...and so I ask myself if I am the stone in your shoe.

[tielan]

"How could anyone love a stone in their shoe?"
~ The Stepmother, Ever After ~

*breathes*

It started with an author called Elizabeth Bear talking about writing the Other without being a dick. Unfortunately, someone pointed out a story of hers which features a magical negro who is 'tamed' by a white woman and stating that it was problematic.

It turned into a big argument about cultural appropriation: who has the right to write about non-whites, how our society perceives and stereotypes the Other (African, Asian, Indian, Oriental, Pacific Islander, Eskimo, Alien), how perfectly nice people can be racist without ever realising it, how it always comes back to the satisfaction and emotional catharsis of white people at the expense of the persons of colour trying to say "I am here, my pain is real, don't ignore what I have to say or dismiss it just because you don't want to hear that you put your foot wrong and might have to apologise."

I'm no good at talking about this stuff - I can't talk about a broader experience, I can only talk about my own experience.

One thing that's repeatedly come up is that white fans feel fandom is their safe space and their place to have fun. That to question the racial assumptions, cultural appropriations, and racist attitudes of fandom is to effectively deny white people their 'safe space', where they can happily squee and post fannishly and never have to question their choices or behaviours or feel guilty about the weight of history upon them regarding racist behaviours, a racist system, and how POC can't hide that they're POC.

And so I sit here and post these thoughts and try to broaden my perspectives and watch as the people who read this journal amble by without ever reading or commenting.

My f-list is primarily fannish. People who like my fic - whatever aspect that might be. People who once liked me. There are a handful of people who are both fannish and people of colour, but they're just that - a handful.

And so I watch the comments rack up on my fiction and wonder if I am the fly in the ointment of my f-list's f-lists.

Am I the crazy lady on the train?

Am I the stone in the shoe?

And if so, are the only options to wince and bear it or to throw the stone away?

Which do you choose?

Do you wince and bear these posts of mine and others like me? Or do you skip over them, safe in the knowledge that tomorrow, next week, next month, I/we/they might post something that you're actually interested in - something that's relevant to you, that doesn't challenge you and your way of looking at the world in any way?

Sometimes I wonder.

Comments

[lilyayl.livejournal.com]

Fandom for me is not a 'safe place.' My safe places are my own head, my books, and my notebooks. The only safe places for me are ones that concern only me. Anytime a place is opened up to other people, their needs, ideas, passions, and problems also become an issue.

I believe people can create havens together, but those places only remain a haven for all so long as they deal with the concerns of all. Anytime one person is passed over or shoved down, the haven ceases to be and a clique is formed. If one person is tossed aside, what is keeping me from being the next to go? When the majority becomes the rule, no one is safe is anymore.

You are no stone to me. I need and want other viewpoints. Yeah, I do worry about how to write POCs and other perspectives not my own. I'm not asking to be taught, though. Just keep the meta coming. Give me more ways to see. And, when I screw up, tell me. *shrugs* Then again, I enjoy the whole 'thinking' thing. A place without thought, without questions isn't a safe place, imo, it's more a bit of hell.

[tielan]

A place without thought, without questions isn't a safe place, imo, it's more a bit of hell.

But, as George W Bush and the USA proved for the last 8 years, blind faith and unquestioning certainty is something that many people yearn for.

Perhaps the people questioning the validity of POC experience wouldn't subscribe to Dubya's specific brand of blind faith and unquestioning certainty, but the unhesitating belief that 'I Cannot Be Wrong. To question if I am right suggests I might be wrong. And I cannot be wrong. Therefore, I am Right and any issue between us is Your Problem and nothing to do with me.' is a part of human nature.

It's not right, perhaps, but it's very real.

[lilyayl.livejournal.com]

Alas that is so. I revise: Personally, for me, a place without thought, without questions isn't a safe place; it's more a bit of hell.

[tielan]

And that's why I love you. :)

In addition to which, you expand my horizons, too.

On "being wrong"

[thelana.livejournal.com]

the unhesitating belief that 'I Cannot Be Wrong. To question if I am right suggests I might be wrong. And I cannot be wrong. Therefore, I am Right and any issue between us is Your Problem and nothing to do with me.'

This is interesting to me because I have been raised to believe just the opposite of that. Probably 50 percent because my dad was a scientist and 50 percent because my country is nazi country. So I wake up every day knowing that I could be wrong, that most likely I'm very wrong all the time, that once there was a time when people in MY country, people who are like me were so deeply and horrifyingly dead wrong that there are next to no words for it.

And I think that is why Bush freaks us out so much. Because we look at the US and think, well, once there was a time when we were one 100 percent sure that we were right and we were patriotic and we waged war and we were going to win and we were DEAD WRONG. How can you live and be sure you aren't wrong? How can you ever risk it? Especially when you have like scary stuff like nuclear bombs at your disposal. I know Americans talk about fate and being chosen in particular, but our guys said the same thing and they were still horrible and evil and people still went for it.

Errr, to cut our personal issues short, we for one have to be raised to never be sure of anything we say and always take into consideration that all the others might be right. And we are one step away from checking ourselves everyday to make sure we haven't grown horns and a devil's tail overnight and find it shocking that others don't do that as well :D

(of course the we is a very optimistic we, I dearly wish I could speak for all Germans/Austrians, though that is way too optimistic;)

Re: On "being wrong"

[tielan]

No, I think it's a valid point - your own cultural experience is one where the I Must Be Right mentality backfired in a big BIG way and so your culture has an element of self-questioning.

My own personal experience is one of self-questioning. I was brought up Christian - Evangelical Christian as I was taught to identify myself, and yet far from the rather rigid, unthinking obedience of American Evangelicalism.

In childhood, one of the core things I learned was that I was a sinner - not in a disgusting, filthy way, just someone who wasn't perfect and who needed Jesus and to work towards perfection.

Sometimes I find it ironic that the same religion/faith provides people who question their Goodness with the reason for examining themselves while providing others with the excuse of blind, unthinking certainty that They Are On The Side Of The Angels.

Evangelical Christianity

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I find it ironic that the same religion/faith provides people who question their Goodness with the reason for examining themselves while providing others with the excuse of blind, unthinking certainty that They Are On The Side Of The Angels.

Hear, hear!

It's really interesting how evangelical seems to mean something entirely different based on where it is from. It seems to be the nature that in the US it means rigid and firm by the book. While in my country the evangelicals are the ones who are openminded and loving and inclusive compared to the Catholics, performing gay marriage, having women priests, being openminded and inclusive etc. For us here (and maybe generally for the rest of the world?) evangelical usually means loving and liberal, while in the US it usually seems to mean hardcore that in comparison Catholics look progressive for a second.

Zhe world, it's odd sometimes.