WAM!2008 Post Conference Wrap-Up
by Racialicious Special Correspondent Latoya Peterson
Carmen, Wendi, and I just got back from WAM!2008 and I think I speak for all of us when I say the conference was amazing.
Some quick highlights:
* I get to Boston and my cab driver is also African-American. He informs me that when he came to Boston in the 1970s, there were not a whole lot of African-Americans living in the city. In 2008, this is still true. Considering the weather conditions which converted my hair into a birds nest, I have an idea why more black women aren’t there. Also, people were jogging in the 35 degree wind and rain like it was nice outside, as I was shivering and miserable. Amazing. Me, Wendi, and Carmen learned the hard way that Boston tends to shut down around 10:00 PM - tough finding a restaurant, even tougher to find alcohol. Oy.
* Wendi and I got lost on Saturday but managed to make it to the conference in time to participate in the caucus and the session hosted by the Radical Women of Color Bloggers, titled We B(e)lo(n)g. Sudy, Black Amazon, Alexis, and Nadia managed to hold a session that was audience driven, cathartic, and informative which was a welcome change of pace from the standard presentation style. We also got to meet BrownFemiPower, Donna from the Silence of Our Friends, Angry Black Bitch, Thea from the Shameless Blog, and Elisa Gahng of the Women of Color Resource Center during the caucus. And there were a lot more people representing in the session, including the Op-Ed Project, the Culture Kitchen, Feministe and Viva La Feminista.
(Note from Carmen: sorry to hijack this post, but I wanted to point everyone to a great story in the Utne Reader about feminist blogs - and it includes many of the WOC bloggers mentioned here. Congrats, y’all!)
* I headed over to a panel on Backlash, co-hosted by Carmen, Jessica Valenti, Miriam Zoila Perez, and Patti Binder. An excellent conversation got under way, and after the panel I had the pleasure of meeting Stacey May and Megan Griffith-Greene (also of Shameless Mag). Wendi decided to check out the panel on Sex Workers and Media Representation, hosted by Audacia Ray.
* That evening, we met a big group of people for dinner including more members of the Feministing Crew. After that, we managed to head out to the Queer Women of Color reception and generally hung out with Thea and Pike until we remembered we had a 9 AM presentation.
* The next morning, we headed over to our presentation to find…two people. I guess everyone had a hard night. Fortunately, people kept trickling in until we had a nice group of about 20 or so to discuss whether or not blogging could end racism. If you attended our panel, please say hi in the comments!
*After the presentation, Wendi went to the Hillary Clinton panel (I think), Thea stayed for the panel on Hip-Hop Fiction and I headed out to the panel on Sexism in Gaming. While I was crying on the inside since I love Sofia Quientero’s work, I think I made the right decision as Roy and Naomi rocked their presentation. And luckily for me, in addition to learning a ton of new information and statistics, I met a whole new clan of gamer girls! (Hey Vanessa, Stephanie, Izzy, Melissa, Anna, and EK.)
I’m home from work today, trying to recover from the Boston/DC weather craziness.
Did anyone else attend WAM? If so, what were your thoughts?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
more cowbell wrote:
Wow, sounds fantastic. Weather excepted, of course. I’d like to hear more about your presentation.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 2:42 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:
MAN! I wish I could have come to this!
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 2:44 pm ¶
R. Prince wrote:
sounded like fun…
Yep, I live in Boston… lol @ why there aren’t more black women here.
Living here all of my life, I’d say there are much more immigrant Caribbean and African blacks than Black Americans.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 3:12 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
Talk to those in their 50s. Boston racism was as virulent as south of the Mason-Dixon. Consider the response to busing in the 70s.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 3:49 pm ¶
johnjihoonchang wrote:
I sojourned in Boston for a few years and it’s funny when you talk about jogging outside in 35 degrees, because I was one of those guys. Granted, I didn’t have the gall to do it in shorts and a loose T.
As for late night Boston munchies, Chinatown stays open until about 2AM.
I knew a lot of black people in Boston, but the majority of those I met were either recent immigrants or second generation from Cape Verde, Haiti, Brazil and various Caribbean isles.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 5:10 pm ¶
Liza wrote:
Hey, everyone! Just shouting out as someone from AntiRacist Parent. Wish I could have caught you all while you were in Boston. Thanks for the summary on WAM - I’ll try to get out there next year!
