Your Privilege is Showing
It seems there has been a preponderance of race and gender fail all over my internets the past few weeks. I pulled up livejournal several times to write about the various incidents and gave up each time in frustration. Tonight I sat down and thought about exactly why it is I have failed to post on any of these issues thus far. Largely, I am just so damn tired of dealing with the fallout and inevitable backlash where people attempt to reassert their privilege. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that my choice and ability to not say anything, to become invisible in the face of controversy is an exertion of my own privilege.
I find it personally pathetic that what finally motivated me to write about this was an entry I saw on my friend's list (and linked to several times by others) criticizing fannish attachment to OTPs and emotional (over)investment in shows. Neither of those things is overtly what I'm writing about. I'll say as a caveat that I never saw the original posts that inspired this particular entry. Yet, a few pieces of the entry and especially the swarm of affirming comments that alluded to annoyance towards other types of controversy in fandom is what finally set me off. The general gist of it was this: fandom should be fun and a way to escape 'the Real World;' people who get upset and cause keruffles in fandom are lame. A couple of comments even went so far as to suggest that people who speak up do it because they get some kind of sick enjoyment from it.
There are discussions of discrimination and gendered violence below, so potentially triggery.
I get that fandom is supposed to be fun, it's definitely one of the primary reasons I participate. It's also why I watch certain TV shows, play video games and follow baseball and soccer. That doesn't mean I turn off the part of my consciousness that's against discrimination. The very idea that people should check these concerns at the door when playing in fandom because it's "supposed to be fun" is an exertion of privilege par exellance.
And the coup de grace, if you don't like it then just leave. It's analogous to people who say, "Well, if you don't like X policy or sentiment in the USA, why don't you move to Canada or go back home?" As if the place that I occupy (be it 'Real Life' or fandom) is not my home. That I am now (or perhaps have always been) an unwelcome foreigner because I chose to speak out. As if one's privilege and the space occupied as a result of it have somehow become a right that I am trying to steal. It is fairly problematic for someone else, especially white allies, to police what a person finds offensive or how they decide to express that. For example, in the GaimanFail there were a few comments in the posts I read that expressed these two thoughts: 1) I'm an ally, but that really wasn't racist. Learn to pick your battles and speak up about something that's really racist. 2) I agree with you, but you need to be better/nicer/less direct when calling someone out on their behavior.
To that I say this:
Fuck. You.
I can't speak to living with the reality of experiencing racism every single day because I am from a privileged background and white. I have experienced quite a bit of sexism in my life. When I was in Middle School and High School, I had to live with everyday confrontations of sexism and the threat of physical violence because of homophobia. Some kids thought I might be gay, so they threw rocks at me and threatened to rape me in order to teach me how to be a real woman. I tried speaking up about it, I went to my parents, my teachers, friends. I was told to stop being so sensitive. Words can't hurt you. Find another way to walk home to avoid the bullies (which ended up being 3 miles longer and having to cross a highway where there was no stop light). They just followed me, so that worked out great. At one point I was even told to stop making things up in order to get attention.
Civility is a nice ideal, but there was a long period in my life when dealing with sexism brought me right back to the impotent rage, frustration, and fear I lived with. Being told that I was 'overthinking' or that I needed to stop ruining other people's fun did not inspire a desire for being nice in me. It made me angry. It still makes me angry sometimes. Most of the time, I do manage to remain civil because I recognize that open hostility rarely fosters any change beyond my literal and rhetorical exclusion.
But my point is this: telling other people to be quiet or policing their method of speaking out is not a way to make fandom fun. It does not 'fix' the problem so that everyone learns to place nice. And it definitely does not make you much of an ally.
I find it personally pathetic that what finally motivated me to write about this was an entry I saw on my friend's list (and linked to several times by others) criticizing fannish attachment to OTPs and emotional (over)investment in shows. Neither of those things is overtly what I'm writing about. I'll say as a caveat that I never saw the original posts that inspired this particular entry. Yet, a few pieces of the entry and especially the swarm of affirming comments that alluded to annoyance towards other types of controversy in fandom is what finally set me off. The general gist of it was this: fandom should be fun and a way to escape 'the Real World;' people who get upset and cause keruffles in fandom are lame. A couple of comments even went so far as to suggest that people who speak up do it because they get some kind of sick enjoyment from it.
There are discussions of discrimination and gendered violence below, so potentially triggery.
I get that fandom is supposed to be fun, it's definitely one of the primary reasons I participate. It's also why I watch certain TV shows, play video games and follow baseball and soccer. That doesn't mean I turn off the part of my consciousness that's against discrimination. The very idea that people should check these concerns at the door when playing in fandom because it's "supposed to be fun" is an exertion of privilege par exellance.
- It was just a joke
- I was just having a bit of fun and didn't mean it like that
- You just enjoy telling other people they're wrong because you like to pretend you have some moral authority
- This is supposed to be fun, why are you ruining it?
- If you don't like it, why don't you just leave?
And the coup de grace, if you don't like it then just leave. It's analogous to people who say, "Well, if you don't like X policy or sentiment in the USA, why don't you move to Canada or go back home?" As if the place that I occupy (be it 'Real Life' or fandom) is not my home. That I am now (or perhaps have always been) an unwelcome foreigner because I chose to speak out. As if one's privilege and the space occupied as a result of it have somehow become a right that I am trying to steal. It is fairly problematic for someone else, especially white allies, to police what a person finds offensive or how they decide to express that. For example, in the GaimanFail there were a few comments in the posts I read that expressed these two thoughts: 1) I'm an ally, but that really wasn't racist. Learn to pick your battles and speak up about something that's really racist. 2) I agree with you, but you need to be better/nicer/less direct when calling someone out on their behavior.
To that I say this:
Fuck. You.
I can't speak to living with the reality of experiencing racism every single day because I am from a privileged background and white. I have experienced quite a bit of sexism in my life. When I was in Middle School and High School, I had to live with everyday confrontations of sexism and the threat of physical violence because of homophobia. Some kids thought I might be gay, so they threw rocks at me and threatened to rape me in order to teach me how to be a real woman. I tried speaking up about it, I went to my parents, my teachers, friends. I was told to stop being so sensitive. Words can't hurt you. Find another way to walk home to avoid the bullies (which ended up being 3 miles longer and having to cross a highway where there was no stop light). They just followed me, so that worked out great. At one point I was even told to stop making things up in order to get attention.
Civility is a nice ideal, but there was a long period in my life when dealing with sexism brought me right back to the impotent rage, frustration, and fear I lived with. Being told that I was 'overthinking' or that I needed to stop ruining other people's fun did not inspire a desire for being nice in me. It made me angry. It still makes me angry sometimes. Most of the time, I do manage to remain civil because I recognize that open hostility rarely fosters any change beyond my literal and rhetorical exclusion.
But my point is this: telling other people to be quiet or policing their method of speaking out is not a way to make fandom fun. It does not 'fix' the problem so that everyone learns to place nice. And it definitely does not make you much of an ally.