Re: Prof combats ignorance about Islam, women

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Your critique of cliquishness probably has some validity. However, it seems to me that I agree with you and Andy on a number of issues in dispute. And in general from this and other lists, I don't see myself as closer ideologically to some in the listed names below than you or Andy. Andy and I have had some knock-down-drag-outs on other lists, but I still respect him highly and agree with him on a number of very important issues. Even my disagreements with Andy have helped me to clarify my own thinking.

I think your criticism should be considered, but there is a kind of complicated pluralism here, and it includes you.

Charles Brown

>>> jennifer lehmann <jlehmann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 08/25/99 02:08PM >>>

                                                          [...] i've not
> once seen any of the differences we've had, carrol, me, charles, yoshie,
> doug, katha, wojtek, as somehow a sign that we're not solidaristic but that
> we're humans who differ on some points, some minor, some key; and sometimes
> some of us are wrong and learn from the others and so forth. [...]
> kelley

To "THE LIST":
I've just heard privately from a former paricipant on this list that
they were "forcibly removed" from it.  I do not as yet know the
reason, but this was the final indication I needed, along with the
above excerpt, to validate my sense that this list is rather like a
clique.  Some of its members -- some of those listed above as well as
Kelley -- appear to consider themselves "THE LIST" and to discourage
those not part of the familiar group and its familiar discourse from
participating.  Again, I do not know why someone was "forcibly
removed" as yet, but that is one example of a means of retaining
solidarity and exclusivity.  The other is more indirect, but effective
nonetheless:  the bashing I referred to, and which Katha rather
audaciously denied, even as she was in the process of bashing me
in a public (euphemistic) manner, to explain her bashing me in a
private (honest) manner.  I do not consider myself a victim or pity
myself as Katha asserts; I do feel singled out as the object of
reflexive and mean-spirited, personal attacks, as I feel Andrew is.
It is ironic that I began participating on this list when it was
discussing censorship -- my entrance and position triggering what
was described as the longest thread ever, a thread that was
*denounced* for being protracted and abundant.  I won't include the
specific exclusion from the list, because, again, I do not know the
circumstances; but the very potential of being excluded from the list,
as well as the bashing that "outsiders" -- theoretical outsiders, who
define themselves as Marxists and feminists -- both have a censorship
effect, preventing or actively discouraging participation in the
discussions.  I am very tired of being bashed, and it discourages me
from posting, and tempts me to leave.  My sense is that "THE LIST"
either derives pleasure from "torturing" us "absolute lunatics" or
is trying to drive us away, so the discussion can proceed as usual,
or, most likely both.  Well, I do feel tortured, and I do feel driven
away, so the collective consiousness can reinvigorate its sense of
cohesion by knowning that it successfully punishes deviants, and
has the ability to excommunicate them.  (The Durkheimian language
reflects my sense of this list, not my own theoretical perspective.)

May a thousand flowers bloom.  (Does THE LIST consider it
"reasonable" and "sane" and congruent with its own sense of "marxism"
and "feminism" to quote Mao?)

(I'm not a "Maoist" *per se* and all of my work has been Marxist and
feminist denunciation of Durkheim, so please don't bother attempting
to discredit me as a Durkeimian, a literal Maoist, or member of a
Maoist sect "like Avakian's RCP".

In solidarity with all Marxist, feminist, anti-heterocentrist, anti-racist,
anti-imperialists, whom I refer to as Marxist feminist
multiculturalists, or "critical structuralists,"

Jennifer

P.S. Discuss away.