whitewashing and whining.
Just boosting the signal on the topical subject, the recent racefail in the Supernatural/J2 Big Bang.
From one privileged white girl to another - elizah_jane talks about the importance of elucidating racism.
Like Clockwork - amonitrate talks about why the subject material is problematic and why this must be discussed.
I make this post as someone who is struggling with the discovery of how pervasive racism is and how I have participated, both actively and passively. For me, the realization has been a difficult pill to swallow. How much more so for the disenfranchized/PoC that suffer this every day?
Under the cut I talk about - in a very self-centered manner - why the correct response to that initial recoil is not whitewashing.
You know why racism as a topic sucks so bad for people like me (of privilege)? Unsurprisingly, a poor choice of words. This is just me thinking aloud about how difficult this subject is. Nobody wants to be racist. Nobody wants to be called out, therefore, on racist behavior. And when someone gets called out within earshot, and you didn't pick up on it yourself, it's a pretty uncomfortable conversation with yourself. How could I not notice? The kneejerk reaction is to blame the person who did the calling out. They're just oversensitive.
HEY WAIT A MINUTE. Didn't we just have this wank? Oh yeah. Why victim-blaming is not cool.
The issue at hand isn't about me in the sense that I personally do not face racist behavior or language in 99.9% of nearby environments. The other .1% of settings are easily avoidable. (How convenient for me.) But therefore when confronted with examples of racism occurring - in language, in behavior, in action - I don't have to notice it. It's not directed at me.
Bless the people that speak up when they see it.
Of course most people aren't 'actively' racist, by which I mean they wouldn't join the KKK or NeoNazi movement, they would never dream of excluding people for their color, etc etc. The problem is rather a more subtle racism, a 'passive' sort - an attitude that is trained by the environment, enforced by the media, encouraged by society. It is so subtle that the language will be sometimes be used by the very people being marginalized by this racism that pervades and gets into your thoughts and your words and you never think of it, until somebody has the nerve to say something. And when they do, nobody wants to think about it, because nobody wants to be racist.
(Passive is such a misnomer, as if it's somehow better. I think it's less cruel in terms of intention but this makes it no less offensive or disgusting, and in fact more disgusting in terms of what it says about supremacy, and because it is more of a pervasive sort it needs to be talked about every time it occurs.)
So let me first apologize: this issue shouldn't be about me, but I find that it has to start with me, and some self-examination.
I've been peripherally aware of this sort of thinking in myself for a while. It's encouraged by my job (and, by the way, servers will never tell you the things we say. They are horrible and I have participated, much to my infinite shame) and decried elsewhere and then this happens. In addition, I have been resistant to the racefail discussion because I prefer to study characters on an individual basis - a 'color-blind' attitude (which I now know is misinformed). At exactly the same time the subject moves from 'look how much this story fails' to 'let's talk about racism', I am thinking I want to set my Dean&Castiel Big Bang fic in India.
What.
So as the wank unfolds I think about whether or not I can do this. I examine my motives (to use SPN as a vehicle to Indian culture, which I am interested in studying in more depth, and because 22by7 is awesome and has raised my awareness of the culture). I consider the racefail discussion. And my initial reaction was to recoil from the idea, put it away, and never speak of it again, because how am I supposed to do this 'right'? I'm terrified of exposing my own prejudices, more than anything else, and I'm terrified of being insensitive by nature of picking India as subject material when I have little to no personal connection to the culture. It's certainly much 'safer' for me to put the fic down and back away slowly, hands in the air. It's a lot easier for me as well.
So, let's talk about whitewashing.
A while ago I asked people if it was offensive to watch a problematic media - Supernatural being the vehicle of the conversation for obvious reasons. At the time some talk about media racefail came into discussion and I mentioned that at this point it's a lot safer to stay mainstream and whitewashed in Hollywood: if you try to do something with people of color (or homosexuality/bisexuality (not fetishized aaugh)/transgendered/etc) and fail, you're bound to get it in both ears. A chunk of people took away from this Unfunny Wank that they should just never write people of color. One person admitted to immediately whitewashing their fic to avoid the critical eye of fandom on her work.
Sad thing is, this does work. Generally - and partially because of media - whitewashing in fandom goes unremarked on unless there's a strong reason why characters should be of color. This anon's fic will probably go unremarked on re:racefail even though she's made everyone white. So the tempting thing to do is, indeed, whitewash anything I write in the future, because it's so much easier to ignore this. And I have that privilege because I don't have to face racism anywhere.
But as of right now, I feel that this is tantamount to the victim-blaming problem. People of color speaking up made me uncomfortable, so how about I make sure I exclude them from anything I ever write, ever again. Great attitude there. The complainants are just being oversensitive, anyway, but to avoid having to listen to that I'll just stay out of their way.
This fic concept - where Dean gets dropped and thereafter lost in India - hit me on a whim in the midst of this wank, before I'd given the wank serious thought. I could still drop it - I drop ideas because they seem too involved or too hard all the time - but I think I need to own my reasoning here. I want to run away because I am afraid to enter the racism discussion and deconstruct my own failtastic attitudes towards people of color. Of course, I could fail to deconstruct these attitudes and end up producing a really offensive piece of fanfiction.
