Comments | therru: Only human.

therru

Only human.

Mar 24, 2009 23:15

I just want to say something about oppression. Several people on my flist have been commenting on and referring to the big Race Fail of '09, so I've been thinking a bit about it lately. This is based on a comment I originally made to a very interesting post by kattahj.

( Cut for a very long rant about opression and the part we all play in it )

politics, thinking, the world

Comments 11

snowgrouse March 25 2009, 00:57:31 UTC

^This.^

Me, I think there are times when the "help, help, I'm being oppressed" thing can get a bit OTT when people get obsessive about it, but the people who get that way are only a small minority. (Sadly, I'm one of those people who get offended over anything and everything all the fucking time, but I still try to assess things in context--don't get me started on all the Martha ranting in Whodom.)

But, yeah, saying someone is overreacting when they get hurt is just so... gah, fuckwitted. It's such a common response and so fucking infuriating. You're the evil spoilsport if you call a guy on his sexism and you are the humourless bitch who isn't giddy with joy and grateful for the "compliment" when some drooling wanker cops a feel. Bah.

therru March 25 2009, 10:13:47 UTC

Thank you ( ... )

snowgrouse March 25 2009, 12:31:10 UTC

Yeah, exactly. Gaaaah. It seems that only a small minority of women can be frickin' sensible about it, and I'm glad you are one of them:). *squish*

therru March 25 2009, 13:00:26 UTC

It's easy to be sensible in theory. :)

frualeydis March 25 2009, 06:13:22 UTC

This is one of the best thigns I've seen written in a long time.

/Eva

therru March 25 2009, 10:14:05 UTC

Thank you! :)

zappo March 25 2009, 11:49:15 UTC

Very well put. That's more or less what I was trying to say too, only much more muddledly (look, I invented a new word!).

The next step is: how do we change things? Talking is all very good, that's what we've been doing for the past months, but I get impatient and want to make things better. But I have no idea how... other than inviting any and all dark-skinned persons I meet to trek-meets etc and that smacks of condescension and cultural snobbism too. Ack! Dilemma!

therru March 25 2009, 12:16:33 UTC

It's hard! You should invite people of colour to the Trek meets because you like them and they are interested, not because they are coloured (or immigrants -- not all racism is about colour, at least not in this country). So I guess the first step is to make friends from other ethnic groups? But if they won't feel at ease in the chalky white swede-ish company of the Trekkers, they won't stay on anyway. Hell, I'm chalky white and I didn't feel at home among the Trekkers here...

I have no straight answers. I once brought a half-Chinese friend to a Tolkien meet and one of the people there blurted out something quite stupid about "chinks". It was terrible. Everyone else paled and went very quiet, and I was the only one who reacted and said "What kind of comment was that?!" My friend didn't look as if she'd noticed, but I'm pretty sure she did. She later decided to not join us. Whether that incident played into the decision or not, I don't know -- I was afraid to bring it up, in case she *hadn't* noticed, and I would bring it to her ( ... )

sneprinsesse March 25 2009, 12:42:05 UTC

I dare hardly write about something like this because I might say the wrong thing, but yes, I have also noticed that not many dark skinned persons go to the cons I go to. I only know about 1 dark skinned LARPer and 1 from the Tolkien "group". I don't know why that is, if it is because of no interest in the first place or they are afraid of standing out.

Most people I know have the same interests as me. Up to a few years ago I didn't even know anyone with darker skin. There were some Vietnamese/Korean/Indian adopted children in school, and some immigrants in classes in Uni. Now I have a brother in law who immigrated from Togo, and a collegue who immigrated from Sri Lanka. But they are not nerds, costumers or goths.

therru March 25 2009, 13:24:09 UTC

Yeah, a lot of my friends are geeky in some way or other. I seem to need fannish or geeky interests and obsessions as a medium to connect to people... and since there seems to be a scarcity of people with other ethnicities among those groups, I'm in pretty much the same situation. I don't like it, but there you have it.

I don't usually have many problems getting along with people of other ethnicities (at least not more problems than I have getting along with most people), at workplaces, school and so on, but so far, few of them have ended up in my closest circle. And yet I've been thinking about these things since I was a kid.
I am and have been friends with several people with a different skin colour from mine, but when I think back, I realize that most of those were and are ethnically Swedish. :\

What I'm wondering is, are there "no" coloured geeks because they don't happen to be geeky enough, or because they don't feel welcomed by other geeks?

sneprinsesse March 25 2009, 15:45:12 UTC

Exactly - we choose friends because of interests. I don't care if my friends are blue or green or women or men as long as they are nice and fun :)

I have noticed that through bellydance, I have become used to seeing all sorts of bodies and bellies. It is no big deal to see any belly anymore. I'd get used to men in class like I did in pialtes class - no big deal.

But I would notice some darker person in the cons or roleplaying group. (Some geeks might notice if a woman comes in the room too). Why are they not there? I wonder if there is any academic research on this?