My $.02
I'm aware that this has been going on for the better part of two weeks by now, and that everybody who's going to hear about it probably already has. The author in question has been taken pretty thoroughly to task, so I'm not going to go there. I will say that I skimmed the fic and that the criticism has been, in my eyes, entirely apt.
Two things:
1. 'Racist' is not an insult. Really, it's not. Calling someone out on racist behavior (and yeah, it's happened to me and yeah, I get that it sucks to feel like the bad guy) is not the same thing as 'calling them names'. It's saying, 'Hey. You did this thing, and it was racist. It offended people. Maybe you didn't mean it to be offensive, maybe you really didn't know better, maybe you just didn't think it through--whatever. It was still offensive. People were offended, whether you meant them to be or not.'
Ignorance is not an excuse, and the fact that you may not consciously hold any racist attitudes doesn't mean that you are exempt from the possibility of ever doing something racist.
2. Apologies work better if they are genuine and unqualified. This means you don't get to make excuses for your behavior (unless those excuses include 'somebody held a gun to my head and made me post this'), you just say that you fucked up, and you're sorry. If you can let go of your defensiveness long enough, it's a big fucking step toward alleviating any hurt you've caused. Also, pretending it never happened or that you weren't really wrong or that there's some mitigating circumstance that makes it all okay does not actually help your reputation in fandom. You become that writer not just by writing offensive fic, but by refusing to acknowledge that you really did anything wrong.
That's all I'm going to say on the subject.
Two things:
1. 'Racist' is not an insult. Really, it's not. Calling someone out on racist behavior (and yeah, it's happened to me and yeah, I get that it sucks to feel like the bad guy) is not the same thing as 'calling them names'. It's saying, 'Hey. You did this thing, and it was racist. It offended people. Maybe you didn't mean it to be offensive, maybe you really didn't know better, maybe you just didn't think it through--whatever. It was still offensive. People were offended, whether you meant them to be or not.'
Ignorance is not an excuse, and the fact that you may not consciously hold any racist attitudes doesn't mean that you are exempt from the possibility of ever doing something racist.
2. Apologies work better if they are genuine and unqualified. This means you don't get to make excuses for your behavior (unless those excuses include 'somebody held a gun to my head and made me post this'), you just say that you fucked up, and you're sorry. If you can let go of your defensiveness long enough, it's a big fucking step toward alleviating any hurt you've caused. Also, pretending it never happened or that you weren't really wrong or that there's some mitigating circumstance that makes it all okay does not actually help your reputation in fandom. You become that writer not just by writing offensive fic, but by refusing to acknowledge that you really did anything wrong.
That's all I'm going to say on the subject.