BUY NINA COFFEE ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
On how to come correct. CW-Language.
Part five of Social Justice Senshi’s performance art piece titled Meme Wars. These stories will be on display as part of an interactive art installation titled Receipts during First Friday in May.
After speaking and coming to an agreement with the creator of a hate page geared toward calling out my business and my person as a problematic, “reverse racist” to my local arts community and turning the whole mess around with dialogue and memes I requested the creator of this page about me to do two things: One to change flags on the page, so that people will know from now until Facebook deletes the page that our beef was cooked and number two, to please ask their friend to finally meet me for some coffee. Pretty much the same thing I have been telling the friends of this disgruntled artist over the entirety of this almost two year ordeal.
She has refused meeting with my team in multiple occasions, oftentimes leaving our partner on read when asked to meet for coffee to talk this out, so that we can resolve this matter which boils down to her unwillingness to admit plagiarism and cultural appropriation and make amends.
Through the years friends in common or business associates have stepped in and offer to mediate. I have sat through so many coffee meetings about her, to explain my side and defend my person, oftentimes hearing the same thing from people, she cries about this and shuts down conversation — She acts like this causes he a great deal of anxiety for her, which I am sure is true but at the same time, she sends people into my social media to make fun of my mental illness and health related issues… Like padded room jokes and “Nina was probably a bad person in a past life and she has mental health issues because, Karma” type comments, and fake gangstas into my gallery to try and flex muscle and try to trigger people in a safe space. In this ordeal, there is no low that her friends won’t go in order to defend her behavior publicly and the hatred doesn’t stop at Art Mart or myself or “SJW’s that need safe spaces” at this point, this situation has escalated to her friends giving mine rape threats online. You cannot convince me that a person not trying to fuel hatred and only wanting to spread love can hang with people like that much less watch them piss on half of the arts community and make it unsafe for everyone in this town on their behalf and claim no wrong doing.
We all live in a small city, in a small arts community and run into each other often, never have I been aggressive toward this woman whom sends fake biker gang member into my safe space. On the contrary, I even bought her a round of drinks once during an art opening, hoping that she would come and speak her mind to me after, and admittedly, just to be shady as fuck.
Outside of heckling her when I said I would, last year when David and I went back to reclaim the piece she had plagiarized at the same event that she stole it from the year prior. Like the proverbial thief going back to the scene of the crime, she went back for seconds, in her own words to “to spread love and positive vibes” knowing full well (two articles about our intention to reclaim this stole work were written, one printed on a local magazine) as well as my intention to heckle her out of the event if need be.
I knew she is fragile and a liar. I knew she would lie and play a victim role when her whole presence at the event, an act of colonization went challenged. I knew she would use her fragility and continue the ‘savage’ narrative she been presenting. I knew her going there was a power play, a way to show her supremacy to show Us that she goes and does as she pleases and to look for trouble, anything to capitalize on, and boy did I give it to her!
As far as we are concerned, If she was not there to say sorry to David personally she was not there to spread positive vibes at all, and so innocently enough, and loud enough for anyone to hear I asked her if she was there to soak up our culture and steal again. She was paralyzed, said nothing, I waited for her to speak but she didn’t she pretended to ignored me, never taking my eyes off of hers, I told her I do not respect her, cursed her in Spanish and spat over my shoulder onto the ground I stepped on a Universal Sign of disrespect, amidst a crowd of people to witness. I expected her to fully lie and tell folks I spat on her, or on her ‘art.’ Which is exactly what she did. She even made a piece of a woman in My style of painting with the words “Stop the Hate.”
Her uninformed opinion on feminist and systemic racism are not worth anything to me, how she feels about ‘being bullied for being white’ and her identifying with First Nation People as if people are aesthetics is irrelevant to me and my growth she stole from one of our artist and a dear friend of mine and when confronted she took it out on me and make me look like a villain and that’s the problem that needs discussing — Her brand of white fragility is textbook, and the only point that I am really mad about is that I have had to deal with this at all. Her ideology come a dime a dozen in my profession. For her to claim that I am jealous of her mediocre coffee shop arts career is insulting and silly: I am at an all time high in my career and personal life, I figured out how make up works, how many drinks or pies my body can take without being sick, I cook a gourmet meal for my family at least once a day, five times a week, my brand and business are expanding and that is just surface shit, simply put, I am happy and successful and do not have time to be caring about what problematic thing an unknown coffee shop artist in a small town is making. Nor do I particularly care that she lies to people about being a Native person or a Magic Woman for aesthetics I mean, that is like half of tumblr… If I was going to go after everything thing that is problematic against Native people in this town I would begin by picketing the tobacco shop downtown until they remove that offensive ass Cigar Store Indian or something, like look, I have an art gallery in which we represent Native artists... I saw a problem (not enough real Native artists representation and support in this city) and solved it by providing what was needed, a safe space which protects people from the white gaze and culture vultures.
My activism is effective because of my willingness to be flexible and meet people where they are in life. I have done the cultural appropriation in the past, I know how it feels to be called out for problematic behavior. I would have absolutely done the emotional labor many of her and my friends tried already and educated her on why this is unacceptable praxis, something I do not owe any white woman, much less one that has victimized me for years.
It’s time for people to realize that this pseudo nice babble is toxic to any kind of movement and any kind of community: when confronted with problematic behavior one needs to be grown enough to assume responsibility and make amends and that I have to explain this to a thirty year old that looks like a forty year old white woman is beyond me. Veiled in her niceties and micro aggression is white fragility, a weapon white women have wielded upon men and women of color for far too long.
White silence is white violence, if you call yourself an ally, know about her behavior and do not check her or hold her accountable, but instead try to show her support and appreciation any chance you get, you are complicit in coddling an abuser over supporting their victim, if you cared about this situation at all you’d tell you girl to #BuyNinaCoffee.
Furthermore, I would absolutely have spoken out about the black face even if we didn’t know what we know based on her whole behavior during this situation, I will continue speaking against anti blackness here and in my country (when I move back) and black face by any other name is a foul practice. That such a photo appeared on the front page of the local newspaper is absolutely unacceptable and if it had come to my attention I would have spoken out against it sooner.
All in all, I tried to ignore it, take the high road, call it out, keep it funny and I keep going back to the only time she has ever approach me, over Facebook with a short note confusing David (the artist she stolen from) to Justin (my husband)(I cannot find a reason for this except maybe that they are some of the only Latinx artist in town that work as AM *eye roll*) citing color blindness, love of our culture and the fact we all share similar aesthetics before inviting me out for coffee. I left it on read at the beginning, thinking there is nothing I can teach her that she cannot reach with access to on the internet, but since this has gone far enough, I am willing to do that emotional labor, take her up on that coffee and sit down to teach her a bit about Intersectionality and why every single one of her actions to this date, are racist as fuck. I welcome her to buy me a cup of coffee for my troubles and hopefully we can come to an agreement and an apology.
Until that happens, she will be asked daily to keep her word and just,
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ BUY NINA COFFEE ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
www.courtneyfishback.com — I win.
