WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH WHITE PPL, EXACTLY????

[the_future_modernes]

New evidence about Amina, the "Gay Girl in Damascus" hoax

Resolution

A new post on the Gay Girl in Damascus blog includes a confession from Tom MacMaster. Andy Carvin offers independent confirmation of the confession with statements from Tom MacMaster and Britta Froelicher.

MacMaster has also separately confirmed he is behind the hoax in response to an email from The Electronic Intifada asking for confirmation. MacMaster wrote:

Yes. We will be doing a first interview with a journalist of our choice in 12-24 hours. After that, we may consider other media.
Tom

Original post

Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty write:
We have gathered compelling new evidence regarding the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blogger hoax.

Those responsible for this hoax have caused a great deal of concern and anguish by posting information alleging that “Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari” the supposed “Gay Girl” blogger had been kidnapped from the streets of Damascus, possibly by Syrian authorities, and was likely in grave danger.

A measure of the concern that this story has caused is the formation of a Facebook group calling to “Free Amina Arraf” with more than 15,000 members, as well as numerous action alerts and stories in international media.

MORE

Just what the fuck???? WHY THE HELL DID HE DECIDE THAT MAKING A COUNTRY'S REVOLUTION ALL ABOUT HIM WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO????? WHAT JUST WHAT????? RAGE!!!!!


via: delux_vivens


via keeva Syrian LGBT bloogers respond to the FUCKERY that has been perpretrated by this... boil on the backside of humanity: From Damascus with Love: Blogging in a Totalitarian State

If anyone else sees responses, link them in here please?

No really, is there NOTHING that white people will hold sacred? Will refrain from appropriating? Nothing at all?

Comments

[keeva]

http://gaymiddleeast.com/news/news%20317.htm

[the_future_modernes]

PURE. RAGE. I need to find a THESAURUS to look up the words I want to use to express my RAGE at this useless piece of TRASH.

[keeva]

yeah, I have been following this for days and it's as bad as I thought it might be

he's a fucking jackass

[the_future_modernes]

And and and and the ... so-called apology!!!! WHAT???? I swear to god if he were in front of me now...

[maevele]

I was honestly still hoping it was only a partial scam, that she was real but not in syria anymore an dthe kidnapping was fake. it being entirely manufactured is disgusting.

[keeva]

since 2006 or so, he's been going around on lesbian dating sites, cultivating relationships with young lesbian women around the world under false pretenses.

apart from the political and other social implications of what he did, that is so fucked up. i feel very, very sorry for Sandra Bagaria, "Amina's girlfriend" in Canada

[the_future_modernes]

Oh. my.god.

[keeva]

part of what made them focus on Edinburgh was a personal ad he put on a lesbian site with Jelena Lecic's picture that listed Amina's location as Edinburgh -- it was the second time that Edinburgh came up

he wasn't JUST doing this for political blogging's sake -- he joined, and set up as well, a number of mailing lists for "women only" for sharing lesbian fetish pictures and videos, as "Amina"

[thejeopardymaze]

...he joined, and set up as well, a number of mailing lists for "women only" for sharing lesbian fetish pictures and videos, as "Amina"

Sounds like someone with a history of abusing women right there. I wonder if he has a police record.

The only good thing about this is that his cover was blown.

[keeva]

I wonder how much his wife really knew about it. I suspect she knew about the public blogging (and helped with that), but I question whether or not she was aware of Amina's double life on lesbian sites, including the relationship between "Amina" and Sandra Bagaria.

[the_future_modernes]

i have no idea how to react to this. if this was roleplaying to help him deal with gender issues, in the name of common decency...WHY did he do it this way??? And if all of this was part of a scam...WHY OH WHY did he think this was AT ALL appropriate?

Sociopathy is always a possible factor

[thejeopardymaze]

However, it's not like men don't benefit from privilege in most societies, so while I might be surprised about how far he went, we can't pretend it's entirely unusual.

There are a lot of stories out there about internet hoaxes long before this one, this is just another to add to the list.

[keeva]

I don't have any idea either. I don't know if the gender issue thing is authentic or not -- it seems to be what he (as a sockpuppet) told Liz Henry, but apparently he told her a lot of stuff to try to seem sympathetic. It could all be bullshit.

Here's my take on it.

