by Carmen Van Kerckhove
How curious. A chunk of Moe’s questions/commentary seems to have disappeared from the original post on Jezebel. (Hat tip to reader van.)
Most notably …
“So, back to you. Urine is an ever present smell?”
and
“FOR NEXT TIME. 1. Getting laid in Yemen 2. Islam - can it be saved? 3. Guantanamo - what’s it like. oh and 4. Fashion magazines - can you get them blown up by Al Qaeda?”
See Aaminah’s post here.
Pwned.
Wow. That is fucked up!
I’m a little unclear … which user was Moe?
How strange. Do they not know that people can get around that and find out what you wrote originally?
Why couldn’t they just have apologised instead? Or is that not cool and ironic?
P.S Latoya - Did Anna get back in touch with you?
To borrow from Reappropriate, it looks like the Racism Fairy made it vanish! Oh, Racism Fairy!
LOL. Well, those who think I am a racist for pointing out that it seems rather uncommon lately in the blogosphere for white bloggers that have said something repugnant to just frickin’ APOLOGIZE for it - here is your case in point.
Oh, and even with those two pieces deleted from Moe’s post, the post as a whole is still disgusting. 
Bad form, Jezebel. BAD FORM.
I have a hard time applauding Sarah [the interviewee] for reporting what sounds like it amounts to ‘The Devil Wears the Niqaab’ but I’m most curious to find out: would Racialicious interview her? Instead of making jokes about the smell of urine [I’m sorry but I find it hard to believe that an ENTIRE country could smell like urine EVERYWHERE…] we could ask her what made her feel entitled to go there in the first place etc…
Why she felt “entitled” to go there in the first place?
Maybe I’m just reading your comment wrong, but I would think that people travel to different countries to learn about different cultures (and maybe clear up some misconceptions by seeing and experiencing things first-hand). Otherwise, you might as well just stay in your own little box.
Safiya: That’s why people do screencaps; that way people just can’t change things and LIE. ~_^
I would LOVE to interview Sarah and that was a behind-the-scenes talk at Racialicious before my post was put up even on my own blog. Unfortunately, we have not been successful in securing a means of contacting her.
And for the record, I’m not applauding her for what were tactless and ridiculous comments. I am recognizing that she was led down that road by the questions and was venting to a friend with no notion that the friend was going to put it up for the world to see. More importantly, I appreciate that she stood up, ate her words publicly, and apologized profusely.
And, now having read Moe’s bs followup, let me say, the urine issue was the more minor of offenses. For it to be brought up by her as if it’s the worst that was said is avoiding the larger issues.
Everyone who’s surprised, raise your hand!
*looks around*
Yeah, me neither.
@Deena - Hahahaha. Now I want a bumper sticker that says “Oh Racism Fairy!”
An interview of Sarah might be really interesting. It’s only just possible that she went to Yemen for deeper reasons than to ‘find out why they hate us’ etc etc. And surely she had interesting insights about being in Yemen…
I was also going to rant a little about how Aaminah is not a racist for referring to white bloggers who don’t apologize, but, oh dear, I find not the eneregy to engage in what surely should be obvious (if you have followed the I have to say now quite long history between white feminst and WOC bloggers; and if it isn’t obvious then perhaps one should learn what it’s all about before one goes accusing Aaminah of being racist). Oh well, I guess I ranted after all…
>And, now having read Moe’s bs followup, let me say, the urine issue was the more minor of offenses. For it to be brought up by her as if it’s the worst that was said is avoiding the larger issues.
That’s par for the course with when the Racism Fairy strikes. With the infamous Michael Richards’ rant, EVERY MEDIA OUTLET was talking about the epithet used, when I personally was more horrified by the lynching comments.
It seems that if someone apologizes, sincerely or insincerely, they will find the most obvious and least controversial portion of their statements to apologize for… which to me means that they have not really internalized or understood what they did and why they did it.
Aww, thank you Turtle (blushing). I was gonna write a whole post on my blog about how it’s not just “the-Seal-Press-WAM-Amanda issue” that I refer to. They are just recent examples of what is a larger and long-standing conflict. It does hurt me that people would think it is racist of me to point out… that they are racist. Sigh…
Lyonside, thank you for sharing that because you are so right. What bothered me in this case is that Moe isn’t apologizing for the urine comments but making a big case out of why there was nothing wrong with her making them… as if they are even remotely the point or the biggest problem I pointed out in the post! You’re right, it’s a minimizing gesture and it makes it all seem very insincere. It’s like when people say “I’m sorry you were hurt by what I said” instead of “I’m sorry I hurt you with what I said”. There is a big distinction there…
hmm, not surprised at all. it figures that she would take down what she thought were the most offensive parts and then goes on to try and justify it by saying urine is a universal experience and whatnot and that’s not the bigger picture anyhow.
but you know what? at least she tried to give some sort of half assed explaination. slut machine (if i’m not mistaken) didnt even acknowledge the vileness that was the fgm statement on some ANTM post. goes to show you how much they care about these issues.
it’s interesting that they have this whole section where they call out other bloggers like perez hilton et al for misogyny (and i am sure that more than once they have been asked that they learn to take a f*cking joke or focus on more important things going on in the world) but when someone critiques any of their stuff it generally boils down to “i have done sooooo much, you have like, no idea. so whatev about what it. y’all are just full of drama.”
since she complains that she senses racialicious and other blogs are standing by, waiting to catch them being insensitive, maybe it’s time she wonders why jezebel keeps being called out for being racially insensitive rather than complaining about feeling hounded by complete meanies who in her mind, just don’t get it.
I think it’s Webmaster Privilege.
I emailed Jezebel asking this question once I put two and two together and this was their response…
“Hi Monica,
We removed particular comments/phrases/questions because of United States
officials in Yemen who were concerned about the subject’s safety.
Anna”…I dont find it satisfactory but thats what they are going with…
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of New Demographic, an anti-racism training company. She hosts the podcast Addicted to Race and blogs at Racialicious, Anti-Racist Parent, and Race in the Workplace.
Racialicious! is a production of New Demographic.
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On Facing Your Bias, Owning Your Prejudice, and Allies - Part 1 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 29 Apr 2008 at 8:37 am
[…] tempered my response to the Jezebel article, knowing that I could not engage the white writer of the piece fairly. So instead, I started […]