Rachel: I’m not sure we’re talking the same separatists here – “my” separatist feminists are women of all types interacting regularly in society who decide to have occasional strength-building seminars/parties/festivals with no male presence. That I can sympathise with for half a dozen reasons at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u9YWWcgheY

As far as being a separatist, maybe you don’t understand the connotation of that to the ears of most of the people I know. Usually it goes with things like race-pride, nationalism and xenophobia. It’s not something I want to be involved in nor do I think it’s proven to a helpful or successful strategy in dealing with almost anything.

And I think for someone who advocates shutting up and stepping aside you should do more of it and less name calling. Especially as a male feminist. I would be very surprised to find many women who would be happy to have you advocating their cause. You’ve had enough of the rich white male perspective? What are you? Change starts at home, why don’t you silence your own rich white voice first? I don’t have a conflict with speaking my views, collaborating with who I want or choosing what music I like and don’t like and then promoting those choices.

And as much as you may not like ‘rich white males’ like myself mixing with poorer non-white people, we’re doing it! And my essay was addressing that reality and an attempt to make some suggestions to everyone that they approach these questions as thoughtfully as possible. How is “an earnest attempt to make sure that if I present the music of some place, it is the music as the people there themselves would understand it” different from what I was suggesting in the first place?

“we need to get women/the poor/ethnically doscriminated-against people into positions of power” Why not just let them do it themselves? I don’t see how this is consistent with your rhetoric. Who is we?

I don’t feel that I am acting as a ‘filter’ nor am I preventing anyone from expressing themselves or taking up their cultural space. If you actually studied the history of my artistic practice (which you clearly have not) then you would know that. People who have followed it do not agree with you, as noted here and in the DA comments.

And how does me relinquishing my ‘power’ help anyone? I have consciously leveraged my (limited) artistic profile in order to bring to light artists who I thought were important and that the wider, whiter world should know about. I don’t see how my not doing that helps anyone. If you suggest I should try to ’step aside’ or ‘remove myself from a filtering position’ I think that’s purely imaginary and that my stamp will be on the product either overtly or behind the scenes if I am involved and I choose to make it overt.

Finally, I think you would not have attacked the piece in the same way had it come from someone else. Don’t like it? Do better. Or keep throwing rocks from the sidelines. And since you insist on consistently making this about me, my race, my cultural background, etc. I think that all your rhetoric is essentially an intellectualized personal attack on me, which I find totally mysterious since before this started I didn’t even know that you existed. While before I ignored you due to being unaware of you, now I will make a conscious decision to do so. To paraphrase Maino: “It’s nothing, we major / You see me, Bye hater!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LFBNbDzBs

separatist feminism? i dunno man.. not a fan. Its that whole celibacy / lesbian thing (help!) The only feminist i adore to rep celibacy is Valerie Solanas, and shes crazy. And the lesbian thing seems offensive to the real dykes. It also ignores the sex positive third wave and worse breaks down connections with mens movements and their deconstructing of problematic masculinity (way needed for the gays and the ladies right now) so yeah, not accepted, by me at least.. and im suspicious of a separatist feminist guy (or a racial separatist whitey)

speaking of gender.. where the ghettotek ladies at? nina, julianne shepherd, who else? link me.

I come from an ideological background that is largely feminist. I think a lot of my ideas about identities and social groups derive from the (socially constructed) bifurcation that is gender roles. I’m going to try to give a bit of background from my perspective and hope I can better explain it that way.

Firstly, I firmly believe in the dictum of no progress without representation. If we’re interested in a real shift, we need to get women/the poor/ethnically doscriminated-against people into positions of power. In this context, it involves letting the artists and DJs from oppressed groups themselves speak and tell us their stories, not Matt being there as a filter to interpret and censor them. In effect, they’re the ones who understand the “slang, culture…” etc. and I’d like them to tell me about it.

The rich white male perspective, quite frankly, I’ve heard enough of. And that’s the second reason I can get infuriated at an article like this: I think that, in order to achieve equality, we with access need to relinquish some of our power, not hold onto it in a ridiculous display of “understanding”. That’s where the obsession with the genuine comes from – it’s not a rootsy geniunity but an earnest attempt to make sure that if I present the music of some place, it is the music as the people there themselves would understand it. In effect, I try shutting myself up as much as I possibly can, and letting the other speak. Hence, too, the separatism.

But I totally feel your central point, and it’s one that’s been hotly debated in feminism too: should the focus be trying to get women into traditionally male gender roles, or should it be to try to balance out traditionally “male” and “female” characteristics, allowing everyone to be what they want to be? It’s all difficult because both traditional male and traditional female gender roles are shaped by the patriarchy, and it’s easily to contrue female roles as “wasted creativity” or male roles as “hierarchical oppression”. Still, with I think the majority of current feminists, the latter option is probably ultimately more appealing –

So while I certainly have no inclination to prevent any black person doing the traditional white thing, I think what we need to do is upvalue the cultures of those currently with less power. Only that way can we achieve full equality.

“Spare me any comfortable middle-class dude trying to lame-ass copy the “slang, culture, meaning, people, relationships, beef and history” – you’re never gonna live it anyway… Let them speak and stand for the interpretation themselves.”

And my problem is this: the voice(s) of power, the voice(s) of hegemony, those are just dialects naturalized as official… So while Birdseed’s comment is ostensibly aimed at Matt saying ‘you’ll never understand these poor/darker/other people so don’t even try,”

what I hear is much much scarier: Someone saying TO ME (looking down at me): “Don’t even try to talk rich, talk white, or wear a 3-piece business suit and be comfortable, or walk around a university and feel as much right to be there as the others, KNOW YOUR PLACE and don’t try to challenge the status quo. You are your kind are not natural in the corridors of power so don’t even attempt, you’re never gonna live it anyway”

(Notice his judicial 3rd person command — whiteness encoded as invisible power — “Let them speak and stand for the interpretation themselves.” Maybe they don’t want to speak & get yr interpretation, maybe they want to sing and see if you can dance along..)

the language of power already depends on those undertones (know your place, boy); but it’s particularly scary for me to hear these attitudes spoken & defended in this context.

In other words, ‘defending’ the brown people’s musical culture from white interest by lashing out at rich/white folks who embrace other cultures tends to look more like ‘containing’ the brown peoples of the world from aspiring to the positions of power commonly held by/associated with whiteness (if a white (or rich) person can’t/shouldnt use black (or poor) slang, then blacks (poor folks) shouldn’t/can’t use Proper English authentically, which is to say, successfully…) — & in this schema, folks like me & Matt are particularly troublesome, b/c we upset that ‘authentic’/”economically real” order of naturalized privileges and actually share money, knowledge, and information with “these people” so that they can better navigate the sharky music biz waters, “these people” who are more often than not, if not ourselves, our friends….

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* with a great sense of rhythm