Not a wrap-up, but hopefully a beginning.

Jun 18, 2010 17:20

Exams in...*counts on fingers*...FOUR days! I'm still checking in on random conversations and links related to this week's SPN BB racefail debate. Here are a few remarks/posts/comments that resonated with me.
furiosity here: "If you don't want to "worry about" offending someone inadvertently but don't wish to expend any effort on thinking about things you write or say, I got some good news and some bad news for ya.

"The bad news (for your perspective, at least) is that yes, there are now places in fandoms where you can't avoid "worrying about" being offensive, where you can't say shit thoughtlessly and not be called on it. That's right; it's true. These places, they exist.

"They're far from taking over all fandoms in the world; I don't even think they are in the majority, and I think there is definitely a higher concentration of these places in certain fandoms. But yes, they are here. I think their existence is a good thing for fandom and even for humanity a little; you obviously disagree, but hey, here comes the good news.

"The good news is that since you have already tacitly acknowledged that offending people is actually worth "worrying about", you could actually attempt to be an ally, so that the "worrying about" offending others would become a natural part of your existence and you might even come to know the experience as "wanting to do right by those who lack privilege" or even "not being a jerk".

"The alternative good news is there are plenty of people out there who think just like you, so if you really don't want to bother with all that social consciousness crap and just want to read/write/discuss porn, all you need to do is find these like-minded souls and befriend them. Then you can be blithely offensive together, and righteously sneer at anyone who dares suggest this is wrong or bad! This is not a difficult thing to accomplish; all these minority-representative people who are "ruining your fandom fun"? Are in the minority to begin with, remember. You don't actually have to listen to them if you really don't want to, that badly."

tevere here: "[I]t's clearly not the responsibility of minorities or POC or anyone else who's been Othered to point out Fail -- the ultimate responsibility for recognising fail are people themselves. But what we think might be useful about these little 'please tell me if I fail' disclaimers that we're starting to see at the bottom of pieces of meta (and, to a lesser degree, attached to fiction) is that they're helping to create a culture where criticism of racefail is welcomed. Or at least accepted. Too many times we find something objectionable and just backbutton away, because we know if we try and point it out, it'll just end with the OP being all defensive and angry, and-- well, we have better things to do than be called names on the internet when we try and raise a reasonable objection to something someone's written. But a person who writes that disclaimer is (to my mind), more aware that his or her privilege has the potential to produce something offensive, more willing to hear about it, and (at least on the face of it) more willing to change his or her future behaviour.

"I'm not saying this will End Racism in Fandom OMG! But we're already starting to see more discussion of these issues than we ever have previously -- I'd like to see that continue."

ETA: devohoneybee here:

It's time to try harder.
because ignorance kills, and perpetuates,
by default, the virus of hate.

Which is the reason
a passion to be awake
is so important.
To realize and refuse
all the ways we allow ourselves
to be mouthpieces
for a very ancient
war.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

For this
I pledge allegiance
of my unengendered Soul

And in conclusion:
amazonziti here: "My real goal, which is one that I hope you guys can share with me, is to keep talking about this -- about the kind of not-ill-intentioned privilege that leads to causing lots of people lots of pain; about what it means not to think like a grown-up about what we create; about popular tropes in media that we silently buy into; about the many disguises racism wears. I want to feel safe, and I want all of you to feel safe, expressing anger or shock or hurt or sadness or resignation or whatever else comes up when people do or say or write racist things. I want to help make it safe for all of us to call out racism when we see it, rather than talking ourselves in circles or deciding it's not worth it. I want to be part of the effort to teach fandom how not to be racist, and to teach privileged fen how to react with empathy rather than defensiveness when it happens anyway."

It's been my wish for a number of years now to write in The Wire fandom. In fact, I started an Omar/Renaldo drabble once, following a request by sarkastic, but I never finished it. A number of worries always stopped me, barriers I wasn't sure how to overcome: the setting of Baltimore, of America itself, given that I've only ever lived in metropolitan Australia and China; the verisimilitude and quality of the TV series, right down to the patois which is like music to me, but which I find infinitely harder to replicate than the Milchian dialogue of Deadwood; and the people, most of all, the Latinos and African Americans, the cops and drug dealers, the real lower- and working-class citizens of a real life city, whose uniqueness is as important as their basic humanity.

I was intimidated by the very idea. Knowing my own limits, I was aware of the high possibility that any story I was capable of writing, that would play to my strengths, would not be the kind of story I wanted to tell about this canon - would be too different to this show which is amazing, and respectful, and true. I have a great deal of admiration for every writer who has written transformative works in this (admittedly tiny) fandom.

The discussions that have been going on this week have made me come back to those questions. Can any amount of good intentions make it a good idea for me personally to write about these characters? Is it time perhaps to try? Who can I talk to, to maybe bounce some ideas off of?

Cross-posted: http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/865418.html

racefail, meta, [tv] the wire, fandom, writing

Previous post Next post
Up