For those that were previously unaware of RaceFail 09.
Since I've had some people dropping "...what is RaceFail 09?" comments on my flist, rydra_wong has been exhaustively chronicling most of it with linkspams on her LJ. She's been great about harvesting links both on LJ and in the larger blogsphere about this sprawling epic.
It's hard for me to believe that people haven't heard about what's been going on for sixty days now (two month anniversary of almost non-stop fail already?).
RaceFail 09, initially known as the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom, is part of a larger ongoing dialogue on LJ and other places about racism. It quickly gained the more accurate moniker of RaceFail 09 when a whole bunch of white bloggers -- both on LJ and off, and mostly centered in science fiction and fantasy fandom -- flipped their collective shit and began to viciously attack, harass, berate, insult, dismiss, and belittle the people of color and their allies involved in the discussion.
It started with a post by SFF Elizabeth Bear where she wrote about Writing the Other. Avalon's Willow responded to her post, and it then exploded across LJ and certain segments of the blogsphere once people started to show their asses.
rydra_wong has been exhaustively and heroically chronicling the discussion with linkspams. Go here, start with the January 15th/16th entries with the "gcadod 09" tag, and work your way up.
Be prepared to click some of those links she's chronicled and find "page not found" or "you are not authorized to read this entry" messages. A whole lot of white people -- the white people arguing that everything in SFF fandom is just dandy and that the PoC talking about racism and cultural appropriation in SFF fandom and in general didn't have enough academic street cred to be allowed to participate, or were sockpuppets or trolls -- involved in the discussion later privated or deleted their more acrimonious and ugly comments and posts. Fortunately a lot of people took screencaps and posted those.
If you haven't joined in the discussion previously and you happen to be white and you also happen to be of the mind that your Irishness/Jewishness/gayness/bisexualness/poverty/female identity/disability somehow gets you out of the white privilege card and/or entitles you to speak with authority about the impact of racism, please don't derail ongoing discussions of racism by interjecting that into the discussion unless that discussion is specifically discussing the intersectionality of different kinds of oppression. If you're new to RaceFail 09, I highly suggest reading some Racism 101 articles before you evince an opinion in the discussion.
SFF is one of my favorite genres to read and watch. RaceFail 09 has made me actively despise a whole lot of SFF writers and bloggers that I used to love, like, or view with benign indifference.
When people like N.K. Jemisin -- such a fucking talented writer -- writes about no longer feeling safe in SFF fandom because of the way this unfolded and the way people dismissed and belittled the voices of the PoC in this discussion -- well, that makes me flail in grief and anger.
And to borrow a phrase from kita0610, if you wish to discuss this here, don't be stupid about this on my journal. I am not interested in your white fanboy angst about how touchy those pesky PoC of color are, and I am not interested in anything you have to say about "tone."
And now for something completely different!
As seen on ontd_political, here's something hilarious. I give you the Black Friend Finder service:
Black Friend Finder - watch more funny videos
It's hard for me to believe that people haven't heard about what's been going on for sixty days now (two month anniversary of almost non-stop fail already?).
RaceFail 09, initially known as the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom, is part of a larger ongoing dialogue on LJ and other places about racism. It quickly gained the more accurate moniker of RaceFail 09 when a whole bunch of white bloggers -- both on LJ and off, and mostly centered in science fiction and fantasy fandom -- flipped their collective shit and began to viciously attack, harass, berate, insult, dismiss, and belittle the people of color and their allies involved in the discussion.
It started with a post by SFF Elizabeth Bear where she wrote about Writing the Other. Avalon's Willow responded to her post, and it then exploded across LJ and certain segments of the blogsphere once people started to show their asses.
rydra_wong has been exhaustively and heroically chronicling the discussion with linkspams. Go here, start with the January 15th/16th entries with the "gcadod 09" tag, and work your way up.
Be prepared to click some of those links she's chronicled and find "page not found" or "you are not authorized to read this entry" messages. A whole lot of white people -- the white people arguing that everything in SFF fandom is just dandy and that the PoC talking about racism and cultural appropriation in SFF fandom and in general didn't have enough academic street cred to be allowed to participate, or were sockpuppets or trolls -- involved in the discussion later privated or deleted their more acrimonious and ugly comments and posts. Fortunately a lot of people took screencaps and posted those.
If you haven't joined in the discussion previously and you happen to be white and you also happen to be of the mind that your Irishness/Jewishness/gayness/bisexualness/poverty/female identity/disability somehow gets you out of the white privilege card and/or entitles you to speak with authority about the impact of racism, please don't derail ongoing discussions of racism by interjecting that into the discussion unless that discussion is specifically discussing the intersectionality of different kinds of oppression. If you're new to RaceFail 09, I highly suggest reading some Racism 101 articles before you evince an opinion in the discussion.
SFF is one of my favorite genres to read and watch. RaceFail 09 has made me actively despise a whole lot of SFF writers and bloggers that I used to love, like, or view with benign indifference.
When people like N.K. Jemisin -- such a fucking talented writer -- writes about no longer feeling safe in SFF fandom because of the way this unfolded and the way people dismissed and belittled the voices of the PoC in this discussion -- well, that makes me flail in grief and anger.
And to borrow a phrase from kita0610, if you wish to discuss this here, don't be stupid about this on my journal. I am not interested in your white fanboy angst about how touchy those pesky PoC of color are, and I am not interested in anything you have to say about "tone."
And now for something completely different!
As seen on ontd_political, here's something hilarious. I give you the Black Friend Finder service:
Black Friend Finder - watch more funny videos