Racefail 2010 the Return
All right. Last time I wrote about this cheery subject last year and I don't remember the details, as I don't tag my entries, so sorry if I repeat myself. After all, now I've sat in real Racefail lectures in university level, so I can consider myself as a champion of sort in academic fail. Also, I'm race traitor according to real racists, disregarded minority in few aspects and "privileged" automatically just because of my skin-colour, actually so privileged that my family has peasants, maids and servants to fill out more than few branches of colonial family tree.
Last time tackling the issue I didn't know yet about Critical Race Theory but the fact that it was taught to me, not as a theory I should add, but as absolute law of nature, helps me understanding the subject a bit better. Understanding this law of nature, in both cultural-historical and psychological context made me finally realise, what people were trying to argue and admit the truth. I am a white woman and guilty of backing racial stereotypes subconsciously - and this has affected negatively on my portrayal of ethnic minorities when writing fiction. I admit my mistakes and for my part sincerely...
Just kidding!
Anyway, the Racefail of this year has included arguing about Avatar-films (both that shitty Cameron shit and some animation made live action film), Bleach anime as possible live action, True Blood (it would be nice if people would rate stuff based on actual quality and not some "representation" like in good old days) and about a debate that started over Ground Zero mosque and resulted authoress Elizabeth Moon being dis-invited as a guest of honour from the Wiscon event.
Personally I dislike that the fact that individual authors have different opinions leads to a situation where authors are boycotted and blacklisted for ideological reasons. In LiveJournal, (where the whole carnival originated in the first place) people post "Shit Lists" about which authors should be boycotted and shunned entirely. In Amazon authors are tagged "racist", one example being authoress who said in some race-related con panel that she is colour blind. This used to be considered an ideal position, but these days differences are emphasised and every ethnic minority should be all the time aware of their uniqueness, victim-status and base their whole identity on that. Us whites in the other hand should feel the collective guilt, were we from USA southern states, Moldova or Faroe Islands.
According to the Critical Race Theory (which was taught to me as fact)
-Only whites can be racist
-Because in the power-constructs we are privileged and whiteness is represented as a norm
-Possible racial prejudices, support of racial theories and hatred towards whites, of ethnic minorities is not racism per se, because of the said power-contsructs.
From this you can spot the Anglo-saxism and locality - of course this doesn't hold at all outside Western Europe, Americas and Australia. For an example in Asia race relations are extremely complicated even without the whites. Take, entirely by coincidence Malaysia for an example where violent racial riots resulted the ethnic group that started the violence being rewarded special racial privileges in the real sense of the term. Or the fact that blacks in Asia are USA soldiers on local bases. Doesn't that construction of racial power-relations appear to have Rlyeh-type dimensions now?
Also, to us folks from North-East-Europe axel, history has offered Empires, conflicts, oppression and suffering aplenty entirely lacking the racial aspect. Both conquerer and conquered, oppressor and oppressed, even slave and slave-owner have been equally white. Our trenches have been dug within ideological, religious and ethnic divides and our traumas have nothing to do with race.
We should also keep this mind and avoid trying to jump the guilt-vagon of the Big World. Every part of the world has different history and ours is not American or English in any way.
One irritating trait of the Racefail is how authors are bullied, outed and boycotted solely because of their ideological opinions. Theories about the "Other", race and power etc are just theories and shouldn't cause blacklisting. I have my own ideology but really don't see everyone not Spenglerian enough to be evil as human beings. If I started boycotting authors because of wrong opinions my book-shelf would be quite an empty place.
Worst thing about this is how it polarises the fandom. Typical behaviour includes writing something patronising or attacking to LJ and then add that all commentators not agreeing will be blocked. This causes annoying group-think that in all honesty is much worse that average online-arguing. Nothing can be said unless you are PoC (person of colour in newspeak) or their "ally"
theangryblackwoman.com/2009/10/01/the-dos-and-donts-of-being-a-good-ally/
For Finnish reader this feels amazingly patronising as an attitude. Its difficult to explain why, but I would never write about any subject in this tone.
