@kimberlyhirsh Hi. I’m guessing you saw the blank reply to the conversation on inclusion that I accidentally sent yesterday. As someone just starting to ease my way back into Micro.blog, I’ve been mostly reading through the threads, trying to get a handle on context and perspective before saying anything, since it’s been a long while since I’ve participated. I’m also about to be out of commission for a couple of days and I didn’t want to say anything and then not be able to respond if people responded to me.

But since I did send that blank, and since you’ve been kind enough to ask, I’ll share really quickly two thoughts I’ve had, borne of my experience as a classroom teacher and as a contributor to/moderator on what was one of the most popular feminist blogs in the 1990s. One of the most difficult things about creating an inclusive space where, in theory at least, anyone who wants to can participate is getting those who might otherwise dominate—who, for whatever reason (race, technical know-how, gender, etc), feel entitled to speak—to sit back and listen, to acknowledge and accept that they don’t have to be the ones to have their say every single time.

On the blog, we accomplished this often by allowing bloggers to specify if they wanted the comments on a particular post to be only for a certain group of people, ie, those who identified as feminists, those who were survivors of sexual violence, etc. I don’t think that this is transferable to MB as a practice, but the underlying principle is what I think is important: making room for voices that have historically been marginalized/excluded inevitably means cultivating a willingness to listen/be silent on the part of those who have historically been at the center.

Unfortunately, I will not be around for a couple of days to discuss this more, and I am aware it needs a good deal of unpacking, but that’s part of what I’ve been thinking. It’s an important conversation and I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves.