RaceFail 9000

[mystickeeper]

...Or so it has been dubbed in the comments over at coffeeandink.

I've had a few friends say, "Oh, that.....that thing. There's a lot of posts, and I skimmed a few, and I'm not sure what's going on."

Gentle Readers, you can know what's going on!

sparkymonster has written a summary here.

Also, a short-but-sweet summary with links here in a comment by vito_excalibur.

oyceter at ibarw saying why

Comments

[badgerbag]

That is a much better name - it's certainly gone far beyond "cultural appropriation"!

[mystickeeper]

It is!

Although, I also like "RaceFail XXIV: Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Electric Boogaloo," which was brought up in the comments of the same post.

[skadi]

I was going to type "This is unbelievable!" but that's just not right. Because as much as I want to be surprised by all this, I'm really not.

This all reminds me of the Amanda Marcotte and appropriation controversy (and subsequent racism explosion) about a year ago on the feminist blogosphere. Seemingly thoughtful people are doing very unthoughtful, dumb things, and it's all very disappointing and sickening.

[homo_nescius]

I don't really know what else to say other than that it seems people are getting so caught up in their own defenses that this loop of discounting other people just keeps going. I feel like we could launch into an even more abstract debate about how this is human nature - will it stop? can it stop? should it stop? and what have you. But that's another headache.

This is happening on both sides, like in any debate, but every once in a while you read a post that focuses on the issues instead of the people and what is wrong instead of who is wrong, which is why I prefer this summary of the issues. It's long, but it sounds more objective to me:
http://ciderpress.livejournal.com/214072.html

[homo_nescius]

It occurred to me that I might want to be more specific. I didn't mean to imply that Bear and the other authors shouldn't be called out for their words, what I meant was the Ciderpress did a good job saying why the authors shouldn't have said what they said in these contexts, as opposed to "Oh! There it is again! Effin' racism..." I feel it's a lot more productive to look at how and why people are saying what they're saying, not just what is being said, especially if the audience is largely "white people high-fiving each other."

[nearlymay]

AHH! What a mess!