In discussion with lassiterfics this afternoon I had an epiphany (and this will probably seem very obvious to most of you): A large part of a character's identity is defined by their race (as this is going to hugely define a character's background). But the difficulty then is not defining the character by their race, but rather recognizing the race as a large part of the definition of the character. The first (defining a character by their race) invites wide brushstrokes, stereotyping, and ugly things. But the second invites you to construct a character from the ground up with intricate knowledge of how their experiences, background, and lifestyle as informed/affected by their race makes them into the character they are.
In other words, understanding the culture a character emerges from is integral - key - in developing a well-rounded character. This is kind of a 'one small step for man' moment for me, okay. And then I finally understood why racefail is such a big deal.
So I've decided to tackle it - or at least, start researching, and looking for primary sources, and educating myself on ways that fandom members commonly racefail to avoid those pitfalls, and consulting with friends. Maybe it's impossible: maybe there's just no way for a white privileged girl in America to write about people in/from another country. But with high awareness of myself, I hope that I will be deeply sensitive to criticism of my portrayal of people of color, and I will at least lessen the racism that I participate in.
If everyone had been too afraid to talk about it, I might never have thought about this. So thank you to everyone who stood up and demanded discussion. For all the fail that is the fic that started all this, like the victim-blaming wank, what has come out of it has been very, very enlightening and excellent.
I would encourage everyone to click on the links above and learn a little bit more about why this discussion is so important.
late post is definitely, definitely late. Sorry for the lack of fun fandom stuff lately, guys. This subject has been constantly on my mind for the last two days. and don't forgive me if I said something offensive in this post, either - tell me about it! How else will I learn?
ETA: kaitou_marina has kindly pointed out how this post is, in fact, me being a whiny white person of privilege. I have attempted throughout to be sensitive to how much less important this initial struggle is than anything people of color go through, but I believe I have not been sensitive enough. As such, except for the links and a disclaimer, all the content of this post is going under an lj-cut, with sincerest apologies to all for said content. I'm not taking the post down because I think it has sparked some very intelligent comments and debate and I don't want those lost. And speaking of which, pretty much anything of value that was said in the post is said much more succinctly and intelligently here. Thank you, tobu_ishi!
Also, I would like to state now that this has only been my personal experience with learning about white privilege (thank you, lelek, and of course there will be many people who are much more mature than I am about the whole thing.
ETA2 (9:30 PM 6/22/10): Aversive (or what I previously called 'passive' or 'latent' racism) studied and laid out.
From one privileged white girl to another - elizah_jane talks about the importance of elucidating racism.
Like Clockwork - amonitrate talks about why the subject material is problematic and why this must be discussed.
I make this post as someone who is struggling with the discovery of how pervasive racism is and how I have participated, both actively and passively. For me, the realization has been a difficult pill to swallow. How much more so for the disenfranchized/PoC that suffer this every day?
Under the cut I talk about - in a very self-centered manner - why the correct response to that initial recoil is not whitewashing.
You know why racism as a topic sucks so bad for people like me (of privilege)? Unsurprisingly, a poor choice of words. This is just me thinking aloud about how difficult this subject is. Nobody wants to be racist. Nobody wants to be called out, therefore, on racist behavior. And when someone gets called out within earshot, and you didn't pick up on it yourself, it's a pretty uncomfortable conversation with yourself. How could I not notice? The kneejerk reaction is to blame the person who did the calling out. They're just oversensitive.
HEY WAIT A MINUTE. Didn't we just have this wank? Oh yeah. Why victim-blaming is not cool.
The issue at hand isn't about me in the sense that I personally do not face racist behavior or language in 99.9% of nearby environments. The other .1% of settings are easily avoidable. (How convenient for me.) But therefore when confronted with examples of racism occurring - in language, in behavior, in action - I don't have to notice it. It's not directed at me.
Bless the people that speak up when they see it.
Of course most people aren't 'actively' racist, by which I mean they wouldn't join the KKK or NeoNazi movement, they would never dream of excluding people for their color, etc etc. The problem is rather a more subtle racism, a 'passive' sort - an attitude that is trained by the environment, enforced by the media, encouraged by society. It is so subtle that the language will be sometimes be used by the very people being marginalized by this racism that pervades and gets into your thoughts and your words and you never think of it, until somebody has the nerve to say something. And when they do, nobody wants to think about it, because nobody wants to be racist.
(Passive is such a misnomer, as if it's somehow better. I think it's less cruel in terms of intention but this makes it no less offensive or disgusting, and in fact more disgusting in terms of what it says about supremacy, and because it is more of a pervasive sort it needs to be talked about every time it occurs.)
So let me first apologize: this issue shouldn't be about me, but I find that it has to start with me, and some self-examination.
