Sometimes I like to mindplay what would happen if we took the safe space metaphor to the hilt. What would it be like?
Everybody can relate to the idea of fandom as a safe space. The issue is that white fen claim fandom as their safe space, but what makes it safe for them might be precisely what makes it unsafe for POC fen.
So, how do we deal with unsafe space? In warning discussions we regularly have the discussions about how people really want rape warnings, because they have so called "triggers" that they want to avoid because they have experiences with rape in real life. This explanation is generally respected.
So, if we framed the safe space problem as being like this, would it make sense? People who endure a lot of race related crap in real life, who are triggered by offesive representation and want to avoid it in fandom, who want fandom to be their safe space?
If we used this logic, wouldn't the logical result be if people started warning for it? No, obviously not along the lines of "this is racist crap", but more like "cpwotc" (clueless person outside their culture) or "wpwotc" (white person writing outside their culture) or even just wpw (white person writer).
Or maybe disclaimers along the lines of "Disclaimer: This might be annoying and offensive to you. Please consider not reading it.".
In the case of rape, warnings and disclaimers protect twofold. The easily triggered person gets to decide whether they really want to take the risk and bother with the fic. And the author who gets called out about it gets to say "Hello, didn't you read the warning? Don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like it, why didn't you hit the back button?".
Of course this is just a half tongue in cheek mind experiment. Tough I do wonder how/whether that would affect writers. Would it make people more aware of what they are writing? Would the writing get more bad? Would there be discussion about it? Would it motivate people to try harder to overcome the wpw label?
I guess that is currently on my mind. If we are trying to discuss race on a larger scale or if the topic really is race and racism in fandom specifically.
The safe space metaphor
Everybody can relate to the idea of fandom as a safe space. The issue is that white fen claim fandom as their safe space, but what makes it safe for them might be precisely what makes it unsafe for POC fen.
So, how do we deal with unsafe space? In warning discussions we regularly have the discussions about how people really want rape warnings, because they have so called "triggers" that they want to avoid because they have experiences with rape in real life. This explanation is generally respected.
So, if we framed the safe space problem as being like this, would it make sense? People who endure a lot of race related crap in real life, who are triggered by offesive representation and want to avoid it in fandom, who want fandom to be their safe space?
If we used this logic, wouldn't the logical result be if people started warning for it? No, obviously not along the lines of "this is racist crap", but more like "cpwotc" (clueless person outside their culture) or "wpwotc" (white person writing outside their culture) or even just wpw (white person writer).
Or maybe disclaimers along the lines of "Disclaimer: This might be annoying and offensive to you. Please consider not reading it.".
In the case of rape, warnings and disclaimers protect twofold. The easily triggered person gets to decide whether they really want to take the risk and bother with the fic. And the author who gets called out about it gets to say "Hello, didn't you read the warning? Don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like it, why didn't you hit the back button?".
Of course this is just a half tongue in cheek mind experiment. Tough I do wonder how/whether that would affect writers. Would it make people more aware of what they are writing? Would the writing get more bad? Would there be discussion about it? Would it motivate people to try harder to overcome the wpw label?
I guess that is currently on my mind. If we are trying to discuss race on a larger scale or if the topic really is race and racism in fandom specifically.