I used personal anecdotes the same way he did in a personal narrative, it wasn’t a critique on writing but just discussing how we navigate life and trauma and gender and race. This wasn’t one of his books and I’m not a reviewer. I’m not blaming Diaz for what I went through, but making comparisons/drawing parallels.
What’s more, referring to something anecdotally doesn’t mean the person isn’t over someone or the situation, and if that were the case, it’s pretty shitty for you to use that as a negative against someone. “I didn’t like what she had to say because she still seemed bitter” is a way Black women are commonly dismissed and is a cruel way to speak to someone discussing trauma. I am glad I have gotten a lot of healing and distance from the things I discussed in my piece because otherwise I’d be very bothered by how insensitive and careless that is.
As for comparing him to a colonizer, there’s enough in what I wrote that says I acknowledge the way Junot Diaz writes about Afro-Latinidad and race and also compares them only in gendered and racialized treatment for the reader to understand, if they sincerely care to that is, that I was talking about patriarchy. I understand MOC and white men are different. You don’t have to clarify that for me or insinuate that me talking about an experience means I see Diaz as a colonizer in the same way. That’s a reach, though if you must explore the thought, feel free to do to so in another space.
Ultimately, I didn’t want to make assumptions, and I didn’t. I asked questions if anything about how those exes were. I know it is ultimately not my business if there was a healing process or if they were conferred with first or any of that, and I’m not necessarily saying it is. I am remarking that the way Diaz tells his own narrative irt his behavior towards them was troublesome and mired in patriarchy. Which doesn’t erase his trauma or what he went through or his capability to grow or anything, though I don’t know how we can talk about growth if we seemingly can’t talk about the ways we get it wrong.
What “the colonizer” does want is no nuance, no complexities, men doing whatever they want, and Black women silenced. And as far as I can see that’s what all that you had to say aligned with.
