(no subject)

[resonant]

Thoughts on the current multiheaded conversation on race (rydra_wong sums up here)

As a reader: I've lost a lot of respect for Elizabeth Bear and the people who came rushing to her defense. It's probably wrong of me to say I expected better of them because they're writers, but I did. This is a colossal failure of imagination and empathy; I expected people who can create characters to be able to listen to human beings.

I've been very happy to see intelligent responses from writers I respect, including Tim Pratt, Jo Walton, and Naomi Novik.

As a writer: killabeez said it very well: If I write something that makes you feel marginalized, invisible, fetishized/exoticized, or just plain misunderstood, I want to know about it. Seems to me that the point of writing is to understand. If I fail to understand, I'm eager to be corrected. (I don't promise that my first response to criticism won't be to run away and hide for a bit. I do promise that my first response to criticism won't be to lash out at the critic.)

As a fan: I'm a little sad that the name RaceFail has stuck so well, because I've read an awful lot of win on this subject. Fans of color are writing beautiful and moving accounts of their own experiences. White fans are listening and discussing things that we've always been taught are dangerous to talk about. Astonishingly, I've even read one or two conversations that were about the original topic rather than about the conversations! (I especially liked supacat's insights about fantasy.)

I consider slash fandom to be my 'us,' and on the whole, I'm proud of us.

Comments

[rhiannon-jehane.livejournal.com]

This is a colossal failure of imagination and empathy; I expected people who can create characters to be able to listen to human beings.

*nods*

Yes, that's it exactly.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Bear is the one who has really startled me, because one of the reasons I've been reading her books-- and I've read I think all but the most recent two-- is that she's generally so good at writing diverse casts, full of characters whose race and ethnic backgrounds affect their life experience and their identities, and giving them all a lot of agency. And she's written some very good stories that are (partially or mostly) about race; two days before she made the 'just kidding' post, I nominated her "Shoggoths In Bloom" (http://www.elizabethbear.com/shoggoths.html) for the Hugo, at least half on the strength of the things it had to say about race in fantasy, and... I stand by that nomination, I think. It's still a great story.

She's done a lot of good work, work which still holds up. I just wonder what on earth possessed her to announce to the internets at large that she was in it for the cookies.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I like that story.

I forget who suggested that the chief division she saw in this issue wasn't between pros and fans or between/among races, but between people who thought the internet was real and people who didn't.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It was toft_froggy, here. (http://toft-froggy.livejournal.com/425432.html)

[merrilily.livejournal.com]

toft_froggy said that today. She's right.

[joyfulseeker.livejournal.com]

I went back through one of my comment threads from the cultural appropriation discussion back in 2006, and it reminded me that, at that time, people in slash fandom were still bringing up the notion that being of some previously-marginalized white background (like Irish or Italian back in the turn of the 20th Century) was at all relevant to the discussion at hand, that it in some way exempted them from their current white privilege. It reminded me that at least now the majority of us on the fannish side have come to accept and acknowledge that something called "white privilege" exists, and many of us have started trying to identify it in our own lives. We have made progress. Not enough, obviously. I'm still reading and writing in a white-washed world and feeling afraid to venture outside it, and the fact that I can and do choose to stay inside is a problem that I should work on. But, wow, at least now I know.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

people in slash fandom were still bringing up the notion that being of some previously-marginalized white background (like Irish or Italian back in the turn of the 20th Century) was at all relevant to the discussion at hand, that it in some way exempted them from their current white privilege

Haaaah, I resemble that remark.

I am more than a little ashamed of my stance then, and a little proud that I have learned a small amount more about my white privilege since then -- or rather, that I have become less ignorant about said white privilege. It's extremely small, and I'm just one white middle-class woman, but....progress?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Progress is good! Though this whole conversation makes me want to track down Felicia Laws from grade school and tell her, "I'm really sorry I wasn't able to perceive you as a potential friend because our skin wasn't the same color." You know? When your eyes are opened, you kind of want to squeeze them shut again and go, "Oh, no, I didn't ..."

[raqs.livejournal.com]

I agree, esp. that I liked Naomi Novik's post (haven't seen them all).

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I don't even know if it's possible to see them all, and of course there are new writers disappointing me every day. It's such a relief when someone does it right.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You know, I've been so dispirited by this whole ... thing... for want of a better word, that your little post and your belief in 'us' is really quite heartening. Although I remain so dismayed that I continue to be in hide mode, alas, and may not even wish to click on your links. Although in the end I probably will.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I read your post and was fascinated by how different all this apparently sounds from a non-American POV!

I think that, sadly, the tendency to define and dehumanize an Other is pretty universal, as is the tendency of power to use that Otherness for its own ends -- but your post & comments showed me how much the specifics can vary.

A lot of people have mentioned being dispirited. I'll bet the reason why I'm not is because I'm mostly ignoring outside links (except to read the bare minimum necessary for comprehension) and instead reading (1) fans of color and (2) people I like and trust.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Sometimes sticking the head in the sand helps. For a while. I don't watch television, either, so a lot of crapness just passes me by. And oh yes, the tendency to discriminate is pretty fairly much smeared evenly across the planet. Although I do think that some societies (democracies, e.g.) are better equipped at controlling it than others.

And I do realise that I am familiar with the way things work here, so I'm familiar with the vocabulary and all its nuances, and I'm familiar with what is okay to say and do and what is outside the pale, and I'm familiar with the different interests and agendas. And I'm not familiar with that in a foreign country so it frightens me, especially as it is a country that we may well move to next year, and that magnifies all shortcomings.

It reminds me of the 1980s after the terrorist bombings of a disco in Berlin when we heard that Americans were cancelling their trips to Europe out of fear of violence. And I remember thinking, bzuh duh??? I mean, to me, America was the prime country of violence and we in Berlin all had stereotypes of drive-by gang shootings and muggings and no-gun-control rampages in our heads. One puny disco bomb seemed as nothing.

Thus perceptions can twist.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

And I remember thinking, bzuh duh??? I mean, to me, America was the prime country of violence and we in Berlin all had stereotypes of drive-by gang shootings and muggings and no-gun-control rampages in our heads. One puny disco bomb seemed as nothing.

But don't you see that it's so much more free and democratic to get killed at random for money??

[arallara.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post. It's nice to be reminded by you and the comments that fandom has made some progress on issues of race, and that some truly excellent and beautiful things have managed to grow from the awfulness.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I suppose I'm in a comfortable position here, in that of the people I actually know and like who've chimed in on the subject, I feel like we're all on the same side. The people who've disappointed me have been strangers.

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this--I oftenfind it difficult to follow threads through on LJ. This helps a lot.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's harder to keep up with things than it was in mailing list days. But on the other hand, we're getting a much wider variety of voices.