FWD/Forward (aka Feminists With Disabilities for a way Forward) just started publishing this month. This is a great blog, but unfortunately, I am not allowed to post there. (SEE EDIT BELOW)
Yes! This is a MAJOR FIRST for Dead Air, wherein I link a blog that has already BANNED ME!
Unfortunately, I went and pissed them off already by daring to ask why no bloggers over 50 were contributing and no bloggers over 50 are linked. Two major problems, as far as I'm concerned. Then I was brazenly redneck enough to offer myself up for linkage. (OMG! I forgot how UPSET everyone gets when you do that!) I've really gotta learn to keep my mouth shut and just let people have their illusions about how FORWARD thinking they are. Then again, I'd never have started a blog at all if I'd done that... so you see how confusing it can be, deciding when to speak out and when to stay comfortably and safely silent.
Well, still no answer about why old women are being excluded. It seems to me, once you mention something like that, steps should be actively taken. Certainly, if I was informed there had been ANY demographic group excluded from MY blogroll, I would be correcting it FORTHWITH and IMMEDIATELY. But then, I don't believe in exclusion. Since I (gingerly) entered Blogdonia over two years ago, I have learned that some people like to talk a good game, but still prefer to be exclusive, cliquey and clubby in their actual associations.
And as usual, asking for a link consigns you to the depths of Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell... it is probably considered the RUDEST thing you can do in certain highly-educated, middle-class areas of Blogdonia, although I still don't understand why and no one will explain it to me. (I just reciprocally linked someone today, who asked me to, for instance.) People ask to be friended on Facebook, don't they? What is the difference, exactly?
I also assumed most people knew that age and disability are intricately linked (witness the popularity of the phrase "temporarily able-bodied"--reminding people that age will impact the body) but FWD apparently doesn't want to talk about this or be reminded of it. (Why have a disability blog, then?)
I think there is likely another reason I have been banned, that some of you know and/or might be able to guess. (My kind particularly not welcome.) I won't get into it here, since I should be used to it by now... but after all this time, I'm still never prepared when it happens.
I will say that I am as knowledgeable as any other disability-rights activist. I have been writing about disability-rights issues since 1981, when I wrote a piece on Reagan Admin cuts to disability services for the feminist newspaper Plexus. I think I should have the right to be included on FWD. I am not a bad writer or a bad person. This banning, for no reason that I can see, is really a bit much. But "their blog, their rules"--and they have the right to include and exclude whomever they see fit.
The quality of the writing and subject matter is first rate, which is, of course, why I wanted to be included and why I wanted older women to be included.
At least they haven't banned my IP, so I can still read. At least, not yet!
~*~
EDIT: I have discovered that I am not banned from FWD. I do not know if I was banned, then un-banned (as I suspect) or never-banned, but I see from a comment on one of the contributor's blogs that I am not banned. However, my emails asking why a comment from days ago was moderated/censored (nothing obscene or gross in it) was never answered. When I asked repeatedly if I was banned, again, no answer. I therefore took it that way. (Wouldn't you?) I think if someone asks, they should be replied to--I'm old-fashioned that way!
Delighted that I am not banned. Good news. If this is the fault of their over-zealous spam-queue, it needs major work. If this is a communication issue due to being edited-by-committee, it needs to be tightened up considerably. Believe it or not, there are REAL trolls out there. --DD/10-23-09
~*~
EDIT: Disregard above edit. It appears that after all the hubbub died down, they went ahead and banned me anyway.
So, I WAS correct the first time. --DD/11-18-09