I posted this on Amp’s blog, and in the spirit of actually taking action to create change, as opposed to repeating yet another refrain of the Progressive “We Need To … In the Future We Must …” Rhetorical Chorus and letting the actual issue at hand fade into the distance, I thought I’d repeat it here:

Well, I think the point has been made that people are noticing the phenomenon.

So let’s make it stop.

And that means that mainstream white feminist authors who
agree that this is a problem, and who have acknowledged that (there’s that word again!), make — and continue to make until the problem is rectified — public statements demanding that the prominent white feminist author who has committed the most recent instance of this repetitive and historical phenomenon acknowledge and credit her sources.

(By the way, I’m repeating myself on this point because so far the above has not happened.

And I don’t think I have to harp on the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from lack of activity by the alleged supporters of “Doing the Right Thing” — if they fail to challenge an author who, as long as the sources in the article in question remain unacknowledged and uncredited, continues to refuse to “Do the Right Thing”. We’re all smart people here.)

Thank you again, Jack, for taking the time to compile all that material and post something on the subject. Because clearly it needs to be reiterated.

(And you know, I’m just musing here … as a lecturer and writer myself, if it were me (and G*d knows I know — and thank the Deity — it is not), and my article, and several communities outside of my own accused me of cultural appropriation … and there was more than one person of some prominence — with a reputation at least arguably equal to mine (like, say, someone working for a known and visible Legal Defense Fund) — whose ideas I’d been even arguably discussing without giving them credit — even if it looked a little teeny weeny bit like that (there’s this standard in some professions that’s known as the “appearance of impropriety”, you see) — I’d certainly want to revise that article and credit them before they got wind of it and/or even thought about questioning me — or my book publisher, or my agent, or the other publications for which I write — directly.

Because — even if the only thing I was concerned about was my own personal career and reputation, and I didn’t give a d*mn about anything else related to the matter — *cough cough* — that???

Could be really embarrassing.)