Narcissistic Personality Disorder & Political and Personal Alliances
& Jennifer McLune's misrepresentation of the White Woman Shopper being a racists and backing up the Racist Store Clerk in the video Shopping While Black.
by Nikki Craft

"Narcissistic Personality Disorder: People with NPD have a chilling lack of empathy with tendency toward inexplicable rages and wild overreactions to the slightest perception of criticism. The need for constant praise and attention. Casual dishonesty and cruelty to other people. When they don't get enough attention or if friendship is withdrawn they lash out at others. It is not your fault if are targeted by a person with NPD. There was nothing you could do to prevent it, and unfortunately, nothing you can do to stop it. NPD people often do not respond to reason, because they can't really hear what others have to say. People with NPD can become even more vindictive when questioned or only slightly challenged. There are no pharmaceutical fixes, and therapy is often unsuccessful. Very typical that they withdraw from you as a way of punishing you, then when they want something from you they return, after enough time has passed and they feel you have been contrite enough for your "sins" against them."

Now on to, in my opinion, perhaps the most controversial action I took and that is introducing information I had received from others which suggests that Jennifer McLune's ways of relating are strikingly similar to those categorized in the description of "Narcissistic Personality Disorder".

It is a subtle and important distinction, and needs to be noted, that I did not say she had the disorder. When I originally brought this up I said in the emails to do a search on Google for more information about NPD. Later I published in a separate thread on the facebook group "We're RADICAL Feminists, NOT the FUN Kind!" the personality traits that I believe from my own personal experience will apply.

Besides many other peripheral involvements I worked with Network Against Psychiatric Assault in the mid 1970s against electro shock and other forms of psychiatric abuse for a few years. So I'm aware of many of the issues which surround these terms, on an intimate level as well as the political problems with such labels. Even so it's not going to stop me from naming the personality traits that i have experienced and even been victimized by that apply. I'm a street activist not a psychiatrist, nor do i have any credentials to give me any authority or the power of the state behind me to make such a determination, nor would I be interested in doing so, and that needs to be taken into account, or sure should be anyway.

I've been told that such a label is a very powerful and a pretty fucked up diagnostic weapon. I can only reply after being called a "WHITE SUPREMACIST RACIST FEMINIST" hundreds of times now--a term Jennifer McLune throws around like candy--that this label too is a very powerful and a pretty fucked up political diagnostic weapon as well when wielded as Jennifer and her friends wield it. And when people have to lie in order to prove their case, well, they don't have a case.

**ADD SCREENPRINT: In the original mailing I did I made a comment about "just look at her photos". Jennifer later claimed this was racist and I was drawing attention to her blackness. Not at all true. Jennifer has no basis whatsoever to make this claim.

Juliette Hession Page wrote:
i am very uncomfortable with tossing a "diagnosis" of npd into the mix.
now, i have more personal experience than most with npd but i don't think it's helpful here and is going to complicate and confuse this already complicated and confusing situation.
if you want to say someone is an asshole, just say that...

Nikki Craft wrote:
Hi juliette i just got back to my computer and missed you on chat. Sorry about that. Yes, I wholeheartedly understand your concerns and feel they need to be stated. So thank you. I share that concern but there was no way i could express myself outside that frame work as specifically as i needed to. I realized if I just put the descriptive sentences without the appropriate label that I would be called out for that anyway and accused of disguising it. Also just to remind you that Karla Mantilla attempted to say she just didn't like Jennifer and that was not received too well either by some people. In fact in my opinion she was almost sickeningly nice about it and she is still being friggin' vilified for it. So each of us have to handle these things as we see fit. I did the best I could with the information I needed to get across under the circumstances.

Juliette Hession Page wrote:
Hey Nikki, although I don't agree, I think I understand. No matter what you do someone will be offended. I'm sure you've thought long and hard about this and are doing what you think is right.

Richard Walker wrote:
that vidoe is just a chance to have white media point out how human white blond women are. wow, they did something human? big deal. notice how much time is spent talking with them. same white supremcaist shit, different day.

