Bix dot Blog

I fully confess that I have complicated and conflicting thoughts about Brandon’s lament for blogs that end “because the author felt shame”. For sure, a person’s home on the web should be as reflective of their self-presentational choices as is their actual home, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with using one’s blog as an escape from the weights of the surrounding world. I also think, though, that anyone’s public choices are open to some degree of public inquiry—but then I also think, though, that often people don’t know the difference between public inquiry and public inquisition, or the distinction between people who might expect the former but not deserve the latter. My complicated feelings here, of course, partly come from only just earlier today having spent an hour writing about whiteness’ obligation not to be silent about the deprivations it visits upon those who aren’t white, but of course in this particular context of someone having felt shamed out of blogging I’ve no earthly idea if they are white, let alone if, for all I know, they spend days volunteering or demonstrating or otherwise working for some sort of common good. I ran into Brandon’s post through Rebecca Toh who isn’t wrong that “we get to choose how we want to show up”, and this is especially true when other people frankly might have little or no sense of what we show up for, and when, and how. There’s no nicely-drawn conclusion here, nor any pretty bow to wrap-up my point; I’m just writing my own complications aloud, without shame.