some summary links for RaceFail '09
I was having a conversation the other day that touched on the recent race imbroglio and generated from my interlocutor the response, which I suspect is not at all unique to her, of [paraphrasing] "I have only a general sense of what's going on, and there seems like there's so much to read I don't know where to begin."
And I sort of flailed a little bit with "well, everything's at rydra_wong here and here, but that's hundreds and hundreds of links, and some of the posts I really loved back at the beginning were this one by deepad and this one by ciderpress, and...I'm sure other people have a more organized sense of what's going on somewhere..."
In fact, yes, of course people have a more organized sense of what's going on. The aformentioned link archives of Rydra's are the closest thing to a full picture of the discussions, but there are a LOT of them. So summaries are helpful. I'm sure there are others than just these, but here are a few that I've found useful.
Avalon's Willow has a timeline of the January cultural appropriation imbroglio that kicked things off.
Ann Somerville's summary brings events up to the present, more or less. She's trying to sketch a bare bones arc of the discussions main movements and derailings, and points out very clearly why this is all still a discussion about race. Perhaps the best first stop for someone who has no idea what's been going on.
tablesaw also has a summary, and she he [sorry!] engages with the nature of online discussion, points out why this isn't "wank," and gives some thoughtful tips on how to read this discussion.
People who have been around and paying the least attention to race and fandom probably recognize the pattern of the discussion. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. inalasahl has a brilliant post about this very phenomenon: on why attempts to derail through the "tone" argument are bullshit, on the spoons it costs people who engage the clueless or insensitive, on how all of this has a history--and a history of being important--in fandom. Not so much a summary of current events as a summary of the pattern. Highly recommended.
As tablesaw points out, there is no such thing as a neutral summary here; all of the posts I link operate on the assumptions that this is an important discussion and that one "side" has behaved far worse than the other. I agree.
And I sort of flailed a little bit with "well, everything's at rydra_wong here and here, but that's hundreds and hundreds of links, and some of the posts I really loved back at the beginning were this one by deepad and this one by ciderpress, and...I'm sure other people have a more organized sense of what's going on somewhere..."
In fact, yes, of course people have a more organized sense of what's going on. The aformentioned link archives of Rydra's are the closest thing to a full picture of the discussions, but there are a LOT of them. So summaries are helpful. I'm sure there are others than just these, but here are a few that I've found useful.
Avalon's Willow has a timeline of the January cultural appropriation imbroglio that kicked things off.
Ann Somerville's summary brings events up to the present, more or less. She's trying to sketch a bare bones arc of the discussions main movements and derailings, and points out very clearly why this is all still a discussion about race. Perhaps the best first stop for someone who has no idea what's been going on.
tablesaw also has a summary, and she he [sorry!] engages with the nature of online discussion, points out why this isn't "wank," and gives some thoughtful tips on how to read this discussion.
People who have been around and paying the least attention to race and fandom probably recognize the pattern of the discussion. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. inalasahl has a brilliant post about this very phenomenon: on why attempts to derail through the "tone" argument are bullshit, on the spoons it costs people who engage the clueless or insensitive, on how all of this has a history--and a history of being important--in fandom. Not so much a summary of current events as a summary of the pattern. Highly recommended.
As tablesaw points out, there is no such thing as a neutral summary here; all of the posts I link operate on the assumptions that this is an important discussion and that one "side" has behaved far worse than the other. I agree.