Roxane gay twitter blurbs
In this way, Gay collects a record of proof offenders speak for themselves. In fact, because of the outrage that Black feminist rage sparks, the act of speaking her truth on Twitter often prompts quick and plentiful reactions from people seemingly eager to demonstrate the kinds of things that women are often accused of exaggerating or making up. Ahmed argues that women need to somehow show how their “snaps” are not the starting points. Gay is able to utilize Twitter to both create community and demand a hearing for its members’ often silenced testimonies. This happens because the person snapping is made to carry the weight of the violence of the moment. Importantly, she makes clear that a snap is a moment with a history that has often been obscured. For example, the concept of the feminist snap, or “a way of thinking more creatively and affirmatively about breaking points.”Īccording to Ahmed, breaking points are moments of refusal of inheritances chosen for, not by, women. Ahmed presents key principles that are helpful for understanding the power of Gay’s online actions. Gay’s activism on Twitter moves beyond the power of the hashtag.
Silence hasn’t worked out well.” As Ahmed notes, this silencing and shaming is often associated with the demand and then subsequent denial of women’s testimony, a phenomenon American’s recently witnessed playing out on a national stage with Christine Blasey Ford’s public testimony and Kavanaugh’s confirmation following soon after. I suppose we should keep our shames to ourselves, but I’m sick of this shame. This isn’t poor self-esteem For so long I’ve never talked about this. In Hunger, Gay speaks out against the silencing and shame she’s suffered as a rape survivor, noting that these things aren’t imagined or “in my head. One of the most important roles that Gay’s feminist activism plays is its amplification of the truths of survivors of all manner of abuses. But far from a utopic, premature celebration of future promise, Gay does weigh in on the debate, acknowledging, for example, the power of Cooper’s highlighting of the “actual hurt” that Black feminists endure in digital spaces that requires attention. Gay deftly navigates multiple Twitter “worlds” while avoiding becoming mired in the thick of what Michelle Goldberg identifies as “ Feminism’s Toxic Twitter Wars.” In fact, Gay has been vocal about the importance of careful language use and the need to celebrate the “growing pains” of an increasingly more “intersectional and inclusive” feminism, aided by social media, even if disagreements are at times contentious. It is also aligned with an articulation of rage that Ahmed calls “ feminist snap.” It is a refusal of the lie that Black women’s anger in the face of routine, everyday injustice is not legitimate.” By announcing that she is the “Clapback Queen” in her Twitter description, Gay demonstrates her fluency in a brand of Black women’s anger. To be made a fool of, to be silenced, to be shamed, or to stand for anybody’s bullshit. As Cooper explains, “Rage is a kind of refusal. Scholars Sara Ahmed and Brittany Cooper, drawing on Audre Lorde, inform us that the expression of feminist rage is not only healthy, but powerful. Situated at the nexus of feminist, queer, and Black Twitter, and transcending the usual routes to visibility such as the hashtag, Gay illustrates the powerful, if fraught, potential of Twitter. Reveling in the “ certain petty satisfaction in the ease with which one can dunk on trolls,” Gay has emerged as a superhero of sorts, a “feminist killjoy” avenger wielding her sharp words against trolls drawn to her expression of confidence, audacity, and rage. Billed Into Silence: Money and the Miseducation of Womenĭuring an appearance in Florida last fall, Roxane Gay noted that “The national conversation has shifted more towards listening and believing women when we say we have been harmed by toxic masculinity.” Gay herself has been instrumental in this shift, not only via her work as a university professor, a bestselling writer, and cultural critic, but notably from her throne as “Clapback Queen” on Twitter.