erastes

I read some of the Racewank 09 stuff and was disgusted. Never have so many inflated internet egotists said so much about nothing at all. The gist of it - as far as I can make out, is thus: White People = Bad; People of Colour = Good, and it`s apparently not possible for non-whites to be racist.

Oh, and a lot of `healing` seems to be going on, with much public breast-beating about How Insensitive And Wrong We All Are, and also how more attention is required when a bunch of internet-dwelling yobs decide to take one to task - apparently one is supposed to allow oneself to be instructed by this same internet mob (because that`s what it is, a mob, in the lowest, meanest sense of the word) on How To Write Stuff Without Offending Anybody.

Because, you know, everyone nowadays is going about looking for a reason to be offended. (I`m sure I just offended someone by writing that. OH THE HUMANITY!) o_O

Oh, and everyone (read: white people)is trying to prove how Racially and Culturally Sensitive they are by posting things about how they are TRYING to listen to the pain, and they are TRYING to understand and to HEAL and it`s a lot like a really bad episode of (insert cheesey chat show of your choice here) from some cocaine dream, where one has fallen through a wormhole into the Dirty Matrix of Self-Flagellation and White Privilege.

You know - the usual midwinter wank. If it wasn`t that, it would be something else. Personally, it makes me throw up in my mouth a little, but then I`ve been advised by Those Who Know that I`m a gum-cracking bigot anyway, so there you are. :)

Someone is definitely feeding Lucius...or he is, as you suspect, gorging on mice. LOL

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problem is, the usual suspects still keep making the usual stoopid remarks about how there ain't no problem no more. Dunno about the UK, but here in the US, it's like a bed penny. I'm tired of the necessity to remind folks that people with power often don't even know they have it when they start treating other people badly.
I'm sorry, outing people's names online is just not on.

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I'm making no public statement about my feelings one way or the other. I really like your summary of it though. Class.

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ETA: darn typos, sorry!

Thank you. I also crossposted links in my lj, if folks want to follow up to links and other opinions by POC who are in fandom. Pro-dom is even less diverse than fandom, and that's not all that diverse, partly because geek culture tends to be computer-centric.
It's not necessary to beat one's breast to declare one is ever-so-uselessly sorry for the sins of the past. (Plenty of that useless self-centered nonsense out there, I have to agree with sleveen on that one.)
But it's really not acceptable to carry on with whitewashing movies and cover art right now-- not to mention hassling people in fandom when you are yourself a pro with a bully pulpit.
At one point I got into a relatively minor hair tangle where someone was disavowing they had any slash fans and putting down slash fanfic and claiming that isn't the appeal of their own work when they show queer sex scenes. Uh huh. Whether they have slash fans or not, it's not like slash fans need anybody else putting down what they like reading!
That's a *bully*, plain and simple, and I'm sorry to hear it hasn't changed.

Cripes, not meaning to lecture you,not when you write historical queer and do your homework on what it was really like back then. That's exactly the kind of research they claim they should not have to *bother* to do.
as [info]dharma_slut put it here,
http://dharma-slut.livejournal.com/70936.html
..."but what if my black character is stereotyped by accident?"
That's not the reason to not write characters of color. You know what my answer is?
Rewrite that character. Especially in epublishing, it's perfectly possible to do that.
Of course it might mean a heluvalot of hard work and time, to do that, and it might change some plot points or interactions, or whatever...

To which I commented that stereotypic black characters aren't just offensive, it's stupid on the writer's part. Stereotypes are simply bad writing, you should edit to correct that in any case.
Boring the editor = bad idea.
That's my opinion, FWIW!!

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valarltd.livejournal.com

The problem is, there are so many stereotypes, often contradictory.

Is Marvello, my black stage magician who has real magic and is married to the bearded lady, the Magical Negro stereotype? Or is he the Troublemaker when he comes into conflict with the main character?

Is Steven, my black zen master who teaches self-defense and writes history books, too much the Sage Mentor/Uncle Remus?

Is Chuck, my Cherokee driver, too stoic? We see a flare of his temper and his lover wonders just how tightly leashed he keeps it, and why.

I watch my stereotypes, remain aware I can't please everyone, and write the characters as they need to be written to be true to themselves.

Edited Date: 2009-03-07 11:12 pm (UTC)

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I've just been told there are 75 or so "tropes" - you'd tie yourselves in knots avoiding them.

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My son-in-law is full Cherokee, and he's very stoic. I guess if I were using him as a model for a character, I'd be slammed for stereotyping.

Insane.

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Oh yes - but what's even worse is that you would be slammed for just about anything, really. This one's the true no-win scenario if I ever saw it...

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Seriously. If you don't include non-white characters, you're being racist. If you do include them, but don't write them to meet some external standard of 'realism,' you're being racist. The end result of this is going to be that some white writers will be more reluctant to write people of color at all.

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Yep - it's right back to that standpoint theory discussion in grad school - "Well, if you haven't experienced it first-hand, you couldn't possibly write about it."

Uh, it's called fiction for a reason. o_O
Everybody's got an axe to grind...I get a laugh out of the ones who accuse me of blah blah white this or that, because then I can reveal that I'm also Inuit and therefore, in Canada, am considered Aboriginal.

I like watching the tops of their heads blow off. :)

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And particularly as this argument seemed to be around sci fi and fantasy figures too, which I thought was pretty odd to get all riled up about.