I've been peripherally aware of this sort of thinking in myself for a while. It's encouraged by my job (and, by the way, servers will never tell you the things we say. They are horrible and I have participated, much to my infinite shame) and decried elsewhere and then this happens. In addition, I have been resistant to the racefail discussion because I prefer to study characters on an individual basis - a 'color-blind' attitude (which I now know is misinformed). At exactly the same time the subject moves from 'look how much this story fails' to 'let's talk about racism', I am thinking I want to set my Dean&Castiel Big Bang fic in India.
What.
So as the wank unfolds I think about whether or not I can do this. I examine my motives (to use SPN as a vehicle to Indian culture, which I am interested in studying in more depth, and because 22by7 is awesome and has raised my awareness of the culture). I consider the racefail discussion. And my initial reaction was to recoil from the idea, put it away, and never speak of it again, because how am I supposed to do this 'right'? I'm terrified of exposing my own prejudices, more than anything else, and I'm terrified of being insensitive by nature of picking India as subject material when I have little to no personal connection to the culture. It's certainly much 'safer' for me to put the fic down and back away slowly, hands in the air. It's a lot easier for me as well.
So, let's talk about whitewashing.
A while ago I asked people if it was offensive to watch a problematic media - Supernatural being the vehicle of the conversation for obvious reasons. At the time some talk about media racefail came into discussion and I mentioned that at this point it's a lot safer to stay mainstream and whitewashed in Hollywood: if you try to do something with people of color (or homosexuality/bisexuality (not fetishized aaugh)/transgendered/etc) and fail, you're bound to get it in both ears. A chunk of people took away from this Unfunny Wank that they should just never write people of color. One person admitted to immediately whitewashing their fic to avoid the critical eye of fandom on her work.
Sad thing is, this does work. Generally - and partially because of media - whitewashing in fandom goes unremarked on unless there's a strong reason why characters should be of color. This anon's fic will probably go unremarked on re:racefail even though she's made everyone white. So the tempting thing to do is, indeed, whitewash anything I write in the future, because it's so much easier to ignore this. And I have that privilege because I don't have to face racism anywhere.
But as of right now, I feel that this is tantamount to the victim-blaming problem. People of color speaking up made me uncomfortable, so how about I make sure I exclude them from anything I ever write, ever again. Great attitude there. The complainants are just being oversensitive, anyway, but to avoid having to listen to that I'll just stay out of their way.
This fic concept - where Dean gets dropped and thereafter lost in India - hit me on a whim in the midst of this wank, before I'd given the wank serious thought. I could still drop it - I drop ideas because they seem too involved or too hard all the time - but I think I need to own my reasoning here. I want to run away because I am afraid to enter the racism discussion and deconstruct my own failtastic attitudes towards people of color. Of course, I could fail to deconstruct these attitudes and end up producing a really offensive piece of fanfiction.
In discussion with lassiterfics this afternoon I had an epiphany (and this will probably seem very obvious to most of you): A large part of a character's identity is defined by their race (as this is going to hugely define a character's background). But the difficulty then is not defining the character by their race, but rather recognizing the race as a large part of the definition of the character. The first (defining a character by their race) invites wide brushstrokes, stereotyping, and ugly things. But the second invites you to construct a character from the ground up with intricate knowledge of how their experiences, background, and lifestyle as informed/affected by their race makes them into the character they are.
In other words, understanding the culture a character emerges from is integral - key - in developing a well-rounded character. This is kind of a 'one small step for man' moment for me, okay. And then I finally understood why racefail is such a big deal.
So I've decided to tackle it - or at least, start researching, and looking for primary sources, and educating myself on ways that fandom members commonly racefail to avoid those pitfalls, and consulting with friends. Maybe it's impossible: maybe there's just no way for a white privileged girl in America to write about people in/from another country. But with high awareness of myself, I hope that I will be deeply sensitive to criticism of my portrayal of people of color, and I will at least lessen the racism that I participate in.
If everyone had been too afraid to talk about it, I might never have thought about this. So thank you to everyone who stood up and demanded discussion. For all the fail that is the fic that started all this, like the victim-blaming wank, what has come out of it has been very, very enlightening and excellent.
I would encourage everyone to click on the links above and learn a little bit more about why this discussion is so important.
late post is definitely, definitely late. Sorry for the lack of fun fandom stuff lately, guys. This subject has been constantly on my mind for the last two days. and don't forgive me if I said something offensive in this post, either - tell me about it! How else will I learn?
ETA: kaitou_marina has kindly pointed out how this post is, in fact, me being a whiny white person of privilege. I have attempted throughout to be sensitive to how much less important this initial struggle is than anything people of color go through, but I believe I have not been sensitive enough. As such, except for the links and a disclaimer, all the content of this post is going under an lj-cut, with sincerest apologies to all for said content. I'm not taking the post down because I think it has sparked some very intelligent comments and debate and I don't want those lost. And speaking of which, pretty much anything of value that was said in the post is said much more succinctly and intelligently here. Thank you, tobu_ishi!
Also, I would like to state now that this has only been my personal experience with learning about white privilege (thank you, lelek, and of course there will be many people who are much more mature than I am about the whole thing.
ETA2 (9:30 PM 6/22/10): Aversive (or what I previously called 'passive' or 'latent' racism) studied and laid out.