Foregrounding the Metadiscussion

Prof. Susurro of Like a Whisper gets at the (post-colonial and post-modernistic) fragmenting of the discourse:

In all cases, I am left wondering how we can organize together and learn from one another if we cannot even talk to one another across perceived or real misunderstandings and/or conflicts. Bridging ignorance has always been the burden of the people who are being ignored, it is a function of power over others and often when people talk about speaking in a conflict zone, they are really calling for the right to walk across someone’s back. And so, another pitfall of this modern moment is that pointing to conflict often triggers the feeling by one or more people that they are being asked to bend over in the muck so someone else’s feet don’t get wet. This is afterall, the standard operating procedure of progressives and conservatives alike. The fact that this is so often true, and that we are empowering ourselves as marginalized people to own our truths and refuse to let them be written over or erased, makes these moments of conflict so powerful. Yet, where post-colonialism asked us to consider our power, their power, and the meaning of Power itself in order to create something better, pomo simply rewards the person who at the end of the day exerts the most power in the most unique way.
[...]
My deepest concern for the last year in the feminist blogosphere has been the decided change from community building that has been central to the way multiple marginalized communities have used the internet over the last 5 years, to one of insularity and pomo games. If I disagree with you, I simply have to call you a liar, loud enough, long enough, and with just the right amount of indignation and it becomes true because truth is in the hands of Power. And if you disagree with me, you simply have to be louder, longer, and more clever than I to transform into a pariah for the same reason: truth is in the hands of Power. Anyone of us can deny the long fought for right of another member of our identity group/s to self-name by claiming that name offends and we do not use it or by declaring that a person who chooses not to identify in a public forum is X and therefore has no right to speak on Y without ever knowing if they are X or Y, because truth is in the hands of Power. And we can even silence discussions about identity and naming all together by claiming the right to use offensive language born out of oppression b/c “we” have reclaimed it in our localized community while the larger community/ies have not or it is still used to oppress us in the world at large, because truth is in the hands of Power. Even the politics of outing, or demanding one out themselves has ceased to be a tool we struggle against as oppressive and is now one “we” use to make movies or scandalous blog posts without apology, because truth is in the hands of Power.

There's more.

Interesting that both more community and more atomization are functions of the Internet.
[Edited to correct a misspelling.]