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 7:16 pm ¶
Redstar wrote:
About 25% of black Bostonians are immigrants, I believe.
Yes, we are a physically active bunch up here!
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 9:21 pm ¶
Roy wrote:
I was excited to see you there! I’m glad you and everyone else there enjoyed the session. Honestly, I was sort of worried going in that there wouldn’t be much interest, or that we wouldn’t have enough to talk about for the full time. I was clearly wrong. Not only did we have too much to talk about in the time given, but there was so much interest. It’s got me really invigorated.
And you were shining in there, too. You had such great comments and information to share. We ought to have given you credit in the program book. It was so great to meet you!
I attended the session on reproductive rights Saturday morning, and it was absolutely amazing and necessary. Aimee’ Thorne-Thomsen and Cristina Page, in particular, were completely on fire in that session.
Posted 31 Mar 2008 at 10:21 pm ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
yup…i attended the hillary clinton panel
you can check out my thoughts on that here:
http://thecoupmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/03/wam-conference-2008.html
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 12:00 am ¶
Celeste wrote:
Boston is the most segregated city I’ve ever lived in. It seems like black people aren’t allowed to live outside of Dorchester and Roxbury.
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 12:03 pm ¶
Masheka wrote:
My cartoonist wife Mikhaela Reid met you at the WAM conference (she designed the tote bags). She goes every year and has a great time.
We’re also both from MA (Lowell-her, Dorchester-me) and can vouch that there’s not much of a nightlife past 12am unless you’re a college student. One of the reasons why we’re in NY now.
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 12:54 pm ¶
Talia wrote:
Nice meeting you guys at the radical women of color panel. WAM is great as usual, but I did meet some women of color who had a lukewar reception to Helen Thomas views on the media being worse on Hillary than Obama.
Also, I am from Boston, and usually the black folks who complain about their not being enough diversity are the ones who are not from here. Usually black folks from here are better at finding a community. But that is just my opinion.
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 2:31 pm ¶
Torontonian wrote:
So what was the story behind the transition from unmoderated comments to moderated comments on Racialicious?
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 7:02 pm ¶
nadia wrote:
great meeting ya’ll, sorry i wasn’t able to make it to your session (partying with qwoc all night wiped me out, we didn’t get up until around eleven, lol)
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 12:01 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:
@ Talia, I totally agree. The black people I know who grew know a lot more about the community. Still, the community’s too hard to find for a city this “large” or whatever. I’m not comparing it to NYC because that’s not fair but I expected more. I’ve lived in other cities for less time and had a lot easier time of finding my way.
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 1:42 pm ¶
Haji wrote:
There is a large African American population in Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester, South End….I could go on and on. I’m tired of hearing the old punchline “I’m in Boston…where are the black folks?” Honestly, it gets old quick. There is a huge chunk of black history that took place in Boston. (See autobiography of Malcom X) And yes there are black people living in Boston proper too!
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 2:33 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:
Haji, I’m not denying the history. I’ not denying the prescence. I’m just saying that a city this big shouldn’t be this segregated. I lived in Brighton fro the past 3 years and I rarely saw any other AA’s. There were always many to be seen inthe South End where I still work. In my opinion it’s more segregated than NYC, DC and SF.
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 3:07 pm ¶
piKe wrote:
The highlight of the conference was meeting the Racialicious powerbloggers and being at that early session on blogging and racism! I am thinking through all of our talk on anti-racism, and I am looking to organize white people on the issue more actively here in Toronto, Canada. So, my thanks for being inspiration that we can work together across that divide!
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 5:44 pm ¶
bell wrote:
I think it’s hard for anyone who isn’t from Boston to find *anything* they are looking for, be that a particular community, a bar open at 1 a.m., parks, book stores, whatever. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Boston (/Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline/etc) is just a private, inward-looking place, for better or worse (did you notice the lack of street signs?).
gatamala - the response to busing in the 70s came from the extremely segregated (from other economic classes and other white ethnic backgrounds) white working class communities of Irish and Italian origin in the city. They got a raw deal from the then-majority Yankee population when they arrived, and so in turn they scapegoated the African-American population. But I’m really tired of the suggestion that they somehow equate to the entire city/metro area and its population, because the truth is far from that, and far more complex.
Posted 04 Apr 2008 at 12:52 pm ¶