Silence is not neutral

[ishtar79]

I haven’t been around…pretty much at all lately, mostly because my RL schedule has been kicking my ass in truly spectacular ways lately. I had some time today, and was planning to make a post on the latest Dollhouse, but my brain ended up being, once again, eaten by Racefail ’09.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about…how? If you haven’t the time to sort through unending stream of links rydra_wong’s been posting in her journal (hell, I’ve been following this since it exploded in January, and have still read only about 60% of the posts), she’s posted a brief summary.

I don’t have anything meaningful to contribute to the debate; the last thing this needs is another round of Clueless White Girl navel-gazing, and really, shutting up and listening is the best thing I could do right now.

I do want to say how tired I am of people still referring to this as a ‘race wank’ (here’s a tip: those two words do not go together), or trying to excuse absolutely appalling, racist, intimidating, damaging (now with extra fan outings!) behaviour by Entitled White Authors And Their Merry Band Of Apologists…or for that matter expressing ‘shock’ and ‘disappointment’ that the Magical All-Accepting Land Of Fandom Utopia has been tainted by such ugliness and uncomfortable issues, and really, can’t we all go back to our happy place?

Stating the blatantly obvious, but-there IS no mythical Fandom Utopia. The emperor’s ass has been out and flapping in the wind all along. Our love for all things geeky and talky and fannish and shiny certainly brings us together, and God knows it’s better than some places in the desolate wasteland they call the Internet, but for fuck’s sake, we’re not somehow “better” than this. A primarily women-centric space doesn’t mean a space free of sexist and misogynist assumptions, the fact we like to read and write about the pretty boys getting it on and posting the odd same-sex marriage meme doesn’t mean we’re all suddenly experts of LGBT issues, and the fact we dedicate the same time and attention to characters of colour as we do to the w00bie white boi pain doesn’t….oh, wait! We don’t actually do that last one.

This isn’t ‘just about sci-fi/fantasy fandom’ (which for the record, I’ve never even thought about before this all started and as you can imagine, I’m not all that eager to ever get into now). It’s about the kind of behaviour we * are continuously willing to let slide, it’s about privilege of being able to ignore and dismiss anything of a ‘squee-harshing’ nature, it’s about having our real issues-free Happy Place at the expense of those who simply can’t leave all that nasty reality behind, because it’s not something they can divorce from who they are.

*Obviously, I include myself in that statement. ‘Thoughtful’ and ‘serious’ are not my strong points; can I interest you in some sarcasm, rl rants and random fannish squee instead?

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm so out of the loop... I never heard anything about any of this... but I've also never read any of the authors mentioned in your post...
and of course I haven't ready any of the posts (so your 60% is impressive), I only googled it and read this:
http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=RaceFail_09

I'm kind of amazed at the tone of injured virtue these supposed professionals adopt, I would think they would want to reflect and discuss their work on a more serious level. You would think that authors would love to reflect seriously on their work, but instead they just pose ... and delete their lj.
*sigh*

It is all pretty interesting.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

You would think that authors would love to reflect seriously on their work, but instead they just pose ... and delete their lj.

You would think, but no. Actually, I'm done with assuming good motives and decency, for 'professional' authors and really, for people in general.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

This reminds me, very slightly, of the Heroes panel at Comic Con two years ago... a woman got up and asked the guys who created the show if they would be expanding the roles of women to something besides a cheerleader and a stripper....
And the guys were all offended like 'how dare you think we are sexist pigs? We are good guys'...
they wouldn't even give a thought to what was really obvious to every woman who watched the show (ie that it was created by sexist pigs). It didn't mean that I hated the show, but it was disappointing that these guys were so unaware of what they were doing, and didn't care enough to even discuss it.

[miranda-skye.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of it but, um, wow. So much posted in so little time.

I am some sympathy with the 'writing as escapism' POV but having said that as a child I used to get annoyed at the lack of decent female characters in the books I read...

The comment I found equating internet anonymity to abortion was quite ... special, however :p

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

Books are escapism, certainly, but that doesn't mean that they can't be offensive, or hurtful, or contributing to the collective ignorance, stereotyping and prejudice. Books are important.

I've missed the anonymity=abortion comment. *facepalm* And the fail, it just keeps on coming.

[miranda-skye.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely.

I think I was trying to draw a line that exists to me, at least, between something that is written *intentionally* to cause hurt, and something that - to the author - may not be offensive (rightly or wrongly)

Being involved in a fandom with some real, very nasty racism floating around (unfortunately), that distinction is important to me. Challenging ignorance is different to challenging bigotry.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I think I was trying to draw a line that exists to me, at least, between something that is written *intentionally* to cause hurt, and something that - to the author - may not be offensive (rightly or wrongly)

Oh, there's a difference, absolutely. Anybody can unintentionally put their foot (or their pen, or keyboard) in it-I know I've done it in the past, and most probably will in the future, because life is a constant learning process.

It's when people are confronted about said unintentional hurt and, instead of a simple acknowledgement, apology, they proceed to justify and further offend when the 'unintentional' excuse doesn't hold anymore, and ignorance becomes bigotry.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

I've read about, say 80% of what's come out of the past months race discussions, and am still trying to wrap my head around some things when it comes to the theory (not behaviour, because lots of that has been utterly inexcusable over the past week or so).

There are just some implications in the arguments from either 'side' that make me uncomfortable on a very fundamental level, and I've never been good at trying to think through things without trying to look at issues from all angles and asking for opinions/input from others. And while I'm not usually a scaredy-cat, I definitely don't have the guts to open that sort of can of worms in public. Hence mulling over things in silence.

I don't think, however, that attributing any sort of motive to people's silence is helpful, because otherwise breaking it would become a perceived obligation and therefore rather meaningless, wouldn't it?

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I knew I would mess up the phrasing somehow-I know that there's no one motive to most people being silent, of course. I was thinking more in terms of the effect of collective silence, the consequences, regardless of the reasons behind each person's individual silence.

I'm sorry if my post came off as accusatory, that wasn't my intent at all.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

No, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure I've managed to misread the intention of your post in the first place... Which is doubly embarrassing because it's one of the things that plagues this sort of discussion. Apologies! I should've done better than that!

I see what you're getting at with the effect of collective silence, though. And you're right, because I'd not had time to delve deep into the sordid details of the 'outing' business before things went mad in RL. It's truly one of the most outragous things I've ever seen in any fan-related space so far, and really a point where the race disaster and very basic 'fannish' concerns intersect even for those who're trying to stay out of the political/ideological side of things. Hell...

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

No worries. I wrote this post at about 1AM, and was worried I didn't manage to properly articulate what I meant.