: Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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surreallis: Just... wow. - Wading into race discussions as a white reader, you need certain tools. (The same as you need if you start studying feminism, even if you're a woman.) -- queenofhell: I am not the moderator - I said in a comment to someone that "Im not saying that I'm the lone wise person who does see both sides", but that was exactly what I was saying. I was trying to make myself into the arbitrator, the unbiased moderator of the discussion. -
- fabu: Why Walk When You Can Fly - Sooner or later, most of us are going to have a discussion with friends, acquaintances or strangers (often all three) that becomes contentious or heated[...]When this happens, it's easy to panic, to feel defensive and, in the heat of the moment, to say or do things that are inflammatory or which give the wrong impression. This is understandable, but if your goal is to have a productive discussion, there are certain things you can do (or not do) to keep from escalating the disagreement any further. -
- cofax7: links, and some meta on rhetoric - when people who do not usually speak in anger, find themselves forced to speak in hurt and anger, it signals the importance of the statement, and it forces their opponents to step back and re-evaluate. Anger demands attention. Anything that creates this much upset has to be important, right? -
- toft_froggy: John Scalzi fails in real life - one thing I've been thinking over the past week (and possibly which I already saw someone else say, but I can't find it in my links), is that the fail/nonfail divide in all this doesn't seem necessarily between racists/non-racists (or, more accurately maybe, people who are and are not interested in examining themselves on race), or fans/pros, although obviously there is plenty of overlap, but between people who do and do not think that the internet is a real place. -
- throughadoor: from the department of redundancy department - Some Advice for White Fans Who Have Only Recently Encountered RaceFail. -
- ethrosdemon: SCREAM SCREAM - Dear John,//Listen, I get you think you're a gadfly and all that stuff. This is the thing, not all Very Important Discussions are alike. There is nuance in the world of ideas. You have picked the wrong thing to be edgy and controversial about. Your edginess is not more important than the basic humanity of your fellow human beings. You are an asshole.//Get a grip//Fellow Tor Author -
- apis_mellifera: apis_mellifera: RaceFail 09: My thoughts, let me show you them. - As a reviewer, I know that sometimes authors believe I'm interrogating the text from the wrong perspective. The thing is, I'm not reviewing the book for the benefit of the author--they have betas and critique groups and editors for that; I'm doing it for the readers. -
- sonatine: If I was smart and witty I would say smart and witty things - I do not believe that Bear intended (consciously or unconsciously) to hurt people, appropriate their experiences, or make equivalent her experiences of being oppressed, but as a person of privilege talking about how to write characters of color she should have been aware of how it might look. -
- puella_nerdii: RaceFail '09; or, Art Does Not Exist in a Vacuum - Art does not exist in a vacuum. When we write, we have to be conscious not only of the world we're writing about, but the world we're writing in, and the people we're writing for. And again, our cultural context doesn't dictate what we produce, but it sure as hell informs it, and I think good artists should be both conscious of this and in dialogue with it. -
- handyhunter: on (not) offending white people - Yes, of course I worry about it.//Why?//Because I don't want to offend you.//Because I want you to like me.//Because I don't want you to offend me, so if I don't do it to you, maybe you won't do it to me. -
- raincitygirl: I keep coming across this idea of "loyalty oaths" and "groupthink" and such - How we got from one person posting an opinion (and a few people in comments saying she had a point) to "The fascist FoC Cabal is demanding anti-racist loyalty oaths from the entire community" I'm still not entirely sure. -
- marythefan: this is not all I'd like to say, but perhaps it's all I should say, right now - Trying to keep up with RF9000 has been like nothing so much as the experience six months ago - in a tiny room at a DragonCon panel about the future of the genre - being told that women don't write hard SF because they don't have science degrees, and queer characters aren't in SF because I can't expect straight men to know how to write gay men, and characters of color aren't in SF because, well, if black readers can't relate to white characters, isn't that just a failure of their imaginations? -
- lotusice: another run at this race thing - In all these conversations, the position of privilege means something. The fact is, even as a minority in other countries, my status as having privilege by virtue of race never changed. Not once. -
- rosefox: "La la la I can't hear you" - What I can't understand is people making a point of proclaiming things like "this can't possibly be relevant to me", or characterizing an enormous two-month discussion involving hundreds of people as "absolutely goddamn pointless" or a "crapfling", or otherwise being dismissive. I don't get it. -
