NYT: White Author's Book on Black Feminism Pulled

[Wahoo Redux]

I posted this over on "Cancelling Dr. Suess," but most posters seem to be avoiding that thread.

So I thought I would post it here because I am a bit amazed by the story.

NYT: A White Author's Book About Black Feminism Was Pulled After a Social Media Outcry

The book "Bad and Boujee" centers on Black women's experience, but critics said it was written by a white professor and was flawed in its execution.

The blurb for the book "Bad and Boujee: Toward a Trap Feminist Theology" says that it "engages with the overlap of Black experience, hip-hop music, ethics and feminism to focus on a subsection known as 'trap feminism.'"

But the book, written by Jennifer M. Buck, a white academic at a Christian university, was criticized by some authors and theologians as academically flawed, with deeply problematic passages, including repeated references to the ghetto. The project was also widely condemned on social media as poorly executed and as an example of cultural appropriation.

In response to the criticism, the book's publisher, Wipf and Stock Publishers, decided on Wednesday that it would pull the title from circulation.

[little bongo]

Pulling the book seems deeply misguided. Even wrong-headed books and misfires (if this book indeed falls into those categories) can add to a discussion.

[Parasaurolophus]

I can't speak to the merits or the demerits of the case, but it seems to me that there's an added level of responsibility when you're speaking about other people's experiences, and that it's incumbent upon you, as a researcher, to do the legwork to ensure both that the community you're talking about is accurately represented and feels heard, and that your own work is to a high standard. I imagine that anthropologists face such difficulties all the time, but they also have extensive training in how to present their materials.

Theology? I dunno. I have a low opinion of the field to begin with, so I'm not exactly an impartial observer.

[mamselle]

I will grant that some theologians indeed do merit your low opinion, but others among us try to meet reasonable standards...in whatever confessional or conceptual sub-fields we work.

Otherwise, I agree. I couldn't tell an enslaved black 18th c. female what her life was like--that's what my interpretive black partner did.

M.

[ciao_yall]

Pulling the book seems deeply misguided. Even wrong-headed books and misfires (if this book indeed falls into those categories) can add to a discussion.

If it's a crappy book it will just lead to a crappy discussion.

[marshwiggle]

I will grant that some theologians indeed do merit your low opinion, but others among us try to meet reasonable standards...in whatever confessional or conceptual sub-fields we work.

Otherwise, I agree. I couldn't tell an enslaved black 18th c. female what her life was like--that's what my interpretive black partner did.

M.

Unless your partner was over a century old, there are only a few aspects of the 18th c. enslaved woman that would be significantly more relatable to her.

[mamselle]

Um, she'd made as much of a study of the situations as I had of my character's situations, and could speak to them in as much detail.

Living history offerings presume a lot of background work, but are also a kind of unscripted theater, so there is or should be some understanding that they are both presentational and representational: it's an acknowledgement that one can be the character at very deep levels, yet one remains oneself, tied to one's own time and the limitations that entails.

My partner died, sadly, a few years ago, at the age of 94. She'd seen a lot in her own lifetime to give her some perspective, as well.

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

What is interesting to me is that so many people are attacking their allies. 

As imperfect as this book might be----emphasis on the "might" (we will never know its faults or merits)----the author wanted to examine and pay homage to trap feminism. 

I cannot imagine the frustration of being a minority in the age of Trump, Arbery, Floyd, and social media, but just like the cancel culture on college campuses, some people have developed an acute hyper-sensitivity, even a paranoia, that flashes back on the very people who want to support them.

We cannot police the Trumpees, so we hurt each other.

[marshwiggle]

What is interesting to me is that so many people are attacking their allies. 

As imperfect as this book might be----emphasis on the "might" (we will never know its faults or merits)----the author wanted to examine and pay homage to trap feminism. 

I cannot imagine the frustration of being a minority in the age of Trump, Arbery, Floyd, and social media, but just like the cancel culture on college campuses, some people have developed an acute hyper-sensitivity, even a paranoia, that flashes back on the very people who want to support them.

We cannot police the Trumpees, so we hurt each other.

One of the big problems for hardcore identitarians is the idea that it's not just about what is said, but about who says it.

On a slightly related, but equally absurd note:


Woke diversity activists accuse black man of sporting blackface

[mahagonny]

What is interesting to me is that so many people are attacking their allies. 

How can woekism end up any other way?

[Parasaurolophus]

What is interesting to me is that so many people are attacking their allies. 

