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

[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.)