apparently i'm still angry about this
so a week or so ago, i made a post about feeling unsafe and the ways that that did not apply to the plight of white people at wiscon in the aftermath of racefail. i made that post in the wake of a far more polite and diplomatic post that was made in the wiscon community. my post really didn't get any flack, but the far more polite post got tons of flack and the poster (wild_irises) has since made another post.
i admired the initial post and i admire the followup post. i think that wild_irises is one of the most thoughtful people i know, in both senses of that word. i'm interested that my stronger post didn't bring any flack--part of that is that i am posting in my journal, whereas she is posting in the wiscon community. but i think that the other part of it might be that, on further consideration, i may be projecting that i don't care about the feelings of one "side" of this, insofar as there are sides. and, on even further consideration, that projection is true, and i want to talk about that for a bit.
i don't come to this issue clean, as it were. i don't think i've ever posted about this publically, but in locked posts i have examined the process where i moved from being a person who was missing a huge chunk of privilege, to a person who acquired a lot of that missing chunk. the story of that movement is the story of moving from being a lesbian for 24 years, dating women exclusively and having two "as close to marriage as we could come" relationships in that time, to becoming a bisexual and dating men, as well as women. i guess it would be easy to just accept the privilege that has come with dating men as my due and move on, but every day i see all the ways that i have privileges now that i did not have when i was a lesbian. i don't take them for granted, and the fact that so many of my friends are missing them angers me. so i am writing from a place where i started out angry, building on that old anger.
i've got several axes where i am missing privilege (woman, jewish, queer, fat) but i have never moved through the world as a person of color. the closest that i've ever come to it is that when you are dating a PoC, there are situations where you give up some of your privilege when you are out with them. but even there, you have the power to step away from them, bringing your white skin with you, and there is all your privilege, waiting for you. i don't know or see every privilege that attaches to me by moving through the world with white skin, but my experience moving through the world in other ways, especially the experience of moving through the world without heterosexual privilege and then acquiring a bunch of it overnight, tells me that it is all over the place in more ways than i could begin to imagine.
and over here we have wiscon, which is still, what, 90% white? and we have a group of people making an effort to make it a better experience for PoC because most sf cons are an even higher percentage of white folks and couldn't there be a couple of places where fans of color could get together and enjoy talking about speculative fiction without worrying that someone's going to say something really stupid and offensive in their next breath? and we have another group of people who worry that they might be made uncomfortable because they're on the record as having said some stupid things in one of the many collective fails that have occurred. well forgive me, but this looks like "i'm able to be comfortable everywhere else i go but there's this tiny corner of the universe where someone might ask me to examine my words and actions and oh my god, how scary."
i wrote most of this post and then i was talking it over with a friend, deciding whether to post it, and one thing i don't think i've managed to convey is how much space white people take up. and i know this because i know how much space heterosexual people take up. and then there's one day, one parade, one bar, one little bit of space, and you get the complaints about how that one little area that you've carved out isn't being nice enough to heterosexual people. and here we have all this discussion, and by golly it looks like a lot of complaints about how wiscon isn't being nice enough to white people. we have almost all the space on most of the continent and almost all the space at wiscon, and somehow that's not enough and we'd better make sure that this little corner over here is also being nice to white people, even at the expense of people of color.
and this is where it's a really good thing that i don't speak for the concom. because i don't care. i don't care if i'm being asked to give up a little space, a little time, a little thought, to make wiscon more comfortable for PoC, even at the expense of being asked to sit with the possibility of being challenged if i come up with something really unfortunate. that's really not that high a price to pay. especially when i have so many places to retreat to, if i really can't deal with it. and i don't care if, upon being asked to do the same, you decide you'd rather not. you don't have to. but i'm okay with getting along without you.
i admired the initial post and i admire the followup post. i think that wild_irises is one of the most thoughtful people i know, in both senses of that word. i'm interested that my stronger post didn't bring any flack--part of that is that i am posting in my journal, whereas she is posting in the wiscon community. but i think that the other part of it might be that, on further consideration, i may be projecting that i don't care about the feelings of one "side" of this, insofar as there are sides. and, on even further consideration, that projection is true, and i want to talk about that for a bit.
i don't come to this issue clean, as it were. i don't think i've ever posted about this publically, but in locked posts i have examined the process where i moved from being a person who was missing a huge chunk of privilege, to a person who acquired a lot of that missing chunk. the story of that movement is the story of moving from being a lesbian for 24 years, dating women exclusively and having two "as close to marriage as we could come" relationships in that time, to becoming a bisexual and dating men, as well as women. i guess it would be easy to just accept the privilege that has come with dating men as my due and move on, but every day i see all the ways that i have privileges now that i did not have when i was a lesbian. i don't take them for granted, and the fact that so many of my friends are missing them angers me. so i am writing from a place where i started out angry, building on that old anger.
i've got several axes where i am missing privilege (woman, jewish, queer, fat) but i have never moved through the world as a person of color. the closest that i've ever come to it is that when you are dating a PoC, there are situations where you give up some of your privilege when you are out with them. but even there, you have the power to step away from them, bringing your white skin with you, and there is all your privilege, waiting for you. i don't know or see every privilege that attaches to me by moving through the world with white skin, but my experience moving through the world in other ways, especially the experience of moving through the world without heterosexual privilege and then acquiring a bunch of it overnight, tells me that it is all over the place in more ways than i could begin to imagine.
and over here we have wiscon, which is still, what, 90% white? and we have a group of people making an effort to make it a better experience for PoC because most sf cons are an even higher percentage of white folks and couldn't there be a couple of places where fans of color could get together and enjoy talking about speculative fiction without worrying that someone's going to say something really stupid and offensive in their next breath? and we have another group of people who worry that they might be made uncomfortable because they're on the record as having said some stupid things in one of the many collective fails that have occurred. well forgive me, but this looks like "i'm able to be comfortable everywhere else i go but there's this tiny corner of the universe where someone might ask me to examine my words and actions and oh my god, how scary."
i wrote most of this post and then i was talking it over with a friend, deciding whether to post it, and one thing i don't think i've managed to convey is how much space white people take up. and i know this because i know how much space heterosexual people take up. and then there's one day, one parade, one bar, one little bit of space, and you get the complaints about how that one little area that you've carved out isn't being nice enough to heterosexual people. and here we have all this discussion, and by golly it looks like a lot of complaints about how wiscon isn't being nice enough to white people. we have almost all the space on most of the continent and almost all the space at wiscon, and somehow that's not enough and we'd better make sure that this little corner over here is also being nice to white people, even at the expense of people of color.
and this is where it's a really good thing that i don't speak for the concom. because i don't care. i don't care if i'm being asked to give up a little space, a little time, a little thought, to make wiscon more comfortable for PoC, even at the expense of being asked to sit with the possibility of being challenged if i come up with something really unfortunate. that's really not that high a price to pay. especially when i have so many places to retreat to, if i really can't deal with it. and i don't care if, upon being asked to do the same, you decide you'd rather not. you don't have to. but i'm okay with getting along without you.