On racism... *rolls up sleeves*

[celandineb]

Now. You all should know by now that I really, really dislike wankery; I find it a waste of time and energy, and something that promotes ill-will without resolving anything. I dislike even more, however, being told that I am a racist.

Comments

[celandineb]

What if the word was something more overtly offensive, something that everyone recognized, would that change your position?

No, I don't think it would. I hope not at least. Censorship is censorship. And it does appear that Zvi objects not just to the word, but to the entire possibility that someone might be turned on by the notion of having sex with a person whose skin tone is different... which is not really different from being turned on by hair of a particular color, or by big breasts, or whatever, is it? So changing the tag really wouldn't change a thing.

[celandineb]

It's not technically censorship since as you rightly say Zvi does not have the power to force a change... but she would if she could, that's clear. So she is ASKING for censorship, which is not much different.

Given that, you know, there are people of color on the community that apparently it didn't offend at all, it's kind of bizarre that someone who's not even a watcher of it has decided to start all of this. If anything I think that the portrayals of quote-unquote interracial relationships in response to the prompt were very positive, and that's to everyone's benefit in terms of developing greater understanding. Zvi's energies might be better turned towards condemning people who are actually racists.

[elfflame]

Let's make this clear. This wasn't someone who came in and was offended by a story. She came into a community she had no part in whatsoever, took one word out of context, and quite definitively demanded that the community change not only the way they do things, but how things are labeled. She had no issue with the community other than *that word*, and did not bother to be civil when the mod explained how the community worked, and why they would not just delete it.

Deleting the tag isn't the issue here. The issue is that she came and set out to make an issue out of this. If someone had come to your journal and said they were offended by the word "gay" and that you should take it out, would you do so?

We can't get rid of the meaning of a term by avoiding it. But this isn't the bad word she's conflating the issue with. It is a legal term that has come to mean bad things. People have managed to reclaim others in the past. Is it such a horrible thought to think we couldn't do the same with this?

[celandineb]

Yep, you got it in one. Someone completely unaffiliated came in and made a stink.

And I completely agree that the way to make a word not-hurtful is not to censor the word, but to reclaim it.

[celandineb]

It hasn't always meant something bad, though. That was the point of including that second usage. Within 20 years it was being used metaphorically in very different, and NOT racial, contexts.