As imperfect as this book might be----emphasis on the "might" (we will never know its faults or merits)----the author wanted to examine and pay homage to trap feminism. 

I cannot imagine the frustration of being a minority in the age of Trump, Arbery, Floyd, and social media, but just like the cancel culture on college campuses, some people have developed an acute hyper-sensitivity, even a paranoia, that flashes back on the very people who want to support them.

We cannot police the Trumpees, so we hurt each other.

It's an academic monograph, however, so it seems to me that the quality of the content (and perhaps even its presentation) does matter to its evaluation, and that the author's intentions are pretty peripheral. Shitty as Charles Murray's intentions are, the real problems are with the quality of his work, which is... well, bullshit.

Is it being pulled because the author is a white woman talking about Black women and Black culture? Or has that become a focal point for criticism which is actually about the quality of the content? My cursory sense is that it's the latter. Depending on the nature and extent of the faults identified, pulling the book may or may not be warranted, but that seems like a somewhat different issue.

Woke diversity activists accuse black man of sporting blackface

The merits of that accusation aside, surely it's possible for someone who's Black to wear Blackface. Imagine they want to put on a minstrel show, and so they put on the makeup, use it to exaggerate certain facial features in keeping with racist caricatures, etc. Blackface is a kind of makeup/practice of applying makeup, and the colour of your skin doesn't prevent you from applying makeup.

[marshwiggle]

Woke diversity activists accuse black man of sporting blackface

The merits of that accusation aside, surely it's possible for someone who's Black to wear Blackface. Imagine they want to put on a minstrel show, and so they put on the makeup, use it to exaggerate certain facial features in keeping with racist caricatures, etc. Blackface is a kind of makeup/practice of applying makeup, and the colour of your skin doesn't prevent you from applying makeup.

Is it similar or different than black people using the n-word? Is a black person wearing blackface somehow "reclaiming" it?
The rules of wokeness are bizarre.
(And really, the prof who flipped out about the supposed "blackface" was ridiculous in not looking closer to begin with, and then doubling down when he got called on it.)

[Parasaurolophus]

Is it similar or different than black people using the n-word? Is a black person wearing blackface somehow "reclaiming" it? The rules of wokeness are bizarre.

Depends on how you want to construe the case. But yes, a Black person's use of the n-word can be offensive. What the person's identity does is it gives interlocutors/an audience a good reason to doubt that what they're saying or doing is of a piece with what white people do, say, or have done or said with the same words or actions. It's a defeasible reason, like any other. But it's a pretty good clue. Similarly, when I say "I went to the bank yesterday", context usually gives you an idea of whether I mean a financial institution or the edge of a body of water.

It's culture that's hard. It's a mess of ultimately arbitrary conventions, instritutions, norms, etc. Happily, most of us can navigate it fairly easily.

[Wahoo Redux]

It's an academic monograph, however, so it seems to me that the quality of the content (and perhaps even its presentation) does matter to its evaluation, and that the author's intentions are pretty peripheral. Shitty as Charles Murray's intentions are, the real problems are with the quality of his work, which is... well, bullshit.

Is it being pulled because the author is a white woman talking about Black women and Black culture? Or has that become a focal point for criticism which is actually about the quality of the content? My cursory sense is that it's the latter.

Well, it was accepted by the publisher.  This would not be the first academic book to be panned.  If I understand, the focus was very much on a white professor who did not cite enough black experts and a book cover which seemed "racist" because of the model's hairstyle. 

The theologian Candice Marie Benbow, author of "Red Lip Theology," was "livid" to learn that a white academic had published a book about the theology of trap feminism — an emerging philosophy that examines the intersection of feminist ideals, trap music and the Black southern hip-hop culture that gave rise to it.

"It matters that you have an academic text that would situate Black women's lived experiences and Black women's spirituality, and it's not written by a Black woman," she said.

Sesali Bowen, a pioneer of the concept of trap feminism and the author of "Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes From a Trap Feminist," also took issue with the author's failure to properly credit or engage with the Black women who have been leading experts in the field.

"Even if another Black woman did this, the issues around citation would still exist," she said. "The fact that this is also a white woman, who has no business writing about this because nothing about the trap or Black feminism is her lived experience, is adding another layer to this."

Imagine a book on Robert Frost by a black academic being pulled because of lived experience.

[marshwiggle]

Imagine a book on Robert Frost by a black academic being pulled because of lived experience.

Wahoo, get with the program. Anyone can say whatever they like about white people, what they do, or say, etc. Everyone else can only legitimately be commented on by one of "their own".