I'm bringing cranky back
So, here's the thing.
We live in a racist society, right? (If you disagree with me, seriously, what the hell are you doing at this journal?) We live in a sexist society, a heterosexist society, a classist society, an ableist society. We live in a society where people oppress others.
So, yes, the art created in that society is going to often be tinged with all of those -isms. Music, visual arts, poetry, fictional writing. It's going to be an issue.
So here are my statements of fact.
1) We live in a racist society.
2) That racism affects everything and everyone in that society and the products they create.
3) Fanfiction and fannish communities have massive issues with race because we come out of a culture of racism.
4) ONE of the ways this manifests (though, obviously, not the only way) is that characters of color are written less and that, when they are written, their race is usually either ignored or fetished/stereotyped. Period. It's not just true in not-for-profit, fan-created works, but also true in fictional works of all kinds. And it fucking blows.
5) You don't have to sit down and intend for this to happen for it to happen.
6) You are not the arbiter of person's racial identity. You do not get to claim "So-and-so doesn't look/act black/Latino/Chicano/Asian/Native/Indian/whathaveyou" enough.
7) If you say something that someone objects to, stating that it is racist/classist/homophobic/heterosexist/sexist/offensive, the PROPER response is to say "Damn. I'm sorry. Can you explain how?"
8) It is NOT to say "NO, I'M NOT A [FILL IN THE BLANK]IST AND FUCK YOU."
9) If we won't learn from each other, we'll never learn. And that shit doesn't just mean that I don't get to read fanfiction that I want to read, it means that we live in a more racist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist, oppressive, awful world.
10) And I don't want that. Do you?
We live in a racist society, right? (If you disagree with me, seriously, what the hell are you doing at this journal?) We live in a sexist society, a heterosexist society, a classist society, an ableist society. We live in a society where people oppress others.
So, yes, the art created in that society is going to often be tinged with all of those -isms. Music, visual arts, poetry, fictional writing. It's going to be an issue.
So here are my statements of fact.
1) We live in a racist society.
2) That racism affects everything and everyone in that society and the products they create.
3) Fanfiction and fannish communities have massive issues with race because we come out of a culture of racism.
4) ONE of the ways this manifests (though, obviously, not the only way) is that characters of color are written less and that, when they are written, their race is usually either ignored or fetished/stereotyped. Period. It's not just true in not-for-profit, fan-created works, but also true in fictional works of all kinds. And it fucking blows.
5) You don't have to sit down and intend for this to happen for it to happen.
6) You are not the arbiter of person's racial identity. You do not get to claim "So-and-so doesn't look/act black/Latino/Chicano/Asian/Native/Indian/whathaveyou" enough.
7) If you say something that someone objects to, stating that it is racist/classist/homophobic/heterosexist/sexist/offensive, the PROPER response is to say "Damn. I'm sorry. Can you explain how?"
8) It is NOT to say "NO, I'M NOT A [FILL IN THE BLANK]IST AND FUCK YOU."
9) If we won't learn from each other, we'll never learn. And that shit doesn't just mean that I don't get to read fanfiction that I want to read, it means that we live in a more racist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist, oppressive, awful world.
10) And I don't want that. Do you?