seriously, knock that shit off
poisontaster has fantastic post on the various fails this week:
So if the choice is between some of us being uncomfortable while the rest of us being blissfully unaware, I say FUCK THAT SHIT. I am not invested in, nor will I buy into a system where only some of us get to be comfortable and that on the backs of other people. We can ALL be afraid and uncomfortable, as far as I'm concerned. Or we can ALL be comfortable, but either way, we're doing it together or I'm going to keep speaking out, raising hell and harshing squee. Because I'm in this too. And as much as you, I GET A SAY.
So if people are scared, I say, "Good! Join the club!" If people are scared of what to write, I say, "Good! Maybe they'll fail less if they think more!"
Me, spinning off what PT wrote:
I am really tired of hearing about the poor traumatized authors of stories that have been called out for being racist or antisemitic. Aside from the racefail, you also commit logic fail. You can't on one hand argue that the author is dead and our interpretations of a text are equally valid even if they don't agree with the author's intent, and then turn around and privilege authorial intent over reader interpretation in the same fucking breath.
Also, when you fuck up that massively, you damn well should get called on it. It's not dogpiling for people to talk about it, and your authorial embarrassment or tears is not more important than the real hurt you've inflicted on people who've been othered or erased by your work.
Also! You do not get to invoke your First Amendment rights in internet kerfuffles! The US government is not trying to censor you! During Strikethrough,
cofax7 explained in brief (simplified) lay terms how the First Amendment works. Please read that post and learn what exactly the First Amendment does. Protip: it doesn't protect you from getting called out for saying stupid shit on the internet. And anyway, the internet is not the USA. So in addition to being wrong, you're also being parochial!
You can't say, "I'm entitled to say offensive shit share my opinions because of the First Amendment, so just STFU about it!" because 1. fandom is not the US government trying to censor you, and 2. if you claim you are entitled to say offensive shit share your opinions, other people are entitled to argue with them. If they do so in your personal space, you can shut it down (oh the hypocrisy), but you can't stop them from arguing with you in their space or other people's spaces.
I think it's this hypocrisy - I can say whatever I like, even if it hurts a lot of people, but nobody can call me on it or they're SO MEAN/having a chilling effect/infringing on my "rights" - that really frustrates me and makes me fear for humanity, because it's just so fucking entitled and moronic* willfully ignorant and it makes me want to set the people who argue that way ON FIRE WITH MY BRAIN.
Oh boohoo, so you have to think a little bit about what you're saying and how you're saying it before you say it. Your life, so hard! If you claim to be any kind of writer at all, YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING THAT, regardless of the fact that it can also help to MAKE YOU A BETTER HUMAN BEING because it leads to you NOT HURTING OTHER PEOPLE (as much, and unintentionally).
We all fail on various axes all the time - intersectionality: more complicated than you ever expected! - but we can at least try to fail better, with the benefit of maybe not hurting other people as much or as often. We need to educate ourselves! It's not the job of fans of color to do it for us when these imbroglios happen, and these imbroglios are not worth the pain they cause just because some of us white fangirls finally get a clue.
* [eta] It's been pointed out to me that this is ableist language, and I apologize for my use of it. [/eta]
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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/182538.html.
people have commented there.