Nikki Craft wrote:
How anyone wants to interpret that video on a certain level is up for grabs. Yes I took note that exactly the whole last half of the video was devoted to positive successful examples and means of encouraging people to get involved and take appropriate action against witnessed racism in public spaces. It was meant to be a primer of how to interrupt, like "look stupid white people this is what you do". I thought it was sort of a commendable attempt. The video was unique in effort in that regard, I believe. There's a photo circulating on FB of a little bitty kitten that is bloodied and disheveled, barely able to stand, alone, on the concrete sidewalk with just black shoes and bottom of a mans pant leg showing, shot from the ground and ankle on down. This man is walking by it with pitiful disregard, a belligerent refusal to even acknowledge or inconvenience himself. And with what I have witnessed in my life of the pathological apathy and refusal of the general public to involve themselves in most _anything_ I was actually surprised to hear on that video there were apparently twenty interventions and indeed such aggressive examples as they showed in the last segment. But that is just my individual interpretation. That video is posted here, not because I found it to be any exemplary message, but for one reason and that is that Jennifer originally posted the video on her wall and clicked the "like" button. Her Rorschach reaction afterward is the only reason it is included here. I personally felt it illustrates that no matter how much a white person might attempt to be an ally to her, no matter what risk they are willing to take emotionally or otherwise, their efforts are eventually going to be met with scorn and ridicule because of her own perceptions and interpretations. She has stated quite publicly that she does not want to connect with white people, or perhaps she said women I'm not sure, as allies. If so then why does she friend them? I sure do wish I had known that and had that simple video example before I reached out to her as I did. And I'm going to considerable trouble to make sure others have access to it should they need it at some point in the future. Call it what you will. That's the only point of the video being discussed in this context at all.

Richard Walker wrote:
"I personally felt it illustrates that no matter how much a white person might attempt to be an ally to her, no matter what risk they are willing to take emotionally or otherwise, their efforts are eventually going to be met with scorn and ridicule because of her own perceptions and interpretations."

you get what's racist about this and that video, white woman? no woc owes you shit. you showing how damn racist you are here, page after page: and you think i'm supposed to conclude there's something wrong with HER perceptions and interpretations. damn! what trip are you on?

Megan Mackin (Knox) wrote:
Path could be called feminism. Path could be called truth. Path could be called lots of things. But this particular path being called racism? I'm skeptical. Not because I'm some expert on white supremacy, but because I'm seeing a pattern of getting close and then really public lashing out at perceived imperfections, and naming that for what it appears to be isn't automatically white supremacist thinking.

I've actually seen *less* critique of some reall stupid, white supremacists stuff, like the woman who (apparently) said that race trumps (gets to ally with the white power structure more than) sex, or that racism was peripheral to feminism. I've public said, repeatedly, that there is clearly white supremacy in the women's movement, and we have to fix that to make sisterhood even possible; it isn't now.

(I've also explained, so you know, that misogyny is a stronger word than sexism, because it points to the victim, whereas 'sexism' sounds like maybe women can do it, too; I've stopped using racism alone, now saying white supremacy, because though it's not exactly parallel to misogyny, it does name the oppressor -- it'd be nice to have four terms, but that's back-burner stuff compared to getting this cleared up, and not my call anyway.)

So Nikki misses on words. I agree and I have been all over the place saying so. I don't think Nikki quite gets anti-racist theory. But Nikki's also done more than anyone else I know to confront white supremacy, blatant and less-obvious, in pornography, and within feminism itself. Pornography has been her main focus, at times, on and off for decades (she has a lot of irons in the fire, but she never gives up on confronting that version of racism). She's been in immediate and long-term danger from it, she's had her neck so far out on the line it's been surprising she could recover. And she has scars, not just from misogynist men, but from confrontations *within* feminism* from women she's cared about.

I have also said that if you're going to have someone looking out for your woman of Color neck, there is no better feminist anywhere for having your back and standing fiercely against your abusers than Nikki Craft. Because she's done it, risked it, and specifically for women of Color as well as other women. From all I can tell, neither you nor I actually get to contradict this statement, but if a woman of Color wishes to, I will certainly listen.

