The lulz don't stop!

Yeah, we called it: no, there was no foundation she was affiliated with that mentored urban teens and worked to reduce gang violence.

Khalid Shah, executive director of Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace Foundation, another organization listed by Ms. Seltzer, said he had not heard of Ms. Seltzer or her foundation. “She’s been doing her homework if she has all those organizations listed,” he said. “She must know something about something, or has done a lot of reading. It’s easy to get a lot of stuff off the Internet.”

Much as I love this scandal, there's a gross tinge to it: Margaret Seltzer's career dies for the sins of countless other exploitative "well-meaning" nice white ladies and gentlemen who snark over its grave. Other white people rip her to shreds for the same shit they do on a less extreme level--co-opting "everything but the burden" for credibility, edge, a hook. But they didn't cross a certain line of "honesty", so its fine, and we know we know what side of the line we're on cuz we have her.

The fake that she claimed to be half Indian and isn't barely goes remarked upon anywhere other than anti-racist intraweb circles, I have yet to see anyone in a circle-snark on Gawker or w/e point out the lack of tribal identification* given with this claim in any of the media I've seen as they frolic through the gaping holes in her story while gleefully maligning The Times and Penguin for not noticing the same.


White people tear her up to pretending she was actually in a gang, but how much worse is that than the fact that they don't see gang members as actual people? They find her attempts to sound "street" laughable, but why? Most of probably take for granted that its funny (I'm lulling up a storm over here myself...) but what exactly are all of us laughing at?


It would be nice if this scandal could be a conversational opening, not just a funny that makes every white person other than Margaret Seltzer and whoever else is planning a fictional memoir about their fake gang history.

*if at some point she did specify, I have $100 on...all together now...Cherokee. If she never felt compelled by publishers or journalists or anyone else to specify...interesting.