Some Thoughts on Privilege and Fandom

[sophie_448]

So, if you're not aware that there has been a distressingly large amount of racefail going on in fandom at large lately, I'm going to have to ask what rock you've been living under. I'm not going to address the specific instances (many, many people have done so brilliantly), but I did want to talk a little bit about how recent events have gotten

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[thebiggest_lie]

I have sort of managed to miss this big issue? I mean the thing is, I've seen it mentioned a ton of times but everyone skirts around what actually happened. It isn't the first time I've seen this sort of thing go down, and I am sure it won't be my last, which is why I've just stayed out of it

[sophie_448]

It all started when someone posted a spn_j2_bigbang story, which was J2, set in post-earthquake Haiti. Here's a good explanation of what exactly the problem was and here are some excerpts from the story if you're interested

[thebiggest_lie]

Wow...that is pretty intense. And I really don't even know how to swallow that sort of thing happening. I do have to say though, how proud I am of fandom for pointing it out and saying THIS ISN'T OKAY. Because it really really isn't. I really can't expand more on it right now because...yeah. Supremely fucked up. I guess...I've read fics that deal with delicate subjects, but timing is huge and HOW they handle it had such baring on the effect it will have. I haven't read the fic, and I don't want to, so I can't comment much more than this. I just have a giant question mark floating above my head right now

[jehane_writes]

I'm ethnic Chinese; I've lived for many years as a minority in the UK, US and elsewhere. And yet I would freely admit I am reasonably privileged, and out of that I racefail a lot.

I think your attitude (recognising your privilege, listening to others, always wanting to learn more) is the best attitude when it comes to learning to write sensitively from privilege - and it is the attitude I definitely try to adopt too.

I've been talking with other FoC and white fen about race, the use of tragic events (re: the Haiti fic) and whitewashing/cultural or racial appropriation in fic (re: the Gabe Saporta fic), and I think I'm at a good place with these things! For instance, there is the view that fanfic that appropriates from a majority to a minority (as opposed to the other way, as with the Saporta story) is legitimate as an expression of addressing white- and hetero-norms. Feel free to PM me or talk to me further if you wanna :)

[tsukinofaerii]

You know me: white, middle class, etc etc, but I'm completely on board with you here. Privilege is comfortable, and that makes it hard to shake. And there is a point that "not making waves" is so enforced, it's beyond ridiculous. But some waves need to be made.

[avellis]

Not so much about privilege but more about PoC:

I think a lot of what is wrong with society today is that they say they're teaching colourblindness, but they're not. They're teaching colourmuteness. They're say they're teaching us that black is no different from white, but really they're teaching us that you pretend like there's nothing going on, the problem isn't there if we push it under the rug and don't talk about it.

Yes, I will talk about race, and I will talk about privilege, and I don't care if it's considered PC or not. Because the borders of political-correctness are too sensitive - it's gotten to the point where you can't say black or fairy or housewife without being scared someone's going to jump down your throat. PC has set up all these rules where people are too scared to talk about issues that we're only going to learn from if we talk about them(on a slightly different note, apparently studies have shown that once children hit a certain age - it's pretty young, probably around 13 but I'd have to dig up the study to

[almightyspaz]

Beautifully said.