LiveJournal is serious business, but first...
a silly quiz:
(st_salieri, you dirty snitcher you.) ;)
So... I've been reading back through some of the classic Harry Potter "race wanks", and two things occur to me:
1) There's a big difference between moral clarity and moral simplicity... sadly, too many fans don't get this. While that's often described as a typically American failing, I see it in people from all over.
(Naturally, it doesn't help things when much of modern "conservative" thought aims to erase this distinction, but that's a whole other topic.)
2) Many people will fight to their last breath to maintain their emotional comfort zones.
Much of the defensiveness I've seen in reaction to the Daily_Deviant "miscegenation" controversy was motivated by #2 (if unfamiliar with this controversy, you could do worse than checking out liviapenn's roundup of links here). To make a long story short: A fanfic community on LJ called daily_deviant used the word "miscegenation" as a fic prompt, a black woman asked them to remove it, the community members refused, she took her complaints public, they got angry and defensive... I think y'all know the drill.
While part of what went on here has to do with latent, unrecognized racist feelings, I think that the root problem was the inability of these fans to step outside of their comfort zones even for a moment. The very thought that they might be racist was overwhelmingly scary, so they closed their minds and tried to shut down the discussion. A valuable opportunity to learn is lost that way, which is tragic.
So it goes with so many discussions of race and racism in the "real world". Then again, I don't really believe in a stark division between the fandom sphere and everything else. Too much like that moral simplicity thing. Eh?
(st_salieri, you dirty snitcher you.) ;)
So... I've been reading back through some of the classic Harry Potter "race wanks", and two things occur to me:
1) There's a big difference between moral clarity and moral simplicity... sadly, too many fans don't get this. While that's often described as a typically American failing, I see it in people from all over.
(Naturally, it doesn't help things when much of modern "conservative" thought aims to erase this distinction, but that's a whole other topic.)
2) Many people will fight to their last breath to maintain their emotional comfort zones.
Much of the defensiveness I've seen in reaction to the Daily_Deviant "miscegenation" controversy was motivated by #2 (if unfamiliar with this controversy, you could do worse than checking out liviapenn's roundup of links here). To make a long story short: A fanfic community on LJ called daily_deviant used the word "miscegenation" as a fic prompt, a black woman asked them to remove it, the community members refused, she took her complaints public, they got angry and defensive... I think y'all know the drill.
While part of what went on here has to do with latent, unrecognized racist feelings, I think that the root problem was the inability of these fans to step outside of their comfort zones even for a moment. The very thought that they might be racist was overwhelmingly scary, so they closed their minds and tried to shut down the discussion. A valuable opportunity to learn is lost that way, which is tragic.
So it goes with so many discussions of race and racism in the "real world". Then again, I don't really believe in a stark division between the fandom sphere and everything else. Too much like that moral simplicity thing. Eh?