I have no words

[pinkpolarity]

I've wanted to comment about RaceFail '09* for weeks, but I always manage to talk myself out of it. Too much work to be done, feel too crappy today, SF/F isn't my genre, feel I've got nothing useful to add that hasn't been said elsewhere and better (still feel this is true), feel white people should shut up and listen. But I've finally found the

Comments

[reileen]

Man, I initially found that entry through metafandom and got two paragraphs in before I decided I needed to reserve my sanity for my Japanese conversation test today. So. Much. Rage. At this...member of my own spcies!

Oh, yeah, and apparently that post was all a social experiment (scroll down to find links to screencaps to comments that now been either bahleeted or screened, including the "it's a social experiment" one

[pinkpolarity]

I'd love to see the PoC!Pagan comm happen, because if ever there were a community that seriously, badly needs to have a wake-up call about race, it's the Pagan community.

[reileen]

Out of curiosity, I've tried going back on nonfluffypagans to see if there were any discussions of race. Checking the tags yielded only one post from 2003 that was a general survey of "what race/ethnicity are you?" on the community. I have no idea how long you've been on nonfluffypagans, but I think you've been on there longer than I have, so a few questions:

1) Have you seen a race discussion pop up over there in your time there, and if so, how did it go?
1a) What kind of race discussions have you seen in the pagan community in general? I'm still pretty much a n00b to all of this, and I don't actively participate in group pagan stuff (yet) outside of joining LJ communities and reading posts there. I just want to have a general idea of what sorts of issues should/could be addressed in a potential PoC-centric comm.
2) Do you think I'd get good support for a PoC-centric community over at nonfluffypagans?

It's okay if you can't answer all of these questions, I'm just throwing them out there. :)

[pinkpolarity]

I just posted about a post that came up on that comm today about cultural appropriation, and realized I completely forgot to answer you on this

[morningwind]

...wow. Her logic makes my eyes cross. Yes, gerriwritinglog, your experience growing up poor and from a shitty family makes you uniquely qualified to understand racism from a first-person POV, to decree that there's no appreciable difference between your own pain and what people of color face on a regular basis (or to insist that your pain is worth more), and to shut down discussion by freezing comments and inveighing against POCs that you "don't want to hear about how you've been prejudiced against your whole life." Yeah, that's awesome.

I also love how she demands that POCs be responsible for explaining racism to her and must tell her "about particulars and things to do" before "things can go forward," because god forbid she actually educate herself. (I'm gobsmacked by the sense of entitlement in this quote: "Anytime someone says 'You don't understand' and doesn't continue on with 'Let me explain it to you,' the conversation stops." Because it's our job to break it all down for her, apparently, if we want concerns about racism to be taken

[pinkpolarity]

Because it's our job to break it all down for her, apparently, if we want concerns about racism to be taken seriously.

But don't you know that it's your job to edumacate clueless white people? Truest and funniest thing I've seen said during RaceFail-- "if you really want to hide something from a racist, put it in a book".

[cosmosmariner]

Yikes!!!

Man, that's just really fucked up. Makes my head spin a little.

I don't read usually read mystery novels. I do like the Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb books, but that's not really what you're talking about.

There is an African-American author named E. Lynn Harris. Have you heard of him? He's pretty good. He talks about bisexuality/homosexuality in the black community, as well as other issues.

[pinkpolarity]

I hadn't heard of Harris, so thanks for adding someone to my "look for" list. I'll see if the library has any of his stuff.

Roberts isn't mystery, but I'd call her Robb books borderline. "Romantic Suspense" is one of these nebulous categories-- I've read RS that's basically a mystery with a muscular romantic subplot, and I've read RS that are romance with a mystery tacked on as an afterthought. (Peeve: Why don't *some* of these Paranormal RS writers write mysteries? Or am I the only mystery reader who category hops because the worldbuilding is worth it? Case in point: Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick and her Arcane Society books, Kay Hooper with her psychic FBI unit books-- I read them because both have built decent mystery plot hooks on a functional modern world with paranormal detectives, and just skip over the overheated romancey bits. I'd love to see someone write a similar story that's genre mystery, but it doesn't happen very often.) Still, if you know of RS written by a PoC, definitely let me know.