Are Racism, Sexism, Etc. Still a Problem These Days?

[jimhines]

One of the challenges that comes up pretty regularly in conversations about diversity and inclusiveness in SF/F is, “Show me where someone has been told they can’t be a part of fandom because of their race/gender/sexuality/etc.”

The underlying assumptions seem to be that:

1. There aren’t any such examples, and therefore-
2. All of this talk about the need

Comments

[mtlawson]

Well done.

I was going to say that I thought that blind auditions was standard for orchestras these days --I know they are at the Cincinnati Symphony-- but I guess that the Clevelanders still need some work.

And yeah, I've heard the "I'm not a racist" argument before, and maybe they're not lining up to attend a neo-Nazi rally, but listening to all the code words is pretty damning. My own high school --a Catholic one-- has billboards around town for recruitment. The ones touting sports have african-americans on them, but the generic and academic ones? You can't get much more aryan than those. Another Catholic high school had billboards showing a white student in a graduation gown while his obviously affluent parents looked on. Translation = rich white people send their kids to Catholic schools, while we'll take african-americans who are good at sports.

[lietya]

This is brilliant. But fandom is a magic land in which societal influences and subtle biases are totally erased!

(As a personal anecdote, my wife ran a locally famous political blog for years. She's still writing political editorials and columns for well-respected newspapers and magazines. She did the blog under a male name; now that she's writing with a female name, she does in fact frequently hear from commenters that little ladies just don't have the head for politics. The SAME commenters who worshipped her before [they don't all realize it's the same person].)

[jimhines]

The SAME commenters who worshipped her before [they don't all realize it's the same person].

But I'm sure those commenters would insist it has nothing to do with them being sexist!

[lietya]

Definitely not! It's simply that estrogen softened her brain, as it does.

[3rdragon]

That makes me think of the story of a trans woman in academia who made a presentation at a conference and later overheard some of her colleagues talking about how "Dr. So-and-So's work wasn't as thorough as her brother's," or something to that effect -- when the 'brother' in question was her before transition, and it was the same work she'd been doing all along.

[fengi]

It's also about how the boys club allows people to claim they don't want to discriminate, it just happens. I know you understand this, but let me list the basics for general conversation

[ext_560035]

Trusting newcomers with work requires speculation, thus opinion and bias. People apply previous good decisions to current ones, and bias informs what they believe made prior choices work. A bias towards applicants who look like current employees amplifies and rationalizes prejudice. Exactly this. Many people, in both professional and volunteer circles, just know what a good risk looks like. Without imagining that they contain prejudice, they're measuring candidates against internal benchmarks they're not wholly aware of

[paragraphs]

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care - roughly the subject of my daughter's master's thesis (we are white). I was brought up by parents who were very much trying to not be racist, leaving behind (or trying to) the attitudes they were brought up with, heck I was part of the first group of kids to be bussed to a 'black' school, I'm not racist! I live in a primarily black neighborhood! I am not racist! Yet, helping my daughter (just by listening to her findings, and such, and discussing things I have never dug deep into before) has made me realize that I too have lots of work to be done regarding the way I react to people based on the color of their skin. And I am working on it.

[deire]

Yes, and thank you.