The trip I happen to be on is this: I would like the truth to come out, no matter how unflattering it is, to any of the people involved, including me, including you, including Jenn, including Nikki, including ALL. I see no inherent racism in saying that a pattern of deception and then railing publicly about being called on it, exists, and then backing it up with what I find to be proof. Telling the truth is not racism, in the tradition of the best definitions I can find. And I am only after the truth, so that we can get past this horrible lacking within feminism, and make it a safe and welcoming and inclusive space for ALL women. That's my aim. That's the road I'm trying to stay on, difficult (and thankless) that it is. ~~diana

Catherine-Mercedes Brillantes Judge (San Francisco, CA) wrote:
okay..this is relevant but not in response to a specific paragraph, more just general principles..I came across this blog and thought this quote really made sense:

"When a person of privilege is accused of having been negligent (or racist, or sexist, or…), a classic move we often see is the accused dissolving into sobs. They will berate themselves, they will proclaim how terrible they feel, they will soak your t-shirt with their tears. In other words, instead of owning up for whatever they did and focusing on the pain they caused – and how to reduce it – they completely focus on their own pain. In fact, they revel in it"
~~Anita Tedaldi, Guilt and White Privilege | Love Isn’t Enough - on raising a family in a colorstruck world
When a person of privilege is accused...

Nikki Craft wrote:
The woman who was crying was not the one being exposed as the racist. She was the one who intervened. She wasn't feeling bad for herself. She felt bad because of the racism she had witnessed and had great empathy for the woman who experienced the abuse from the racist (actor) store clerk. She could have been an ally and instead she and the other women who spoke out and even took antiracist action were met with scorn and ridicule by Jennifer in her comments when she claimed the women did *nothing* when they obviously did do something. The video is relevant here because it was an exact rerun of the catw list racism false accusation that Jennifer made when we in fact did leave the list and carefully stated the reason were were doing so was because of the racism on the list. This thread is about how Jennifer misconstrues and maligns women who are allies not some guilty racist crying or saying how bad they feel bad because they were confronted as a racist.

Megan Mackin wrote:
Nikki types faster than I do. This is in response to Catherine-Mercedes, above.

I have to read your links when I'm awake enough, but yes, this is a classic illustration of white (etc.) guilt and it's a way of staying stuck, evading change or even responsibility. I'm thinking white because it *always* comes up in feminist anti-racism sessions.

What's interesting is that I've seen this, and it isn't what Nikki's done at all, to the very best of my knowledge. There's a difference when there is a context of friendship, and the tears are not about being confronted with charges of racism, but are related to aspects of the friendship. It also doesn't fit for the white intervener in the video -- she wasn't confronted with her own racism, she was intervening when another woman was actively being racist. If that's scary, and if it's freaky and stressful, hell, why wouldn't she cry?

But in relation to other parts of dismantling white supremacy, thank you for these links. There is so much absurd stuff out there that any real, useful links are welcome. Thank you! --diana

Nikki Craft wrote:
When i cried on the phone with Jennifer back in 2005 or there abouts there was no confrontation over racism. I was crying because from what she was saying on the list and on the phone to me that i could see her backing herself into a corner and losing allies and I was crying for HER and a bit for myself at the same time because I've done the same. I was crying for both of us. Later there was no crying over her emails out of any guilt or me feeling bad when she called me a racist. I was crying--and for a long time--over the utter betrayal of her _lying_ and her tactic of diversionary escalation to avoid being called out on those lies.

But that was a long, long time ago. I sure am not crying now and I feel such great relief about getting all this out in the open for the first time; to be able to share this history related to radical feminism with other women and put it on record with such a healthy detachment to what others might think or say about me, except to clarify.

