the sound of silence
Several recent posts on the silence of white people in RaceFail emphasized for me how much of my (very minimal) involvement with RaceFail has entailed reading without commenting, commenting elsewhere, or posting under friendslock/filter (often in a very non-thought-out and venty way). In large part, this is because I work in a place where I cannot access LJ in private, and often I am at work for relatively long hours; I'm very hesitant to poke my face into discussions that I won't be able to respond to outside of an hour or so each night. I also think, as many others have pointed out, that a high ratio of reading/absorbing/thinking time to posting/commenting/grandstanding time may (within limits, discussed below) be a good thing for white people in this discussion.
Neither of these considerations, however, prevents me from making a public post that isn't particularly meant to engage anyone, which I am doing now, or from paying more attention to commenting when something resonates with me, which I plan to do more often in the very immediate future.
I'm not sure that "silence = assent" when it comes to not posting about RaceFail, but I really don't see many, or any, people arguing that it does. What I do know is that RaceFail has involved hurt to many people who did nothing to deserve it and everything to make the world a more enlightened place. If upon a cursory glance at the situation you cannot figure out which "side" to be on or which side created the eponymous Fail (which is not, and never was, a description of the conversation as a whole), or if you think after a bit of further reading that it is a viable position to argue that "both sides" have engaged in "bad behavior," you are on the wrong one.
With that in mind, I think that having even a little time to squee about episode 78 of whatever while claiming to be unable (emotionally! intellectually! or timewise!) to look at any RaceFail posts or to make a single, simple post is kind of ishy. You're seriously so busy that you can't stop to say that you're sorry to see people being hurt in your fannish community as a result of racism, but you can post about how you feel pressured or "bullied" into posting?
I'm not sure what this says about one's attitudes regarding race, but I do know that if anything else were causing widespread pain to many people on my flist, we would be *hugging* and engaging in all the other small gestures this faceless medium has developed to show support. (And there has been some of this sort of "Checking in to say that I'm reading, and this is reprehensible." going on, at least on my flist: yay for that.)
I get the fear that the public statement specifically meant to counter silence may come off sounding like "Ally cookies for me, please!" This concern is probably some part of why I haven't posted more outside flock in my own journal. But I'm pretty sure that just mentioning the reason you're posting can help address this risk. And to the extent it doesn't, I'd rather err on the side of making myself look bad.
So: I'm white; my other characteristics are irrelevant in this context. I realize that recent events in fandom are only a small portion of the racism that fen of color experience on a daily basis, but they have been virulent and the hurt they cause is very real. I am so sorry that so many have been hurt by racist attitudes and behavior. I am especially sorry that I personally have spoken at times when I should have been quiet and listened, and failed to speak at times when doing so would have been helpful -- I will work on striking a better balance with this in the future. The oppression, dismissiveness, diversions, silencing strategies, and scare tactics that have marked RaceFail are not OK with me. This post is here because it's important to me that people reading this journal know that I feel this way, that I am aware that I regularly exercise and benefit from white privilege, and that I am committed to trying to recognize this, to deal with it, and to react in a sane and constructive way when it is pointed out to me.
Neither of these considerations, however, prevents me from making a public post that isn't particularly meant to engage anyone, which I am doing now, or from paying more attention to commenting when something resonates with me, which I plan to do more often in the very immediate future.
I'm not sure that "silence = assent" when it comes to not posting about RaceFail, but I really don't see many, or any, people arguing that it does. What I do know is that RaceFail has involved hurt to many people who did nothing to deserve it and everything to make the world a more enlightened place. If upon a cursory glance at the situation you cannot figure out which "side" to be on or which side created the eponymous Fail (which is not, and never was, a description of the conversation as a whole), or if you think after a bit of further reading that it is a viable position to argue that "both sides" have engaged in "bad behavior," you are on the wrong one.
With that in mind, I think that having even a little time to squee about episode 78 of whatever while claiming to be unable (emotionally! intellectually! or timewise!) to look at any RaceFail posts or to make a single, simple post is kind of ishy. You're seriously so busy that you can't stop to say that you're sorry to see people being hurt in your fannish community as a result of racism, but you can post about how you feel pressured or "bullied" into posting?
I'm not sure what this says about one's attitudes regarding race, but I do know that if anything else were causing widespread pain to many people on my flist, we would be *hugging* and engaging in all the other small gestures this faceless medium has developed to show support. (And there has been some of this sort of "Checking in to say that I'm reading, and this is reprehensible." going on, at least on my flist: yay for that.)
I get the fear that the public statement specifically meant to counter silence may come off sounding like "Ally cookies for me, please!" This concern is probably some part of why I haven't posted more outside flock in my own journal. But I'm pretty sure that just mentioning the reason you're posting can help address this risk. And to the extent it doesn't, I'd rather err on the side of making myself look bad.
So: I'm white; my other characteristics are irrelevant in this context. I realize that recent events in fandom are only a small portion of the racism that fen of color experience on a daily basis, but they have been virulent and the hurt they cause is very real. I am so sorry that so many have been hurt by racist attitudes and behavior. I am especially sorry that I personally have spoken at times when I should have been quiet and listened, and failed to speak at times when doing so would have been helpful -- I will work on striking a better balance with this in the future. The oppression, dismissiveness, diversions, silencing strategies, and scare tactics that have marked RaceFail are not OK with me. This post is here because it's important to me that people reading this journal know that I feel this way, that I am aware that I regularly exercise and benefit from white privilege, and that I am committed to trying to recognize this, to deal with it, and to react in a sane and constructive way when it is pointed out to me.