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Well, there's that, too - SF/F? That's partly why I've been outside of this - I'm not a part of that world at all...

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These all sounds like marvelous characters to me, and very inventive, interesting resourceful people; but it depends how you use them in your work, it's the context, yes?
I thought this particular post by an Indian fantasy writer was really excellent at explaining why they're having to invent from scratch a lot of things that writers in Western culture already have built up for them.
http://deepad.livejournal.com/29656.html

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As Valarltd says, I think one can tie oneself in knots making one's non-white characters non-stereotypical and therefore entirely unreal. I boggled at someone's list of non-white sf/f characters who were lumbered with problems such as blindness or everlasting angst - but sheesh - there are white characters with just the same problems too!

If I write a chinaman living in London's Victorian east end involved in gangland stuff, or (in the Further Adventures of Fleury) have Fleury encountering black slaves, they aren't likely to be noble, PC, erudite, freedom-Ghandi fans and I'll laugh if anyone pokes me with the racist stick. I remember that Alex Beecroft got some heat for "endorsing slavery" by writing about it in her Age of Sail novels. Utter MADNESS - the only way to dishonour what happened is to mangle the facts, to ignore it, to change the mindset of people in that time. I like the way that Naomi Novik handles the subject--she introduces William Wilberforce, and Nelson (who was a slavery supporter) and has Laurence, the hero, and Temeraire being abolitionists: Laurence because his father is, and Temerarire because he sees that his fellow dragons are treated in much the same way.

I do understand the arguments - and I don't need to go and read them all because I'm old enough to have seen them all before - but I also don't believe in having Writers of Colour group/music awards/film awards etc etc. I'm just imagining the Stink if someone started a All White Authors group. I know that won't be a popular opinion, but--well, that's how I feel.

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Getting older ain't for sissies, that's fer sure...

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lee-rowan.livejournal.com

The first few posts I saw about this shitstorm puzzled the hell out of me because I thought PoC was a variant abbreviation for Pirates o' the Carribean.

I'm trying to meet that big deadline... even if I had the desire to click through dozens of links of anger--and I don't--I have't got the hours it would take to read through it all. I'm like the classmate Barack Obama mentioned in Dreams--I would rather see people as individuals and be treated as one. I don't know what color skin half my f'list has, and I don't particularly care.

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heh I thought the same thing! What does it mean?

It's one of the reasons I couldn't be arsed to read through it, plus there wouldn't be anything there I hadn't seen a hundred times before in fanfiction, on the tv, and everywhere on the net. And like you, I don't know what colour my flist is, same as I don't generally know gender, it's not what defines people, imho - no matter how some poeople seem to think it does.

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I'm like the classmate Barack Obama mentioned in Dreams--I would rather see people as individuals and be treated as one. I don't know what color skin half my f'list has, and I don't particularly care.

YES! Yes. Thank you - you expressed that far more eloquently than I ever could. :)

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lunalelle.livejournal.com

Man, if Season 5 of Angel is better than Season 4... I know you didn't like the fourth season, but I did most of the time. :) Now the fact that I'm resolutely not watching Season 5 yet is even harder.

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I shall endeavour not to spoil you.

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lunalelle.livejournal.com

Don't worry about it. I'm not a spoiler queen. :)

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valarltd.livejournal.com

I'm just home from work. Nothing much to post about.
I'm not doing wankery.

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Yes, but by the looks of things, you are too busy to wank!!

:)

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That stupid race wank has been going on forever. As my opinions on the subject are decidedly not politically correct, I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

Angel Season 5 is the love. But then, it's got Spike, so what do you expect?

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I sort of feel the same, if I ever do write non-white characters into my books (and people could easily be yelling that i haven't had any as yet) they are likely to be slaves and servants. Well, sorry, world, suck it up.

Spike absolutely perked the series up for me, which had been getting entirely stodgy since Connor imho.

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I hate Connor. He's like the Wesley Crusher of Angel.

As to the other thing, what I see resulting from all this wank is that some white writers are going to look at this, decide that there's no way they can ever 'get it right' and just not include people of color at all, rather than to risk being insensitive.

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lee-rowan.livejournal.com

Yes. And the ones who don't care will not change anyway.

Damn it, with all the intelligent women involved in the issue, there has got to be a way to discuss the issue without a replay of the Australian fire disaster.

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I have the feeling that your feelings and my own on racewank are oddly similar... :)

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Quite likely. And I find it very annoying that I don't feel that I can say anything about this at all without risking

erastes' journal getting caught up in this nightmare.

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No, I understand what you mean...and I think you're absolutely right.

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lee-rowan.livejournal.com

Re the con: If they have a huckster's room, you and Alex could buy a batch of your books and sell 'em (or hold a sign-and-sell in your room.) There are several of us fan-to-pro writers at Mediawest who have tables in the Dealer's Room. You aren't likely to get rich but it could help offset the cost of the convention.

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mylodon.livejournal.com

This connotations thing makes me frustrated. Would love to go, but it might be the first weekend of Uni, depending on where the big girl ends up. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.

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clarelondon.livejournal.com

Is it a good Con? Even for original slashers like me? or is it better suited to those who write TV fandom slash...
It seems a small event and therefore terrifying to me (i.e. can't hide), but I'm v tempted to go! LOL
Do most people stay the whole weekend or are there plenty of day-visitors?
Will Clare ever stop asking inane questions??
^_^

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