Milla Ahola wrote:
greetings..this was sent to me privately to post, by a woman of color who - knowing how Nikki goes after black women who challenge her - did not feel safe posting it herself in this hostile white supremacist space:

[Nikki Craft adds: Milla and Jennifer McLune are working directly together and Jennifer wrote this reply in reponse to Megan.]

Megan wrote: “This is in response to Catherine-Mercedes, above.

I have to read your links when I'm awake enough….”

So you admit you didn’t even read what was posted above before you decided to take issue with it? Wow, both you and Nikki really exhibite an inability to listen and hear criticism (much like men of ANY color do from women!) without defensiveness, dismissals and without making the woman of color in this case Jennifer, a young black woman into a heartless, cold “boggyWOman.”

@ Megan: Nikki cried because Jenn challenged her on her racism. She threw a fit three years ago and is throwing yet another fit now over that same challenge Jenn made to her “feminist authority”, her racism and her white privilege. End of story. Nothing else to see here folks!

[Nikki Craft adds: Jennifer is lying here. When I cried on the phone while talking with her she had never once accused me of being racist and I was being empathetic at the time I did cry. I did not cry after that, and I'm certainly not crying now.]

The idea that Nikki feels anything (crying for Jenn? Yeah. Right) for anyone but herself is absolutely laughable! Nauseating that a black woman should be asked to be moved by the tears of a racist, even one she once thought was a friend!

[Nikki Craft adds: No one cares if Jennifer is moved by tears, but what is not acceptable is to misrepresent the woman shopper in the store who did in fact confront racism and Nikki Craft who was crying for another reason altogether in no connection to racism. That is dishonest.]

Nikki Craft wrote:
Time to note this: When Milla was posting elsewhere on fb and some of these women got after her for something she did write--after she had made a posting that they didn't agree with her about--Milla posted a comment in reply to them that said something like: "well you told me to post it here." it needs to be recognized that Milla is funneling information directly from Jennifer. No one could possibly have written this except Jennifer. Who else could possibly even claim to know this information? *No* one. And it's another one of Jennifer's lies. Anyone want to lay a little money on this?

Nikki Craft wrote:
I asked if anyone would like to put some money on a bet here? Milla? Care to risk some cold hard cash putting your trust on the line for your good friend Jenn?

Milla Ahola wrote:
Do i stick with saying that you're making a Grand Display of White Supremacy Challenged in this facebook group (as well as in the email exchange 3 years ago)? The answer is yes. No money involved though. Just Warm Thumpy Heart.

Nikki Craft wrote:
You know you will lose the money don't you? Wow you know full well she is lying and you are still defending her. Sad. Plus it's racist.

Megan Mackin wrote:
Hi, Milla, I was commenting on Catherine-Mercedes's quote *words,* not the links. I think I can do that without reading links, or books, or all the words in the universe. Further, I was appreciating the content of the words in the quote she was using. I loved 'em. Again, to have that emotion, no further link- or other-reading required.

I'm unimpressed with the big slant: you said "You admit" and I find the framing pretty telling. Further, I was talking about Nikki and the feminist anti-racism trainings I've attended, and somehow you managed to drag Jenn directly in. And then you managed to overwrite what Nikki, herself, told you about the situation, and then throw it back as a taunt.

Milla, this is not feminism. It's demeaning to us all. It is illustrative of one thing -- this kind of twisting of words, not listening to what was actually said, and then reframing so that the added spin, and whatever words are useful to make it seem realistic, can be used against people who are honestly trying to get at the truth.

Hey, tell Kenia I really wish it could have been different, and my support could have meant something. But that's a different world, and we haven't found it yet, or created it. I'm not done trying. There. Arguing with you? Think there was a thread on that, and I'm throwing in the towel. Disagreement is one thing. But twist and reframe to your advantage? Bye. --diana (who does not wish to lose $, tyvm :) ... Comments continued here.

"I’m still not sure what to make of my experience with the women of “off our backs magazine”. The betrayal I’ve experienced by them has been swift and sudden and has come at a very difficult time in my personal life. But I will say this: I’m no longer open to forming relationships with white feminists on any level." ~~Jennifer McLune