Writing in the Age of RaceFail

[rj_anderson]

Recent discussions and debates generated by RaceFail '09 and its most recent iteration of Mammothfail have got me thinking a lot about my own mistakes and carelessness when it comes to trying to understand, and be responsible about, issues of race (as an author of fantasy and science fiction, that is).

I want to be careful about writing this post

Comments

[sarahtales]

Great post, RJ, thank you. I have been following this whole thing with sad eyes, and you articulate the challenge beautifully.

[ext_185419]

OK, this is the first I've heard of Racefail. Where was all this going on?

[rj_anderson]

Links are in my first paragraph above, and Google has more if you're interested.

[sartorias]

Nicely said, thank you.

[dichroic]

I'm glad that Pat Wrede's book got called out; I only wish it had happened before it came to print because I think it might have been fixable. I've read (from someone who knows her) that her idea is that the migrations across the Bering Bridge never happened and so it's not that a race was erased, but that they descended in Asia instead. Having it in your head and having it on the page are different things, and the latter is what counts. So I can see both my fen of color are upset and that they're right and that Wrede intended no slight. But she made one, just as you can hurt someone physically entirely by accident. I doubt she's racist in the sense of harboring conscious prejudices; it's clear she (like most of us) is, in the sense of being blinkered by institutional prejudice into missing things we damned well should not have missed

[rj_anderson]

Yes! That is the essay, thank you SO MUCH. Will add link post-haste.

And you are quite right about racefail being an ongoing thing, it's only that Racefail '09 and Mammothfail were my first personal exposure to many of the issues and complaints involved.

I've also deleted the first ETA as it seems to have been an unnecessary caution and also gives a wrong impression of the character of the discussions taking place elsewhere.

[rj_anderson]

Wouldn't you know, the site's down? I'll keep checking back over the next few days, though. Thanks.