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Silence is not neutral
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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?
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?
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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.
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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
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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?
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