Let's talk Privilege
Two rants in a month? I'm on a roll. But I believe that I genuinely have something to say about the recent outrage regarding a certain fic set in Haiti in the spn_j2_bigbang. Again, it's something that's been intensely discussed and fantastic points about privilege, racism and ignorance have been highlighted, but as a FoC there are responses from the enlightened part of fandom that I just don't understand, and I think they need to be queried.
1) How could they write about Haiti?: Let's look at the larger issue here. For a writer, any writer, there are no subjects that are sacrosanct. Not natural disasters, terrorist attacks, racial riots. Nothing! If anyone believes that events (current or historical) should be expurgated from the fictional realm, then there are large chunks of narrative that would have to be erased from my personal canon. The only demand I have from a writer, any writer, is that they should be sensitive to the subject that they are addressing. 'This is the best idea ever' is not the appropriate response to an earthquake that killed thousands of people. I don't care if that response comes three days after the event or thirty years later. It is never right! That is my problem with this fic. That, and the inherent wtf ignorance of it. It is unforgivable that Haiti gets reduced to a backdrop and nothing more in this fic. That's a real place, and they are real people, and no writer worth their salt should use it reductively. But that's true of all writing. To say that time-sensitivity puts Haiti out of bounds is ridiculous. Haiti has a story too. It deserves to be told as does any other. What it doesn't deserve is to be told like this.
2) We should never write about other cultures, because that would be appropriative: And this is the one that really irks me. Are all of you, intelligent and aware people, telling me that writing about other cultures is out of bounds? Because, just no! The lesson to be learnt from fics like this, and I hope the writer has learnt it, is not to make the same mistakes again. You are allowed to write about India, and the Middle East and Japan, and Africa. In fact I'd be delighted if you did it. I'd be glad to see people putting in time and effort trying to understand my culture as I am trying to understand theirs. People who see that writing fiction about another country (particularly one that lacks the same privileges of their own) is a much more complex proposition and that they have to be doubly sensitive to it would be welcome . To completely eschew it is both privileged and escapist. I've read interesting books about my culture (even though they fail on several counts) written by white men. I judged them. But I judged those who critiqued and never even tried a lot more! Nobody's going to write a perfect work when they have privilege. When I personally write about class, or genderqueer lifestyles, or disability I am aware at every step that I may be going horribly wrong or being terribly offensive. But I try! I try to learn, I try to educate myself, I apologize if I have gone off-kilter, and then I write again. I expect all writers to do the same. If I only wrote about what I knew or what I experienced, I wouldn't be writing fiction, I'd be writing a journal. It would be personal and it would be insular. As a writer, I have the right to explore other cultures. I also have the responsibility to try my best to understand them and be sensitive to them. Please do not let guilt take that right away from you, and don't let privilege take the responsibility away from you.
So to all of you out there, particularly those of you who are struggling with white privilege in the face of this particular fic, the problem is not with the setting, the problem is not even that it assumes a white privilege. The problem is that it is a display of blatant ignorance and lack of sensitivity. Write about other cultures, write about other people. Just try and avoid the obvious pitfalls (and even the less obvious ones). Just don't stop writing about me because you're white. I have been erased enough in fan-narrative, to not want to see it happen again.
1) How could they write about Haiti?: Let's look at the larger issue here. For a writer, any writer, there are no subjects that are sacrosanct. Not natural disasters, terrorist attacks, racial riots. Nothing! If anyone believes that events (current or historical) should be expurgated from the fictional realm, then there are large chunks of narrative that would have to be erased from my personal canon. The only demand I have from a writer, any writer, is that they should be sensitive to the subject that they are addressing. 'This is the best idea ever' is not the appropriate response to an earthquake that killed thousands of people. I don't care if that response comes three days after the event or thirty years later. It is never right! That is my problem with this fic. That, and the inherent wtf ignorance of it. It is unforgivable that Haiti gets reduced to a backdrop and nothing more in this fic. That's a real place, and they are real people, and no writer worth their salt should use it reductively. But that's true of all writing. To say that time-sensitivity puts Haiti out of bounds is ridiculous. Haiti has a story too. It deserves to be told as does any other. What it doesn't deserve is to be told like this.
2) We should never write about other cultures, because that would be appropriative: And this is the one that really irks me. Are all of you, intelligent and aware people, telling me that writing about other cultures is out of bounds? Because, just no! The lesson to be learnt from fics like this, and I hope the writer has learnt it, is not to make the same mistakes again. You are allowed to write about India, and the Middle East and Japan, and Africa. In fact I'd be delighted if you did it. I'd be glad to see people putting in time and effort trying to understand my culture as I am trying to understand theirs. People who see that writing fiction about another country (particularly one that lacks the same privileges of their own) is a much more complex proposition and that they have to be doubly sensitive to it would be welcome . To completely eschew it is both privileged and escapist. I've read interesting books about my culture (even though they fail on several counts) written by white men. I judged them. But I judged those who critiqued and never even tried a lot more! Nobody's going to write a perfect work when they have privilege. When I personally write about class, or genderqueer lifestyles, or disability I am aware at every step that I may be going horribly wrong or being terribly offensive. But I try! I try to learn, I try to educate myself, I apologize if I have gone off-kilter, and then I write again. I expect all writers to do the same. If I only wrote about what I knew or what I experienced, I wouldn't be writing fiction, I'd be writing a journal. It would be personal and it would be insular. As a writer, I have the right to explore other cultures. I also have the responsibility to try my best to understand them and be sensitive to them. Please do not let guilt take that right away from you, and don't let privilege take the responsibility away from you.
So to all of you out there, particularly those of you who are struggling with white privilege in the face of this particular fic, the problem is not with the setting, the problem is not even that it assumes a white privilege. The problem is that it is a display of blatant ignorance and lack of sensitivity. Write about other cultures, write about other people. Just try and avoid the obvious pitfalls (and even the less obvious ones). Just don't stop writing about me because you're white. I have been erased enough in fan-narrative, to not want to see it happen again.