Fandom, community and consequences.
There's been a lot of discussion lately, online and in person, about how accepting Perth/Swancon fandom has been over the years, and how's that not always a good thing. Traditionally we have sometimes been too accepting, and let people get away with behaviour that ranged from skirting the line to blatantly and utterly unacceptable.
And we've let it slide.
We've made excuses, told ourselves it wasn't what it looked like, that it was 'just a little failure in communication', or 'if they really had a problem they'd make it clear'.
We've looked the other way, for a long time. Because we didn't want to cause a fuss, or intrude into other peoples' private lives, we didn't know either of them well enough to intervene. Because we didn't want to think that badly of them. Or we just didn't want to think about the less pleasant parts of life at all, so we just ignored it.
And in doing so, we've made it easier for the (multiple!) people who are deliberately and repeatedly acting unacceptably to get away with it. They know they can count on us to ignore it, sweep it under the rug, or, gods forgive us, to attack the victims for trying to speak up, for having the utter gall to attempt speak the truth about their experiences. "How dare they ask for justice?" "What makes them think that they are so special that they should make us uncomfortable by asking us to examine our own complicity?"
We've all done it, and I am no more innocent of this than the rest of the community. Hell, I'm certain there have been times where I have benefited from this code of silence, when I was skirting or crossing the line, and nobody would call me on it.
It's time we stopped all of this. It's well past time we actually looked towards the safety of those most vulnerable and not just to our own comfort.
I don't know how we are going to do this, it's certainly not a small or easy task.
But I, for one, can't bring myself to stand by and let us all destroy the wonderful community we have here in Perth fandom, simply to avoid some difficult conversations and harder decisions.
We need to be better than we have been. It breaks my heart to think that this wonderful community we have could be destroyed purely because we weren't willing to do the hard work of actually trying to make it as safe, fun and accepting as we like to pretend it is.
See also: http://angriest.livejournal.com/460306.html for more context, and saying it better than I've managed.
And we've let it slide.
We've made excuses, told ourselves it wasn't what it looked like, that it was 'just a little failure in communication', or 'if they really had a problem they'd make it clear'.
We've looked the other way, for a long time. Because we didn't want to cause a fuss, or intrude into other peoples' private lives, we didn't know either of them well enough to intervene. Because we didn't want to think that badly of them. Or we just didn't want to think about the less pleasant parts of life at all, so we just ignored it.
And in doing so, we've made it easier for the (multiple!) people who are deliberately and repeatedly acting unacceptably to get away with it. They know they can count on us to ignore it, sweep it under the rug, or, gods forgive us, to attack the victims for trying to speak up, for having the utter gall to attempt speak the truth about their experiences. "How dare they ask for justice?" "What makes them think that they are so special that they should make us uncomfortable by asking us to examine our own complicity?"
We've all done it, and I am no more innocent of this than the rest of the community. Hell, I'm certain there have been times where I have benefited from this code of silence, when I was skirting or crossing the line, and nobody would call me on it.
It's time we stopped all of this. It's well past time we actually looked towards the safety of those most vulnerable and not just to our own comfort.
I don't know how we are going to do this, it's certainly not a small or easy task.
But I, for one, can't bring myself to stand by and let us all destroy the wonderful community we have here in Perth fandom, simply to avoid some difficult conversations and harder decisions.
We need to be better than we have been. It breaks my heart to think that this wonderful community we have could be destroyed purely because we weren't willing to do the hard work of actually trying to make it as safe, fun and accepting as we like to pretend it is.
See also: http://angriest.livejournal.com/460306.html for more context, and saying it better than I've managed.