Thread by @empathywarrior

I'm returning to some of the texts that I first considered when I first learned to write as a "scholar" (however one wants to define that), and so much of that is also about revisiting the deep and lasting harm of the very early and formative "mentorship" I had from white women

I am looking at some of the earliest work I ever produced. I am tracing my citational practices - down to the very first epigraph I ever chose - as a way of understanding this harm, and seeing moments where my hesitancy to write otherwise was really a fear of losing mentorship.

I know that many folks look back on their early work with embarrassment. But there is something really...really hard when that early embarrassing work, down to the kind of analysis you learned to produce, is reflective of really fucked-up relationships and abuses of power.

I see that early scholarly writing - I took several courses with one mentor - now in the context of just feeling grateful for being seen as thoughtful and smart, and not realizing how predatory mentorship can be. And how that really harms one's writing, one's ability to write.

I mean I'm talking about the fact that I find it even difficult for people to tell me my writing is good (and I'm wary of words like "brilliant") because I don't want to be told nice shit about my writing just so that I am placated and won't call out other bullshit.

Some of this was healed in grad school, and my postdoc, and a lot of the wonderful mentorship I've received since undergrad, but there are some foundational hurts that I still need to heal in order to write and I'm finally ready to write through that hurt. I think I am, anyway!