He created a female persona for internet use sometime in the mid 2000s, about 2005 or so. He joined mailing lists about alternate-history fiction and the Iraq war at the time, and found that he got more credibility speaking as "a Syrian woman" than as himself.

He also enjoyed having this female persona, for whatever reasons, and started actively "being" Amina in some sense -- on lesbian women-only fetish sites, in email, at dating sites.

In 2007 he got married to Britta, who shared his interests in the Middle East. This is also when he started blogging for the first time as the Amina persona, as the background for a faux "autobiographical" novel. This is where the quote about some posts being fictional came from.

He might have created another female lesbian persona, "Amanda Lynn McClure." Both "AmyLynn" and Amina were poets, and it's questionable whether "McClure" exists or not. Note that in the Amina "autobiography," Amina imagines herself as a white woman with that name.

So Tom is really getting into this new identity of his. About six months ago, he strikes up an internet relationship -- probably not the first one he's had -- with Sandra Bagaria in Canada. She's "safe" because there's no chance of meeting her face-to-face, especially since he's moved out of the U.S. even.

He also starts blogging again, because he wants to talk about this Arab Spring stuff, and he's got some what he thinks is already the perfect cover identity to do it -- one with credibility and even a history. This follows his writing, as Amina, to the LezGetReal site, a letter about lesbian life in Syria.

But sometime in the last month or so, problems come up. Bagaria and "Amina" have exchanged over a thousand emails, but they've never talked on the phone or on Skype. Something starts to hit the fan -- did Sandra push too much? Did Britta find out about the "lesbian" affairs? Whatever it was, Tom panics. The charade needs to end.

So he writes up a scenario whereby Amina will be "written out" of the story -- maybe he thought he was doing a kindness to Sandra, maybe it was an ultimatum from Britta, who knows? -- by being captured by the Syrian authorities. Good plan, right?

Problem is, this is 2011 and everything is connected. Bloggers and twitter users pick up on it, lesbian and feminist sites spread the word, FaceBook pages are created and attract thousands of people who pressed the "Like" button to Free Amina.

The whole thing falls apart while Tom and Britta are on vacation in Turkey. He tries to deny it and deny it, but the investigators have got him dead to rights. There's no way out, and Electronic Intifada -- concerned that an impostor is infiltrating pro-Palestinian groups with lies for unknown reasons, run him to the ground, name him publicly, and force his confession.

[the_future_modernes]

*sigh*

[keeva]

By the way, none of that is meant to excuse it -- just to come up with a possible context in which it happened. At every point along the way, at every step that I can imagine, this man (and possibly his wife) fucked up in monstrously horrible ways that harmed many, many people along the way.

[thejeopardymaze]

I can imagine a lot factors involved in that one, and if I knew more about Turkey, I'd probably say more here.

[keeva]

He's not from Turkey. He's vacationing there; he and his wife are both Americans who are living in Scotland currently.

Signing his post "Tom MacMaster, Istanbul, Turkey" is another deflection on his part.

Ah, okay

[thejeopardymaze]

I kind of suspect she might be going through a denial phase, and the worry over how the end of a marriage might be a sign of being a failure, but I don't know enough about the facts of the case. But women are raised to tolerate more bullshit than men in general from their partners.

Re: Ah, okay

[keeva]

Britta wrote to a journalist from NPR to say that she just wants to enjoy her Istanbul vacation and not worry about all this Internet drama.

Re: Ah, okay

[the_future_modernes]

There wouldn't have BEEN none, if she and her husband hadn't STARTED NONE. FUCKING ASSHOLE.

Re: Ah, okay

[thejeopardymaze]

Damn, this reminds me of the worst of poly drama.

Pre-ETA: This doesn't mean I'm against polyamory, just a loud vocal minority of asshats who post too much bullshit in certain online forums.

[thejeopardymaze]

Holy shit.

[willow]

I am angriest about the Syrian Queer Bloggers and Community Members who put themselves in danger trying to get information about someone they thought was one of their own - who didn't exist at all. Exposing themselves to various authorites etc. But according to Mr. MacWhiteyMansplainPants 'No harm no foul'.

Dis.gusting.

[the_future_modernes]

The asshole is an white American and so is his wife, who it is believed helped with this scam. They are apparently doing Masters and Phd at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

[buria_q]

SO messed up

[thejeopardymaze]

The fact that he was pretending to be female and lesbian too made my brain explode.

