I am sorry, but a young Black queer woman makes a thread here about moving to Bali after the stresses of this past year in America & you all just jump on her & start grilling her about gentrification & colonization? lord. Some of you need less time online.

She is getting death threats. This is insane.

I was sent to Bali for a book festival years ago. I was very sensitive to the tourism issue—everywhere I went in Bali i saw drunk white Aussie yogis. I did not love it. But when I talked to the Balinese locals about gentrification etc they either shook their heads or laughed.

A few Balinese people clowned me for reading too many books. They acknowledged there were issues of course but they emphasized they also felt in harmony with tourists and some developers. That our issues in America did not align there. I felt embarrassed for my perspective tbh

During my time in Indonesia I went all over Jakarta and Central Java. I felt much more comfortable speaking and teaching in these poorer areas than in resorts in Bali. But I had to really question why & think deeply on that.

From what points do I enter? How do I see myself? How do I see locals?

Twitter discourse is a mess as usual but think before you make assumptions & go into some BS woke mode that you have been rewarded for in classrooms & here with RTs.

Black lives matter to you & then a Black woman shares a story about a hard path to finally thriving? And this?

Muting this because it is my birthday & i do not have time to argue with a handful of anti Black drama-seeking deluded Twitter addicts. Examine your own bigotry and racism. I came to Indonesia as a Muslim & volunteered all over Muslim schools. Please come at someone else.

My comments were directed at Americans trying to speak for Indonesians. I saw lots of Indonesian people last night rolling their eyes at how this woman was dragged. But have the discussion with her. I was just talking about anti Blackness which is a huge prob here & elsewhere.