the show n/t by wader — 77
22) best wishes, sweetie. by Youffraita — 74
23) '60 Minutes' journalists by Laurence Lewis — 73
24) And at least parts of the windmills will be by nchristine — 73
25) probably not worth saving by fcvaguy — 73
26) Aphasia by indycam — 72
27) someday by jabney — 72
28) this is what happens when I can't sleep by teacherken — 71
29) We took stones.... by psychodrew — 71
30) FOXNews is the culprit. by 3rdOption — 66
For an explanation of How Top Mojo Works, see
mik's
FAQing Top Mojo
TOP PHOTOS, December 17, 2013: Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!