[keeva]

I have heard one theory that he could be closeted transgender. As a trans person myself, who has engaged in mild (compared to this) "identity play," I can say that if that were the case, he's really Doing It Wrong.

[thejeopardymaze]

Interesting, I haven't thought of it in that way before.

A part of me was thinking of it more as a sign he's better off in fantasy role playing games if he wanted to pretend he's a lesbian, but that may have more to do with a lot of interesting things I've heard about certain types of kinks that most people don't discuss in public that often (at least, before the internet got real big). Not like I think he's the right person to engage in that type of thing anytime soon at this rate, since this story isn't without the creep factor.

[willow]

I am not sure how to say this without it coming across possibly harsh - please correct me if I am all over with fail. But, transgender is real. Transracial or transethnic is NOT real (I am not debating biracial or multi-racial or multi ethnic identies) - it seems to me that there are many who would like transition from one ethnicity or culture to the next; who claim 'why are you claiming xyz as exclusively yours, you should share it all'.

So while Amina could be real in a transgender sense, the need to play out a different nationality, ethnicity and the racial politics identity that comes along with that seems PURE PRIVILEGE. And I am not sure how someone could imagine themselves in fantasy as the gender they feel they really are, but need to 'dress it up' with a nationality and ethnicity not their own. At that point, I get to thinking Amina might as well have been a female ELF, because non white culture and the politics that come with it are being used then as 'dress up' and 'fantastical' and 'as not really real, only adding flavour'. And that's not even getting into the lived experience he was manufacturing; not an imagined experience of 'Amina' a possible female self, but Amina as specifically who Amina was represented to be. Again that in itself seems so very cis, white, male happy oblivious privilege, at so huge a size as to block out other possibilities - that it actually makes me angry that you bring up the possibility, even while admitting it was done wrong, even if role play for transindividuals discovering themselves is a valid point.

[keeva]

So while Amina could be real in a transgender sense, the need to play out a different nationality, ethnicity and the racial politics identity that comes along with that seems PURE PRIVILEGE.

Yeah, that's part of why I say he's doing it wrong.

Co-opting someone else's identity for your own benefit, that's wrong.

I'm sorry I angered you. My comment -- as a trans person -- was to put some context on the reported statements he made in email to Liz Henry about gender identity.

[willow]

Thank you.

And I hope I didn't anger or upset you. I don't want to deny anyone their gender identity. I just am incensed that it could be read or might be said and used as smoke screen for what IS appropriative and cruel, wrong, hurtful and privileged.

[keeva]

Yeah, I am not sure about the gender identity issue itself, but even so, this was so out of bounds that "out of bounds" doesn't even start to describe it.

If he does have some sort of gender identity issue going on -- if he's trans, for example -- that in no way exonerates him from any of this. If he wants to make a nice Scottish-American identity, say, "Amanda Lynn McClure," go for it. But a Syrian woman in Damascus? No, no, no, a thousand times no.

... and forming and maintaining romantic relationships under false pretenses, as he did with Sandra Bagaria, is just utterly repulsive and wholly indefensible.

[willow]

And that French ex-pat living in London, who now has her face associated with the headline 'FRAUD'? Heaven forbid she'd randomly decided to visit Syria. Again, indefensible.

[keeva]

Yeah, his mistreatment of Jelena Lecic was abominable. She's in the UK, and he's living there now -- I wonder how badly the UK's laws would allow her to crush him?

[the_future_modernes]

I hope to HELL she can get him on SOMETHING. This poor woman, drawn into this ASSHOLE'S schemes!! (I need to buy a goddamn thesaurus.)

[vangirl]

...I don't think the English language has words for how utterly disgusting this shit is.

[buria_q]

he tried to get a book deal too

http://www.minalhajratwala.com/2011/06/a-thousand-sighs-memoir-of-a-hoax/

[the_future_modernes]

WHAT. PLEASE DONT LET THIS FUCKER GET A BOOK DEAL. PLEASE DONT LET THIS FUCKER GET A BOOK DEAL.

I feel like adding

[thejeopardymaze]

Admittedly I never got around to reading the hoax blog, but due to the past few months-and years for that matter-I was kind of suspicious about her because how I felt she might of fit the propaganda narrative after "she" was supposedly caught. So I never commented on this... individual until the hoax story broke. For once paranoia about nearly everything as of late was useful for me.