For any reader I'd recommend removing any coloured glasses and try relating to characters based on shared behaviour, goals, ideas and other higher traits we share as human beings. To characters that seem to speak to us, be it from thousand years before our time or from distant planets. Be his skin white, brown, blue or red.
Last time tackling the issue I didn't know yet about Critical Race Theory but the fact that it was taught to me, not as a theory I should add, but as absolute law of nature, helps me understanding the subject a bit better. Understanding this law of nature, in both cultural-historical and psychological context made me finally realise, what people were trying to argue and admit the truth. I am a white woman and guilty of backing racial stereotypes subconsciously - and this has affected negatively on my portrayal of ethnic minorities when writing fiction. I admit my mistakes and for my part sincerely...
Just kidding!
Anyway, the Racefail of this year has included arguing about Avatar-films (both that shitty Cameron shit and some animation made live action film), Bleach anime as possible live action, True Blood (it would be nice if people would rate stuff based on actual quality and not some "representation" like in good old days) and about a debate that started over Ground Zero mosque and resulted authoress Elizabeth Moon being dis-invited as a guest of honour from the Wiscon event.
Personally I dislike that the fact that individual authors have different opinions leads to a situation where authors are boycotted and blacklisted for ideological reasons. In LiveJournal, (where the whole carnival originated in the first place) people post "Shit Lists" about which authors should be boycotted and shunned entirely. In Amazon authors are tagged "racist", one example being authoress who said in some race-related con panel that she is colour blind. This used to be considered an ideal position, but these days differences are emphasised and every ethnic minority should be all the time aware of their uniqueness, victim-status and base their whole identity on that. Us whites in the other hand should feel the collective guilt, were we from USA southern states, Moldova or Faroe Islands.
According to the Critical Race Theory (which was taught to me as fact)
-Only whites can be racist
-Because in the power-constructs we are privileged and whiteness is represented as a norm
-Possible racial prejudices, support of racial theories and hatred towards whites, of ethnic minorities is not racism per se, because of the said power-contsructs.
From this you can spot the Anglo-saxism and locality - of course this doesn't hold at all outside Western Europe, Americas and Australia. For an example in Asia race relations are extremely complicated even without the whites. Take, entirely by coincidence Malaysia for an example where violent racial riots resulted the ethnic group that started the violence being rewarded special racial privileges in the real sense of the term. Or the fact that blacks in Asia are USA soldiers on local bases. Doesn't that construction of racial power-relations appear to have Rlyeh-type dimensions now?
Also, to us folks from North-East-Europe axel, history has offered Empires, conflicts, oppression and suffering aplenty entirely lacking the racial aspect. Both conquerer and conquered, oppressor and oppressed, even slave and slave-owner have been equally white. Our trenches have been dug within ideological, religious and ethnic divides and our traumas have nothing to do with race.
We should also keep this mind and avoid trying to jump the guilt-vagon of the Big World. Every part of the world has different history and ours is not American or English in any way.
One irritating trait of the Racefail is how authors are bullied, outed and boycotted solely because of their ideological opinions. Theories about the "Other", race and power etc are just theories and shouldn't cause blacklisting. I have my own ideology but really don't see everyone not Spenglerian enough to be evil as human beings. If I started boycotting authors because of wrong opinions my book-shelf would be quite an empty place.
Worst thing about this is how it polarises the fandom. Typical behaviour includes writing something patronising or attacking to LJ and then add that all commentators not agreeing will be blocked. This causes annoying group-think that in all honesty is much worse that average online-arguing. Nothing can be said unless you are PoC (person of colour in newspeak) or their "ally"
theangryblackwoman.com/2009/10/01/the-dos-and-donts-of-being-a-good-ally/
For Finnish reader this feels amazingly patronising as an attitude. Its difficult to explain why, but I would never write about any subject in this tone.
For any reader I'd recommend removing any coloured glasses and try relating to characters based on shared behaviour, goals, ideas and other higher traits we share as human beings. To characters that seem to speak to us, be it from thousand years before our time or from distant planets. Be his skin white, brown, blue or red.