On racism... *rolls up sleeves*

[celandineb]

Now. You all should know by now that I really, really dislike wankery; I find it a waste of time and energy, and something that promotes ill-will without resolving anything. I dislike even more, however, being told that I am a racist.

Comments

[wook77]

I'm only going to comment on one aspect of it.

I truly appreciate the way that she is able to engender support for her interpretation for her position by using that hateful term multiple times previous to actually explaining the situation. It's brilliant marketing, really.

[celandineb]

Oh yes. This is someone with a future in PR or advertising. The spin is incredible.

[florahart]

I'd like to pile on a little here. Because, yes. Not very long ago, Six Apart thought people who listed incest or underage sex or rape as an interest were condoning these things in the real world, and I think I think we all concluded that even though all those things are not so cool in the real world, writing about them is a valid exercise that does not make any of us pedophiles or rapists. The thing about principles is that they have to work all the time, you know?

Also, I'd like to point out that in another post not so very long ago, Zvi said this:

There isn't a secret list of words and phrases that will automatically set the FoCing Cabal off. But here's some top of my head shit-to-avoid

(whole list of things one of which was)

Comparing skin color, particularly if a white character gets excited by the exotic otherness of the CoC, particularly in sex scenes

So, I dunno. I'm not so sure her position that this other word would be better isn't a bit disingenuous.

[celandineb]

The thing about principles is that they have to work all the time, you know?

That is exactly it. There's a LOT out there that I see every day that makes me steam slightly at the ears... but to try to censor it would make me worse than they.

So she dislikes the idea of someone being excited by a depiction of sex between people with different skin colors? Her prerogative, but it's really not any different than someone disliking the idea of a person being excited by a depiction of sex between people of the same gender.

[florahart]

Right, and it just makes me think that it actually *wouldn't* have mattered if the tag were "totally not what we think but some people do excitedness about skin that isn't matching" or something.

[celandineb]

The goat fic has gotten some heat below. *sighs* What about THIS IS CRACK is hard to understand?

[celandineb]

Agreed.

[celandineb]

I really couldn't say. There are people who do that, certainly.

[penknife]

Dictionary definitions don't convey how a word has been used or the negative associations people have with it. I can tell you that certainly in the part of the United States where I grew up, a lot of people have very strong negative associations with this term. I would not use it in conversation to describe an interracial relationship, because as it's often used in context, it doesn't just mean neutrally "interracial sex or marriage

[celandineb]

Many, many things may be hurtful, whether intentionally or not. And censorship is censorship and the beginning of a slippery slope. I can't support censorship on those grounds.

Moreover I point to what Florahart linked to above (near the bottom of the post here, which strongly suggests that in fact it's not the word "miscegenation" that Zvi is opposing so much as the possibility that people might get turned on by a situation where two persons with different skin colors are having sex. Whether you call it "miscegenation" or "interracial sex" it's the same activity that's being described, and she seems to object to (and thus wants to censor) the activity.

[celandineb]

What if the word was something more overtly offensive, something that everyone recognized, would that change your position?

No, I don't think it would. I hope not at least. Censorship is censorship. And it does appear that Zvi objects not just to the word, but to the entire possibility that someone might be turned on by the notion of having sex with a person whose skin tone is different... which is not really different from being turned on by hair of a particular color, or by big breasts, or whatever, is it? So changing the tag really wouldn't change a thing.

[celandineb]

It's not technically censorship since as you rightly say Zvi does not have the power to force a change... but she would if she could, that's clear. So she is ASKING for censorship, which is not much different.

Given that, you know, there are people of color on the community that apparently it didn't offend at all, it's kind of bizarre that someone who's not even a watcher of it has decided to start all of this. If anything I think that the portrayals of quote-unquote interracial relationships in response to the prompt were very positive, and that's to everyone's benefit in terms of developing greater understanding. Zvi's energies might be better turned towards condemning people who are actually racists.