Feminism/Racism 101 link request

[steuard]

I'm planning to add an entry about racism/feminism issues to my "Wow, Good to Know" page, and I want to give a useful link for each one. But (and I hope this doesn't come across poorly) I've had a lot of trouble finding "Feminism 101" or "Racism 101" pages that sound like they were written by someone who was actually in the mood to teach. (Many of the sites I've found are, quite understandably, written by people who are clearly fed up with people asking basic questions that distract from more nuanced discussions. That's fine, but I'm looking for a place where I can send clueless people who haven't just derailed a conversation somewhere.) I suspect that something like a wiki format would be better than a blog format, for what it's worth (or more generally, a structured site rather than a series of entries).

So, any suggestions for sites that feel like an actual "Feminism/Racism 101" course rather than elaborations on "Boy, do you need some Feminism/Racism 101!"?

Comments

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with anything you've said here, obviously, and I wouldn't begin to blame feminists online or off for being sick of dealing with newbies (especially deliberately nasty folks like the ones who make most of the comments you've quoted in particular) or for responding to them with sarcasm. And as I said earlier, I think it's helpful and important to have sites like Finally Feminism 101 to respond to accidental or intentional derailment of more sophisticated conversations.

All I'm getting at is that I'm having trouble finding a 101 site (on any of these topics) that really feels like a 101 level class. That is, a resource for folks who want to be good people and good allies, but who maybe haven't even realized yet that doing so isn't easy. I'm absolutely not knowledgeable enough to write such a site, but I'm maybe envisioning something that would 1) start with an explanation of the (probably unfamiliar!) way in which the term "privilege" is used in this context (accompanied, or better, preceded by a few examples or arguments to help newbies understand how real it is), and probably also explain other terms used in possibly unfamiliar ways (like "derailing", "racism", and "sexism", among others: a lot of folks hear "racist" and think "Klansman", after all), then 2) point out some of the common ways that privileged people can cause harm without meaning to (and how to avoid doing them), and finally 3) provide some nicely categorized links to firsthand discussions of how these things affect real people. (Looking at your blog links, mystickeeper's "101 Primer" may be somewhat close to what I'm picturing, but I'm hoping for something more self-contained and with less of a "sit your ass down" tone.)

(Those Wikipedia links are great as discussions of feminism as a movement and as a philosophy, and give lots of detail on its history and structure. But they're not really what I'm looking for as a basic introduction to the ideas of the subject.)