: Monday, March 9, 2009
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fiction_theory: Why yes, we are still talking about RaceFail09. - In fact, I think I may (for own purposes, I do not expect anyone to think anything I say is a good idea) construct a formula for a good apology. // Step One: Really mean it. If you blow this step, the others don't matter. -- livrelibre: After a weekend of RaceFail. . . - I've appreciated the thoughtful responses from folks in posts and comments but the latest links and comments, I've also seen a new round of "it's all too much/just another useless flamewar/don't tell me what to do/they're mean/stop judging me" breaking out and for sanity's sake, stop or do it under flock. I appreciate that you feel the way you feel and understand but it's not super useful at this point (and personally it makes my head explode a little more each time). -
- zdashamber: This is what has been going on with race and SF/F - This all comes from basic denial of the problem, which is that shallow offensive treatments of race, and dismissiveness of those who point these flawed treatments out, are endemic to SF/F, and part of a long pattern online and off. -
- raqs: OK, I really should keep myself to myself, but I want to say this. - People at the institution who felt marginalized or discriminated against weren't stupid and we weren't wrong. We felt marginalized and discriminated against because we were marginalized and discriminated against. We didn't need anything in order to feel more comfortable. Everyone else, however, sure could use some orientation and education. -
- spiralsheep: In which there are sockpuppets and trolls, racism, transphobia and homophobia - At least two other people involved in the same science fiction pro/fan communities have been harassed during the same sort of time-frame with sexualised threats and/or transphobic insults. Occam's razor says that's probably not a coincidence. -
- sparkymonster: RaceFail, Silence and Words - My point is that no one has to make an lj post supporting POC participation in SFF and fandom. Although if you have something you want/need to say go forth. I am not the boss of you. You can show support in a wide variety of ways. -
- fiercelydreamed: Some thoughts on RaceFail '09. - I believe I need to make greater efforts to represent people of color in the stories I write. Based on what I have written before, I believe this means writing protagonists of color as well as secondary characters, writing characters of color whose cultural context is more deliberately engaged and more markedly their own, and writing stories set in communities and places without white majorities. -
- rosefox: "God is change." - I fully understand that those posts were written to benefit their authors, and not for the purpose of educating me or improving my rhetorical and critical abilities. How much worse would it be, though, to view such things and turn away unmoved and unchanged? -
- withdiamonds: Speaking words of wisdom, let it be... - But this isn't just a "flamewar"; in a fandom that's not mine, or a fight among a bunch of fantasy writers and readers. There's, like, really important things being said and while it's nice to be able to say "not interested, doesn't affect me," it really does. Every time people are hurt and devalued and dismissed and rendered invisible, it affects me, or at least it certainly should. -
- umbo: positive portrayals of diversity - What I'd like to see is some discussion of positive portrayals of diversity in media fandom--and by "positive," I don't mean in the Magical Negro sense, but in the sense of, this show or this episode got it right, or, if they didn't, they were close/heading in the right direction, or mostly got it right except for this one thing. -
- wordplay: Blogging about racefail - and blogging about blogging about racefail. Linguists love recursion! - I'm finding racefail a tricky thing to blog about and within because of how LJ works and how meta and performative all of our discourse here is. There is really no obligatory speech online, at least not in my point of view - this is not like two people standing on the street, where failure to respond = snubbing. -
- beccaelizabeth: Diversity at conventions - So if you're at a UK convention, out of every 100 fans, 9 of them would be people of color if they're the same mix as the UK population. If there's 1000 people at a convention, that's 90 people of color.//I strongly suspect we're a long way short of that at many conventions.//I haven't the first clue how to improve that, but it would seem of the good. -
- trinker: Breaking the silence. . . - This wasn't a showdown at the OK Corral, with two sides lined up. It especially wasn't the white hats vs. black hats that some people tried to make it. It wasn't sockpuppets and trolls on one side, and pros on the other, nor was it the forces of right-thinking vs. hate. Some of us had contact with many of the major players in this before all this got ugly - and yes, some of these people are quick to fall into some ugly patterns, but I know of few genuine hateful puppykickers in this batch. -
- linaerys: RaceFAIL09 - Saying you saw "bad behavior on both sides" reminds me an awful lot of the defenses I'm seeing of Chris Brown regarding Rihanna--sure, every story has two sides, but only one side ended up with bruises. -
- merryish: Resulting from, but not really related to the SF/F RaceFail - Specifically, I was thinking about all the things I don't know, that I would need to know if I were going to make more than a superficial effort at writing a person of color effectively. And it occurred to me that if I didn't know enough to write a person of color effectively, I most likely didn't know enough to talk about race effectively, period. -
- troubleinchina: Internet Arguments Are Just Like Real Life, Except I Can Walk Away - It's nice to think that off-line discussions will be kind because we can read people's body language and get at what they really mean. But that same body language can be threatening or dismissive, that same "let's pay attention to tone of voice" can overwhelm someone who can't handle a loud conversation or just doesn't read tone the same way, and no one has ever held a pair of scissors to my throat and screamed at me to shut up on the internet. -
- bookshop: to EB, from someone who would like to learn *from* you, not despite you - Please please please learn from this discussion, and insist upon diversity in your work, in your friends' work, in the works your agents represent, in the way your covers are drawn, in the way your editors read your work, in the way your publishers market it. You may not always win, but you can use your authorial privilege and be vocal about what you want -
- ithiliana: A minor issue, perhaps... - in just about every thread I've read on Racefail 09, no matter the position of the OP, there's always someone who opines that it's all the fault of these tubes internets, that when in fact, we're all face/face, we are much kinder/better communicators and listeners, and everybody gets along much better because we're not so likely to be "mean" to somebody we're looking at face/face. -