- lyda222: Why Saying "It's Just Fiction" is a Cop Out - I think one of the things that one might come away from RaceFail that is positive, is, for me, at least, the idea that fiction does matter. What you say and how you say it *is* important. Very important. -
- sugargroupie: 'Tis better to own your words through action, says me. - I like it when white fans I respect take an unequivocal stance against something that has hurt me. Do I expect or require it? No. For me, what it comes down to is this://Your words mean fuck-all to me if your mouth has written a check that your ass can't cash. Simply put, actions are louder than words. It's not just about working on your own privilege, but following through on that work. -
- kynn: would you give up your seat? - Are you willing to give up your voice so that someone else may use theirs?//Are you willing to look at the tapestry of history, and see that folks like you have been sitting at the table the whole time, and get up from your chair, step aside, and offer it to someone else whose voice has been silenced so far? -
- hedarahelix: Back from Escapade, Thoughts on RaceFail Spawned By Escapade's White Allies Panel - I think too often we white allies get really depressed about how much work we have to do and how much we have to learn. Wouldn't it make more sense to think of this as being on the threshold of a really exciting new world? Sure, we're going to take a train in the wrong direction from time to time, but we might find something new at the end of that path. -
- stoneself: what is privilege - because i can see we're about to need this.//1. what is privilege? -
- badgerbag: LJ and gender - I think "LiveJournal" has become or maybe always was code for "female" aka hysterical hissy fit throwing girly catfighters who are by definition talking about something annoying trivial and overblown. -
- ali_wildgoose: Thoughts on RaceFail09, what talking about race really means, and on being a white ally - What I want to talk about here is people in power pretending they DON'T have power, and how badly that can hurt the rest of the community. -
- sparkymonster: That was so racist I can't even be mad...no wait I can - It was so god damn racist I wasn't even surprised by the follow up SURPRISE SUCKAH this was an experiment to improve my writing. -
- lightgetsin: Okay, so one of the things I did before law school - Which is a long way of saying that fandom -- my fandom, anyway, by which I pretty much mean slash mediafandom -- you are doing a better job at talking about this than people whose job it actually is to talk about it. So thanks, because I've learned as much from you as I did working in civil rights. Well, what I mean more accurately is that job taught me about the law and politics and a few things about compassion, but it didn't teach me about listening to people better or speaking responsibly back, but fandom is. -
- quettaser: Racefail Thoughts - Trying to say that you are "colorblind" is embracing your white privilege. You are blinding yourself to how the color of someone's skin can and does affect their life. If someone tells you that you can't see or understand their problems, it might be because you're covering your eyes. -
- hector_rashbaum: We All Live in a Yellow FailmarineAny faith I had that the OP truly learned from the experience, that she took all those attempts to educate her to heart, flew right out the window when all she had to say to "it's nobody's job to educate you" was "thanks for the education, and remember, it's everyone's job to teach me shit".
Maybe she locked down too early. - hilarytamar: Safe spaces - many fen of color have had to choose between leaving what they thought was a safe space but has proven not to be, and trying - again - to wrestle it back to safety, to beat it down, build it up, smooth it out, make it theirs again. They've written in every way they know how in order to get me, a white fan, to stop threatening their space.//They are educating me out of self-defense. -
- hesychasm: brown person representin' with authoritah - But what I mean when I say I'm careful talking to white people about race is that these days, I generally don't bother talking with white people about race at all. I will be honest: at this point in my life, most of my conversations with white people about race are one-way conversations, with the words flowing from me to them. And I am okay with that. -
- sheafrotherdon: Give me a break / Happy / Action - [John Scalzi got involved in RaceFail09] - or at least was dragged kicking and screaming into the fray. -
- cryptoxin: Ursa Mayhem - Throughout the last couple of months, so much of the discussion has shifted away from questions and struggles around cultural appropriation for writers and readers, towards debates over who can credibly speak and be heard on these subjects. Critical voices are too emotional, or lacking in higher education and reading comprehension,or sockpuppets and trolls, or inflamed by grudge-harboring demagogues, or just not arguing in good faith. -
- p_zeitgeist: Sometimes silence is only silence. - More and more, I see people I know and respect from LJ assuming that (i) all of the pro community is aware of Racefail '09, and of the bad behavior displayed by that handful of pros therein; and that (ii) a failure to immediately and publicly denounce that behavior constitutes approval thereof -- or if not approval, at least an unsavory banding together to beat back the forces of justice. -