I get what you're saying here. My main reason for being here has always been to connect with other Black women in the academy. And it still is. For lots of reasons, I don't feel pressure to think a/b the platform as useful for me beyond that. +
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Replying to @triciamatthew @dorothyk98
In other words, I am not here because I think my institution wants me to promote my work (though I obviously tweet a lot about what I'm writing and reading). I felt isolated on my campus, and there were all these amazing Black people here who helped me feel less alone.
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Replying to @triciamatthew @dorothyk98
Following them lead to reading Black journalists and other writers. It's been a pleasant surprise to meet and connect w/other kinds of people, and I've certainly benefitted from being here. But the main reason you rarely see me in Twitter beefs is b/c that's not why I'm here.
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Replying to @triciamatthew @dorothyk98
For me, at the root, I'm really to read and trying to understand the range of Black women doing their work. And when I got depressed a/b certain silences about Ferguson, I reminded myself that I wasn't there for those timelines but for the Black women.
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Replying to @triciamatthew @dorothyk98
If I'm understanding your response, I think you are raising REALLY important questions about our obligations about how we use this space and what we're able to amplify because people who might ignore their colleagues of color IRL pay attention to people of color here.
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Replying to @triciamatthew
I totally agree with you about community and I think that part is great. Similarly, I have no obligation to be on here from the institution as well, so it is more about community. I think it's still like that public square, where you find your community & just connect.
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Replying to @dorothyk98 @triciamatthew
And it is lovely to find out about what other people are doing in lots of places particularly Black women in and out of academia. I think it's a form of dissonance for me b/c literally sometime this digital public street can just have people hanging out & discussing things in
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Replying to @dorothyk98 @triciamatthew
different groups, but then the public street really becomes saturated w/ certain protests that get amplified that take over the TL. So I think I find it strange when that is happening, when the street is loud with protest noise, that particularly academics are still doing
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Replying to @dorothyk98 @triciamatthew
what they were doing when the digital street was its normal day with many different nodes of discussion. I think for me it's about the disconnect from what that public ecosystem looks like, its shifts, changes.This does not mean people have to come out on the street (b/c reasons)
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Replying to @dorothyk98 @triciamatthew
and that's fine. But I often think if folks are here for specific communities, the communities still talk to each other in these major moments @ what's going on. It just feels like a major disconnect when ppl are doing things (while during major events) that imagine that
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stuff is not happening at all. Like why would people want to put up signs promoting themselves in the midst of a major protest? They would be drowned out anyhow, but it just is discombobulating.
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Replying to @dorothyk98 @triciamatthew
It's sort of like having an advertisement sign posted or one you carry around just as literally terrible horrible is happening directly on the digital street. Everyone just would look at that as totally not reading the room but also a dystopic disconnect.
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Replying to @dorothyk98
This gets v. close to how I felt. Your analogy of streets and public squares makes sense. I've tended to think in terms of channels I tune in & out of. I muted A LOT of people during Ferguson, but I unfollowed people at the start of quarantine.
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