My essay in the WisCon Chronicles about religion
This post is a response to comments in the WisCon LJ about my essay in the WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 4. It is very long, and even includes a p.s. and excerpts from panel descriptions at the end.
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-Wow, I did not know about this, thank you for pointing that out to me. Yes, definitely not a good example.
"you are conflating religious people with oppressed groups. and religious people, as a whole, are not an oppressed group. certain groups of religious people? sure. certainly. historically as well as in the present. but religious people, as a class into and of themselves, are not an oppressed group."
-I do not mean to imply that religious people are oppressed; I recognize that being religious confers many privileges in most societies. My point there was to point out that if it's not acceptable to call x group of people bad names, it's likewise not acceptable to call y group of people bad names. I could even has used 'all White people' as an example. It's not whether the group is oppressed, it's how we treat them.
"last but not least, i suspect you know this but wiscon program is all a) suggested by volunteers, and b) edited by volunteers. i'm not saying this is a good excuse, but i am saying it's likely the reason. this is one thing that throwing more people at it may just help. if anyone is reading this and has some time in (usually) april, to fix comma placement and convert -- to emdashes etcetera, as well as read program descriptions and either go "yes yes yes yes best thing ever!" or "uh. i think i'm gonna reword this one.", let me know and i'll put you in touch with the right people."
-I do know that programming is an all volunteer thing, and that more volunteers are always needed. My question is how could panel descriptions like these get past ANY WisCon volunteer? WisCon is a thoughtful, inclusive convention for the most part, and I am surprised that they weren't edited before publication. Or, if they were, they may actually have been even worse as originally submitted, and this was the improved version, but even so, it still needed work. If my essay sparks a heightened sensitivity to this, I will consider that a success.
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